Hit Points (HP)

Proficiencies

Black Mage Table

Equipment

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

• (a) a staff or (b) a dagger
• (a) a component pouch or (b) an arcane focus
• (a) a scholar's pack or (b) an explorer's pack
• A spellbook

Or, you could choose to start with 4d4 × 10 gp and purchase your equipment.

Class Abilities

Spellcasting

You have learned to draw on the raw forces of magick by manipulating the Mist using formulae and incantations that you've memorised. You have a Spellbook containing spells that show the first glimmerings of your true power.

Cantrips

At Level 1, you know three cantrips of your choice from the Black Mage Spell list. You learn additional Black Mage cantrips as shown on the Black Mage table.

Spellbook

At Level 1, you have a Spellbook containing six 1st Level Black Mage spells. Your Spellbook is the repository of the Black Mage spells that you know, except your Cantrips, which are fixed in your mind.

Learning New Spells

For every Black Mage level you gain, you can add two new Black Mage spells of your choice to your Spellbook for free. The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots. On your adventures, you might find other spells that you can add to your Spellbook (see "Your Spellbook").

Spell Slots

The table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these Black Mage spells, you must expend a slot of the spell's level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.

Spells Known of 1st Level and Higher

You prepare the list of Black Mage spells that are available for you to cast, choosing from the Black Mage spell list. When you do so, choose a number of Black Mage spells equal to your INT modifier + your Black Mage level (minimum of one spell). The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots. For example, if you are a Level 3 Black Mage, you have four Level 1 and two Level 2 spell slots. With a INT of 16, your list of prepared spells can include six spells of 1st or 2nd level, in any combination. If you prepare the Level 1 spell Fire, you can cast it using a 1st-level or 2nd-level slot. Casting the spell doesn't remove it from your list of prepared spells.

You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a Long Rest. Preparing a new list of Black Mage Spells requires time spent studying your Spellbook and memorising the incantations and gestures you must make to cast the spell: at least 1 minute per Spell Level for each spell on your list.

Spellcasting Ability

Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for your Black Mage spells, since the power of your magick relies on your memorisation of the complex formulae and incantations. You use your INT whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your INT modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a Black Mage spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your INT modifier

Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your INT modifier

Ritual Casting

You can cast a Black Mage spell as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag and you have the spell in your Spellbook. You don't need to have the spell prepared.

Spellcasting Focus

You can use an arcane focus as a spellcasting focus for your Black Mage spells.

Mist Recovery

You are able to regain some of your spent magickal energy from the Mist around you. When you finish a short rest, you can choose expended spell slots to recover. The spell slots can have a combined level that is equal to or less than half your Black Mage level (rounded up), and none of the slots can be 6th Level or higher.

When you use this feature, you can't use it again until you finish a long rest.

For example, if you’re a 4th-level Black Mage, you can recover up to two levels worth of spell slots. You can recover either a 2nd-level spell slot or two 1st-level spell slots.

Elemental Specialist

At Level 2, choose a school of magick from either Aqua, Primal, or Storm. You become a specialist in this school of magick, and your choice affects your class features at 2nd-Level, 6th-Level, 10th-Level, 14th-Level and 20th-Level.

Further, the gold and time you must spend to copy a spell from your school of magick into your spellbook is halved.

Sculpt Spells

At Level 2, you can create pockets of relative safety within the effects of your area of effect spells. Whenever you cast a spell from the school of your specialisation that affects other creatures that you can see, you can choose a number of them equal to 1 + the spell's level. The chosen creatures automatically succeed on their saving throws against the spell, and they take no damage if they would normally take half damage on a successful save. Furthermore, if the spell you

Whenever you cast a spell from another specialisation, you can instead choose up to two creatures to receive this benefit.

Potent Cantrip

Starting at 2nd Level, your damaging cantrips affect even creatures that avoid the brunt of the effect. When a creature succeeds on a saving throw against your cantrip or the attack roll of your cantrip misses the creature, the creature takes half the cantrip's damage (if any) but suffers no additional effect from the cantrip.

Cantrip Formulae

At 3rd level, you have scribed a set of arcane formulae in your spellbook that you can use to formulate a cantrip in your mind. Whenever you finish a long rest and consult those formulas in your spellbook, you can replace one Black Mage cantrip you know with another cantrip from the Black Mage spell list.

Ability Score Improvement

At Levels 4, 8, 12, 16, and 19, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this skill.

You can forgo taking this feature to take a Feat of your choice instead.

Empowered Spells

At Level 6, you can add your Intelligence modifier (minimum of +1) to one damage roll of any Black Mage spell that you cast.

Turbo MP

Starting at 14th level, you can increase the power of your simpler spells. When you cast a Black Mage spell of 1st through 5th level that deals damage, you can deal maximum damage with that spell. The first time you do so, you suffer no adverse effect. If you use this feature again before you finish a long rest, you take 2d12 DARK damage for each level of the spell, immediately after you cast it. Each time you use this feature again before finishing a long rest, the DARK damage per spell level increases by 1d12. This damage ignores all forms of Resistance.

At Level 20, through manipulation of the mist around you, you can increase the power of your spells even further. The initial DARK damage you take per level of the spell beyond the first use of this feature is now 1d12. Furthermore, because of your mastery with your school of specialisation, you can empower more powerful spells, and take less damage when you try to use this feature several times. The initial DARK damage per spell level when using this feature on a spell of your school of specialisation is 1d6, and this increases by 1d6 per spell level for each subsequent use. You can use this feature on a Black Mage spell of 6th through 8th-Level from your school of specialisation once per long rest.

Pierce

At 18th Level, your spells have become so powerful that they are able to pierce through protective effects. Whenever you cast a Black Mage spell, it ignores the effects of

Protect

Shell

Reflect

Your Spellbook

The spells that you add to your Spellbook as you gain levels reflect the arcane research you conduct on your own, as well as intellectual breakthroughs you have had about the nature of the multiverse. You might find other spells during your adventures. You could discover a spell recorded on a scroll in an evil mage's chest, for example, or in a dusty tome in an ancient library.

Copying a Spell into the Spellbook

When you find an Black Mage spell of 1st level or higher, you can add it to your Spellbook if it is of a Spell Level you can prepare and if you can spare the time to decipher and copy it.

Copying that spell into your Spellbook involves reproducing the basic form of the spell, then deciphering the unique system of notation used by the person who wrote it. You must practice the spell until you understand the sounds or gestures required, then transcribe it into your Spellbook using your own notation.

For each level of the spell, the process takes 2 hours and costs 50 gp. The cost represents material components you expend as you experiment with the spell to master it, as well as the fine inks you need to record it. Once you have spent this time and money, you can prepare the spell just like your other spells.

Replacing the Spellbook

You can copy a spell from your own Spellbook into another book – for example, if you want to make a backup copy of your Spellbook. This is just like copying a new spell into your Spellbook, but faster and easier, since you understand your own notation and already know how to cast the spell. You need spend only 1 hour and 10 gp for each level of the copied spell.

If you lose your Spellbook, you can use the same procedure to transcribe the spells that you have prepared into a new Spellbook. Filling out the remainder of your Spellbook requires you to find new spells to do so, as normal. For this reason, many Black Mages keep backup Spellbooks in a safe place.

The Spellbook's Appearance

Your Spellbook is a unique compilation of spells, with its own decorative flourishes and margin notes. It might be a plain, functional leather volume that you received as a gift from your master, a finely bound gilt-edged tome you found in an ancient library, or even a loose collection of notes scrounged together after you lost your previous Spellbook in a mishap.