Bonus Spell Points for High Intelligence

Just as priests of extraordinary Wisdom receive greater than normal spell powers, extremely intelligent wizards can gain a few extra spell points to reflect their superior minds and memorization skills. Under this optional rule, wizard characters gain a number of bonus spell points equal to their maximum number of languages, based on their Intelligence score. These spell points can be spent any way the character desires, as long as he doesn’t exceed his maximum number of spells per level (see Table 17 ). The bonus points are shown on Table 19 : Bonus Spell Points for Intelligence.

As noted on the table , a wizard with an Intelligence of 14 or better gains enough bonus points to memorize one additional 1st-level spell, which is comparable with the traditional priest bonus of an additional 1st-level spell for a Wisdom of 13 or better. A wizard with an Intelligence of 17 has enough points to use this bonus to gain an extra 2nd-level spell, or one extra 1st-level spell with a couple of spell points to spare.

DMs, take note: The cumulative effects of specialist wizard bonuses, signature spells, and this optional rule could allow a 1st-level wizard to begin play with as many as four 1st-level spells memorized at once! Obviously, this is a very significant boost in power for a low-level character. Allowing a character to gain bonus spell points for his Intelligence score is a reasonable optional rule, but it also inflates the game by drastically increasing the power of 1st- to 3rd-level wizards. It’s a good idea to strictly enforce the limits on the maximum number of spells of each level (see Table 17 ) permitted to a wizard character.

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