5e D&D The Excellent Magician

Post date: Mar 6, 2015 6:02:48 PM

The Excellent Magician is an Old School take on Wizards as envisioned in The Dying Earth by Jack Vance. The Excellent Magician has few spells, but those he has are of great power, and must be rationed out when most needed.

Other than as follows The Excellent Magician follows the rules of the Wizard class.

The Excellent Magician doesn't have the Arcane Recovery, Arcane Tradition, Spell Mastery, and Signature Spell class features of Wizards.

The Excellent Magician can't use spells as rituals, cantrips must be memorized, and are not cast at will. Spells are not prepared, instead they are memorized, and lost upon casting. Each spell can only be memorized once. The Excellent Magician has a number of 9th level spell slots equal to his level instead of the normal number and level a Wizard does.

The Excellent Magician may create scrolls with spells costing 100 gp per spell level, or 50 per cantrip, times the level of slot used in the scroll. Creating a scroll takes 1 day per spell level times the level of slot used.

When learning spells at the beginning or upon gaining a level, The Excellent Magician knows as many spells as a Wizard, but must check each spell he wishes to learn with a DC10+spell level Int check. If he fails that roll he must wait until a new level or he comes upon a scroll to try again.

Optionally, The Excellent Magician must roll a d20 when casting a spell of the highest level he knows and when rolling a 1, then roll on the Sorcerer's Wild Surge Table.

Optionally, The Excellent Magician may learn spells of other classes than wizard upon gaining a level. These spells may not be learned by Wizards or other Excellent Magicians. Spells on other class lists don't count as being on his list for spell casting from magic items unless known by the Excellent Magician.

To the DM: Due to the limited number of spells he may cast and those being of higher spell slots, it's suggested that spells that don't have specific increases from higher level spell slots be given them, such as Mirror Image being given extra images and/or increased time.

Note: This class has not been play tested as of this writing and may be of far higher or lower power than a Wizard.