Magic and Spells
Magic is the invisible thread woven through all existence — present in every stone, every stream, every living breath. Most people move through the world unaware of it, but spellcasters have learned to reach out and touch those threads, to shape them into something purposeful. A spell is what happens when that shaping succeeds: a single, deliberate expression of magical will, drawn from the raw potential that saturates the multiverse and released in a heartbeat.
Spells can serve as tools, shields, or instruments of change. They can mend the broken, illuminate the hidden, and bend the world to the caster's intent. Countless spells have been devised over the ages, many of them now lost to time — buried in crumbling tomes, locked inside the minds of forgotten gods, or waiting to be rediscovered by someone with the patience and wisdom to find them.
What Is a Spell?
Every spell has a level, a number from 0 to 9 that reflects how much raw magical energy it demands. A level 0 spell — called a cantrip — is a small working, something a practiced caster can perform almost without thinking. A level 9 spell reshapes the world. The level of a spell is not the same as the level of the caster; you typically need to be far more experienced than the spell's level suggests in order to reach the highest tiers of magic.
Before you can cast a spell, you must either have it fixed firmly in your mind or have access to it through a magic item. Some spellcasters — bards, sorcerers, warlocks — carry a limited repertoire of spells they always know. Others, like clerics and wizards, prepare their spells each day, choosing from a broader pool which workings they will hold ready. Each class description explains how this preparation works.
Cantrips. A cantrip is a spell so well-practiced that it no longer requires a slot to cast. Repetition has fixed its pattern in the caster's mind, and the magic flows freely whenever it is needed. Cantrips are level 0.
Rituals. Certain spells can be performed as rituals — extended, careful workings that take 10 minutes longer than normal but place no strain on the caster's reserves. A ritual does not expend a spell slot, and for that reason it cannot be cast at a higher level than usual. Not all spellcasters can perform rituals; the ability must come from a class feature.
Casting in Armor. Spellcasting demands precise focus and unencumbered motion. If you are not proficient with the armor you are wearing, the physical and mental weight of it disrupts your concentration before you can complete the working.
Casting a Spell
When you cast a spell, the same fundamental process unfolds regardless of its source or effect. You reach for the threads, shape them into the pattern the spell demands, and release them. What varies is how long that process takes, how far the effect can reach, what you must provide to make it work, and how long the result persists.
Most spells require a single action to cast. A few are swifter or slower.
Bonus Action. A spell cast with a bonus action is especially quick — a half-formed working that snaps into place between heartbeats. If you cast a bonus action spell, you can still cast another spell that turn, but only a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action.
Reaction. Some spells respond to events rather than intentions. They are cast in an instant, triggered by something happening around you. The spell's description tells you exactly what can trigger it.
Longer Workings. A handful of spells — rituals chief among them — require minutes or even hours of sustained effort. While you are in the middle of casting such a spell, you must spend your action each turn continuing the work, and you must maintain concentration throughout. If your concentration breaks, the working collapses and the slot is lost. You must start over.
Range
Every spell has a reach. The target of your spell — whether a creature, an object, or a point in space — must fall within that range when you cast it. Some spells reach hundreds of feet; others require you to be touching the target. Spells that affect only yourself have a range of self.
Once a spell is cast, its effects are generally not limited by the original range unless the spell description says otherwise.
Components
Spells are not cast through will alone. Most require some physical expression: spoken words, a precise gesture, or a material focus. A spell's description lists which components it demands. If you cannot provide them, you cannot cast the spell.
Verbal (V). The chanting of particular sounds in a specific pitch and resonance that sets the threads of magic vibrating. A character who is silenced or gagged cannot cast a spell with a verbal component.
Somatic (S). A precise gesture or sequence of movements. You must have at least one free hand to perform somatic components.
Material (M). Physical objects that anchor the working. You can use a component pouch or a spellcasting focus in place of most material components. If a component has a listed cost, or if the spell consumes it, you must have that specific item. You need a free hand to access material components, though it can be the same hand you use for somatic gestures.
Duration and Concentration
A spell's duration is how long its effect persists. Many spells are instantaneous — the magic flares and is gone, but the change it wrought remains. Others linger for rounds, minutes, hours, or until deliberately ended.
Some spells require you to maintain concentration to sustain them. If your concentration slips, the spell ends immediately. You can only concentrate on one spell at a time, and you can drop concentration at any moment without using an action.
The following can interrupt your concentration:
- Casting another concentration spell. Beginning a new concentration spell immediately ends the previous one.
- Taking damage. When you take damage while concentrating, you must make a Constitution saving throw. The DC equals 10 or half the damage taken, whichever is higher. Multiple sources of damage in the same moment each require their own save.
- Being incapacitated or slain. Concentration ends automatically if you are incapacitated or die.
Normal activity — moving, attacking, even taking other spells — does not inherently break concentration.
Schools of Magic
Scholars have long studied the patterns underlying all spells and sorted them into eight broad categories, called schools of magic. The schools describe what a spell does at a fundamental level, not how it is learned or who can cast it.
Abjuration. Spells of warding and protection. Abjurers raise magical barriers, negate harmful forces, and push unwanted things away — to another place, another plane, or simply out of existence.
Conjuration. Spells that reach across distance or nothing to bring things forth. Conjuration moves creatures and objects from one place to another, calls entities to the caster's side, and sometimes creates matter whole from magical potential.
Divination. Spells that reveal what is hidden. Divination pulls secrets from the past, glimpses of the future, the location of things far away, and the truth behind illusions and deceptions.
Enchantment. Spells that touch the mind and bend the will. Enchantments can make enemies hesitate, force creatures to act against their instincts, or make a hostile face seem friendly.
Evocation. Spells that channel and shape raw magical energy into visible, forceful effects. Evocation hurls fire, calls lightning, and pours healing warmth into a wounded ally.
Illusion. Spells that deceive the senses. Illusions make the absent seem present, the present seem absent, and the real seem false — planting images, sounds, and sensations that have no physical substance.
Necromancy. Spells that manipulate the boundary between life and death. Necromancy can drain vitality, restore it, animate the lifeless, or commune with those who have passed beyond.
Transmutation. Spells that alter the fundamental nature of things. Transmutation reshapes creatures, objects, and even the environment itself — changing what something is rather than merely how it appears.
Targeting
A typical spell asks you to choose one or more targets for its effect. The spell's description tells you what kind of target is valid: a creature, an object, a point in space, or an area.
To target something, you must have an unobstructed path to it — a target behind total cover cannot be reached. If you place the origin point of an area effect somewhere you cannot see, it manifests on the near side of whatever is blocking your view.
If a spell targets a creature of your choice, you may choose yourself unless the spell requires a hostile target or specifically excludes you.
Areas of Effect. Some spells spread across an area, affecting everything within a particular shape. Every area of effect has a point of origin from which its energy erupts, and the effect expands outward from that point in straight lines. An obstruction that provides total cover blocks those lines — if a line cannot be drawn from the origin to a location without passing through such an obstruction, that location is not affected.
The five shapes used for areas of effect are:
- Cone. Expands outward from the origin in a widening arc, with a width at any point equal to the distance from the origin. The origin point itself is not included.
- Cube. Defined by the length of each side, with the origin on any face. The origin itself is not included.
- Cylinder. Rises or falls from a circular origin point. The origin is included in the effect.
- Line. Extends in a straight path from the origin, covering a defined width. The origin is not included.
- Sphere. Expands outward from the origin equally in all directions, expressed as a radius. The origin is included.
Spell Rolls
Many spells demand something from their targets — a moment of resistance, a dodge, a test of will. Others require the caster to aim precisely. The spell's description specifies which applies.
Saving Throws. When a spell asks a target to make a saving throw, the DC is determined by the caster: Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your spellcasting ability modifier. A successful save typically reduces or negates the effect, as described in the spell.
Attack Rolls. Some spells require the caster to make an attack roll to determine whether the effect reaches its target. Your spell attack bonus equals your spellcasting ability modifier + your proficiency bonus. Ranged spell attacks are made at disadvantage if you are within 5 feet of a hostile creature that can see you and is not incapacitated.
Combining Effects. When multiple spells affect the same target simultaneously, their effects stack — each duration runs independently. However, if the same spell is cast multiple times on the same target, the most potent instance of that spell applies while their durations overlap; you do not gain the benefit twice.
Multiclass Spellcasting
Your capacity for spellcasting depends partly on your combined levels in all your spellcasting classes and partly on your individual levels in those classes. Once you have the Spellcasting feature from more than one class, use the rules below. If you multiclass but have the Spellcasting feature from only one class, you follow the rules as described in that class.
Spells Known and Prepared
You determine what spells you know and can prepare for each class individually, as if you were a single-classed member of that class. If you are a ranger 4/wizard 3, for example, you know three 1st-level ranger spells based on your levels in the ranger class. As a 3rd-level wizard, you know three wizard cantrips, and your spellbook contains ten wizard spells, two of which (the two you gained when you reached 3rd level as a wizard) can be 2nd-level spells. If your Intelligence is 16, you can prepare six wizard spells from your spellbook.
Your spellcasting ability is determined by your primary class. It is the method that you learned to channel magic. Once your primary class changes, this signifies a change in how your character associates magic with themselves, and this could change your spellcasting ability. On the other hand, a spellcasting focus, such as a holy symbol, can be used only for the spells from the class associated with that focus.
Spell Slots
You determine your available spell slots by adding together all your levels in the bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, and wizard classes, and half your levels (rounded down) in the artificer, paladin, and ranger classes.
If you have more than one spellcasting class, this table might give you spell slots of a level that is higher than the spells you know or can prepare. You can use those slots, but only to cast your lower-level spells. If a lower-level spell that you cast has an enhanced effect when cast using a higher-level slot, you can use the enhanced effect, even though you don't have any spells of that higher level.
If you have both the Spellcasting class feature and the Pact Magic class feature from the warlock class, you can use the spell slots you gain from the Pact Magic feature to cast spells you know or have prepared from classes with the Spellcasting class feature, and you can use the spell slots you gain from the Spellcasting class feature to cast warlock spells you know.
| Level | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | 7th | 8th | 9th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 2 | ||||||||
| 2nd | 3 | ||||||||
| 3rd | 4 | 2 | |||||||
| 4th | 4 | 3 | |||||||
| 5th | 4 | 3 | 2 | ||||||
| 6th | 4 | 3 | 3 | ||||||
| 7th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | |||||
| 8th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 2 | |||||
| 9th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | ||||
| 10th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | ||||
| 11th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | |||
| 12th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | |||
| 13th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 14th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 15th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 16th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 17th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 18th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 19th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 20th | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 |