The following homebrew adds a modern option to the Wizard class in 5E TTRPGs. All of the core Wizard class abilities can stay rules as written; see the official 5E System Reference Document (SRD v5) for details. Note: This subclass has not yet gone through playtesting.
Modern Mage
Where others see physics, you see patterns, agreements masquerading as laws. You’re not a wizard locked in a tower; you’re a reality hacker walking city streets, bending causality with a phone sigil and a half-remembered prayer. You might call on angels through radio static, bind spirits in Wi-Fi signals, or draw power from the faith of a world that doesn’t even believe in magic anymore. You understand that magic is belief made real, and belief is contagious.
Level 3: Personal Paradigm
Your power stems from your worldview, the personal philosophy that defines how you understand magic. Choose a magical worldview that reflects your internal model of how reality works. Examples include:
* Chaos Magician: Belief itself is your tool. Every symbol works if you will it hard enough.
* Hermetic Occultist: You channel ancient symbols and the will to command the unseen.
* Psychonaut: You believe mind shapes matter and your thoughts become power.
* Technomancer: You treat reality as code. Devices, data, and circuits are your rituals.
* Theurgist: You invoke divine archetypes and spiritual contracts.
Your paradigm shapes your spell flavor but not their mechanics. Your magic missile could be a burst of kinetic code, psychic bullets, or burning angelic script, but it functions as written.
Focus of Will. You can use any symbolic or personal item (a smartphone, lighter, tarot deck, pendant, cigarette) as your spellcasting focus. When you cast a spell using that focus, you can add your Intelligence modifier to one damage roll of that spell.
Reality Shift. When you cast a spell that deals damage, you can alter its energy to match your belief system. You may change the damage type to force, thunder, psychic, or radiant (your choice when you cast).
Level 6: Coincidental Magic
You’ve learned to disguise your magic as coincidence, hiding supernatural acts in plain sight.
Subtle Casting. When you cast a spell, you can choose to hide its magical nature. If your spell could reasonably pass as chance, intuition, or natural phenomena, you can make an Intelligence (Arcana) or Charisma (Deception) check (DC 15). On a success, observers cannot tell the act was magical, and the spell cannot be detected by detect magic or similar effects until the end of your next turn.
Improvised Rituals. You can spend 10 minutes using common objects (chalk, coins, incense, phone screens, graffiti) to perform a ritual casting of any spell you know that normally takes 1 action to cast. When cast this way, you can ignore material components worth 100 gp or less.
Sleight of the Supernatural. You can cast any spell without verbal or somatic components by spending a spell slot one level higher than the spell’s base level. This represents you subtly bending the laws of probability rather than overtly invoking magic.
Level 10: Resonant Will
Your willpower vibrates with the psychic hum of collective belief, the energy of humanity’s unconscious mind.
Resonance Field. As a Bonus Action, you manifest your personal resonance for 1 minute. While active:
* You gain resistance to psychic and force damage.
* When you cast a spell that forces a saving throw, you can impose disadvantage on one creature’s saving throw against it. You can use this benefit a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of once) per activation.
* You always know when you are being magically observed or influenced by divination or enchantment magic.
You can use your Resonance Field a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus, regaining all uses when you finish a Long Rest.
Belief Is Contagious. When you restore hit points to a creature or end an effect on them with a spell, you can grant them temporary hit points equal to your Intelligence modifier and advantage on their next Wisdom saving throw before the end of your next turn.
Level 14: Paradox Surge
You have learned to push reality until it bends, or breaks. When you cast a spell, you can choose to amplify it through a paradox surge. The spell gains one additional benefit (your choice below), but reality pushes back immediately after with a harmful consequence.
* Amplify. The spell deals maximum damage or has its duration doubled. You take 2d10 psychic damage.
* Distort. The spell ignores resistance or immunity to its damage type. You suffer disadvantage on saving throws until the start of your next turn.
* Echo. You can immediately cast the same spell again as a Bonus Action without expending a slot. You are stunned until the end of your next turn as reality recoils.
* Fracture. A ghostly duplicate of you appears until the start of your next turn and repeats your next cantrip. You cannot cast spells other than cantrips until your next turn.
Once you use Paradox Surge, you can’t do so again until you finish a Short or Long Rest.