Welcome to Part 3 of the Beginner’s Guide to Creating A D&D Character! Yes, I know, I stuck in something a bit different right into the middle of things, but I really wanted to share some handy programs with all you beginners who are reading this (and vets too 
).
If you haven’t read them yet, you should read Beginner’s Guide Part 1 and Beginner’s Guide Part 2. Also, you’ll only need to read part 3 if you’ve created a character that uses magic. If you’re a fighter, barbarian, monk, or rogue then you can probably safely ignore this article. However, even if your character doesn’t inherently use magic, this part of the guide can still be of some help to you.
Kinds of Magic
First of all, you’ll need to know that there are two different kinds of magic in D&D. First, there’s Divine Magic, which is usually derived from some sort of spiritual source. The other is Arcane Magic, which is derived from the caster or general ether.
One of the greatest benefits to Divine Magic is that there’s no penalty to casting it if you’re wearing any kind of armor. Since it’s being provided by some external source, there’s no need to go through precise motions to make it work. However, you may be a bit limited in what you can cast as a Divine Spell caster.
Arcane Magic offers a wide variety of spells that your character can use. However, these spells are going to require very precise motions or incantations to work. Because of this, if your arcane caster happens to be wearing any kind of armor, spells will have a chance to fizzle out. This is because armor will interfere with the spell-casting process.
How Much Is Enough?
Second, each spell-casting class can only cast so many spells each day. You can find Spells Per Day as part of the table that shows the stats for each level of your chosen class. You’ll notice that Spells Per Day is separated out by spell level. So at a given class level, your character will be able to cast spells of a certain level so many times per day.
However, in addition to the numbers given, you may be able to cast a few extra spells, depending on how high you spell casting ability score is. You can find out what ability score determines you casting ability by looking in the Abilities section of Game Rule Information for your class. Once you know which score it is, refer to Table 1-1 on page 8 of your Player’s Handbook. You’ll notice that the table includes Bonus Spells by Spell Level. Just match up the appropriate ability score on the left, and then follow along the row for each spell level.
However, you only get those bonus spells of a given level if the entry in Spells Per Day is at least zero. If it’s just a dash (-), then you can’t get those bonus spells yet.
Limited Knowledge
While every spell-casting class has a limit on how many spells they can cast in a day, some classes are also limited to the number of spells they can know! The bard and sorcerer classes are the two you’ll find in the Player’s Handbook that have this kind of limitation. In the class description, you’ll find a table titled Spells Known for your particular class. This can put a significant limit on your flexibility with casting, depending on the kind of character you’re trying to create.
Though while most spell-casting classes don’t have the limit that bards and sorcerers have, they too may also be limited. In Chapter 11 of the Player’s Handbook, you’ll find lists of spells for each spell-casting class. Those spells that are listed are the only ones available to be learned by your character as long as s/he is of that class. However, these lists coincide with the kind of magic that you would expect to be cast by a character of that class.
A unique limit I’d like to bring some attention to is with the Cleric. All clerics have a single domain spell slot available at each spell level. As mentioned in the Player’s Handbook, a Cleric can choose 2 domains. In chapter 11, you’ll find lists of spells for each domain that’s available based on the deities provided. However, each level on the list has only 1 spell.
The domain spell slot on a cleric can only be used to hold a spell that’s on one of your character’s two domain lists, and only of the specified level (or lower).
Simpler Spells Come Easily
Finally, you should know that you do not have to place a spell of a certain level into a matching level spell slot. You can actually fill in that higher level spell slot with a spell that’s lower level, if you wish. Basically, the level of a spell slot you have is really the maximum level of a spell you can put in there for the day.
So say you have 3 level 1 spell slots, and 2 level 2 spell slots. If you don’t like any of the level 2 spells you have so far, or just have only use for casting a single level 2 spell once, you can use the level 2 slots(s) to store your favorite level 1 spells instead. At least in this way, you can have much more flexibility with your spells. However, being able to cast lower level spells more often means sacrificing on casting more powerful spells. But sometimes this can be more of a blessing than a curse.
The Magic Is Done!
This pretty much concludes how to create a D&D character, even one that uses magic. I hope this 3-part series helped you or a friend create a D&D character! Now it’s time to head out and do some adventuring!
However, if anything was left unclear for you, please feel free to ask any questions. You can ask them in a comment in this post, or you can contact me via the Contact link at the top.
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