Magic is a tool like any other. It exists to be learned and mastered by those with the dedication, patience, and aptitude to do so. Many wizards embrace the diversity of magic and hone their skills in a favored school or technique.

But to the mage, a student of the School of Arcana, all magic is fair game. After all, why play favorites? No one school is better than another, but combined the possibilities are limitless.

Come learn the basics below, with the School of Arcana wizard!

Wizard-SchoolArcana-v3

Or click here for the PDF!

 

Generalists are a dying breed. Most wizards prefer to specialize these days, choosing one school and just skimming all the rest for the best spells they can find. Gone are the days of the court advisor, master of a dozen magicks, or the all-knowing archmage, author of a hundred spells. Sure, that level of mastery is hard to attain. But can’t you say the same about nearly anything worth doing?

 

Features:

• Spell Expertise. Use your mastery of general arcane theory to expand the contents of your spellbook even more!
• Arcane Mastery. Take a little bit of everything – no matter what spells you use, there are maneuvers incantations from the other schools that will surely be of use.
• Mnemonic Casting. You know, back in my day all spells vanished after you cast them. The formulae just sorta slip your mind y’know? And then they removed opposition schools and – wait, where are you going?
• Improved Arcane Mastery. Because nothing shows your grasp of a topic like declaring yourself a master and then learning more later anyway!
• Mind of an Archmage. Allows you to change out some of your prepared spells during a short rest, for when you might’ve slightly misjudged what plane you’d be on today.
• Incantations. These abilities, exactly much like a battlemaster’s maneuvers, allow you to put your intelligence to the test and use your spells in a more tactical fashion. After all, it isn’t what you know – it’s how you use it!

 

Design Notes:

• This might be the first version of this idea where I’m actually happy with the late game aspect. Previous attempts at this have all lacked a certain something when it comes to capstones. This version doesn’t.
• However, this version also feels too simple in some ways. I worry that simply porting over the battlemaster’s maneuver system might not be enough to distinguish the two subclasses. But then again, one casts spells and the other doesn’t – isn’t that enough?
• At the end of the day, this subclass is about options, flexibility, and clever thinking. Specialists may get a little extra power, but the generalist excels in having a tool for every occasion and the skill necessary to make use of them. And I’m happy with that, ultimately.
• Now, the various Incantations might need tuning, but that’s an easy fix compared with conceptual/progression issues. I’ll take that trade any day, all day.

Thanks for reading!