The magic in Dungeons & Dragons consists of the spells and magic systems used in the settings of the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). D&D defined the genre of fantasy role-playing games, and remains the most popular table-top version. Many of the original concepts have become widely used in the role-playing community across many different fictional worlds, as well as across all manner of popular media including books, board games, video games, and films. The specific effects of each spell, and even the names of some spells, vary from edition to edition of the Dungeons & Dragons corpus.
Development
Origins In 1974, the 36-page "Volume 1: Men & Magic" pamphlet was published as part of the original Dungeons & Dragons boxed set and included 12 pages about magic. It primarily describes individual spells where the "spells often but not always have both duration and ranges, and the explanation of spells frequently references earlier Chainmail materials". The first edition had over 100 spells that were "largely inflexible" and when a caster ran out of spells to cast, they were "defenseless fodder for orcs, goblins, and trolls". If a caster could "survive those vulnerable early levels, spells could grant godlike powers, like the reality-warping Wish spell, which does exactly what you think it does. A maxed-level fighter might be Achilles, but a level 20 magic-user was Zeus". The publication of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (1977) included a much more complex and systematic style to magic. "There is still a long list of individual spells, but every spell now includes a matrix specifying spell level, duration, area of effect, components, casting time, and saving throw". There are three types of components: "verbal components are magic words, material components are physical elements," and "somatic components are the arcane gestures of the hand and body". Magic was now divided into either arcane or divine magic.
This edition also includes what the game designer community would come to call the Vancian magic system. "In the Vancian model of magic, magic users must memorize all the spells which they wish to cast. When they cast a given spell, it disappears from memory and must be memorized again if the magic user so desires". The idea of spell memorization was inspired by the way magic works in Jack Vance's Dying Earth stories. In 1976, Gary Gygax wrote: If magic is unrestrained in the campaign, D&D quickly degenerates into a weird wizard show where players get bored quickly... It is the opinion of this writer that the most desirable game is one in which the various character types are able to compete with each other as relative equals, for that will maintain freshness in the campaign.The intent of the Vancian magic system in Dungeons & Dragons was to create restraints on magic users to balance the overall game.
d20 System The d20 System was published in 2000 by Wizards of the Coast and was originally developed for the third edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Due to the Open Game License, the core set of rules are used as the basis for many games. Thus, many d20 games might use the D&D spell list from the System Reference Document, while others create their own or even replace the entire magic system. The Vancian magic system included "basic assumptions about how arcane magic worked" that "only began to change with D&D 3e (2000), which introduced the non-memorizing sorcerer, and with D&D 3.5e (2003), which introduced the at-will warlock".
Modernization The fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons (2008) added unique powers to every class with a focus on party roles rather than just spell-casters having powers. The mechanical change of adding at-will and encounter powers "moved spell-casters away from the idea of 'Vancian' spell casting [...]. Magic items were also built into a character's progression, with each item having suggested levels". Fourth edition divided magic into three types: arcane, divine and primal. Druids now practiced primal magic while clerics and paladins practiced divine magic. Fourth edition also initially "abandoned the school-of-magic approach" to arcane magic, however, magic school specialization was reintroduced in the fourth edition Essentials line. The fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons (2014) uses a hybrid system of Vancian and at-will magic. Some classes, such as clerics and wizards, go through the process of preparing spells they can cast everyday from their spell list. Other classes, such as bards and sorcerers, "have a limited list of spells they know that are always fixed in the mind". The idea of at-will magic from fourth edition "mainly survives now as the mechanic behind cantrips, which allow spellcasting classes to keep using magic even when" they've used up all of their daily spell slots. Magic is once again only divided into two types: arcane and divine. In terms of spell usage across all classes, Kaila Hale-Stern, for The Mary-Sue, reported that of the 5th edition spells known or prepared by spell caster players on D&D Beyond the three most popular spells are Cure Wounds, Healing Word, and Detect Magic. The One D&D public playtest reintroduced the fourth edition division of magic types: arcane, divine and primal in August 2022, although this division was removed in September 2023. The Revised Player's Handbook (2024) includes "over 400 spells, 30 of which are brand new, 27 of which are redesigned, and 162 of which are 'reworked'". The 2024 Revised 5th Edition also removed the division of spellcasters with known spells and spellcasters with prepared spells. Christian Hoffer of ComicBook.com explained that in 5th Edition "classes with prepared spells offered more day-to-day flexibility, while classes with known spells were a bit more limited in their day-to-day options but always knew what spells they could use on any given day. In the 2024 Core Rulebooks, all spellcasting classes have prepared spells, with each class stating how many spells a player can have prepared and how often they can swap out a prepared spell".
Magic system
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