Heighten Spell (Feat)

You can make the difficulty of resisting your spells tied to your caster level, instead of the spell's level.

Prerequisites: Caster Level 1

Related: Heighten Spell, Improved (Feat)

Benefit: A heightened spell changes the way its saving throw DC (if any) is calculated. When applied to a spell, its saving throw DC becomes:

10 + ½ Caster Level + Caster Stat Modifier

If the spell already has a saving throw that is calculated as described above, this feat provides no benefit. If the spell does not permit a saving throw, or the saving throw is 'harmless' (i.e. a beneficial spell that targets willing creatures, who would only save if they had to, such as when they have Spell Resistance), this feat provides no benefit.

Level Increase: +1 or +0 (The heightened spell uses up a spell slot one level higher than the spell's actual level, unless it is used in conjunction with any other metamagic feat, in which case it does not increase the spell level.)

Example: Burning Hand of the Magus (Sorcerer/Wizard Spell) is a level 1 spell with a Weak save, so the saving throw DC is 10 + 1 (spell level) + Caster Stat Modifier. With Heighten Spell, you may memorize a Burning Hand spell in a level 2 spell slot, making the save DC 10 + ½ Caster Level + your Caster Stat mod.

Even more powerfully, you may stack Heighten Spell with other Metamagic feats, using the additional level increase(s) of the other metamagic feats in place of the level increase of heighten spell. That is, when you apply one or more Metamagic feats (other than Heighten Spell) to a spell, and they increase the level by at least +1, the cost to also apply Heighten Spell becomes 0.

Example: the Perfect Spell feat adds +6 spell levels, so a Perfected Burning Hand of the Magus requires a level 7 slot to cast. If you also have the Heighten Spell feat, you could memorize a Heightened Perfected Burning Hand of the Magus using that same level 7 spell slot, and gain all benefits of Perfect Spell AND Heighten Spell, calculating the save DC as 10 + ½ Caster Level + Caster Stat Modifier.