The wizard, formerly known as the magic-user or mage, is one of the standard character classes in the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. A wizard uses arcane magic, and is considered less effective in melee combat than other classes.
Publication history
Creative origins The Magic-User class was inspired by the spell-casting magicians common in folklore and modern fantasy literature, particularly as portrayed in Jack Vance's The Dying Earth short stories, and John Bellairs's novel The Face in the Frost. Gandalf and Saruman from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Merlin of King Arthur fame also influenced this class.
Wizards memorize their spells, then forget them when cast in the fashion of magicians from Jack Vance's Dying Earth series of novels."The four cardinal types of magic are ... the relatively short spoken spell (as in Finnish mythology or as found in the superb fantasy of Jack Vance).... The basic assumption, then, was that D & D magic worked on a 'Vancian' system and if used correctly would be a highly powerful and effective force."
Dungeons & Dragons In the original version of the game, magic-user was one of the base character classes. Magic-User was one of the three original classes, the other two being Fighting Man (renamed Fighter in later editions) and Cleric.
The Magic-User was physically weak and vulnerable but compensated for this with the potential to develop powerful spellcasting abilities. In practice a mid- to high-level Magic-User was a combination intelligence gatherer and walking artillery, gathering information about possible dangers not yet seen and augmenting the physical combat abilities of the other classes with potentially devastating long-range and area attacks.
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st edition "Magic-user" was one of the five core character classes available in the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) Player's Handbook.
The 1st Edition of AD&D also included a subclass of the magic-user called the illusionist, which had different spell lists, different experience level tables, and slightly fewer maximum hit dice (10 instead of 11). Gnomes were also able to become illusionists, even though only humans, elves, and half-elves could become magic-users. Magic-user spells and illusionist spells were for the most part separated and had little overlap. Of all the AD&D classes, only the magic-user had spells of the 8th and 9th levels; all other spell-casting classes were limited to spells of up to the 7th level.
Dungeons & Dragons "Magic-User" continued to be used in the basic Dungeons & Dragons rules set.
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition +Opposition schools in 2nd EditionAlterationIllusionEnchantmentDivination✵ConjurationInvocationNecromancyAbjuration The mage, as part of the "wizard" group, was one of the standard character classes available in the second edition Player's Handbook. The second edition of AD&D discarded the term "Magic-User" in favor of "mage".
The second edition Player's Handbook gives a few examples of mages from legend and myth: Merlin, Circe and Medea.
In this edition, the mage became an all-purpose wizard who could cast any wizardly spell, including many only available to illusionists in the first edition, like color spray and chromatic orb. The wizard spell list was unified, and illusionists became one of many specialist wizard types who focussed on a specific "school" of magic. The other specialists were abjurers, conjurers, diviners, enchanters, invokers, necromancers and transmuters. As a trade-off for various bonuses with magic from their chosen school, specialists became unable to cast spells from one or more "opposition" schools. Aside from school restrictions, all wizards could cast spells from up to 9th level, assuming they had the required intelligence.
The Complete Wizard's Handbook was published in 1990, written by Rick Swan. It detailed the schools of magic (illusion, necromancy etc.) and the careers a wizard might have (such as alchemist or treasure-hunter), added new spells to the wizard list, and introduced rules for spell research, adjudicating illusions, and casting spells in unusual conditions. The book also introduced wizard "kits": character packages with role-playing hooks linked to game benefits and limitations. Examples of wizard kits include the Academician, the Anagokok, the Amazon Sorceress and the Witch.
The Tome of Magic (1991) introduced elementalists, specialist wizards who focussed on spells related to one of the classical elements of air, earth, fire or water, and wild magic, which promised greater power at the cost of a built-in chance of backfire and other side effects.
Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition The 3rd edition renamed the mage to "Wizard". The term "magic user" is rarely used in this edition of the game, and when it is used it is usually a synonym for an arcane spellcaster or for an arcane spellcasting character class.
A similar paradigm of spell schools was retained for the 3rd edition of D&D as well. Despite removing the restrictions on race/class combinations, D&D 3.0 edition retained the gnomish affinity for becoming illusionists by making illusionist (not wizard) the gnome's favored class. This was dropped in the 3.5 edition in favor of bard.
The Iconic wizard is Mialee, a female elf.
Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition The wizard is available as a character class in the game's fourth edition. The wizard utilizes the Arcane power source and is a Controller, which means the wizard focuses on multi-target damage spells, as well as debuffing foes and altering the battlefield's terrain.
The mage is a similar class offered in the Essentials sourcebook Heroes of the Fallen Lands. Instead of implement mastery, the mage focuses on a primary and secondary school of magic. Mages have access to all the same wizard powers, however. The bladesinger, witch, and sha'ir were also released as alternative wizard classes.
Spell schools are initially absent in 4th edition but were reintroduced with the Dungeons & Dragons Essentials supplement, allowing wizards to gain advantage when casting the spells of two schools of their choosing. The spell schools introduced are Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, and Nethermancy (corresponding to the Shadow subschool of the Illusion school from the previous editions). The spells of other classical schools are present in the form of utility spells (like True Seeing being available but not being specifically named a Divination spell) or spell descriptors (like Conjuration or Summoning). However, since 4th edition does not use a Vancian spellcasting system, the benefits of mastering or being an expert in a school work quite differently.
Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition The wizard has been included as a character class in the 5th edition Player's Handbook. Players must choose an Arcane Tradition for their wizard character at second level, each of which represents one of the eight schools of magic: abjuration, conjuration, divination, enchantment, evocation, illusion, necromancy and transmutation.
School Emphasis Name Abjuration Blocking, banishing, protecting Abjurer Conjuration Produce creatures or objects from another plane Conjurer Divination Understanding the past, present and future Diviner Enchantment Entrancing and beguiling Enchanter Evocation Raw combative power and damage Evoker Illusion Sensory deception and trickery Illusionist Necromancy Curses, creating undead thralls Necromancer Transmutation Changing energy and matter Transmuter Several sourcebooks since the launch of the 5th edition have expanded the number of Arcane Tradition options. Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide (2015) added the Bladesinging tradition which was originally exclusive to elves and half-elves. Xanathar's Guide to Everything (2017) added one additional arcane tradition: War Magic. This subclass focuses on empowering spells and enhancing a wizard's defense to prepare them for war. Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (2020) added 15 new dunamancy spells and two additional arcane traditions: Chronurgy and Graviturgy. Tasha's Cauldron of Everything (2020) reprinted an updated version of the Bladesinger and added one new tradition: Order of Scribes. This version of the Bladesinging tradition removed the Forgotten Realms specific racial restrictions and revised several spells. On these changes, Lead Rules Designer Jeremy Crawford said: "We decided that if we're going to bring in Bladesinging, then we should bring in the cantrips that we originally designed to go along with that subclass. So that's the main reason those cantrips appear in this book. Then, in the process of bringing them over, we decided to make a few tweaks to those spells so that the wording would better align with our original design intent".
Spell preparation and casting
Wizards cast their spells by using their acquired magical knowledge (augmented by their Intelligence score) and experience. In particular, they learn most new spells by seeking out magical writings and copying them into their spellbooks, a method that allows them (unlike sorcerers) to master any number of permissible spells once they find them, assembling a broad and versatile arsenal of power. Many wizards see themselves not only as spell casters but also as philosophers, inventors, and scientists, studying a system of natural laws that are for the most part unknown and undiscovered. Once the 3rd edition introduced skills to D&D, wizards' best skills became those that involved either magic or other scholarly or applied knowledge such as history, nature, and geography.