Wizards spend much of their lives seeking deeper truths, hunting knowledge as if it were life itself. The wizard's power is not necessarily the spells he wields; spells are merely the outward, most visible manifestation of that power. A wizard's true power is in his fierce intelligence, his dedication to his craft, and his ability to peel back the surface truths of reality to understand the fundamental underpinnings of existence. A wizard spends much of his time researching spells, and would rather find an undiscovered library than a room full of gold. A wizard need not be a reclusive bookworm, but he must have a burning curiosity for the unknown. Arcane discoveries are the results of this obsession with magic. A wizard can learn an arcane discovery in place of a regular feat or wizard bonus feat.
 Alchemical Affinity (Magical Marketplace pg. 18): Having studied alongside alchemists, you’ve learned to use their methodologies to enhance your spellcraft. Whenever you cast a spell that appears on both the wizard and alchemist spell lists, you treat your caster level as 1 higher than normal and the save DC of such spells increases by 1. Additionally, you may copy spells from an alchemist’s formula book into your spellbook just as you could with another wizard’s spellbook. You must be at least a 5th-level wizard to select this discovery.
|
Arcane Builder (Ultimate Magic pg. 86): You have an exceptional understanding of the theory behind creating magical items. Select one type of magic item (potions, wondrous items, and so on). You create items of this type 25% faster than normal, and gain a +4 bonus on Spellcraft checks (or other checks, as appropriate) to craft items of this type. You may select this discovery multiple times; its effects do not stack. Each time you select this discovery, it applies to a different type of magic item.
|
Balanced Summoning (Champions of Balance pg. 20): You maintain balance by calling on opposing forces when summoning. Whenever you cast a summon monster spell, you can summon two creatures from a single list 1 or more levels lower than the level of the spell. The two creatures must have alignments that are opposite along at least one axis (chaotic and lawful or evil and good). For example, if you cast summon monster III, you could summon a celestial wolf and a fiendish hyena from the 2nd-level list.
|
Beyond Morality (Su) (Champions of Balance pg. 21): As long as you are neutral, you may choose to be treated as the most favorable alignment when affected by spells whose effects vary based on alignment (such as holy word). If you are neutral in relation to evil and good, you may choose to be treated as good or evil. If you are neutral in relation to chaos and law, you may choose to be treated as lawful or chaotic. You may only choose to be treated as one alignment type along a single axis at a time (for instance, if you were within the area of both a magic circle against evil spell and an unholy blight spell, you would have to choose to be either evil, good, or neutral for the purpose of determining the spells’ effects). You must be at least an 9th-level wizard to select this discovery.
|
Bonded Mask (Pathfinder #80: Empty Graves pg. 26): Your devotion to the Forgotten Pharaoh enables you to select a mask—typically an Osirian funerary mask—as your bonded item. The mask must be worn to have effect, and occupies the head slot. In addition, the mask shields you from notice. While wearing your bonded mask, efforts to use the Diplomacy skill to gather information about you take a –1 penalty, and you gain a +1 competence bonus on all saving throws against scrying and mind-reading effects that allow saving throws.
|
Creative Destruction (Su) (Champions of Balance pg. 21): You have learned how to use destructive energy to empower yourself. When you cast an evocation spell that deals damage, you gain a number of temporary hit points equal to the total number of dice used to determine the damage caused by the spell. Temporary hit points gained from this discovery do not stack and disappear after 1 hour.
|
Defensive Feedback (Su) (Champions of Balance pg. 21): Rather than dissipate damaging energy, you can redirect some of it back to its source. When an abjuration spell you cast prevents damage (with damage reduction or energy resistance), if the attacking creature is within 30 feet of the protected creature, the foe takes 1d6 points of damage for every 10 points of damage prevented.
|
Faith Magic (Magic Tactics Toolbox pg. 3): Select one spell granted by a domain belonging to the god you worship. This spell must be at least 2 levels lower than the highest-level wizard spell you can cast. When you first prepare your spells for the day, you can prepare this spell once, using a spell slot 1 level higher than the spell’s actual level. This is cast as a divine spell.
|
Fast Study (Ultimate Magic pg. 86): Normally, a wizard spends 1 hour preparing all of his spells for the day, or proportionately less if he only prepares some spells, with a minimum of 15 minutes of preparation. Thanks to mental discipline and clever mnemonics, you can prepare all of your spells in only 15 minutes, and your minimum preparation time is only 1 minute. You must be at least a 5th-level wizard to select this discovery.
|
Feral Speech (Su) (Ultimate Magic pg. 86): You gain the ability to speak with and understand the response of any animal as if using speak with animals, though each time you speak to animals, you must decide to communicate with either amphibians, birds, fish, mammals, or reptiles, and can only speak to and understand animals of that type. You can make yourself understood as far as your voice carries. This discovery does not predispose any animal addressed toward you in any way. When you reach 12th level, you can also use this ability to communicate with vermin. You must be at least a 5th-level wizard to select this discovery.
|
Golem Constructor (Ultimate Magic pg. 86): You have learned the art and craft of creating a single type of golem (such as stone golems or iron golems). When creating a golem of this type, you count as having the Craft Wondrous Item, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, and Craft Construct feats. You must meet all other construction requirements for the golem as normal. You may select this discovery multiple times. Each time you select this discovery, it applies to a different kind of golem. You must be at least a 9th-level wizard to select this discovery.
|
Idealize (Su) (Champions of Balance pg. 21): In your quest for self-perfection, you have discovered a way to further enhance yourself and others. When a transmutation spell you cast grants an enhancement bonus to an ability score, that bonus increases by 2. At 20th level, the bonus increases by 4. You must be at least a 10th-level wizard to select this discovery.
|
Immortality (Ex) (Ultimate Magic pg. 86): You discover a cure for aging, and from this point forward you take no penalty to your physical ability scores from advanced age. If you are already taking such penalties, they are removed at this time. You must be at least a 20th-level wizard to select this discovery.
|
Infectious Charms (Magical Marketplace pg. 18): Your charms are so smooth that they’re contagious. Anytime you target and successfully affect a single creature with a charm or compulsion spell and that creature is within 30 feet of another opponent, your spell has a chance of affecting the second creature as well. As a swift action immediately after affecting a creature with a charm or compulsion spell, you can cause the spell to carry over to the nearest creature within 30 feet. The spell behaves in all ways as though its new target were the original target of the spell. You must be at least an 11th-level wizard to select this discovery.
|
Ioun Bond (People of the River pg. 9): You can form an arcane bond with an ioun stone. If you choose this arcane discovery at 1st level, you gain a dull gray ioun stone as a bonded object at no cost. A bonded ioun stone must be orbiting your head to have effect. At 12th level, you can turn a bonded dull gray ioun stone into another kind of ioun stone as if you possessed the Craft Wondrous Item feat; if you die or replace a bonded ioun stone that has been transformed in this way, the stone reverts to a dull gray ioun stone. You must have chosen a bonded object as your arcane bond to select this discovery.
|
Knowledge Is Power (Ex) (People of the River pg. 9): Your understanding of physical forces gives you power over them. You add your Intelligence modifier on combat maneuver checks and to your CMD. You also add your Intelligence modifier on Strength checks to break or lift objects.
|
Multimorph (Su) (Ultimate Magic pg. 86): Your studies in transmogrification have increased your control over shapechanging spells. When you cast a spell of the polymorph subschool on yourself, you may expend 1 minute of the spell's duration as a standard action to assume another form allowed by the spell. You can do this as often as you like, subject to the duration of the spell. You must be at least a 5th-level wizard to select this discovery.
|
Observant Illusion (Su) (Spymaster's Handbook pg. 23): You can project your senses into any ongoing figment or shadow illusion you create with a spell of at least 3rd level. You can see through its eyes and hear through its ears as if you were standing where it is, and during your turn you can switch from using its senses to using your own, or back again, as a swift or move action. While you are using its senses, your body is considered blinded and deafened. You must be at least a 9th-level wizard to choose this discovery.
|
Opposition Research (Ultimate Magic pg. 86): By completing strenuous studies, you have broken through the mental barriers that made it hard for you to prepare spells from one of your opposition schools. Select one wizard opposition school; preparing spells of this school now only requires one spell slot of the appropriate level instead of two, and you no longer have the –4 Spellcraft penalty for crafting items from that school. You must be at least a 9th-level wizard to select this discovery.
|
Psychic Preparation (Magic Tactics Toolbox pg. 3): You have learned a limited way to access psychic magic (Pathfinder RPG Occult Adventures 144). When you first prepare your spells for the day, you can prepare one spell as a psychic spell. This spell must be at least 2 levels lower than the highest-level wizard spell you can cast, and takes a slot 1 level higher than the spell’s actual level. When you cast this spell, it operates as a psychic spell, including using emotional and thought components in place of somatic and verbal components, and only having expensive material components.
|
Resilient Illusions (Magical Marketplace pg. 18): You are able to conjure illusions so lifelike that they defy disbelief. Anytime a creature tries to disbelieve one of your illusion effects, make a caster level check. Treat the illusion’s save DC as its normal DC or the result of the caster level check, whichever is higher. You must be at least an 8th-level wizard to select this discovery.
|
Split Slot (Ultimate Magic pg. 86): Once per day when you prepare spells, you may treat any one of your open spell slots as if it were two spell slots that were two spell levels lower. For example, a 9th-level wizard can split a 5th-level slot into two 3rd-level slots, preparing fireball and lightning bolt in those 3rd-level slots. For all purposes, the two lower-level slots are treated as that lower level (so the split 5th-level slot used for a fireball has a DC as if it were in a normal 3rd-level slot). Splitting a 2nd-level slot lets you prepare two additional cantrips (which you can cast over and over, just like normally prepared cantrips). This discovery has no effect on cantrips or 1st–level spells. You may select this discovery multiple times; each time you select it, you may split another spell slot when you prepare spells. You cannot split a slot that you created by splitting a higher-level slot. You must be at least 5th level to select this discovery.
|
Staff-Like Wand (Ultimate Magic pg. 87): Your research has unlocked a new power in conjunction with using a wand. Similar to using a magic staff, you use your own Intelligence score and relevant feats to set the DC for saves against spells you cast from a wand, and you can use your caster level when activating the power of a wand if it's higher than the caster level of the wand. You must be at least an 11th-level wizard and must have the Craft Staff feat to select this discovery.
|
Steward of the Great Beyond (Champions of Purity pg. 27): Whenever a creature
attempts to use a teleportation effect or summon a creature
within 30 feet of you, you may attempt to block the effect.
Make an opposed caster level check (1d20 + caster level) as
an immediate action. If the check succeeds, the spell or
effect fails and is wasted; otherwise, it is unaffected. You
can use this ability once per day plus one additional time
for every 5 wizard levels you possess beyond 10th. You must
be at least a 9th-level wizard to select this discovery.
|
Time Stutter (Sp) (People of the River pg. 9): You can briefly step out of time, pausing the world around you. This ability acts as the time stop spell, except that you gain only 1 round of apparent time. You can use this ability once per day plus one additional time for every 5 wizard levels you possess beyond 10th. You must be at least a 10th-level wizard to select this discovery.
|
True Name (Sp) (Ultimate Magic pg. 87): Your researches into ancient tomes and your inquisitions of bound spirits have led you to one of the best-hidden secrets of the multiverse: the true name of an outsider—the name that defines the very essence of the creature and that gives the speaker control over the being. This outsider can have no more than 12 Hit Dice. Once per day, you can speak the common name by which the outsider is known, and the outsider travels to you as if you had cast planar binding upon it. It must obey you to the best of its ability, without pay or bargaining for its services, for its fear that you might release its true name to the wider world is enough to bring even the most recalcitrant of outsiders to bear.
If the creature is within 100 feet, as a move action, you may punish it by deliberately mispronouncing its name, wracking its very essence and giving it the sickened and staggered conditions for 1 round (even if the creature is normally immune to these conditions). You cannot use true name in an area of silence, but the creature does not have to be able to hear you for it to be harmed by the ability.
It is in your best interest to call this creature only sparingly, and occasionally reward it in some fashion to mollify its wrath. If you repeatedly fail to offer it a reward appropriate to its type and ethos, the creature may begin plotting ways to destroy the bond between you, whether by creating an accident that will destroy your memory of the name, by plaguing you with nuisances or dangers until you vow never to call on it again, or by actively seeking to destroy you through its own devices or those of an underling. If this creature is of a lawful type and you are violating its ethos, its superiors may even destroy it or you rather than allow you to contaminate their servant further. Worse, they may establish situations where it is necessary for you to summon this outsider, opening gateways to infernal or angelic interference, in order to gain a foothold on the Material Plane.
You may select this discovery multiple times. Each time you select this discovery, it applies to a different, specific outsider. You must be at least an 11th-level wizard to select this discovery. If you select this discovery at 15th level or higher, the creature may have up to 18 Hit Dice and the call acts as greater planar binding instead of planar binding.
|
Werewolf Shape (Blood of the Moon pg. 25): When you cast beast shape IV or shapechange, you can choose to take the shape of a werewolf in addition to the other shapes available. While in werewolf shape, you gain all the effects of the werewolf template instead of the spell’s normal benefits. You act in all respects as a natural lycanthrope for the duration of the spell, including the ability to inflict the curse of lycanthropy using the spell’s save DC. You must be at least a 15th-level wizard to select this arcane discovery.
|
Yuelral's Blessing (Champions of Purity pg. 27): You cast any spells that appear on
both the wizard and druid spell lists at +1 caster level
and with +1 to the save DC. In addition, you may replace
the material component of any arcane spell with gems of
the same value. You must be at least a 5th-level wizard to
select this discovery.
|