Arcane Ward

Arcane Ward is a passive feature of the Abjuration School Wizard. Upon casting an Abjuration spell^{[See: Bugs]}, gain a charge in Arcane Ward which blocks incoming damage. Each time damage is taken, it is reduced by the charge count and the charge count decreases by one.

Description

The residual magic of your spells forms a ward around you that protects you from harm.

Each time you cast an Abjuration spell, the intensity of the ward increases by the amount of the spell's Level, up to a maximum of 2x your Wizard level.

Each time you take damage, the ward blocks an amount of damage equal to its intensity, and its intensity decreases by 1.

After each Long Rest, the ward's intensity resets, and becomes the same as your Wizard level.

Condition: Arcane Ward

 Arcane Ward

• Your Arcane Ward blocks damage equal to its charges and then loses 1 charge. Casting Abjuration spells will add charges equal to the level of the spell.

How to learn

Classes:

• Class level 2: Abjuration School

Notes

• The Abjuration Wizard restores Arcane Ward charges even if the spell failed, which is possible with spells like  Counterspell or  Banishment.
• Upcasting Abjuration spells results in more Arcane Wards to be restored (except  Counterspell^{[See: Bugs]}).
• Arcane Ward gains charges from any Abjuration spell (except  Shield^{[See: Bugs]}), even cast via scrolls and items. This includes:
  • Non-Wizard Abjurarion spells (e.g.  Sanctuary or  Armour of Agathys).
  • Special items like True Love's Embrace, granting  Warding Bond when the matching True Love's Caress ring is used by an ally.
  •  Protection from Missiles, a 2nd level Abjuration spell only acessible via Abdel's Trusted Shield and Cindersnap Gloves items.
  • Warlock's  Armour of Shadows Eldritch Invocation, allowing them to cast  Mage Armour on themselves, recharging 1 Arcane Ward. This can even be done repeatedly to charge the ward up to its maximum level without expeding any spell slot. It is necessary to equip and unequip armour each time though, a slow process.

Bugs

• Despite being an Abjuration spell and consuming a spell slot,  Shield does not grant Arcane Ward charges.
•  Counterspell will always restore 3 charges, even if upcasted.
• Using  Metamagic: Extended Spell to cast any Abjuration spell with a limited duration might lead to Arcane Wards be overstacked up to 4x Abjuration Wizard level; this happens as the Arcane Ward duration is doubled by Extended Spell after the 2x Wizard level capping.
  • That means extend spells like  Sanctuary,  Arcane Lock and  Banishment can be explored for off or mid-combat situations. Ex. a Sorcerer 2 / Abjuration Wizard 5 with 7 charges of Arcane Ward casting Extended Banishment will end up (capped) with 20 charges. A Sorcerer 2 / Abjuration Wizard 6 in the same situation would end up with 22 charges.
  • When overstacking Arcane Wards, casting any Abjuration spell (except  Shield) will enforce the Arcane Wards to be capped again at 2x Abjuration Wizard level.
  •  Glyph of Warding: Sleep 2-turn effect duration does not count as a spell with limited duration as the warding trap has no duration limit, despite the tooltip describing it as a 4-turn duration.
• When an Abjuration School Wizard has zero Arcane Ward charges, many actions/abilities will restore as many charges as character's Wizard level as seen on this Reddit post. Some examples:
  • Casting some spells, e.g.  Booming Blade,  True Strike,  Fire Shield, or  Hex.
  • Equipping some equipment applying conditions, e.g. Shar's Spear of Evening or Nyrulna - including automatically requipping these weapons after throwing them.
  • Receiving some conditions, e.g.  Lightning Charges,  Force Conduit,  Heat, or  Arcane Acuity.
  • Some class abilities, e.g. Barbarian's  Rage, Eldritch Knight's  War Magic, or War Cleric's  War Priest.
• If an attack roll of the Abjuration Wizard is blocked by a target casting the Wizard version of  Shield, the Abjuration Wizard attacker will lose all their Arcane Ward charges.