Wizards Preparing Spells

[Ornery Hobbit]

The Wizard Level Chart maxes out on a Wizard preparing 4 spells per level per day. Is there any way to increase the number of *different* spells a wizard can prepare beyond 4 per level?

Thanks in advance

[Lelomenia]

School, high int, and ring of wizardry are the more normal answers. Most wizards have ~6 or so spells prepared at lower levels, 1 bonus at each level from their school and 1-2 extra from int at each level. Ring of wizardry isn’t worth it. If you want to be a bit more exotic, SiN specialists get 2 slots from school, and a staff or wand of mnemonic enhancer would give you as many low level slots as you want.

[Ornery Hobbit]

Lelomenia wrote:

School, high int, and ring of wizardry are the more normal answers. Most wizards have ~6 or so spells prepared at lower levels, 1 bonus at each level from their school and 1-2 extra from int at each level. Ring of wizardry isn’t worth it. If you want to be a bit more exotic, SiN specialists get 2 slots from school, and a staff or wand of mnemonic enhancer would give you as many low level slots as you want.

thanks :)

[Geruvurrda]

Also, if you specialize in a school, you get one extra spell per slot for that school (but opposition's school spells take up two slots to prepare)

[Dubious Scholar]

And there's Split Slot, if you want to take more low level utility stuff.

Some archetypes also allow limited spontaneous casting, which allows more options each day without increasing your actual spells/day at each level.

[Matthew Downie]

Other options:
Bonded object.
Just get some scrolls.

[avr]

Also: Leave a spell slot open and spend 15 minutes (less with the fast study arcane discovery, or the magical epiphany feat and fill it with a desired spell as required.

[Ornery Hobbit]

What about Divine Spellcasters that have to prepare spells? Is there an item or feat for them?

[Magda Luckbender]

@OP: avr just answered your question with a Grand Slam Home Run. Simply leave one Open Spell Slot at each level and your Wizard can prepare any other spell in her book in just 15 minutes. That's the gold standard for flexibility.

[Lelomenia]

Ornery Hobbit wrote:

What about Divine Spellcasters that have to prepare spells? Is there an item or feat for them?

clerics get domain slots instead of school slots, but similar. They also get extra slots for high ability score. Clerics can also use pearls of power. If you just flat out love having lots of slots, oracles are probably better for you.

[Ornery Hobbit]

Trying a Mystic Theurge build that specializes in Debuffs.

Using Wizard/Cleric combo with muliple PoPs fror this one.

Next time I'll try Sorcerer(or Bard)/Oracle.

Want to see which is better.

[avr]

Well - a sorc/oracle mystic theurge is going to be a spell level behind a wiz/cleric mystic theurge, which in turn is going to be 1.5 spell levels behind a single-classed wizard or cleric. I tend to think the wiz/cleric is painful, I can't imagine how frustrating the sorc/oracle or bard/oracle would be.

[Captain Zoom]

If you plan to spam a specific spell alot, the Spell Specialization chain can be useful. By specializing in that one spell, which you can then cast spontaneously without preparing, that increases flexibility by freeing up slots to memorize other spells for variety.

So, rather than memorize 4 fireballs, you can use those 4 slots to memorize other spells and cast fireball as needed.

[Ornery Hobbit]

Captain Zoom wrote:

If you plan to spam a specific spell alot, the Spell Specialization chain can be useful. By specializing in that one spell, which you can then cast spontaneously without preparing, that increases flexibility by freeing up slots to memorize other spells for variety.

So, rather than memorize 4 fireballs, you can use those 4 slots to memorize other spells and cast fireball as needed.

That's what the Pearls of Power are for

[avr]

4 pearls of power (3rd level) will set you back 36 000 gp. Preferred spell (which I think is what CZ meant) costs that feat plus heightened spell. At most levels the 2 feats is a cheaper cost.

[Ornery Hobbit]

avr wrote:

4 pearls of power (3rd level) will set you back 36 000 gp. Preferred spell (which I think is what CZ meant) costs that feat plus heightened spell. At most levels the 2 feats is a cheaper cost.

not sure how to price a feat tbh. How do you do that?

Also I have Craft Wonderous Item.

[Captain Zoom]

Ornery Hobbit wrote:

Captain Zoom wrote:

If you plan to spam a specific spell alot, the Spell Specialization chain can be useful. By specializing in that one spell, which you can then cast spontaneously without preparing, that increases flexibility by freeing up slots to memorize other spells for variety.

So, rather than memorize 4 fireballs, you can use those 4 slots to memorize other spells and cast fireball as needed.

That's what the Pearls of Power are for

If you're in a fight, would you rather cast 1 fireball EVERY round? Or 1 fireball every OTHER round?

Pearls of power add great flexibility, but they have a significant action economy cost = a standard action to recall the spell. That's assuming you have loads of cash to drop on getting the pearls of power - beyond L1 and L2 spells, pearls get REALLY expensive (Spell Level squared, 1=1000, 2=4000, 3=9000, 4=16000, and so on). Even if you craft your own, it's still expensive.

In any case, the two methods easily work together - one is great if you want to spam a specific spell, the other provides the ability to reload spells you don't need to cast again immediately.

And thanks avr, I forgot about Preferred Spell, which is another way to do this. And I made a mistake in that I meant Greater Spell Specialization, not Spell Specialization. Preferred Spell lets you select it multiple times for different spells while Greater Spell Specialization is for one spell, BUT you can change that spell as you level up (plus the prerequisites are pretty good).

[avr]

As far as pricing feats go, I was imagining it as a percentage of your feats vs. a percentage of your wealth by level. 36K or 18K is a larger percentage of your WBL than 2 feats is of your total feats, at character levels where your number of 3rd level spell slots matters.

Greater spell spec, huh? I didn't know about that one. Not the best for a mystic theurge unless you're starting at double-digit levels though.