Dungeons & Dragons Confirms Big Change to Spellcasting

Dungeons & Dragons will require all spellcasters to prepare spells.

By Christian Hoffer

Dungeons & Dragons has confirmed that the 2024 rules will require all characters to prepare their spells. In a recent article about the new Ranger class, Wizards of the Coast confirmed that all spellcasting classes will now use prepared spells in the 2024 Player's Handbook. This is a pretty significant change to how spellcasting works for several classes, as it makes individual character builds more versatile (as they have access to their class's full list of spells) but also requires more pre-planning and thought when preparing a character after a long rest. 

For those unfamiliar with the nuances of spellcasting in Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, the 2014 ruleset contained two distinct types of spellcasting – prepared spells and known spells. If players had a class that used prepared spells, they hypothetically had access to their class's spell list, but had to choose which spells they could use at the beginning of the day. For example, after a Long Rest, a 2nd level Paladin could choose from a list of 15 1st level spells of which spells they wanted to prepare for that day. After they chose from that list (with the number of prepared spells determined by the Paladin's Charisma modifier plus half their Paladin level, rounded down), they could only use the spells they had prepared for the day. 

Classes with "known spells" worked a bit differently, as those classes essentially built up a permanent spell list that they could use at any time. For instance, a Sorcerer chose two spells from their class's spell list at 1st level. They could only use those two spells when casting spells, but they always had asccess to those spells afterwards. 

Fundamentally, 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. For instance, a Ranger can only swap out one prepared spell per long rest, while a Wizard should be able to swap out all of their prepared spells after a Long Rest (although a Wizard can still only choose from spells in their spellbook instead of their class's list). 

The new Player's Handbook also states that each class has a fixed number of prepared spells (determined based on the player's level in a spellcasting class) instead of a number determined by a combination of a specific ability modifier and that player's level.  

What's still unclear is how often classes like the Sorcerer or the Warlock, which previously had lore-based reasons for having a limited number of known spells at their disposal, will be able to swap out their prepared spells. If the Warlock can only swap out prepared spells when they level up, the class functionally acts the same as it did under the 2014 rules even if it's now considered to be a prepared spellcaster. In that case, the D&D design team would simply be cleaning up and standardizing how the class rules describe spellcasting rather than making a significant change. 

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Ultimately, this move standardizes spellcasting to some extent and replaces two distinct magical subsystems with a single unified character class ability. There's still a lot of unknowns as to how this change will impact classes, although hypothetically it provides a bit more standardization and also more versatility between classes for a critical part of a D&D character's abilities. 

The new Player's Handbook comes out on September 17th. You can check out the full list of changes to D&D's rules here. 

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