Wizard Homebrew Content

Arcane Traditions

At 2nd level, wizards may choose from a number of arcane traditions to specialize in. Here are some new options for that feature: the Lore Keeper

Lore Keeper

The Lore Keepers are the secret society of wizards and other mages that are followers of Epicuritus, the Revealer. This outer god bestows upon certain mages an increased magical insight, and a duty. A Lore Keeper is one who seeks to collect, protect, and disseminate knowledge to lead society to enlightenment. To this end, a Lore Keeper's mental acuity is heightened, granting you further abilities.

Lore Mastery

Starting at 2nd level, the touch of the Revealer has expanded your mind and gifted you with fragments of the knowledge stored in the Alabaster Archive, making you a walking compendium.

You gain proficiency in the Arcana skill, as well as your choice of History, Nature or Religion. If you are already proficient in one or both of those scores, you double your proficiency bonus for checks you make with those skills instead.

Additionally, whenever you prepare spells, you may prepare an additional 2 spells.

Arcane Experimentation

Starting at 6th level, you begin experimenting with the magical essence that forms when you cast a spell. Whnever you prepare spells, you may alter a number of them equal to your Intelligence Modifier (Minimum 1).

The altered spells are treated as if they were entirely new spells once prepared; for example, preparing a version of fireball that deals cold damage only allows you to cast that "snowball" spell, and not the normal version as well, unless both are prepared. Certain alterations may require a higher level spell slot to cast that spell, dependng on the alteration. You learn the following possible alterations:

Elemental Spell - A spell that deals acid, cold, fire, lightning, or poison damage can be altered to deal damage of any other of those listed types.

Extended Spell (+1 spell level required) - A spell with a duration of 1 minute or longer can be altered to have a duration twice its ordinary length.

Magical Prodigy

At 10th level, you learn further alterations that you can make to your spells.

Distant Spell (+1 spell level required) - A spell with a range of 5 feet or greater can be altered to have a range of twice its ordinary range.

Heightened Spell (+2 spell level required) - A spell that requires a saving throw can be altered to force the creature making that saving throw to do so with disadvantage.













Mystic Truths

At 14th level, the Revealer has bestowed his blessing upon you and imparted you with a gift of secret knowledge of the arcane. Choose three spells from any class. A spell you choose must be one for which you have spell slots for. Those spells magically appear in your spellbook.

The chosen spells count as wizard spells for you and can be cast using wizard spell slots and components as normal. You can copy them to replacement spellbooks as normal, but other wizards cannot copy them from your spellbook. If your spellbook becomes lost, you may find those spells in scrolls or by other means and copy them down again.





Managing Altered Spells Altered Spells that must be cast using a higher level spell slot are not considered cast at a higher spell slot for the purpose of additional effects to the spell. For example, a Distant Fireball spell that has been prepared must be cast using a 4th level spell slot, and deals 8d6 fire damage. Casting it using a fifth level spell slot will instead deal 9d6 fire damage, etc.

Multiple alterations can be made to a single spell at once, as long as it can still be cast. For example, a Heightened Distant Blight is a 7th level spell, has a range of 60 feet, and forces the target to make a Constitution saving throw with disadvantage to take 8d8 necrotic damage, or half on a save.

A great part of the fun in being an inventor of spells is being unique. Perhaps a variant spell that you prepared once and found useful might be named after you eventually, similar to how Melf's Acid Arrow, or Mordenkainen's Magnificent Mansion are after them.

Design Notes:

I decided that the best bet to creating a Lore Master Wizard was to take the original inspiration for the archetype, a wizard who understood magic on a meta level and was a researcher not just a practitioner, and build it from the ground up, using other sources of inspiration.

The lore behind the subclass is relevant to my own setting, but the archetype itself could easily excise those references and be setting-neutral.

I decided that keeping preperation as important as possible would be the key to making this archetype still feel wizardly and avoid stepping on the toes of the sorcerer.

I still believe that I might have to tone down some of the abilities to bring it in line with other archetypes. All four abilities are still powerful, as oppossed to some of them being ribbons in actual archetypes.