School of Muscle
The School of Muscle teaches wizards not to perfect their spellcasting with booksmarts and brainpower, but rather with pure muscle memory and sick gains. Masters of somatic casting, "muscle wizards" manipulate the spellweave with raw physical strength, channeling arcane energy not through orb or wand but through their bare fists. While a muscle wizard may still be more fragile in body than a martially trained warrior, this does not stop them from charging headfirst into a fistfight during battle.
Credits
Cover art by Earl Norem. Artwork on page 2 by ashprwright (taken from here).
Subclass designed by VYLT. Thank you for checking out my content! 💜
Muscles Savant
2nd-level School of Muscle feature You have undergone rigorous study and training that synergizes both the martial and arcane arts. Whenever your Strength score is higher than your Intelligence score, you use Strength as your spellcasting ability and your Strength modifier for your Wizard spell save DC and Wizard spell attack modifier. You can also now prepare a number of wizard spells from your spellbook equal to your Strength modifier + your wizard level (minimum of one spell).
Your unarmed strikes now use a d4 for damage and score a critical hit on a roll of 19 or 20.
Hex Pecs
2nd-level School of Muscle feature You have learned how to emit a protective force around you by flexing your shredded physique. You can cast Mage Armor on yourself at will, without expending a spell slot or material components.
Punchcasting
2nd-level School of Muscle feature You are now able to channel magic purely through the somatic motion of throwing hands and clobbering people. Whenever you hit with an unarmed strike, you can immediately cast a wizard spell with a casting time of one action or bonus action (no action required). You can only do so once per round, unless the unarmed strike was a critical hit, in which case you can use this feature without expending its once-per-round use.
If the range of the spell is not a range of self, the range of the spell is changed to a range of touch. The target of the touch must be the same as the target of your strike, and the point of origin of the spell becomes the point of the surface that you strike. If the spell requires a ranged spell attack roll, it now uses a melee spell attack roll instead. Casting a spell this way can use one empty fist of yours as your spellcasting focus, and you can replace any verbal components of the spell with somatic components. You automatically succeed on all saving throws against spells cast in this manner by yourself.
If you had already cast a leveled spell on your turn, you can only cast cantrips with this feature. You cannot cast more than three spells in one round with this feature. Your DM may disallow you from casting certain spells with this feature if deemed inappropriate, such as Booming Blade.
Gains of Magic
6th-level School of Muscle feature You have infused arcane energy into the very fibers of your muscles. You gain the following benefits:
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50% sweat. You can make two unarmed strike attacks, instead of one attack, whenever you take the Attack action.
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50% magic. Your unarmed strikes now count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.
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100% gains. Whenever you hit with an unarmed strike, you gain temporary hit points equal to half the damage dealt with the strike alone, rounded up.
Fist of the Muscle Wizard
10th-level School of Muscle feature Your fists can now travel further than your physical body through the power of ripped, swole magic. You learn the Mage Hand cantrip. This does not count towards your number of cantrips known. If you currently already know this spell, its range increases by 30 feet when you cast it.
As a bonus action, you can now make an unarmed strike using your Mage Hand, which counts as a ranged spell attack for its attack roll and deals force damage equal to 1d4 + your spellcasting ability modifier. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your spellcasting ability modifier. You gain back all expended uses after a long rest, or you can expend a spell slot of 1st level or higher to gain back a number of expended uses equal to the spell slot's level.
Unarmed strikes made in this manner can utilize your Punchcasting feature without expending its once-per-round use. In such cases, all spell attack rolls are treated as ranged spell attack rolls. Your Mage Hand can deliver such spells as if it was your own hand, but it cannot cast spells with a range of self.
Arcane Knockout
14th-level School of Muscle feature
Decking people really hard now lets you wizard harder. Whenever you roll a critical hit on an unarmed strike, if you immediately cast a spell with your Punchcasting feature, you can choose to empower it. If the spell uses attack rolls, its first attack roll is automatically considered a critical hit as well. Otherwise, the target of the spell (or target of the strike, if the spell affects multiple targets) must subtract 10 from the first saving throw it has to make, and all damage die rolled against that creature are doubled if not yet already doubled.
Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish a short or long rest.