The Hedge Mage

A young tiefling girl pours through a book of basic spells, hidden away in the back of a library and rarely checked out by the residents of her village. Though she never learned the letters, she understands their meaning instinctually. As she traces the symbol they describe, a flower appears in her hand. She places it among the bouquet she has conjured over the course of the evening, each flower subtly longer and richer in color than the last.

Children drag their parents through a town square, toward a garishly dressed half-orc making every effort to be seen. As he conjures explosions of light and illusion, the children are delighted and the parents reward him for brightening their day, tossing a silver piece into the hat he has set out. None of them see the spectral hand he has conjured behind them, ensuring their donation will be more generous than expected.

A lone tabaxi flits through sun-dappled ruins, an ancient treasure firmly latched to her belt and its reanimated guardian hot on her trail. She draws an arrow from her quiver and focuses on it briefly before turning with a quick flourish and firing at her pursuer. The arrow finds its mark, and ice erupts from it, impeding the guardian's movement long enough for her to escape to safety.

Hedge Mages are magic users that lack formal training, often found among common folk that might never discover their talent or be able to access magical education. Instead, they study and learn magic themselves through hard work and determination. This power is not innate to them - it must be discovered and carefully refined, as best they can by themselves, or taught only by the similarly limited. Though they might never achieve the might or esteem available to those who are born with aptitude or are taught the breadth of magic, they master the fundamentals and achieve their own particular type of power.

Hit Points

• Hit Dice: 1d8 per Hedge Mage level
• Hit Points at 1st Level: 8 + your Constitution modifier
• Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d8 (or 5) + your Constitution modifier per Hedge Mage level

Proficiencies

• Armor: Light armor
• Weapons: All Simple weapons
• Tools: One artisan's tool or instrument of your choice

• Saving Throws: Constitution, Intelligence
• Skills: Choose two skills from Animal Handling, Arcana, History, Investigation, Medicine, Nature, Survival, and Religion.

Hedge Magic

Pupil's Parsimony

Your magic comes from instinct and practice, often without access to reagents and magical sources- not that you'd know what to look for. All your Hedge Mage spells do not require material components, though they may still require vocal and/or somatic components.

Simplicity's Strength

What you lack in training, you make up for in tenacity. Your Hedge Mage cantrips deal an additional 1d4 damage. As you gain levels in this class, the die size of the additional damage increases, as shown in the Hedge Mage table.

Hedge Mage Intuition

At 2nd level, your natural inclinations and capabilities direct the development of your magic and the technique you will form with it. Choose the type of intuition you possess, each of which is detailed at the end of the class' description. Your intuition grants you features at 2nd level and again at 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th levels.

Magical Evolution

At 3rd level, your travels and practice with your rudimentary magic have enabled you to use your power in new and unique ways. You discover 2 Magical Evolutions of your choice When you cast a Hedge Mage cantrip or a cantrip you have learned through a racial feature, you can choose for it to have an additional or altered affect, as detailed in the Magical Evolutions section at the end of the class description. Any cantrips that you have learned through other classes are not affected by your Magical Evolutions.

When you replace a Hedge Mage cantrip you have learned, you can choose one of the Magical Evolutions you know and replace it with another.

Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, 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 feature.

Arcane Substitution

An advantage of not being formally taught is that you remain ignorant of many supposed, yet long-believed, limitations. At 7th level, when you inflict damage with a Hedge Mage cantrip, you can temporarily replace its damage type with acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, or thunder through skillful and practiced manipulation of the spell's energy.

Paltry Tricks

At 9th level, if a Hedge Mage cantrip that does not require concentration can have multiple effects active at a time, you may have two additional effects active, and you can dismiss any number of effects of these spells as a bonus action.

Precise Spell

At 13th level, your practice with your cantrips has increased your consistency with them. If you miss with a Hedge Mage cantrip or when a creature succeeds on a saving throw against your Hedge Mage cantrip, the creature takes half the cantrip's damage (if any) but suffers no additional effect.

Of the People

At 15th level, you understand the way you think and produce magic profoundly enough to teach it to others. Whenever you complete a long rest, you can choose a Magical Evolution you know and a creature that can understand you and knows the cantrip modified by the chosen Magical Evolution. Until the next time they compete a long rest, that creature knows and can use that Magical Evolution when they cast the cantrip.

Practice Made Perfect

At 18th level your repetion of your humble magic lets you draw upon it with unsurpassed speed. You have advantage on initiative rolls, and on the first round of each combat you can cast any Hedge Mage cantrip as a bonus action.

Cantrip Mastery

At 20th level your diligence has rewarded you with complete mastery over your magic, beyond what others could ever achieve. You know all Magical Evolutions. Additionally, when you roll damage for your Simplicity's Strength, you can roll the die twice, and use either result.

Hedge Mage Intuition

Hedge Mages learn through instinct and natural inclinations. Here are options you can choose from at 2nd level.

Illusory Magic

At 6th level, you can mimic your spells through illusion. When you cast a Hedge Mage cantrip that requires you make an attack roll or the target attempt a saving throw, you can make it instead require the target attempt an Intelligence saving throw or be subject to the spell's effect(s). If you do so, any damage inflicted by the spell is changed to psychic. You can choose to make the target automatically succeed, in which case they take no damage even it they would otherwise.

Showman's Discretion

You know when a situation calls for grandiose gestures and stately phrases and, more importantly, when it doesn't. At 10th level, Hedge Mage cantrips that you cast require only require your choice of either a verbal or a somatic component.

Revel in Delusion

At 14th level, you can easily exploit another creature's confusion, both on and off the battlefield. A creature that succeeds on a saving throw against one of your spells modified by Illusory Magic will expect your subsequent spells are also illusions until the end of your next turn, causing you to have advantage on spell attack rolls against them and causing them to have disadvantage on saving throws other than Intelligence against your Hedge Mage cantrips.

Explorer's Intuition

You have gotten a taste of power, and now seek to use it to venture into a greater world. Explorers often come from impoverished areas that they otherwise would have no hope of ever leaving. They use their magic to explore the depths of the world, both to learn and for adventure's sake.

Witchhunter's Intuition

Some Hedge Mages hold contempt for more supercilious magic users. The spite they have for those of less limited potential can inspire them to call upon their own developing grasp of magic to devise techniques to make other magic users tremble.

Spell Combat

At 6th level you, when you use your action to cast a cantrip that requires you make a melee weapon or melee spell attack, you can make an attack with a light weapon that you are wielding as part of the same action.

Spell Breaker

At 10th level your familiarity with magic allows you to affect enchantments. If you damage a creature with a melee weapon or melee spell attack, you may choose one magical item they have equipped, if any. That item's magical effects are negated and unusable until the end of your next turn. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier.

Dam in the River

At 14th level you devise a way to force other magic users down to your level. Once per turn, if you damage a creature with the Spellcasting or Pact Magic ability with a melee weapon or melee spell attack, they take additional psychic damage equal to your Simplicity's Strength.

When a creature takes this damage, you can choose to partially seal their magic. The next time they expend a spell slot to cast a spell of a level equal to or lower than half (rounded up) the number you rolled, they must make a saving throw using their spellcasting ability. If they fail, the spell fails. If they succeeds, the spell fails but the spell slot is not expended. A seal holds for 1 minute and a target can only be affected by one seal at a time and the seal dissipates after the target attempts this saving throw. You can seal magic in this way a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and all expended uses are restored when you finish a long rest.

Art (credited in order of appearance):

• Elnenherz, MarcoL87, Nelesia, Wes Talbott, Gillesketting, Will Marton

Magical Evolutions

Insightful Strike

When you cast the true strike cantrip you learn more about the target defensive capabilities. The DM tells you if the targeted creature is your equal, superior, or inferior in regard to either AC or a saving throw of your choice when you cast the spell. If the creature is disguised or shapeshifted, you only learn the capabilities of its apparent or current form.

Lasting Infestation

If a creature fails the saving throw against your infestation cantrip the parasites linger around the creature until the end of the creature's turn. If the initial target passes within 5 feet of another creature, you can cause the parasites to attack the second creature as well, forcing them to attempt the same save as if they had been initially targeted.

Magnetic Lure

If a target fails their saving throw against your lightning lure you can instead cause them to be pulled 10 feet toward another creature of your choice that you can see, taking the damage if they are within 5 feet of the second creature.

Moderate Illusion

When you cast the minor illusion spell you can create an object that fits within a 10 foot cube instead.

Mold Rock

When you cast the mold earth spell you can choose earth that fits in a 10 foot cube and can excavate, move, and deposit stone as well as loose dirt.

Rending Savagery

When you cast primal savagery you can also make the attack against a second creature within 5 feet of you.

Resilience

if a creature under the effect of your resistance spell is attacked, they can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to their AC. The spell then ends.

Roaring Blaze

When you cast the create bonfire cantrip you can make the spell fill a 10 foot cube.

Sage Guidance

When a creature under the effect of a guidance spell you have

cast rolls a d4 as part of the spell's effect, they may also roll a second d4 and take the higher result of the two.

Sacred Ray

When you cast the sacred flame cantrip you can change the range to a line 30 feet long and 5 feet wide extending from you. If you do so, each creature in that line must make a Dexterity saving throw or take the spell's damage.

Spare the Dead

You can target a corpse or other remains with your spare the dying cantrip. If you do so, the target is protected from decay and can't become undead for 1 hour. Only one corpse can be protected in this way at a time, and once a corpse has benefited from this effect, it cannot do so again unless raised from the dead. When cast in this way, the spell also effectively extends the time limit on raising the target from the dead

Subtle Showmanship

When you cast the prestidigitation cantrip you can make the effects only perceptible to creatures of your choosing when you cast the spell. Other creatures cannot perceive the effects, though they may still notice vocal or somatic components of casting the spell.

Sword Dance

When you cast the sword burst cantrip you can choose a creature within 60 feet for the blades to sweep around instead of yourself.

Thorn Lash

When you hit a Large or smaller creature with the thorn whip cantrip you can move it up to 10 feet directly away from you.

Thunder's Roar

When you cast the thunderclap cantrip any creature that fails the saving throw is also pushed 5 feet away from you.

Wandering Flame

When you make a ranged spell attack roll with your fire bolt cantrip and miss, you can reroll the attack roll against a different target within 60 feet of the original target. You can only reroll once per cast of the spell.

Whisper

When you cast the message cantrip it's range increases to 240 feet and it is no longer blocked by stone, metal, or wood.