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In my gaming experience, I often ponder on ways to boost a wizard's spell DC to effectively control enemies without them easily succeeding on their saving throws. While reading the Player's Core, I noticed that the fear spell seemed to reduce the chances of enemies successfully saving against it. Are there any other features that can help weaken enemy saves or increase my spell success rate?
To answer your thread title: ability boosts and leveling up are the only way to increase your actual DC.
To answer your post: the frightened and sickened conditions are the most widely applicable, but drained (fort), clumsy (reflex), and stupified (will) are also options. Lots of spell inflict these conditions.
Some non-spell actions can work too, like Demoralize, Bon Mot, and Disturbing Knowledge. But as an intelligence character you're only likely to be great at that last one. I'd hope your allies are using those actions, and instead focus on Recall Knowledge. Ask your GM what the creature's lowest save is, and prepare a variety of spells to target different saves. The difference between targeting a good save and bad save can be 5 points or higher, which is a bigger swing than conditions will give you alone.
If you're referring to the frightened condition inflicted by the fear spell reducing enemy saving throws, you're correct- Inflicting status conditions is the primary way to reduce enemy saves. There are a few odd debuffs that might inflict a penalty another way like the Bane spell or the Curse Maelstrom archetype. Of course, many of these themselves come with saving throws. Abilities that apply a status or circumstance penalty to enemy saves automatically are uncommon and often very desirable (The Bard's Dirge of Doom is incredible for exactly this reason.
If you're looking for easy ways to improve your success with save-or-suck spells, consider coordinating with a Charismatic Character to have them Demoralize an enemy right before you cast a spell on that enemy, or using recall knowledge to determine an enemy's weakest saving throw. More specific strategies are going to depend a lot on your party's composition.
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They are rare. Intentionally so.
Most of the penalties don't stack.
But here they are in order of usefulness (IMO)
Sickened is a penalty to everything, and takes an action to attempt to remove it. Goblin Pox for example.
Fatigued is a penalty to all saves, and it last until you rest, though some things say only 1 round. Feast of Ash for example.
Frightened, gives a penalty everything, but it automatically reduces each turn. It's pretty easy to pull off though, including anyone trained in Intimidation.
Stupefied reduces will saves and other Wis/Int/Cha stuff. If can also make you failed to cast a spell.
Clumsy reduces reflex saves and other Dex stuff, including AC.
Drained reduces fortitude saves and other Con stuff. Deals some "technically not damage"
Enfeebled is for Str, but your probably not targeting that, but it can help protect your ally.
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Also, targeting lower saves and avoiding high saves can give you the equivalent to a +2 to +5 on your spells ability to succeed. It is intended to be the primary way casters can be more successful with their spells.
Don't forget the importance of action economy. Casting a debuff spell for two actions in one round followed by a hard hitting spell in the next round for two actions is more than half of most fights. Oftentimes, it just isnt worth it at low to mid-levels (at high levels the huge number swings and utility of debuff spells can make it worth it). Most of the time though, it will be better to use a single action debuff like Bon Mot or Demoralize, then follow up with your hard hitting spell in the same round. That way, you can get up to three hard-hitting spells off before the fight ends instead of one or two, one of which occurs early enough that it would more likely have a major impact on the encounter.
Even better would be an ally who uses their action to Bon Mot or Demoralize on the party's behalf. That would allow you to immediately follow up with a hard hitting spell while retaining mobility, or versatility, or setting up another debuff for others with your own third action.
For other side these debuffs caused by Sickened, Fatigued, Frightened, Stupefied, Clumsy, Drained helps your allies too.
So even "loosing" some action economy casting a debuff spell to help you to hit your next spell easier these debuff also will help your allies too so take this into consideration.
There are also misfortune effects. They won't directly increase the DC, but they can certainly make it more likely that a foe will fail their saves. Admittedly, they're pretty limited, and there's only two of them, but....
- Black Cat Curse (Catfolk ancestry feat 13) lets you once per day force someone to reroll a successful save and take the worse result
- The relic minor gift Whammy is basically a more flexible form of the same thing- still a 1/day hostile reroll, and can be used on saves, but not just saves
Of the two, "get a relic with this specific power" is going to be generally quite a lot less certain than "be a catfolk, get to level 13, and spend a feat"
Worth noting that these effects can apply to any save an enemy passes - not just ones from spells that you yourself cast.
Ceru Familliars are another source of misfortune effects, although the effect itself is tied to a will save. On the plus side, they can instead apply a fortune effect to an ally if that's more critical instead.
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Or have options to target all 3 saves and still try and get a pre-debuff. They aren't mutually exclusive. But barring team synergy (which is really the key to optimization in PF2) a solo wizard's best bet is Recall Knowledge to find the weak save and then make sure you have something prepared to target it.