It's no secret at my table that when I'm a player, I'm a caster. My reason for this has always been the same: I can swing a sword in real life – I can't shoot fire out of my hands in real life. No disrespect to the frontline fighters (as a level one wizard, you hold my life in your hands), but I'd be lost without my spell list.
The only problem is, once you've played a few characters of the same class, you can find yourself falling back on the same old standards. As a wizard main, I've heard every version of the 'I cast fireball' joke, but behind them there's an element of truth. Some spells are classics for a reason.
The issue was that in my mind a wizard's spells are a part of who they are – you can tell a lot about a character by what spells they prepare. If I was just preparing the same spell list for every character, I was missing out on so much potential flavour. This is why I turned to home brew.
Some DMs I've met have a big problem with this. I've known some who have outlawed all homebrew in their games, and I understand the reason why. Some people see homebrew as a way to 'win the game', creating spells or items so powerful that it renders the rest of the team obsolete. No one wants to be the player chipping away at an enemies health, while the guy standing next to you one shots them into oblivion. So a blanket ban on homebrew has been the solution that some have turned to.
To me though, this misses the point. I'm not looking to 'win the game' or be the stand out hero of the party. To me, all characters are on a journey, and homebrew can be a great way to make that journey unique to them.
One of the first characters I ever made was a tiefling conjuration wizard: Joey. At 11 years old, his mother told him she was visited by a demonic envoy, telling her that the agents of the hells had been sent to claim their son: Azranathor, the Eternal Shadow. To hide him away, they sent him to an ancient ruin and told him to never leave or the demonic princes would find him.
In this ruin, he discovered an ancient library. With no one else to speak to and nothing else to do, he turned to reading to seek his escape. Over time, he began to understand the arcane writing held in the books and found that by following the instructions he could make magical effects happen. He spent every waking hour reading and practising.
One day, he found a book of conjuration. Upon experimenting, he summoned his first familiar - Buddy. He was delighted to finally have a companion after so long alone, and dedicated himself to conjuration to make as many new friends as he could.
Find familiar was obviously the first spell that I chose, and where Joey went Buddy followed, often in raven form. I loved that bird like my own. The only problem was, he kept dying. I don't know if my DM had a vendetta against him, but every fight he would be the first to get hit.
As the campaign went on, Buddy got more and more frustrated with me and it got to the point that all he did was stay as far from the action as possible. I started summoning him less and less and a part of the character I loved started to disappear.
That's when my DM gave me one of the greatest gifts I've received in this game. A new spell – Joey's Find Friend.
It was a simple upgrade. It went from a first to a third level spell and the components were upped to 150 gold worth of incense and charcoal. The spell allowed me to summon Buddy as a higher CR creature, meaning he suddenly had a lot more staying power in fights. Suddenly, Buddy was back in action and I couldn't have been happier.
I know the objections that some people would have to this. I may as well have dipped into beast master if I wanted a stronger companion; there are other spells to create stronger familiars (create homunculus a call out that I've heard); I should have played the familiar better by keeping him away from the start. But having this spell and having my name on it made it feel personal to me. It made me feel that I was learning and growing on my journey, and building my skills around what was important to the character.
The main thing that made this work was trust. The group knew I wasn't doing this to steal the limelight or outrank the party in power. They knew Buddy and they knew what he meant to me. He was a valued member of the team (at Joey's insistence) and they were all as excited about his power up as I was. Mechanically it didn't affect much in combat (he was stronger but still didn't pack much of a punch), but it meant that I didn't have to re-summon a disgruntled bird after every fight.
Throughout
our games, we've had plenty more spells made. Another party member
played a unity domain cleric, portrayed as a middle aged wine mom –
Karen of Johnson. By the end of our campaign she had a whole list of
spells that were unique to her and led to some hilarious moments,
a personal favourite of mine being Karen's Speak with Manager.
This didn't just affect the one game either. In later campaigns, our new characters would find books or scrolls, showing the spells we brought into the world. It gave us a connection to a wider world in our campaigns, and made us feel that we were really shaping the world around us. There's a certain thrill in being seeing the impact of an old character a year down the line, and remembering all the fun we had with them.
At the end of the day, beyond all the dice rolls and rules, we're telling a story and we want our characters to shape it. When making spells, don't think of how to one shot the BBEG. Don't think about how to be invincible or all powerful. Instead, think about what's important to your character and what they would devote their time to learning. If you know that and you have the trust of your table, then it can lead to a unique character and a story that's unique to your game.
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