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Hello,
As I understand it, a cantrip listed as heighted 1, for example, means you applying the increased effect of the spell every level past 1st, i.e., at 2nd level, 3rd level, etc. However, when the spell is listed a Heighted 2nd, what does that mean specifically? For example, does that mean that for the cantrip, Animal Form 2nd, you get the spell effect starting at 2nd lvl. and every 2 levels past 2nd level or does it mean you get the effect starting at 2nd lvl. and then every level past 2nd, e.g., at 3rd, 4th, etc.
Thank you.
With spells it is actually referring to spell rank and not character level.
At level 3 a druid gains rank 2 spells. Wildshape cast by a level 3 druid can use the forms listed in Animal Form.
That particular focus spell gets no changes without feats that provide more forms.
Also, to clarify, there are 2 ways that heighten effects are written:
1. "Heighten (+1) - this means that the effect is applied for every spell rank above the base level. (Heightened +2 would apply it for every 2 spell ranks you heighten by, etc)
2. "Heighten (2nd)" - this means the extra effect starts happening specifically at Rank 2. There is no "per rank" effect in that case.
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I think some concrete examples would be good.
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Burning Hands has Heighten (+1) and is a Rank 1 spell. So casting it at Rank 1 it would do the base amount of damage listed in the spell entry -> 2d6 fire damage.
Casting it with a higher Rank - which uses a higher Rank spell slot to cast it with - would get +2d6 damage for each time that it is heightened. Which is every Spell Rank. So casting it as a Rank 3 spell instead of a Rank 1 spell would do 6d6 fire damage because it was heightened two times. Casting it as a Rank 7 spell would do 14d6 damage.
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Blood Vendetta has Heighten (+2) and is a Rank 2 spell at base. So you can't cast it as a Rank 1 spell with a Rank 1 spell slot. Casting it at Rank 2 it does 2d6 persistent bleed damage.
If you cast it as a Rank 3 spell, that is not enough to heighten the spell at all because you need to increase the Rank by +2 in order to get the heightened effect. You can still cast it as a Rank 3 spell, but it will have the same effect - 2d6 persistent bleed damage.
If you cast it as a Rank 4 spell, then it has been heightened once and would do 4d6 persistent bleed. And if you cast it at Rank 7 it has been heightened 2 times (and again, one Rank more, but that isn't enough to do another heighten effect) and it will do 6d6 persistent bleed damage.
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Jump only has one heightened entry: Heightened (3rd). And it is a Rank 1 spell at its base. The Heightened at a specific Rank means that that specific listed effect applies at that Rank or higher, but not below.
So you can cast it as a Rank 1 spell and it will do the listed base effect - it lets you jump 30 feet.
You can also cast it as a Rank 2 spell and it will have the same effect.
If you cast it at Rank 3, then it will have the Heightened effect. It will let you cast the spell on either yourself or anyone else that you can touch. And it will let the target jump 30 feet every time that the character uses the Leap action for the next minute.
You can also still cast it as a Rank 6 spell, but it has no further heightened effect. It will still be doing the same as the Rank 3 version.
There are some spells that have multiple specific rank heightened effects. I think Acid Splash is one of the most notorious. Though not because of the number of specific Rank heightened effects.
Just wanted to throw this cherry on top:
Even if there is no listed heighten effect for a given spell rank, such as with the aforementioned 6th rank jump, it still might be worth heightening on occasion, as it makes such spells harder to dispel with counteract effects.
So if a spellcasting guard saw the party using magic to jump over a parameter wall, and attempted to dispel the jump spell upon the intruders, it would be much harder to dispel a 6th rank jump than a 3rd rank jump.
This might have other rank based effects too, such as a light spell's ability to overcome darkness effects, or vice versa.
In short, there's always a benefit to heightening a spell, though the amount of benefit varies widely from spell to spell and from situation to situation. (A spellcasting spy who absolutely cannot be discovered, for example, might use their highest level spell slots on disguise or stealth magic and anti-divination magic in order to benefit from higher effects and to better ensure that their wards cannot be ended prematurely in the middle of their mission.)
I hope that helps.
Just wanted to throw this cherry on top:
Even if there is no listed heighten effect for a given spell rank, such as with the aforementioned 6th rank jump, it still might be worth heightening on occasion, as it makes such spells harder to dispel with counteract effects.
So if a spellcasting guard saw the party using magic to jump over a parameter wall, and attempted to dispel the jump spell upon the intruders, it would be much harder to dispel a 6th rank jump than a 3rd rank jump.
This might have other rank based effects too, such as a light spell's ability to overcome darkness effects, or vice versa.
In short, there's always a benefit to heightening a spell, though the amount of benefit varies widely from spell to spell and from situation to situation. (A spellcasting spy who absolutely cannot be discovered, for example, might use their highest level spell slots on disguise or stealth magic and anti-divination magic in order to benefit from higher effects and to better ensure that their wards cannot be ended prematurely in the middle of their mission.)
I hope that helps.
To piggy back off of RD's comment, if a spell has the incapacitation trait you will usually want to cast it at your highest spell slot, even if it doesn't change the effect. Incapacitation spells give the target a result on their save one higher than rolled (failure to success, success to crit, etc.) if the spell rank is less than half the target's level.
For instance, Charm has the same effect if you cast it at rank 1 or rank 10. But since it has the incapacitation trait, if you are targeting a level 10 creature, they are much more likely to avoid the effect if you cast Charm below a rank 5 slot.