Hedge Wizard School

Hedge wizards maybe aren’t the most polished folks but they still had the gumption to teach themselves magic. They’re the sort that rises up from nothing. People so poor or pushed down that slick types wouldn’t even think one of them could learn spells. They love magic.

But they love their kin and kind even more and won’t ever turn their backs on them. Hedge wizards aim to help people who don’t normally get noticed by wizards. They work in villages or city slums.

Or maybe they travel around in wagons or creaky ships helping anyone they can on the sly. Some live in hollows or bogs or other places that only slaves, serfs, and the like know to look. Wherever they end up hedge wizards live rough. What money they’ve got they spend on components or things the worse off need. Most know life is hard and don’t see any real way to change it. They just try to look after their own as best they can. Some are angrier though. They’re the ones who go after the bosses and the lords and the masters and everyone else who lives of the sweat of people with nothing to spare.

They usually come to a bad end. But at least they fight.

Hedge wizards are always short of cash. There’re just too many people suffering. Adventuring helps them make do. They also don’t put much stock in knights and nobles looking out for average folk so they spend time hunting down local monsters and the like. Sometimes they reckon the best treasure is the dungeon itself since it gives them a place to stash people on the run or who need a square deal.

School Powers

Teaching themselves magic gives hedge wizards unique insights allowing them to develop talents more conventionally trained wizards would consider either impossible or impractical. Hedge wizards can use their magic to weaken certain spells in order to reclaim them immediately after casting, improve cantrips in a variety of ways, and imbed spells within common items so that others might use them instead.

Petty Magic (Su)

Whenever you prepare spells you can form a special attachment to any one spell that uses random numeric variables (e.g. damage dealt, number of creatures summoned, number of hit dice affected, range, etc). When you cast this spell, all such random numeric variables are always the worst possible result for you (e.g. automatically rolling minimum damage when attacking other creatures but maximum if damaging yourself). However, immediately after casting the spell, as a free action, you can attempt to reclaim it by making a Spellcraft check with a DC equal to 15 plus the level of that spell. You can do this even if that particular casting of the spell did not actually require its random numeric variables (e.g. color spray exclusively targeting creatures with 5 or more Hit Dice). You gain a bonus on this check equal to half your wizard level (minimum 1). If you succeed the spell returns to your mind.

You can cast the spell as many times as you wish so long as you manage to reclaim it after each casting and you have all the required components and other necessary elements. Each additional casting of the spell also uses the worst possible result for its random numeric variables. Feats, class features, or other abilities that completely eliminate random numeric variables make affected spells ineligible for this ability. You can prepare two spells in this way at 5th level, three at 10th, and four at 15th. At 20th level, you can prepare as many spells as you wish in this way so long as each has at least one random numeric variable. Attack rolls, combat maneuver checks, saving throws, and similar rolls required to determine the success of a spell are not considered random numeric variables by this ability. They are rolled as normal instead of taking the worst possible result for you.

Enhance Cantrip (Su)

As a swift action, when casting a cantrip, you can choose to augment it in any one of the following ways:

• Increase the damage it deals to a single creature by 1 point for every two wizard levels you possess (minimum of 1). You can apply this to cantrips that normally deal no damage if you can give your GM a reasonable explanation of how it could harm a creature while still carrying out its normal effect. For instance, spark could produce a jet of flame against a creature in an adjacent square even as it sets an unattended object on fire.
• Allow you to cast the cantrip as part of the swift action used when triggering this ability. Casting it this way does not require any spell components and does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
• Double the normal duration of the cantrip. You cannot use this ability in conjunction with any other effect that increases the duration of that cantrip. This otherwise acts as if you had applied the Extend Spell metamagic feat to the cantrip without actually increasing its effective level.
• Increase the effective level of that casting of the cantrip up to a maximum of the highest level spell you can cast. This otherwise acts identically to the Heighten Spell metamagic feat.
• Use the cantrip to perform a combat maneuver in addition to its normal effect. You must give your GM a reasonable explanation of how the cantrip could actually allow you to perform that combat maneuver. When calculating your CMB use your Intelligence modifier instead of Strength and you can apply the damage dealt by the cantrip (if any) as a bonus on the check along with any other feats, class features, or similar abilities you normally would when performing that combat maneuver.

You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Intelligence modifier.

Endow (Sp)

At 6th level, you can store any spell you can currently cast in a non-magical item so that other creatures can use your power for their own ends. You must actually cast the spell, removing it from your memory and expending components as normal. You cannot use any method that normally allows you to regain a recently cast spell including the petty magic ability to recover that spell. You cannot cast the spell on weapons or any other object that would not fill a body slot if it were magical. The object becomes magical once you cast the spell and occupies a body slot when worn. Any other creature wearing the object can release the spell as a standard action fully under that creature’s control. However all effects are still based on you at the time of casting and not the creature that released the spell.

You can choose to reclaim a spell whenever you prepare spells and you need not actually prepare it to do so. Otherwise, the spell remains in the item until released even after your death. A spell stored within an item is temporarily treated as belonging to one of your opposition schools until you reclaim it or the spell is released through use. You cannot store spells belonging to one of your opposition schools (including spells that only temporarily belong to one) in an item.

Hedge Wizard Spells

• Cantrips—acid splash, bleed, ray of frost, spark
• 1st level—chill touch, color spray, icicle dagger, magic missile, polypurpose panacea, ray of enfeeblement, stone fist, touch of combustion, touch of gracelessness
• 2nd level—acid arrow, blood blaze, burning gaze, elemental touch, false life, flaming sphere, frigid touch, frost fall, ghoul touch, gusting sphere, mirror image, pyrotechnics, spontaneous immolation, stone call
• 3rd level—aqueous orb, cloak of winds, elemental aura, fire trail, firestream, force punch, gloomblind bolts, pain strike, stinking cloud, strangling hair, vampiric touch
• 4th level—black tentacles, calcific touch, false life (greater), firefall, fleshworm infestation, obsidian flow, river of wind, shocking image, terrible remorse, wall of fire
• 5th level—acidic spray, blight, cloudkill, corrosive consumption, lightning arc, mind fog, sonic thrust, telekinesis, wall of sound, wind blades, wreath of blades
• 6th level—acid fog, chain lightning, chain of fire, disintegrate, freezing sphere, sirocco, tar pool
• 7th level—caustic eruption, delayed blast fireball, ice body, ki shout, mage’s sword, resonating word, vortex
• 8th level—clenched fist, incendiary cloud, polar ray, scintillating pattern, sunburst
• 9th level—clashing rocks, crushing hand, ride the lightning, time stop, transmute blood to acid, tsunami, winds of vengeance, world wave