Spellcasting

As a student of arcane magic, you have a spellbook containing spells that show the first glimmerings of your true power. See Spells Rules for the general rules of spellcasting and the Spells Listing for the wizard spell list.

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

The Wizard table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your wizard 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 (see the Adventuring Gear section) 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 the “Your Spellbook” sidebar).

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.

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. The School of Evocation is detailed at the end of the class description, and more choices are available in other sources.

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

• Abjuration (PHB) [Tank] (Good)

• Bladesinger (SCAG) [Tank]

• Chronurgy (EGtW) [Support] (Good)

• Conjuration (PHB) [Utility]

• Divination (PHB) [Support] (Good)

• Enchantment (PHB) [Support] (Ok)

• [#School of Evocation]Evocation[/#] (PHB) [Damage] (Ok)

• Graviturgy (EGtW) [Utility]

• Illusion (PHB) [Utility] (Ok)

• Invention (UA)

• Lore Mastery (UA)

• Necromancy (PHB) [Damage] (Ok)

• [#Onomancy]Onomancy[/#] (UA) [Support]

• [#Order of Scribes]Order of Scribes[/#] (UA) [Utility]

• Psionics (UA)

• Theurgy (UA)

• Transmutation (PHB) [Utility]

• War Magic (XGtE) [Tank] (Good)

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.

Using the optional feats rule, you can forgo taking this feature to take a feat of your choice instead. For a Wizard, the Elemental Adept, or Spell Sniper feats are a good choice.

Arcane Tradition Feature

[#Arcane Tradition]Arcane Tradition Feature[/#]

Ability Score Improvement

[#Ability Score Improvement]Ability Score Improvement[/#]

Arcane Tradition Feature

[#Arcane Tradition]Arcane Tradition Feature[/#]

Ability Score Improvement

[#Ability Score Improvement]Ability Score Improvement[/#]

Arcane Tradition Feature

[#Arcane Tradition]Arcane Tradition Feature[/#]

Ability Score Improvement

[#Ability Score Improvement]Ability Score Improvement[/#]

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.

Ability Score Improvement

[#Ability Score Improvement]Ability Score Improvement[/#]

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.

Order of Scribes

Magic of the book—that’s what many spellcasters call wizardry. The name is apt, given how much time wizards spend poring over their spellbooks, penning theories about the nature of magic, and exploring the farthest recesses of libraries. It’s rare to see a wizard traveling without books and scrolls sprouting from their bags, and a wizard would go to great lengths to plumb an archive of ancient knowledge.

Among wizards, the Order of Scribes is the most bookish. It takes many forms in different worlds, but its primary mission is the same everywhere: recording magical discoveries in tomes and scrolls so that wizardry can flourish. And while every wizard values their spellbook, a scribe in the Order of Scribes dedicates themself to magically awakening their book, turning it into a trusted companion. All wizards study their spellbooks, but a wizardly scribe talks to theirs!

Wizardly Quill

At 2nd level, As a bonus action, you can magically create a Tiny quill in your free hand. The magic quill has the following properties:

• The quill doesn’t require ink. When you write with it, it produces ink in a color of your choice on the writing surface.

• The gold and time you must spend to copy a spell into your spellbook are halved if you use the quill for the transcription.

• You can erase anything you write with the quill if you wave the feather over the text as a bonus action, provided the text is within 5 feet of you.

This quill disappears if you create another one or if you die.

Awakened Spellbook

At 2nd level, Using specially prepared inks and ancient incantations passed down by your wizardly order, you have awakened an arcane sentience within your spellbook.

While you are holding the book, it grants you the following benefits:

• You can use the book as a spellcasting focus for your wizard spells.

• When you cast a wizard spell with a spell slot, you can temporarily replace its damage type with the damage type of another spell in your spellbook, as your spellbook magically alters the spell’s formula for this casting.

• When you cast a wizard spell as a ritual, you can use the spell’s normal casting time, rather than adding 10 minutes to it. Once you use this benefit, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.

If necessary, you can replace the book over the course of a short rest by using your Wizardly Quill to write arcane sigils in a blank book or a magic spellbook to which you’re attuned. At the end of the rest, your spellbook’s consciousness is summoned into the new book, which the consciousness transforms into your spellbook, along with all its spells. If the previous book still existed somewhere, all the spells vanish from its pages.

Master Scrivener

At 6th level, Whenever you finish a long rest, you can create one magic scroll by touching your Wizardly Quill to a blank piece of paper or parchment and causing one spell from your Awakened Spellbook to be copied onto the scroll.

The spellbook must be within 5 feet of you when you make the scroll.The chosen spell must be of 1st or 2nd level and must have a casting time of 1 action. Once in the scroll, the spell’s power is enhanced, counting as one level higher than normal. You can cast the spell from the scroll by reading it as an action. The scroll is unintelligible to anyone else, and the spell vanishes from the scroll when you cast it or when you finish your next long rest.

You are also adept at crafting spell scrolls, which are described in chapter 7 of the Dungeon Master’s Guide. The gold and time you must spend to make such a scroll are halved if you use your Wizardly Quill.

Manifest Mind

At 10th level, You are now able to conjure forth the mind of your Awakened Spellbook. As a bonus action while the book is on your person, you can cause the mind to manifest as a Tiny spectral construct, hovering in an unoccupied space of your choice within 60 feet of you. This presence is intangible and doesn’t occupy its space, and it sheds dim light in a 10-foot radius. It looks like a ghostly tome, a cascade of text, or a scholar from the past (your choice). The spectral mind has a number of hit points equal to your wizard level plus your Intelligence modifier, and it uses your Armor Class and saving throw modifiers.

While manifested, the spectral mind can hear and see, and it has darkvision with a range of 60 feet. As an action, you can hear and see using the its senses, instead of your own, until your concentration ends (as if concentrating on a spell).

Whenever you cast a wizard spell on your turn, you can cast it as if you were in the spectral mind’s space, instead of your own, using its senses. You can do so a number of times per day equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. As a bonus action, you can cause the spectral mind to hover up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space that you or it can see. It can pass through creatures but not objects. The spectral mind stops manifesting if it is ever more than 300 feet away from you, if it drops to 0 hit points, if you die, or if you dismiss it as a bonus action.

One with the Word

At 14th level, Your connection to your Awakened Spellbook has become so profound that your soul has become entwined with it. While you are holding the book and its spectral mind is manifest, you can take an action to cause the two of you to teleport, swapping places. You can teleport in this way a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Moreover, if you die but at least one spell remains in your Awakened Spellbook, you can return to life 1 minute later within 5 feet of the book. You revive with 1 hit point. Then roll 3d6. The book loses spells of your choice that have a combined spell level equal to that roll or higher. For example, if the roll’s total is 9, spells vanish from the book that have a combined level of at least 9, which could mean one 9th-level spell, three 3rd-level spells, or some other combination.

Thereafter, you are incapable of casting the lost spells, even if you find them on a scroll or in another spellbook. The only way to restore your ability to cast one of the lost spells is through the wish spell, which can restore one spell to the book per casting.

Onomancy

Practitioners of magic well know the power of names, but wizards who follow the tradition of Onomancy use their magic to manipulate the words that encompass existence. Onomancers expand their study into language itself, searching for threads of magical significance that weave through names. Something that is named stands out in the multiverse, distinct from the tapestry of creation all around it.

That distinction creates power that onomancers seek to tap. By speaking a target’s true name, the wizard’s spells slip between the cracks of the target’s defenses, conforming to its essential nature through the power of its name. To protect themselves, wizards who follow this tradition often hide their true names, typically by adopting monikers and pseudonyms.

True Names

Onomancy, or naming magic, is a method of spellcasting that uses a creature’s true name to enhance a spell’s effects. A true name is the name by which a self-aware creature identifies itself. This name might be the name a person was given at birth, or one a person chose or earned later in life. Whatever a name’s origin, the simplest way for you to know your true name is to think truthfully about yourself and then think, “My name is …” Your true name is how you finish that sentence.

You can try to hide your true name by using a pseudonym, but you must be wary not to inhabit that false name too deeply. If a false name comes to be the best expression of who you are, it becomes your true name. Changing one’s true name is never a quick choice; it’s something that happens over time as a name becomes the creature’s truth.

As a quick guide, a creature has a true name if it understands at least one language or it has an alignment.

Bonus Proficiencies

At 2nd level, You learn one language of your choice and gain proficiency with calligrapher's supplies.

Extract Name

At 2nd level, You can magically compel a creature to divulge its true name. As a bonus action, you target one creature you can see within 60 feet of you. The target must make a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC. On a successful save, you discern that this magic failed, and you can’t use this feature on the target again. On a failed save, the target is charmed by you until the end of your next turn, and you mentally learn the charmed target’s name or the fact that the target lacks a name.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses of it when you finish a long rest.

Fateful Naming

At 2nd level, You can bend magic to assist or hinder creatures through the power of their true names, and even use those names as an anchor to affect others around them. The bane and bless spells are wizard spells for you, and you add them to your spellbook. You always have them prepared, yet they don’t count against the number of spells you can prepare.

You can cast either spell without expending a spell slot if you speak the true name of one target of the spell as part of casting it. You can cast the spells in this way a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier (a minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Resonant Utterance

At 6th level, You learn words of power called Resonants, which allow you to tailor your spells through the use of a target’s true name.

Resonants Known. When you gain this feature, you learn two Resonants of your choice, which are detailed in the “Resonant Options” section. Each time you gain a level in this class, you can replace one resonant you know with a different one.

Using a Resonant. You can use one Resonant when you cast a wizard spell with a spell slot and speak the true name of one creature targeted by the spell. Speaking the name is part of casting the spell.

You can use Resonants a number of times equal to half of your wizard level (round down), and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Here are your options when choosing a Resonant:

• Absorption. When you cast a spell that deals damage to the named target, you gain 3d6 temporary hit points. The number of temporary hit points you gain increases by 1d6 when you reach 10th level (4d6) and 14th level (5d6) in this class.

• Devastation. If the spell requires the named creature to make a saving throw, that creature has disadvantage on the first save it makes against the spell.

• Dissolution. The first time the named creature takes damage from the spell, that creature takes an extra 2d8 force damage. The extra force damage increases by 1d8 when you reach 10th level (3d8) and 14th level (4d8) in this class.

• Nullification. If the named target is affected by any other spells, you know what those spells are, and you can attempt to end one of your choice by succeeding on an Intelligence check with a DC equal to 10 + the level of the chosen spell.

• Puppetry. The first time the named creature takes damage from the spell, you can knock the creature prone or move it up to 10 feet, either directly toward you or away from you.

• Sympathy. If the named creature is within range of the spell, you can target the creature with the spell even if you can’t see the creature or it has total cover against the spell.

Inexorable Pronouncement

At 10th level, You learn two new Resonants of your choice from your Resonant Utterance feature.

Relentless Naming

At 14th level, You have learned how to bypass a named creature’s defenses against certain types of damage. When you cast a spell that deals damage to a creature whose true name you speak as part of casting the spell, you can cause the spell to deal force or psychic damage to the creature, instead of the spell’s normal damage type.

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.