Wizard

Image used by permission of Yama Orce.

Note: The text in this shaded box was taken from a different Open Game License product. Nothing in the text should be interpreted as “rules” or “mechanics”.

Beyond the veil of the mundane hide the secrets of absolute power. The works of beings beyond mortals, the legends of realms where gods and spirits tread, the lore of creations both wondrous and terrible-such mysteries call to those with the ambition and the intellect to rise above the common folk to grasp true might. Such is the path of the wizard. These shrewd magic-users seek, collect, and covet esoteric knowledge, drawing on cultic arts to work wonders beyond the abilities of mere mortals. While some might choose a particular field of magical study and become masters of such powers, others embrace versatility, reveling in the unbounded wonders of all magic. In either case, wizards prove a cunning and potent lot, capable of smiting their foes, empowering their allies, and shaping the world to their every desire.

Class Features

As a wizard, you gain the following class features.

Hit Points

Hit Dice: 1d6 per wizard level
Hit Points at 1st Level: 6 + your Constitution modifier
Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d6 (or 4) + your Constitution modifier per wizard level after 1st

Proficiencies

Armor: None
Weapons: Daggers, darts, slings, quarterstaffs, light crossbows
Tools: None
Saving Throws: Intelligence, Wisdom
Skills: Choose two from Arcana, History, Insight, Investigation, Medicine, and Religion

Equipment

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

  • (a) a quarterstaff or (b) a dagger
  • (a) a component pouch or (b) an arcane focus
  • (a) a scholar’s pack or (b) an explorer’s pack
  • A spellbook
Table: The Wizard
Level Proficiency Bonus Features Cantrips Known -Spell Slots per Spell Level-
1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th
1st +2 Spellcasting, Arcane Recovery 3 2
2nd +2 Arcane Tradition 3 3
3rd +2 3 4 2
4th +2 Ability Score Improvement 4 4 3
5th +3 4 4 3 2
6th +3 Arcane Tradition feature 4 4 3 3
7th +3 4 4 3 3 1
8th +3 Ability Score Improvement 4 4 3 3 2
9th +4 4 4 3 3 3 1
10th +4 Arcane Tradition feature 5 4 3 3 3 2
11th +4 5 4 3 3 3 2 1
12th +4 Ability Score Improvement 5 4 3 3 3 2 1
13th +5 5 4 3 3 3 2 1 1
14th +5 Arcane Tradition feature 5 4 3 3 3 2 1 1
15th +5 5 4 3 3 3 2 1 1 1
16th +5 Ability Score Improvement 5 4 3 3 3 2 1 1 1
17th +6 5 4 3 3 3 2 1 1 1 1
18th +6 Spell Mastery 5 4 3 3 3 3 1 1 1 1
19th +6 Ability Score Improvement 5 4 3 3 3 3 2 1 1 1
20th +6 Signature Spell 5 4 3 3 3 3 2 2 1 1

Spellcasting

As a student of arcane magic, you have a spellbook containing spells that show the first glimmerings of your true power.

Cantrips

At 1st level, you know three cantrips of your choice from the wizard spell list. You learn additional wizard cantrips of your choice at higher levels, as shown in the Cantrips Known column of the Wizard table.

Spellbook

At 1st level, you have a spellbook containing six 1st- level wizard spells of your choice. Your spellbook is the repository of the wizard spells you know, except your cantrips, which are fixed in your mind.

Preparing and Casting Spells

Table: The Wizard shows how many spell slots you have to cast your spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.

You prepare the list of wizard spells that are available for you to cast. To do so, choose a number of wizard spells from your spellbook equal to your Intelligence modifier + your wizard level (minimum of one spell). The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots.

For example, if you’re a 3rd-level wizard, you have four 1st-level and two 2nd-level spell slots. With an Intelligence of 16, your list of prepared spells can include six spells of 1st or 2nd level, in any combination, chosen from your spellbook. If you prepare the 1st-level spell magic missile, you can cast it using a 1st-level or a 2nd-level slot. Casting the spell doesn’t remove it from your list of prepared spells.

You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of wizard spells requires time spent studying your spellbook and memorizing the incantations and gestures you must make to cast the spell: at least 1 minute per spell level for each spell on your list.

Spellcasting Ability

Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for your wizard spells, since you learn your spells through dedicated study and memorization. You use your Intelligence whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Intelligence modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a wizard spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier

Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier

Ritual Casting

You can cast a wizard spell as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag and you have the spell in your spellbook. You don’t need to have the spell prepared.

Spellcasting Focus

You can use an arcane focus as a spellcasting focus for your wizard spells.

Learning Spells of 1st Level and Higher

Each time you gain a wizard level, you can add two wizard spells of your choice to your spellbook for free. Each of these spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots, as shown on the Wizard table. On your adventures, you might find other spells that you can add to your spellbook (see “Your Spellbook”).

Arcane Recovery

You have learned to regain some of your magical energy by studying your spellbook. Once per day when you finish a short rest, you can choose expended spell slots to recover. The spell slots can have a combined level that is equal to or less than half your wizard level (rounded up), and none of the slots can be 6th level or higher.

For example, if you’re a 4th-level wizard, you can recover up to two levels worth of spell slots. You can recover either a 2nd-level spell slot or two 1st-level spell slots.

Arcane Tradition

When you reach 2nd level, you choose an arcane tradition, shaping your practice of magic through one of eight schools: Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, or Transmutation, all detailed at the end of the class description.

Your choice grants you features at 2nd level and again at 6th, 10th, and 14th level.

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can’t increase an ability score above 20 using this feature.

Spell Mastery

At 18th level, you have achieved such mastery over certain spells that you can cast them at will. Choose a 1st-level wizard spell and a 2nd-level wizard spell that are in your spellbook. You can cast those spells at their lowest level without expending a spell slot when you have them prepared. If you want to cast either spell at a higher level, you must expend a spell slot as normal.

By spending 8 hours in study, you can exchange one or both of the spells you chose for different spells of the same levels.

Signature Spells

When you reach 20th level, you gain mastery over two powerful spells and can cast them with little effort. Choose two 3rd-level wizard spells in your spellbook as your signature spells. You always have these spells prepared, they don’t count against the number of spells you have prepared, and you can cast each of them once at 3rd level without expending a spell slot. When you do so, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

If you want to cast either spell at a higher level, you must expend a spell slot as normal.

Arcane Traditions

The study of wizardry is ancient, stretching back to the earliest mortal discoveries of magic. It is firmly established in fantasy gaming worlds, with various traditions dedicated to its complex study.

The most common arcane traditions in the multiverse revolve around the schools of magic. Wizards through the ages have cataloged thousands of spells, grouping them into eight categories called schools. In some places, these traditions are literally schools; a wizard might study at the School of Illusion while another studies across town at the School of Enchantment. In other institutions, the schools are more like academic departments, with rival faculties competing for students and funding. Even wizards who train apprentices in the solitude of their own towers use the division of magic into schools as a learning device, since the spells of each school require mastery of different techniques.

School of Evocation

You focus your study on magic that creates powerful elemental effects such as bitter cold, searing flame, rolling thunder, crackling lightning, and burning acid. Some evokers find employment in military forces, serving as artillery to blast enemy armies from afar. Others use their spectacular power to protect the weak, while some seek their own gain as bandits, adventurers, or aspiring tyrants.

Evocation Savant

Beginning when you select this school at 2nd level, the gold and time you must spend to copy an evocation spell into your spellbook is halved.

Sculpt Spells

Beginning at 2nd level, you can create pockets of relative safety within the effects of your evocation spells. When you cast an evocation spell that affects other creatures that you can see, you can choose a number of them equal to 1 + the spell’s level. The chosen creatures automatically succeed on their saving throws against the spell, and they take no damage if they would normally take half damage on a successful save.

Potent Cantrip

Starting at 6th level, your damaging cantrips affect even creatures that avoid the brunt of the effect. When a creature succeeds on a saving throw against your cantrip, the creature takes half the cantrip’s damage (if any) but suffers no additional effect from the cantrip.

Empowered Evocation

Beginning at 10th level, you can add your Intelligence modifier to one damage roll of any wizard evocation spell you cast.

Overchannel

Starting at 14th level, you can increase the power of your simpler spells. When you cast a wizard spell of 1st through 5th level that deals damage, you can deal maximum damage with that spell.

The first time you do so, you suffer no adverse effect. If you use this feature again before you finish a long rest, you take 2d12 necrotic damage for each level of the spell, immediately after you cast it. Each time you use this feature again before finishing a long rest, the necrotic damage per spell level increases by 1d12. This damage ignores resistance and immunity.

School of Ritualism (3pp Arcane Tradition)

Source SPCM

The School of Ritualism emphasizes the occult science and alien mathematics taught by creatures of the Mythos.

Wizards who follow this school are commonly known as ritualists.

Ritual Savant

Starting when you select this tradition at 2nd level, the gold and time you must spend to copy a spell with the ritual tag into your spellbook is halved.

Ritualize Spell

Starting at 2nd level, you can cast any spell as a ritual, even if it lacks the ritual tag, and you can choose to expend a spell slot when you cast a spell as a ritual in order to make it more powerful. If you cast a spell without the ritual tag as a ritual, you must always expend a spell slot even though you don’t have to prepare it. When you expend a spell slot to cast a spell as a ritual, its duration is doubled unless doing so would result in a duration longer than the maximum of 8 hours (spells that normally last more than 8 hours are unaffected). If the spell has an increased effect when cast at a higher level, you determine its effect as if you had cast it using a spell slot of the next higher level than the level of the slot you expended. Thus, if you ritualized private sanctum using a 5th-level slot, it would take effect as if you had used a 6th-level slot. This increase doesn’t stack with any other means of increasing a spell’s effective slot level. (For example, if you also had used the spell voorish sign from Chapter 5 before ritualizing private sanctum using a 5th-level slot, it would still take effect as if you had used a 6th-level slot even though both this feature and voorish sign would normally increase the effective slot level.)

Rote Inscriptions

Starting at 6th level, you always have glyph of warding prepared and it doesn’t count against the number of spells you have prepared.

When you cast glyph of warding or symbol, you can use this feature to shorten its casting time to 1 action; when you do so, you cannot do so again until you finish a long rest.

When you reach 14th level, you can shorten the casting time twice before finishing a long rest and you also always have symbol prepared; it likewise doesn’t count against the number of spells you have prepared.

Universal Occult Principles

Starting at 6th level, you add one spell with the ritual tag from any class (including this one) to your spellbook at no cost. From now on, all spells with the ritual tag are wizard spells for you.

Fast Reader

Starting at 10th level, you don’t have to prepare all your spells immediately upon finishing a long rest and can choose to prepare fewer than your maximum number. At any time, if you don’t yet have your maximum number of spells prepared, you can prepare an additional spell by reading your spellbook as an action. You can also read text twice as fast and retain comprehension, allowing you to make an ability check to research a Mythos text in half the usual time.

Additionally, when you cast a spell as a ritual or formula or you read it from your spellbook or a spell scroll, the spell’s casting time (including the additional time from casting it as a ritual) is half as long, to a minimum of 1 action for a spell scroll, 5 rounds for a formula, or 5 minutes for a ritual.

Scroll Mastery

Starting at 14th level, you ignore class requirements to use spell scrolls. When you cast a spell from a spell scroll, you can use your own spell attack and save DC if they are better than that of the spell scroll. You can choose to cast the spell on a spell scroll as a ritual in order to use your Ritualize Spell feature as if you had expended a spell slot to cast it; doing so still expends the spell scroll.

Additionally, you automatically succeed on the ability check to copy spells with the ritual tag from spell scrolls or Mythos texts into your spellbook.

Ruin Warden (3pp Arcane Tradition)

Source SPCM

In the Enchanted Wood of Earth’s Dreamlands, a massive stone covered with two sets of runes and a thick layer of moss lies in a fungus-choked grove. A three-foot-wide iron ring is set in the middle of this stone, implying that the slab is something akin to a lid. The region is feared and avoided by the zoogs, who (rightfully) claim that the stone covers an entrance to the sinister Underworld. Despite this fear, there are those among them who understand the ruin’s import. Someone took pains to hide something away, and while they may be gone, their ruins remain.

Certain zoog wizards take it upon themselves to serve as guardians for this site-and for any other mysterious ruin that may lie within or near zoog lands. These wizards are unusual among their kind in that they value history and legacies and focus their magical studies with a singular goal-to protect the site from intrusions. Whether the site is one sacred to zoogs or one they fear, the need to guard it remains.

Ruin Bond

When you adopt this tradition at 2nd level, you choose a ruin to bond with. This ruin must be something constructed and abandoned at least 50 years before you were born and can be something as minor as a stone or statue or as extensive as an entire abandoned city or necropolis. In the latter case, you must select one location in the ruin as the focus of your bond. You must perform a special ritual that takes 24 hours to form this bond with a ruin you are currently within or touching. Bonding to a new ruin ends your bond with any other ruin. Your Ruin Bond grants you the following benefits:

  • As long as you are within 20 miles of your ruin, you have advantage on Intelligence (Investigation), Wisdom (Insight), and Wisdom (Perception) checks. If you cast a spell while in this area, you gain a +1 bonus on any spell attack roll or save DC for the spell.
  • You instinctively know if any creature damages your bonded ruin or if any creature removes treasure or valuables from the ruin. You don’t know the identity of the creature or where in the ruin the event occurred, but you can sense the disruption even from another plane of existence.
  • If you cast the teleportation circle spell or another means of teleportation with multiple possible destinations, you can teleport to your bonded ruin as if it were a permanent teleportation circle you know the sigil sequence to.
  • While within 20 miles of the ruin, you can use an action to gain magical insight into dangers that threaten the area. You add your proficiency bonus to your AC and gain proficiency in all saving throws.

These effects end if you wear armor, if you travel more than 20 miles from the ruin, or if more than 10 minutes pass. Once you use this benefit, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

Lore Warden

At 2nd level, you gain proficiency in one skill of your choice: History, Insight, Investigation, or Perception. In addition, choose two of those skills, one of which can be the skill you just gained proficiency in. If you make an ability check that uses one of the chosen skills and you are proficient in that skill, your proficiency bonus is doubled.

Ruin Link

Starting at 6th level, you can link distant ruins together.

You can connect your bonded ruin to any other ruin you could bond to, regardless of distance, as long as they are on the same plane of existence. To form the link, you must complete a short rest in the new ruin focused on the task.

Upon completing the link, you can use your Ruin Bond feature as if the linked ruin were 19 miles away from your bonded ruin, effectively allowing your Ruin Bond to function within 1 mile of the linked ruin. If you cast the teleportation circle spell or another means of teleportation with multiple possible destinations, you can teleport to your linked ruin as if it were a permanent teleportation circle only you knew the sigil sequence to. You can link a ruin once. When you finish a long rest, you regain the use of this feature. The link lasts until you end it as an action or link a third ruin. When you have two linked ruins and link a third, one of the other two of your choice ceases to be linked. When you reach 14th level, you can use this feature twice between long rests.

Warden’s Cantrip

Starting at 6th level, when a creature attacks you, a target within 5 feet of you, a target in your bonded ruin or a linked ruin (including the structure itself), you can cast a cantrip on the creature as a reaction (if you are within the cantrip’s range).

Rapid Link

When you reach 10th level, you can use your Ruin Link feature as an action.

Dream Walker

Starting at 10th level, you can cast either dimension door or teleportation circle without expending a spell slot. Your destination must be a valid one within 20 miles of your bonded ruin or 1 mile of your linked ruin. If your ruin is in the material plane or the Dreamlands, you can travel to it with teleportation circle using this feature even if you are on the other plane. You regain the use of this feature when you finish a short or long rest. At 14th level, you can use this feature twice between rests.

Deathless Keeper

At 14th level, you seed your soul deeply into your ruin.

When you die, you can choose for your body to be teleported to your bonded ruin if any of your body remains and the ruin still exists. After 24 hours, you are revived as if by the spell resurrection as long as you are still dead and both body and ruin have not been destroyed or separated by more than 20 miles. Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again for 10 days.

Your possessions teleport with your body. This feature revives you only when there is an unattended diamond worth 1,000 gp available for the magic to consume within 90 feet of your ruin. Your soul can also choose to consume an unattended rare or rarer magic item that was teleported this way in place of the diamond.

Your Spellbook

The spells that you add to your spellbook as you gain levels reflect the arcane research you conduct on your own, as well as intellectual breakthroughs you have had about the nature of the multiverse. You might find other spells during your adventures. You could discover a spell recorded on a scroll in an evil wizard’s chest, for example, or in a dusty tome in an ancient library.

Copying a Spell into the Book: When you find a wizard spell of 1st level or higher, you can add it to your spellbook if it is of a spell level you can prepare and if you can spare the time to decipher and copy it.

Copying that spell into your spellbook involves reproducing the basic form of the spell, then deciphering the unique system of notation used by the wizard who wrote it. You must practice the spell until you understand the sounds or gestures required, then transcribe it into your spellbook using your own notation.

For each level of the spell, the process takes 2 hours and costs 50 gp. The cost represents material components you expend as you experiment with the spell to master it, as well as the fine inks you need to record it. Once you have spent this time and money, you can prepare the spell just like your other spells.

Replacing the Book: You can copy a spell from your own spellbook into another book-for example, if you want to make a backup copy of your spellbook. This is just like copying a new spell into your spellbook, but faster and easier, since you understand your own notation and already know how to cast the spell. You need spend only 1 hour and 10 gp for each level of the copied spell.

If you lose your spellbook, you can use the same procedure to transcribe the spells that you have prepared into a new spellbook. Filling out the remainder of your spellbook requires you to find new spells to do so, as normal. For this reason, many wizards keep backup spellbooks in a safe place.

The Book’s Appearance: Your spellbook is a unique compilation of spells, with its own decorative flourishes and margin notes. It might be a plain, functional leather volume that you received as a gift from your master, a finely bound gilt-edged tome you found in an ancient library, or even a loose collection of notes scrounged together after you lost your previous spellbook in a mishap.

Wizard Spells

Cantrips (0 Level)

1st Level

2nd Level

3rd Level

4th Level

5th Level

6th Level

7th Level

8th Level

9th Level

Section 15: Copyright Notice

System Reference Document 5.1 Copyright 2016, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.; Authors Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, Rodney Thompson, Peter Lee, James Wyatt, Robert J. Schwalb, Bruce R. Cordell, Chris Sims, and Steve Townshend, based on original material by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson.

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