Requirements

Alignment: Any nongood.

Skills: Spellcraft 8 ranks.

Feats: A total of three metamagic feats or item creation feats.

Spells: Able to cast 3rd-level arcane spells.

Summary

Wizards who gain power by creating a circle which can augment their caster level and make them extremely powerful. They also gain more spell power.

Role: Spell DPS

Characteristics: A wizard that eventually assembles a circle of others around them

Source: Dungeon Master's Guide

Game Rule Information

The Red Wizard has the following game statistics.

Abilities: Whatever your casting stat is, Intelligence for skill points,

Alignment: Any Nongood

Hit Die: d4

Starting Gold: N/A

Class Skills

The Red Wizard's class skills are Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (all skills taken individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Profession (Wis), Search (Int), Spellcraft (Int), and Spot (Wis)

Skill Points at 1st Level: (2 + Int modifier) × 4

Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier

Class Features

All of the following are class features of the Red Wizard.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A Red Wizard is proficient with whatever they were already proficient with.

Spells per Day: A Red Wizard’s training focuses on arcane spells. Thus, when a new Red Wizard level is gained, the character gains new spells per day as if he had also gained a level in whatever arcane spellcasting class he belonged to before he added the prestige class. He does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained (bonus metamagic or item creation feats, bard or assassin abilities, and so on). This essentially means that he adds the level of Red Wizard to the level of whatever other arcane spellcasting class the character has, then determines spells per day and caster level accordingly.

If a character had more than one arcane spellcasting class before he became a Red Wizard, he must decide to which class he adds each level of Red Wizard for the purpose of determining spells per day.

Enhanced Specialization: Upon becoming a Red Wizard, a character increases his devotion to his wizard school of specialization. In exchange for this, the Red Wizard must sacrifice study in one or more schools. The Red Wizard must choose an additional prohibited school or schools using the rules in the Player’s Handbook. He can never again learn spells from those prohibited schools. He cannot choose the same prohibited schools he chose as a 1st-level wizard. He can still use the prohibited spells he knew prior to becoming a Red Wizard, including using items that are activated by spell completion or spell trigger.

For example, Ghorus Toth is specialized in the school of transmutation. His prohibited schools are abjuration and enchantment. When he becomes a Red Wizard, he must choose one other prohibited school. He decides to select conjuration as his additional prohibited school.

Specialist Defense: A Red Wizard gains a bonus on saving throws against spells from his specialist school. This bonus starts at +1 and increases at higher levels.

Spell Power: At 2nd level, a Red Wizard gains a bonus that increases his effective caster level for purposes of determining level-dependent spell variables and for caster level checks. The bonus starts at +1 and increases at higher levels, as shown. This ability stacks with other spell power benefits that affect spells from the Red Wizard’s specialist school.

Bonus Feat: At 5th level, a Red Wizard gains a bonus feat, which must be either an item creation feat, a metamagic feat, or the Spell Mastery feat.

Circle Leader: At 5th level, a Red Wizard gains the ability to become a circle leader, who is the focus person for Red Wizard circle magic.

Scribe Tattoo: At 7th level, a Red Wizard gains the ability to place the Thayan wizards’ magic tattoos upon willing and qualified novices and inducting them into his circle.

Great Circle Leader: A 10th-level Red Wizard can be the leader of a great circle, which can have up to nine other participants instead of just five.

Circle Magic

Some of the most powerful and spectacular spells worked across Faerûn are cast in the form of circle magic. Circle magic is a type of cooperative spellcasting that allows the spellcaster leading the circle to increase his caster level significantly and achieve results otherwise unavailable to the spellcasters composing the circle. The Red Wizards of Thay make frequent use of circle magic. Stories of other forms of circle magic abound in Faerûn.

Participation: The ability to participate in circle magic requires the possession of the magic tattoos. One spellcaster, usually the most powerful or experienced character present, stands at the center of the circle. This character is the circle leader. A Red Wizard cannot be a circle leader unless he is at least a 5th-level Red Wizard.

A circle requires a minimum of two participants plus the circle leader. Up to five partiicpants can aid a circle leader in a standard circle; a Red Wizard of 10th level can lead a great circle containing up to nine other participants.

All participants in a circle must stand within 10 feet of the circle leader, who stands in the center.

Circle Powers: The first use of circle magic is to empower the circle leader with the strength of all the participants. This requires 1 full hour of uninterrupted concentration on the part of all participants and the circle leader. Each participant casts any single prepared spell, which is consumed by the circle and has no effect other than expending the prepared spell. The spell levels expended by the circle participants are totaled as circle bonus levels. Each bonus level may be used to accomplish the following effects.

• Increase the circle leader’s caster level by one for every circle bonus level expended (maximum caster level 40th). This benefit applies to level-dependent variables of a spell such as range or duration, and to level checks (dispel checks, checks to overcome spell resistance, and so on).
• Add Empower Spell, Maximize Spell, or Heighten Spell metamagic feats to spells currently prepared by the circle leader. Each circle bonus level counts as one additional spell level required by the application of a metamagic feat to a spell. The circle leader may add one of the three listed feats to a spell even if he does not know the feat or if the addition of the feat would raise the spell level past the circle leader’s normal maximum spell level (maximum spell level 20th).

These effects last for 24 hours or until expended. Circle bonus levels may be divided up as the circle leader sees fit. For example, the Red Wizard Hauth Var leads a circle in which four participants each cast a 2nd-level spell, so that Hauth Var gains eight circle bonus levels. Hauth Var chooses to use three circle bonus levels to maximize his cone of cold spell, three to increase his caster level from 10th to 13th for all level-based variables in his spells, and two to provide a +2 bonus on any level checks he needs to make. The maximized spell is used up whenever he casts his cone of cold, and the other two effects remain for the next 24 hours.

Many high-level Red Wizards lead circles on a daily basis to exact magical power from their apprentices.

Table 1-1: Red Wizard Progression

Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special	Spells per day
1st	+0	+0	+0	+2	Enhanced specialization, specialist defense +1	+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
2nd	+1	+0	+0	+3	Spell power +1	+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
3rd	+1	+1	+1	+3	Specialist defense +2	+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
4th	+2	+1	+1	+4	Spell power +2	+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
5th	+2	+1	+1	+4	Bonus feat, circle leader	+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
6th	+3	+2	+2	+5	Spell power +3	+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
7th	+3	+2	+2	+5	Specialist defense +3, scribe tattoo	+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
8th	+4	+2	+2	+6	Spell power +4	+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
9th	+4	+3	+3	+6	Specialist defense +4	+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
10th	+5	+3	+3	+7	Great circle leader, spell power +5	+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class