Wizard/Unearthed Arcana


 * To view the official mechanics and statistics of this class, see Wizard.

The material in this article is presented for playtesting and to spark your imagination. These game mechanics are in draft form, usable in your campaign but not refined by full game design and editing. They aren't officially part of the game and aren't permitted in D&D Adventurers League events. Ask your Dungeon Master before using any material on this page.

If Wizards of the Coast decides to make this material official, it will be refined based on your feedback, and then it will appear in a D&D book.

= Eberron = (Unearthed Arcana: Eberron)

Artificer
Artificers are a key part of the world of Eberron. They illustrate the evolution of magic from a wild, unpredictable force to one that is becoming available to the masses. Magic items are part of everyday life in the Five Nations of Khorvaire; with an artificer in your party, they become part of every adventuring expedition.

The artificer was a separate class in prior editions of the Eberron setting, a melee combatant who specialized in mystically enhanced arms and armor. The fifth edition rules treat the artificer as a new wizard tradition that focuses on mystical invention, which you can choose starting at 2nd level.

Infuse Potions
Starting at 2nd level, you can produce magic potions. You spend 10 minutes focusing your magic on a vial of mundane water and expend a spell slot to transform it into a potion. Once you have expended a spell slot to create a potion, you cannot regain that slot until the potion is consumed or after 1 week, at which time the potion loses its effectiveness. You can create up to three potions at a time; creating a fourth potion causes the oldest currently active one to immediately lose its potency. If that potion has been consumed, its effects immediately end.

The spell slot you expend determines the type of potion you can create.

Infuse Scrolls
At 2nd level, you can also tap into your reserves of magical energy to create spell scrolls. You can use your Arcane Recovery ability to create a scroll instead of regaining expended spell slots.

You must finish a short rest, then spend 10 minutes with parchment, quill, and ink to create a spell scroll containing one spell chosen from those you know. Subtract the spell's level from the total levels worth of slots you regain using Arcane Recovery. This reduction to your Arcane Recovery applies until you use the scroll and then finish a long rest.

Infuse Weapons and Armor
Beginning at 6th level, you can produce magic weapons and armor. You spend 10 minutes focusing your magic on a mundane weapon, suit of armor, shield, or bundle of twenty pieces of ammunition, and expend a spell slot to infuse it with magical energy. The magic item retains its enhancement for 8 hours or until used (in the case of magic ammunition). You can infuse only one item at a time; if you infuse a second one, the first immediately loses its potency. Once you have expended a spell slot to create such an item, you cannot regain that slot until the item becomes nonmagical.

The spell slot you expend determines the type of weapon, armor, or shield you can create.

Superior Artificer
Starting at 10th level, you can create a second magic weapon, suit of armor, shield, or bundle of ammunition using your Infuse Weapons and Armor ability. Attempting to infuse a third item causes the oldest one to immediately lose its potency.

You can also create one additional potion or scroll using Infuse Potions or Infuse Scrolls.

Master Artificer
On reaching 14th level, your mastery of arcane magic allows you to produce a variety of magic items. You can create a single item chosen from Magic Item Tables A and B. It takes you 1 week to produce such an item, and you must rest for 1 month before using this ability to craft another item.

= Warlock and Wizard = (Unearthed Arcana: Warlock and Wizard)

Lore Mastery
Lore Mastery is an arcane tradition fixated on understanding the underlying mechanics of magic. It is the most academic of all arcane traditions. The promise of uncovering new knowledge or proving (or discrediting) a theory of magic is usually required to rouse its practitioners from their laboratories, academies, and archives to pursue a life of adventure.

Known as savants, followers of this tradition are a bookish lot who see beauty and mystery in the application of magic. The results of a spell are less interesting to them than the process that creates it. Some savants take a haughty attitude toward those who follow a tradition focused on a single school of magic, seeing them as provincial and lacking the sophistication needed to master true magic.Other savants are generous teachers, countering ignorance and deception with deep knowledge and good humor.

Lore Master
Starting at 2nd level, you become a compendium of knowledge on a vast array of topics.Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses the Arcana, History, Nature, or Religion skill if you are proficient in that skill.

In addition, your analytical abilities are so well-honed that your initiative in combat can be driven by mental agility, rather than physical agility. When you roll initiative, it is either an Intelligence check or a Dexterity check for you (your choice).

Spell Secrets
At 2nd level, you master the first in a series of arcane secrets uncovered by your extensive studies.

When you cast a spell with a spell slot and the spell deals acid, cold, fire, force, lightning, necrotic, radiant, or thunder damage, you can substitute that damage type with one other type from that list(you can change only one damage type per casting of a spell). You replace one energy type for another by altering the spell's formula as you cast it.

When you cast a spell with a spell slot and the spell requires a saving throw, you can change the saving throw from one ability score to another of your choice. Once you change a saving throw in this way, you can't do so again until you finish a short or long rest.

Altering Spells. While the Spell Secrets feature offers increased versatility, at the table its effects can be difficult to spot by the other players. If you're playing a savant, take a moment to describe how you alter your spells. Think of a signature change your character is particularly proud of. Be inventive, and make the game more fun for everyone by playing up the sudden, unexpected tricks you character can employ. For example, a Fireball transformed to require a Strength save might become a sphere of burning rock that shatters and slams into its target. A Charm Person that requires a Constitution save might take the form of a vaporous narcotic that alters the target's mood.

Alchemical Casting
At 6th level, you learn to augment spells in a variety of ways. When you cast a spell with a spell slot, you can expend one additional spell slot to augment its effects for this casting, mixing the raw stuff of magic into your spell to amplify it. The effect depends on the spell slot you expend.

An additional 1st-level spell slot can increase the spell's raw force. If you roll damage for the spell when you cast it, increase the damage against every target by 2d10 force damage. If the spell can deal damage on more than one turn, it deals this extra force damage only on the turn you cast the spell.

An additional 2nd-level spell slot can increase the spell's range. If the spell's range is at least 30 feet, it becomes 1 mile.

An additional 3rd-level spell slot can increase the spell's potency. Increase the spell's save DC by 2.

Prodigious Memory
At 10th level, you have attained a greater mastery of spell preparation. As a bonus action, you can replace one spell you have prepared with another spell from your spellbook. You can't use this feature again until you finish a short or long rest.

Master of Magic
At 14th level, your knowledge of magic allows you to duplicate almost any spell. As a bonus action, you can call to mind the ability to cast one spell of your choice from any class's spell list. The spell must be of a level for which you have spell slots, you mustn't have it prepared, and you follow the normal rules for casting it, including expending a spell slot. If the spell isn't a wizard spell, it counts as a wizard spell when you cast it. The ability to cast the spell vanishes from your mind when you cast it or when the current turn ends.

You can't use this feature again until you finish a long rest.

= Cleric, Druid, and Wizard = (Unearthed Arcana: Cleric, Druid, and Wizard)

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
2nd-level Onomancy feature

You learn one language of your choice and gain proficiency with calligrapher's tools.

Extract Name
2nd-level Onomancy feature

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 creature 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
2nd-level Onomancy feature

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 (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Resonant Utterance
6th-level Onomancy feature

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.

Resonant Options. 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 spell.

Inexorable Pronouncement
10th-level Onomancy feature

You learn two new Resonants of your choice from your Resonant Utterance feature.

Relentless Naming
14th-level Onomancy feature

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.

= Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard = (Unearthed Arcana: Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard)

Psionics
Wizards study magical power in all its forms, including the magic of psionics. Those wizards who follow the tradition of Psionics hone the magical potential of their own minds. Sometimes called psionicists or mentalists, these wizards interact with the multiverse through the lens of their psionic aptitude and awareness.

Psionicists channel their magic by focusing their minds. By doing so they can transcend their physical bodies, adopting forms of pure thought, casting spells psionically to bypass the need for components, and perceiving the world with a broader range of senses.

As a member of the Psionics tradition, you might have awoken your psionic potential through the strain of your esoteric studies, or perhaps you joined a scholarly order dedicated to unlocking the magic of the mind.

Your Psionic Focus. Every member of the Psionics tradition has a story about how their psionic focus came into their life. Consider how you found yours and what form it takes.

The event that brought your psionic focus to you probably holds personal significance. Did your master give it to you upon the completion of your apprenticeship? Was it awarded to you when you graduated from your academy of wizardry? Did it call to you in a jeweler's shop? Was it associated with the moment when your psionic powers first manifested? One morning, did you wake up with it humming under your pillow?

The form your psionic focus takes is also yours to define, likely being a reflection of how your magic came into being, a symbol of your own psyche, or an item you use to focus your thoughts. It is a handheld object that has special meaning to you, but that can't be a weapon or magic item. Perhaps it's a childhood memento, the skull of an alien creature, a crystal that makes you feel a certain way, a coin that only lands on its edge, a fire-scarred planchette, or any other enigmatic personal relic.

However the object arrived and whatever form it takes, your psionic focus is now yours, and you decide how to handle it. Will you mount it on a wand or staff? Would you prefer to wear it on a necklace or circlet? Have you embedded it into the cover of your spellbook? Wherever you put it, you can now channel your magic through it, and it is a sign of your membership in the revered tradition of psionic wizardry.

Psionic Focus
2nd-level Psionics feature

You have learned to channel psionic energy through a special object: a psionic focus. You gain the object with this feature.

While your psionic focus is on your person, you gain the following benefits:
 * The object is a spellcasting focus for you.
 * When you roll psychic or force damage for any of your wizard spells, you can reroll any of those damage dice that rolls a 1, but you must use the new roll.

If your psionic focus is lost, you can magically recreate it by meditating for 1 hour during a short or long rest, at the end of which the focus appears in your hand.

Psionic Devotion
2nd-level Psionics feature

Your study of psionics begins to unleash your mind's potential. When you gain this feature, choose one of the following cantrips: Friends, Mage Hand, or Message. You learn that cantrip if you don't already know it, and it doesn't count against the number of wizard cantrips you know.

While your psionic focus is on your person, you can cast the chosen cantrip as a bonus action, requiring no components, and with the modification listed below:
 * Friends. When the spell ends, the target doesn't become hostile to you.
 * Mage Hand. You can make the hand invisible when you cast the spell, and controlling the spell is a bonus action for you.
 * Message. You don't need to point toward the target or whisper your message out loud.

Thought Form
6th-level Psionics feature

While you are carrying your psionic focus, you can use a bonus action to magically transform your body into pure psionic energy. The transformation lasts for 10 minutes, until you use a bonus action to assume your normal form, or until you are incapacitated or die.

While in thought form, you are a figure of luminous psychic energy, with your psionic focus hovering within. Your form can appear as anything you wish, but it is obviously magical, is the same size as you, and sheds dim light in a 5-foot-radius. Any other equipment you are wearing or carrying transforms with you and melds into your thought form. You also gain the following benefits:
 * Psionic Spellcasting. When you cast a spell while in thought form, you can cast the spell psionically. If you do so, the spell doesn't require verbal, somatic, or material components that lack a gold cost.
 * Psychic Resilience. You gain resistance to psychic damage and to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks.

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

Mental Discipline
10th-level Psionics feature

Your mind's power expands to greater heights. When you gain this feature, choose one of the following spells: Dominate Person, Scrying, or Telekinesis. You can add the spell to your spellbook, and you can cast it without components.

You can also cast the chosen spell once without expending a spell slot. After you do so, you regain the ability to cast the spell without a slot when you finish a long rest.

Empowered Psionics
10th-level Psionics feature

When you deal psychic or force damage with a wizard spell, you can add your Intelligence modifier to the damage against one of the spell's targets.

Thought Travel
14th-level Psionics feature

While using your Thought Form, you have a flying speed equal to your walking speed and can hover, and you can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain.

= Three Subclasses = (Unearthed Arcana: Three Subclasses)

School of Invention
The School of Invention claims credit for inventing the other schools of magic—a claim other wizards find absurd. Wizards of this school push magic to its limits. They stretch the known laws of arcane power and strive to reveal important truths about the nature of the multiverse.

Adherents of this school believe that innovation is best served through experimentation. They have a reputation for acting first, thinking second. Most wizards are scholars who have mastered their craft through careful study, rigorous practice, and endless hours of repetition. These wizards would rather throw spells together and see what happens.

Many wizards of this tradition are gnomes, alchemists, or both, and they take pride in the magic-infused armor they don. The armor not only provides protection, but it is also designed to help the wizard channel magic in unpredictable ways.

Wizards of this tradition are regarded as savants to their faces, but wizards of other traditions often think of them as lunatics.

Tools of the Inventor
At 2nd level, you gain proficiency with two tools of your choice.

Arcanomechanical Armor
Innovation is a dangerous practice, at least as far as members of this school practice it. As a shield against this risk, you have developed a suit of arcane armor.

Starting at 2nd level, you gain proficiency with light armor and gain a suit of arcanomechanical armor — a magic item that only you can attune to. While you are attuned to it and wearing it, it grants you resistance to force damage.

The armor is light armor and provides an AC of 12 + your Dexterity modifier. It weighs 8 pounds.

You can create a new suit of it at the end of a long rest by touching a nonmagical suit of studded leather armor, which magically transforms it. Doing so removes the magic from your previous arcanomechanical armor, turning it in to nonmagical studded leather.

Reckless Casting
Starting at 2nd level, you can attempt to cast a spell you don't have prepared. When you use this ability, you use your action and choose one of the following options:
 * Roll on the Reckless Casting table for cantrips and cast the resulting spell as part of this action.
 * Expend a spell slot and roll twice on the Reckless Casting table for its level, or the 5th-level table if the slot is 6th level or higher. Pick which of the two results you want to use and cast the resulting spell as part of this action. If the spell you cast isn't a wizard spell, it is nonetheless a wizard spell for you when you cast it with this feature.

Alchemical Casting
At 6th level, you learn to channel magic through your arcanomechanical armor to augment spells in a variety of ways. When you cast a spell while wearing that armor and attuned to it, you can expend one additional spell slot of 1st or 2nd level to alter the spell. The effect depends on the spell slot you expend.

A 1st-level slot allows you to manipulate the spell's energy. When you cast a spell that deals acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage, you can substitute that damage type for another one from that list.

A 2nd-level slot increases the spell's raw force. If you roll damage for the spell when you cast it, increase that damage by 2d10 force damage against one of the spell's targets (your choice) this turn.

Prodigious Inspiration
At 10th level, you have attained a greater mastery of spell preparation. As a bonus action, you can replace one spell you have prepared with another spell from your spellbook. You can't use this ability again until you finish a short or long rest.

Controlled Chaos
At 14th level, your ability to improvise magic grows stronger. Whenever you roll on a Reckless Casting table for a spell other than a cantrip, you can roll on the table that is one level higher than the expended spell slot.

= Modern Magic = (Unearthed Arcana: Modern Magic)

Technomancy
Unlike the more common arcane traditions based around the schools of magic, the tradition of Technomancy does not focus on a singular type of spellcraft or magical energy. Rather, students of Technomancy concern themselves with how their spells interact with modern technology.

Technomancers can make use of technology as both a conduit and a storage space for magic. In a campaign using the optional rules for magic item creation, a technomancer might craft disposable electronic devices and smartphone apps in lieu of potions and scrolls.

Bonus Proficiencies
Beginning when you select this arcane tradition at 2nd level, you gain proficiency with sidearms and hacking tools.

Technological Savant
Also at 2nd level, you trade out your spellbook for a specially attuned storage device of your choosing, capable of recording magical data. The computing power of this device must be equal to or greater than a tablet computer. Only one storage device can be attuned to you at any given time. Spells can be copied into this device at half the cost of copying spells into a spellbook.

Program Spell
At 6th level, you can insert a spell within an electronic device of your choosing, so that by touching a key or flicking a switch using an action, the spell activates. All variables of the spell are set at the time of casting. The computing power of this device must be equal to or greater than a mobile phone.

A programmed spell remains placed in its device for 48 hours, and is gone once it is discharged. You can use this feature to place a programmed spell in only one device at a time, and a device can hold only one programmed spell. Only you can activate the programmed spell in the device. If the device is destroyed, the programmed spell is lost.

A concentration spell placed in a device cannot be activated while you are concentrating on another spell. Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.

Online Casting
At 10th level, you can cast spells through networked electronic devices, including cameras, mobile phones, and computers. For example, if a creature is under the observation of a security camera and you can see the video feed from that camera on a computer, you can cast a spell into the computer and out through the security camera to target that creature.

If the spell requires the caster to be seen, the target must see you or a live image of you. If the spell requires the caster to be heard, the target must be able to hear you or a live audio transmission of you. The spell's range is determined using the distance from you to your device, and then from the target to its device. You must be able to see or otherwise determine the location of the target. This feature can be used to cast only spells that target specific creatures. Spells that affect an area are not subject to online casting.

This feature can be used a number of times per day equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of once).

Chained Device
By 14th level, you have learned to imprint vestiges of your consciousness on electronic devices with significant computing power. When you cast a concentration spell, you can use a device whose computing power is equal to or greater than a tablet computer to maintain concentration of the spell on your behalf. The device must be held or worn by you to maintain this effect. If the device is destroyed, taken from you, dropped, or turned off, the concentration ends. Once you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.

= Wizard Revisited = (Unearthed Arcana: Wizard Revisited)

Theurgy
A number of deities claim arcane magic as their domain, for magic is as much a part of the fabric of the cosmos as wind, fire, lightning, and all other primal forces. Just as there are deities of the sea and gods of warfare, the arcane arts feature their own divine patrons.

Such deities often have clerics, but many gods of magic bid their followers to take up the study of wizardry. These religious magic-users follow the arcane tradition of Theurgy, and are commonly known as theurgists. Such spellcasters are as dedicated and scholarly as any other wizard, but they blend their arcane study with religious devotion.

Divine Inspiration
When you choose this tradition at 2nd level, choose a domain from your chosen deity's list of eligible domains. The Knowledge and Light domains are especially appropriate choices for a theurgist.

Arcane Initiate
Beginning when you select this tradition at 2nd level, whenever you gain a wizard level, you can replace one of the wizard spells you add to your spellbook with a cleric domain spell for your chosen domain. The spell must be of a level for which you have spell slots.

If you add all of your domain spells to your spellbook, you can subsequently add any spell from the cleric spell list instead. The spell must still be of a level for which you have spell slots.

Any cleric spell you gain from this feature is considered a wizard spell for you, but other wizards can't copy cleric spells from your spellbook into their own spellbooks.

Channel Arcana
At 2nd level, you gain the ability to channel arcane energy directly from your deity, using that energy to fuel magical effects. You start with two such effects: Divine Arcana and the Channel Divinity option granted at 2nd level by your chosen domain. You employ that Channel Divinity option by using your Channel Arcana ability.

When you use your Channel Arcana, you choose which effect to create. You must then finish a short or long rest to use your Channel Arcana again.

Some Channel Arcana effects require saving throws. When you use such an effect, the save DC equals your wizard spell save DC.

Beginning at 6th level, you can use your Channel Arcana twice between rests, and beginning at 18th level, you can use it three times between rests. When you finish a short or long rest, you regain your expended uses.

If you gain additional Channel Divinity options from your domain, you can employ them by using your Channel Arcana feature.

Channel Arcana: Divine Arcana
As a bonus action, you speak a prayer to control the flow of magic around you. The next spell you cast gains a +2 bonus to any attack roll you make for it or to its saving throw DC, as appropriate.

Arcane Acolyte
At 6th level, you gain your chosen domain's 1st-level benefits. However, you do not gain any weapon or armor proficiencies from the domain.

Arcane Priest
At 10th level, you gain your chosen domain's 6th-level benefits. Your faith and your understanding of magic allow you to delve into your god's secrets.

Arcane High Priest
At 14th level, you gain your chosen domain's 17th-level benefits. Your academic nature and understanding of magic and doctrine allow you to master this ability sooner than a cleric of your domain.