Accepting the 5e's Magic

Previously, you could have read an article of mine where I described my issues with D&D's worldbuilding, especially regarding its magic system. I've made some progress that I wanted to share with you. While to some these tips might seem obvious, I really hope that I'll help out anyone reading this who is still stuck where I was back when I wrote the October article. For those who like practical lists, here are all of my rules in an extremely brief format that you can take and run away with.

Rules for 5th Edition Magic-related Worldbuilding

1. Spell levels correlate how public of a knowledge they are, and spells above the 5th level are only known by players and NPCs who need such knowledge.
2. Warlocks should be common and socially accepted unless your setting is built around saying otherwise.
3. You should have two witnesses with you for anything important. At least one should be able to cast counterspell/dispel magic if you can afford it.
4. Spells with permanent effects should be used as often as their spell level suggests.
5. Some magic, such as majority of enchantment spells or all harmful illusions, should be illegal.

There we go! Hopefully, this quick reference of rules should be good for anyone else who struggled like I did. Now then, the rest of the article is just elaborating on what do they mean and why.

Giving wonder back to magic one step at a time.
Art by Karen Holmes

Rule #1: Spell Levels

It takes dedication to get good at something. If we think of the magical expertise as a bell curve, we can expect its mean to represent either people with no knowledge of magic, or people who know a very basic level of magic depending on how high of a magical setting you want to go with. The further away from this mean you go to the right, the more magically competent people we'll see. But at the same time, their numbers will go lower drastically. We can represent this sort of thing using the spell levels:

• 0th and 1st Level: Commoner* magic. It doesn't take too much effort to get started. These should be fairly common knowledge in 5e's settings unless it's something very low magic (like Adventures in Middle-Earth). People would likely find ways to use this magic for things they do in their common lives. Why sweep your porch, when you could cast an arcane ritual and get it swept for you by an invisible specter? Your neighbors do that, so with little book-keeping, you can too.
• 2nd Level: This is still commoner-level magic, although in this case, it takes a bit more effort to actually learn it and get good at it. You don't need to be an expert or study in some school for this (although the school can help you out). This level of magic is common knowledge within cities, and to those who visit cities.
• 3rd Level: At this point, the untrained mind starts to struggle and usually requires guidance. This level of magic would be common knowledge within magic schools, druidic groves, temples, and any other place where plenty of spellcasters would gather to share their knowledge.
• 4th Level: Spells of this level are above common folk, and oftentimes even above those who study the magic. These spells are reserved only to the experts within the field, as well as important people like the rulers of lands. Understandably, for those who can't cast them themselves, these spells would be either unknown, fairy tales, or very costly.
• 5th Level: The most sacred level of magic known only by the greatest of the mages. Such mages would keep this magic hidden even from important people or other mages because it is too dangerous to be shared without any limits. There could be a handful of exceptions here, like spells that resurrect people from being dead or teleportation circle, but I would say that knowledge of these could change depending on the setting.

*When I refer to "commoner" in this article, I do not mean a CR 0 creature listed in the Monster Manual. I mean an average NPC who isn't of great importance.

Anything below one's location within this hierarchy is usually common knowledge, and anything above is either unknown by them or a fairy tale. Of course fantasy worlds would have legends and tales of people who could stop time, or resurrect those who have been dead for years, create magical portals, or zap their enemies into dust. But it would be extremely difficult for them to prove such magics to be real. Sure one could in theory find a spell scroll, but there are many magic items out there that can do things no spell can, so they may as well believe it's an ability unique to them.

I should also add, that while I made this article all about magic and spells, this may as well apply to player levels overall, except the barrier is at the 10th level. A reasonable enough barrier to place if I say so myself. While I'm doing side notes, I should mention that this doesn't apply to the racial magic. If the Player's Handbook tells me that a high elf knows one wizard cantrip, that means to me that they know one cantrip.

And don't worry about the players or your villains. The DM is always allowed to make an exception for this rule, and players who manage to go above 10th level are assumed to be one such exception. As for the villains, if you know me you know that I like villains who are powerful and interesting. So they should absolutely be an exception if you want them to be one.

Rule #2: Warlocks

Warlocks get a bad reputation, and for an obvious reason. In our world, it's extremely shady to say that you've sold your soul for anything. Most people bring the opinions and views from our world into the fantasy one and thus come to a conclusion that warlocks are rather sketchy.

Thing is, it's the easiest and most reliable way to access magic for an average person. You can imagine a reason or more for each of the classes, be it studying that costs plenty of money, approval of deities, or bonding with nature. The warlock only needs to make a deal with an otherworldly being, and they get their magical power. I already wrote an article on that in the past, so there isn't much else I can say on the topic.

Rule #3: Two Witnesses

There are some nasty spells within the world of D&D. Luckily, most of the nasty spells affect only one person at a time. Unfortunately, there are sorcerers within the world of D&D who can twin these spells, targeting two people at once. This is why I would suggest that for anything important, a person should have at least two witnesses near them at a time. This way, even if an evil sorcerer casts suggestion and twins it to target both you and one of your witnesses, there's still one more who can see what's going on and attempt to prevent it, or report it.

Ideally, you should have at least one person capable of casting counterspell, or possibly even dispel magic with you. It could be one of these 2+ witnesses. The more of these you have, the better off you'll be, but someone willing to accompany you for the sole purpose of witnessing and removing magic would likely be expensive. Also, these spells are of 3rd level, so refer to Rule #1 to see who could access them.

So whether it's a small shop, a prison cell, audience with the king, or a trial, there should be witnesses. Optimally ones that can stop magic from happening.

Rule #4: Permanent Spells

There's a handful of spells that can have permanent effects, and thus they could be very useful to people. Specifically, it's the following spells:

• arcane lock,
• continual flame,
• find familiar,
• magic mouth,
• Mordenkainen's private sanctum,
• and Nystul's magic aura.

While one of them is a 4th level spell (and thus by Rule #1 available only to mages and very important people), the rest is all 2nd level spells or lower that should be accessible by anyone in cities.

Ever had a moment when you couldn't find your keys to the house? Wouldn't it be lovely if you never had to keep them in the first place? Sure 25 gold pieces isn't cheap, but a regular lock costs 10 gold pieces. No need to worry about thieves' tools silently opening your door, if anyone wants to go inside they'll need to be loud - either break the door down, or cast knock.

Find familiar is awesome if you can cast it. For a fairly low price, you get a magical companion that can serve as another pair of eyes for you. You can talk to them telepathically too, so that's great.

The continual flame spell is very expensive, but it pays off in the long run. Once again, 50 gold pieces is a hefty price, especially considering you could get a lantern along with 5 pints of oil that could last you for a total of 30 hours for measely 1 gold piece. In other words, if you were to buy oil worth 50 gold pieces, you could have it last 3000 hours, which is 125 days. However, in long term (that being, more than a year), it pays off to get a smoke-less heat-less continual flame that you don't need to refill, and you could toss a blanket over without fearing it would burn. It's a luxury, but it's something that those who want to save money in long term would get, despite their neighbors making fun of them. Then again, light could replace both, but it's a much shorter-term (albeit free) solution.

Mordenkainen's private sanctum (upper planes bless Mordenkainen) is a spell perfect for kings and similar important folk who wish to make a private area for themselves. Be it soundproof one, teleportation-proof, divination-proof, and more. Best part is, this spell is free. If you have a court magician who has 8 fullcaster levels, you could have them cast it once on an area that you want to be permanently affected by the spell, and still have another cast for wherever you'll need it. This spell is also useful in prisons, courts, and other places of great importance.

The Nystul's magic aura spell allows you to, among other things, hide your magical item's true nature. If you're afraid of the local paladin finding out you have a familiar, you could cover up its creature type to match its appearance too!

Finally, there's the ever-so-lovely spell that could revolutionize the world if used to its full potential, magic mouth. This silly-sounding spell is actually so useful for common folk, it's hard to believe. One cast of it costs 10 gold pieces. Seriously? That's as cheap as the lock I've mentioned earlier! With its input being anything visual or auditory, you could do plenty of things with it.

• Alarm system that warns the shopkeeper and their witnesses about any of their goods turning invisible or leaving the building without the customer paying sufficient amount for them.
• Notify the warden of a prisoner leaving their prison cell (or becoming invisible and inaudible inside of it).
• Informing a homeowner of someone standing at the door. Or windows. Or the entrance to the cellar, depending on how paranoid they are.
• Informing everyone when a spell is cast, and depending on how much money the person is willing to pay what kind of spell has been cast too (narrowing it down to a single school of magic, or even to a specific spell).

For 10 gold pieces of material components, this thing is a steal, and this is just the beginning. Imagine all of the possibilities, the conditions can be as complicated as you want them to be because the spell says so! In order to use this spell, you'll need enough jade dust, but judging by the price there likely isn't a shortage of it.

"Hey, you know how you told me there are these things called invocations that I could learn?"
"Of course I do! What about them?"
"I figured since I've gained a familiar from my pact, I may as well try to... enhance it."
"Oh no, what did you do this time?"
"Well,… let's just say I learned why cats don't have wings."

Arcane Flight, by Steve Prescott

Rule #5: Illegal Magic

Like with all the tools, some of them could be used to harm others. I've decided to compile two lists of spells and spell categories that you should consider making illegal within your world. Bear in mind, I've omitted spells of 6th level and higher for the sake of my own brevity.

• Enchantment spells that manipulate one's actions. While this seems like pointing out the obvious, there are spells that don't force a mind to do anything that it doesn't want to do, such as zone of truth. Sure you can't speak a lie, but you can choose to not speak up too.
• Illusion spells that cause harm. This includes things like phantasmal killer.
• Knock allows you to unlock a locked door without needing a key or a password. Self-explanatory.
• Modify memory** could fit under the first bullet point in this list in theory, but I'll write it out as a separate spell to make sure it's clear. Even if it doesn't directly make you do something, this spell should be seen as immoral.
• Necromancy that raises undead. When used on a corpse, it prevents such corpse from even a possibility of being resurrected. (Sidenote: If it's known either by the person before they die or by those who have to deal with its body that there is no chance for this person to be raised, its body should be probably cremated or disposed of in another way to prevent them from turning them undead anyway.)
• Summoning spells with a chance for the summoned creature to get out of summoner's control.

Here's another list, this time of spells that should be legal only under the supervision of the local government representatives:

• Arcane lock, continual flame, and magic mouth. With great power comes great responsibility. You better not lock someone out of their own house, or traumatize a person with everpresent whispers.
• Control water could be used to cause great harm to the ships.
• Dimension door allows you to teleport anywhere within 400 feet as long as you can describe it. As you can imagine, it could be used for plenty of illegal things, such as accessing places where only special personnel is allowed.
• Divination and spells of similar character can be a pretty big deal.
• Enlarge/reduce could be used to reduce/enlarge supporting pillars of a building, destabilizing it.
• Heat metal is just an immoral spell to use generally on people. It could be fine for smiths, but not seen as good when used in battle.
• Leomund's tiny hut could be used to block critical pathways, entrances to buildings, and other places with a barrier that one can't pass through.
• Mordenkainen's private sanctum could be used harmfully to mask areas from being observed, prevent teleportation to/from critical places, and do other kinds of harm.
• Reincarnate** is a spell that could give a completely new face and identity to someone who's a searched-for criminal.
• Teleportation circle** could be used by spies for illegal passage of large quantities of people, especially if the teleportation circle is made permanent.
• Wall of stone** can be used for creation of new buildings, as well as barring critical pathways.

** This spell is of 5th level, so unless it's public knowledge that it exists, it technically wouldn't be illegal.

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Does this mean I'm done with 5th edition's issues completely, and ready to start a new campaign? Not really. I still see many problems in it. More importantly, these days I feel too occupied with my job and all sorts of other things to be able to reliably plan and play D&D games. But this is a step in the right direction for me, because now I know how to deal with at least some of its magic.

Thank you for reading, hope this helped you like it helped me, and have a nice day!