Wizard Spell Spheres¶
Rules system: D&D 3.5 homebrew (the 2014 archive, July 2013). Legacy design material, not canon for play.
Lore page: Arcane Magic.
The earliest spellcasting system in the archive, from the document Terrun_MagicUser: wizards buy access to five spheres of magic and their fields with spell feats, sorcerers specialize narrowly, and each sphere draws on particular planes. Most of the document is spell lists by sphere, field and level, which are D&D 3.5 spells with sourcebook citations; these are summarized, and the sphere and field definitions, feats and new spells are given. The 2014 Spellcasting rules replaced the spheres with focuses and colleges.
Wizard spell feats¶
A wizard chooses 4 spell feats at first level and 1 more each level after. Indented feats require the one above.
| Feat | Requires | Grants |
|---|---|---|
| Sphere Proficiency (up to five times per sphere) | the potential to learn and cast 2 spell levels' worth of spells in the sphere; no spells per day | |
| Sphere Specialization (up to twice, for two spheres) | Sphere Proficiency (up to 4th level) | choose a sphere and an opposition sphere no longer available; 1 bonus spell per castable spell level from a specialized sphere, applied only once however many spheres are specialized |
| Sphere Specialization, Improved | specialized in the sphere | 0-level spells in the sphere free to cast; 1st-level spells from 0-level slots |
| Sphere Mastery | Improved Sphere Specialization | +1 DC (resist checks) and + spell level damage |
| Field Specialization (up to twice) | specialized in the field's parent sphere | choose an opposition sphere (as written) no longer available; cast 1 field spell at 1 level above the current maximum |
| Field Specialization, Improved | specialized in the field | 1st-level field spells free to cast; 2nd-level from 1st-level slots |
| Field Mastery | Improved Field Specialization | +1 DC and + spell level damage, stacking with the sphere bonuses |
| Spell Specialization | Sphere Specialization | master up to 12 spell levels of spells in a specialized sphere (specialized-field spells count at half level, rounded up); a specialized spell is cast without memorization in place of any slot of its level |
| Spell Mastery | Spell Specialization | up to 12 spell levels of the specialized spells (same counting); +1 DC and damage, stacking; a slot used for a mastered spell is regained by rest or study for 2 min + 2 min per spell level |
Sorcerer specialization¶
The document spells it Sorceror.
- Sorceror Specialization (optional at 4th): limit spells to a single sphere; know spells as if 2 levels higher.
- Sorceror Specialization, Improved (optional at 8th, with Specialization): limit spells to a single field within the sphere; +1 DC and + spell level damage; cast 1 spell per day at 1 level above the current maximum, if one is known.
Spheres and fields¶
| Spirit | Living | Arcane | Conjuration | Elemental |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Psychic Magic | Flesh Magic | Kinetics | Summoning* | Fire |
| Shadow Magic* | Leaf Magic | Energy | Void Magic | Air |
| Sensory Magic | Life Magic | Matter | Contract Magic* | Water |
| Death Magic* | Blood Magic* | Anti Magic | Abjuration | Earth |
| Divination | Necromancy* | Transformation | Abyssal Magic | Fey Magic |
* "denotes a field of magic often associated to evil or rogue wizards".
The sphere descriptions name the Arcane fields differently from this table (Enchantment, Evocation, Kinetics, Null Magic, Transformation), and those are the field names the Arcane spell lists use.
| Sphere | Focus and planes | Fields |
|---|---|---|
| Arcane | "manipulating the material plane" | Enchantment: manipulate Mithis concentrations in items and beings. Evocation: evoking and channeling energy. Kinetics: creating forces, sounds, moving objects. *Null Magic**: anti-magic, destruction of magical spells and items. Transformation: rearranging matter. |
| Conjuration | interactions with the Inner Planes ("Abyss, Void and ?"), manipulating the Mithis Plane to tunnel from any plane adjacent to it to the Inner Planes | Abjuration: manipulate the Mithis plane to protect from extra-planar forces. Void Magic: merge the fabric of the Void with the current plane for slowed time and extra-dimensional pockets. Abyssal Magic: merge the fabric of the Abyss with the current plane for "Abyssal rain, Hellfire, etc." *Contract Magic**: contract with planar beings to cast for the caster in exchange for things of the material plane, "more powerful services often require things like ritual sacrifices, though some lesser services can be more benign, such as a handful of strawberries". Summoning*: open gateways through the Mithis plane to the Inner Planes. |
| Elemental | the elemental planes; works only on planes adjacent to them | Fire, Air, Earth, Water; also Frost/Storms, Acid/Toxins, Magma and Lightning/Smoke, less often taken for their overlap with the four; Fey Magic: the energies of the Fey plane. |
| Living | lifeforce, light and dark, and animal and plant organisms, through the Positive and Negative Energy Planes, "the sources of life" | Flesh: mutate, enhance or weaken beings of flesh and bone. Leaf: the same for beings of leaf, root and stem. Necromancy: the dark energies of the negative plane, "controlling dark emotions, and imbuing death and corruption". Blood: the lifeforce carried by blood, siphoned from one place to another. Life: the positive plane, "controlling positive emotions, and imbuing life and purity". |
| Spirit | the spirit/soul connection and the energies of the ethereal and shadow planes | Psychic: compulsions and manipulations of the mind. Shadow: the shadow realm. Sensory: the senses' inputs to the mind. Death: the spirit/body connection. Divination: the ethereal plane used to find information. |
Other archive documents name and divide the spheres differently; how the spheres relate to the later colleges is described on Casting Focuses of the Earlier Ages.
New spells in the lists¶
Seven spells in the lists are marked new:
| Spell | Sphere and level | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Magnify Shadows | Spirit 0 | "doubles the strength of shadows, making the light in the area struggle to overcome them"; +2 on Bluff, Diplomacy or Intimidate |
| Counterspell | Arcane 1 | disrupts a target caster's spellcasting |
| Acid Rain | Conjuration 1 | "summons acidic rain from the abyssal planes", 1d4 + Int damage to everyone in the area |
| Protection from Outsiders | Conjuration 1 | +2 AC and saves against extra-planar beings, counters mind control, hedges out elementals and outsiders |
| Find Familiar | Elemental 1 | find a familiar in the Fey |
| Capture Soul | Spirit 1 | captures the soul of a recently deceased being |
| Shadowbolt | Spirit 1 | "a bolt of shadow/thought energy that increases the chance of disrupting the target's actions and causes some mental pain", 1d6 + Int damage |
Third-party spell lists omitted
The level 0-6 lists for the five spheres, sorted into field tables with a further "Unassigned" list, are D&D 3.5 spells with one-line summaries and sourcebook page citations. They carry some 550 citations (about 75-90 per level from 1st to 6th, 7 at 0-level, 28 unassigned): the Player's Handbook (about 265), Complete Arcane (69), Magic of Faerûn (61), Player's Guide to Faerûn (29), Book of Exalted Deeds (21), Underdark (19), the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (14), Unapproachable East (11), Complete Divine (9), Races of Faerûn (7), Eberron (6), Lords of Darkness (4), Complete Warrior and the Planar Handbook (1 each), and Dragon magazine issues 312-326 (37). They are not reproduced. The 7th- to 9th-level tables are empty.
New Spells: Death Magic¶
The document closes with a list of Death Magic spells, "Spirit/Death" in sphere and field. "A hallmark of death magic is the dark energy it commands. Black, insubstaintial smokey trails and creatures are the products of death magic." The November 2014 Death Magic list reworks most of these; the 2013 versions differ as follows.
| Spell | Order | 2013 version |
|---|---|---|
| Detect Soul | 0 | discern which creatures within sight and 60 ft have a soul, and roughly how powerful (hit dice) |
| Capture Soul | 1st | hold up to Int × level hit dice of souls; the most powerful escapes if too many are taken; the soul saves vs Will. With no soul vessel, the spell itself carries the rule later given to Dark Sacrament: a soul 4 levels above yours lets you cast a spellbook spell 1 level higher, 8 levels above, 2 higher, consumed in the casting |
| Gentle Repose | 1st, ritual | "Assist a soul in its transition to the afterlife, leaving no trace of spiritual energy behind to be used in reanimation." |
| Soul Knife | 1st, consumes soul | as in 2014 |
| Soul's Echo | 2nd, consumes soul | as in 2014 |
| Dark Fire | 2nd, consumes soul | blast 4, 1d4 per hit die released, save vs Fort for half, up to level hit dice, maximum 12d4 |
| Death's Shadow | 2nd | save vs Will or damage during the next turn carries an additional 1d6 + Int necrotic |
| Drain Life | 3rd, channeled | as in 2014, but the dark bolt must be used within 3 rounds and has no cap |
| Soul's Energy | 3rd, consumes soul | as in 2014 |
| Soul's Power | 3rd, consumes soul | for hit dice rounds, damaging spells deal +Int damage and saves against them are at −1 |
| Create Shadow | 4th, ritual, consumes soul | as in 2014 (10 hit dice), but the shadow "cannot be commanded" rather than "cannot communicate" |
| Deathfiend | 4th | as in 2014 |
| Soul's Vitality | 4th, consumes soul | as in 2014, without the cap at actual hit points |
| Create Soul Vessel | 5th, ritual | prepare a vessel whose capacity depends on its Mithis content: "each 200g of Mithis will hold one soul". Withdraw or deposit up to 2 × level souls as a standard action; another caster's vessel can be used only after casting this ritual on it. |
| Extinguish Life | 5th | as in 2014 |
| Death Shroud | 5th, consumes soul | as in 2014 |
| Create Wraith | 6th, ritual, consumes soul | as in 2014 (16 hit dice) |
| Anchor Spirit | 6th, ritual, consumes soul | as in 2014 |
| Soul's Mantle | 6th, consumes soul | as in 2014 |
| Deathfiend, Mass | 7th | as in 2014 |
| Angel of Death | 8th | "??" |
| Extinguish All Life | 9th | as in 2014 |
The 2014 list replaces the Mithis soul vessel with the cantrip Prepare Soul Vessel, which turns any non-living item into a container, and moves Gentle Repose and Detect Soul to the Ethereal College.