School of Arcane Theory
Arcane Tradition: School of Arcane Theory
Some wizards choose to focus on mastering a specific school of magic, while others learn to blend spell with swordplay. Although these specializations are powerful in their own right, you prefer something... purer. Rather than master a single school of magic, wizards from the School of Arcane Theory excel at understanding how their magic and their spells work, as well as honing their mind to make the most of what they've got.
Arcane Assistant
Any good Arcane Theorist knows two things: that two minds focused on a task are better than one, and that a reliable assistant can make a world of difference.
At 2nd level, find familiar is added to your spellbook, if it isn't there already, and can cast be cast with the following changes:
- Your familiar's Intelligence score becomes 5 + half your wizard level.
- Your familiar gains proficiency with the Arcana skill, and one skill of your choice between: History, Investigation, Nature, and Religion.
- Your familiar uses your proficiency bonus, instead of its own.
- While your familiar is within 5 feet of you, you gain proficiency with any skill that it is proficient with, and may double your proficiency bonus for any skill that you are both proficient with.
- Your familiar can assist you with deciphering and practicing new spells, halving the time, but not the cost, it takes to copy a spell into your spellbook.
Wizard Tricks
By 6th level, you've made a breakthrough in your research! You've discovered how to modify your spells' behavior when you prepare them, although these modified spells tend to require much more preparation to use.
When you prepare your spells at the end of a long rest, you can choose to prepare modified versions of spells in your spellbook, using one of the wizard tricks below. Preparing a spell in this way counts as double against the number of spells you can have prepared.
You master one Wizard Trick at level 6, and another at level 12.
Delayed Effect
If a spell modified by this trick does not require concentration, you can delay its effects and duration by up to 1 minute, so long as you maintain concentration on the spell. Once your concentration breaks, either as a result of taking damage, the minute expiring, or choosing to break it, the spell's effects take place. If you choose, you can end concentration on the spell without the effects taking place.
Everything involved with normally casting the spell, including designating targets, attack rolls, and the shape or area of the spell are determined when you first cast it. Any effects of the spell, including damage rolls, saving throws, and environmental effects, are determined only when the delay ends. Any prior target or targets that are not within range of the spell when the effects take place are unaffected.
Ethereal Casting
A spell modified by this trick travels through the ethereal plane to reach its destination. An Ethereal spell with a target in the material plane ignores all cover until just before its effects occur, at which point it behaves normally. An Ethereal spell behaves normally while traveling through the ethereal plane, and is capable of instead targeting creatures, objects, and locations in the ethereal plane. An Ethereal spell is stopped by any barrier in the ethereal plane, and cannot be cast from or affect a target in a location protected from interplanar travel or within an antimagic field.
Eschew Materials
If a spell modified by this trick would normally require material components costing no more than a total of 25gp, it instead requires no material components. This trick has no effect if the spell requires material components costing more than a total of 25gp.
Prismatic Substitution
If a spell modified by this trick would normally deal acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage, you can change the spell's damage type to another from that list, determined at the time of the spell's preparation. If a spell deals more than one type of damage from the list above, you can replace only one.
Mind over Magic
By 10th level, hours and hours of intense study have taught you how to focus your mind wholly on the task at hand, easing the effort required to maintain concentration on spells, as well as reducing the time it takes to complete rituals.
You may add your Intelligence modifier to any Constitution saving throw made to maintain concentration on a spell, and casting spells using the Ritual Casting wizard feature take only an additional 5 minutes to cast.
Rapid Recollection
At 14th level, you have become intimately familiar with your spellbook and the spells within. If your spellbook is on hand, you can skim through it and cast one spell of 5th level or lower without preparing it.
You can use this feature twice, regaining all uses after completing a long rest.
Supporting Materials
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Changelog
2018-07-06, v0.71
- Remove the auto-success ability from Mind over Magic, and halve the time Ritual Casting takes instead. I'm still not happy with this; it still only feels like half a feature.
2018-06-22, v0.7
- Try removing the extra spell slot cost from Wizard Tricks, to see how it balances there
- Fix typos and clarify some lines in the different Wizard tricks.
- Switch up Mind over Magic to grant a bonus to concentration checks in general, and add the ability to succeed on a failed concentration checks a limited number of times per long rest.
- Add hyperlinks from the changelog to different features
- Add hyperlink to Find Familiar on D&D Beyond
2018-06-21, v0.65
- Scrap pretty much everything
- Add Arcane Assistant
- Add Wizard Tricks
- Add Mind over Magic
- Add Rapid Recollection
2018-06-20, v0.5
- Initial release
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