School of Orb Pondering

Most wizards rely on ink and paper to perform the necessary calculations and thought processes required for spellcasting. You, however, can do all the math in your head. All you need is an orb and a clear mind.

Pondering Savant

Beginning when you select this school at 2nd level, your spell book is transcribed onto a crystal orb that you receive as part of your training, inherit from your master, or find in some ancient ruins. Your orb is a tangible and indestructible object, and you gain the following features while you have it: 

• The orb replaces your spell book and all of its relevant wizardly functions. You can also use your orb as a spellcasting focus.
• When you hold your orb using both hands while casting a spell, you gain a +1 bonus to spell attack and damage rolls, and spell save DC.
• Casting a ritual spell using your orb requires only 1 minute, instead of 10.
• When copying a spell from a scroll to your orb, you do not require gold or magical inks, and you only need to spend a number of minutes equal to 2 + 2 per spell level.

If you lose your orb, you can spend a long rest recalling it. At the end of your long rest, it reappears within 5 feet of you.

Orb Heritage

Pondering an orb is a lifelong pursuit. Beginning at 2nd level, you grow a large beard, regardless of your race or gender. If shaven, the beard regrows to its full bushy length over the course of 1d4 days. In addition, unless you are at least 60 years old, roll 10d4. Increase your current age and potential lifespan by the number rolled.

With age comes experience, and you learn that what matters most must take precedence. While you are holding your orb in both hands, little else can grab your attention; you have advantage on Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws, and you add your proficiency bonus to Constitution saving throws made to maintain concentration.

Arcane Contemplation

Starting at 6th level, you glean more of your orb's secrets. You gain proficiency in all Intelligence checks, if you don't already have it. You also double your proficiency bonus for any such rolls you make while pondering your orb. Images relevant to your inquiries flash across the orb's surface.

Additionally, you automatically succeed on Constitution saving throws made to maintain concentration, if you are holding your orb in both hands.

Greater Scrying

Beginning at 10th level, your orb grants you extraordinary perception, allowing you to gaze past space and time. Your orb replaces any material components required for divination spells, including consumable ones with any gold cost. You are also able to cast any divination spell you know once without expending a spell slot. Once you cast a divination spell in this way, you can't do so again until you finish a long rest. If a divination spell specifies that you gain information from a deity or a higher power, you gain it from your orb, instead.

When you cast the scrying spell using your orb, the target has disadvantage on the saving throw, and you can enhance it with one of the following effects:

• Projection. You create a visible illusion of yourself where the scrying sensor would be. When you do, you see and hear through the illusion, and you speak through it.
• Omniscience. The target does not have to be in the same plane of existence as you.
• Farsight. If you target a location, your sensor gains a flying speed of 30 feet, and can hover. You no longer need to have seen the location before, but you must have at least heard of it.
• Translocation. You can cast spells through your scrying sensor as if you were in its location. Once you cast a spell through the sensor, it becomes no longer invisible or tethered to its target creature. A visible sensor has an AC of 12, a speed of 0, and 1 HP.
• Chronotabula. You can see the target's past or future (your choice). You see a random but significant moment of its lifetime other than the present, at the DM's discretion. A future vision shows the most probable outcome given the current circumstances. The DM can also rule that the target's future is too uncertain to foresee.

True Pondering

Through patient meditation, you grow ever closer to learning the orb's deepest mysteries. Attaining such enlightenment opens your mind to prospects once thought impossible, and you cannot afford to be distracted from your intellectual quarries by worldly needs.

Starting at 14th level, you no longer need to eat, drink, or sleep, and whenever you make an Intelligence check that lets you add your proficiency bonus, you can treat a d20 roll of 14 or lower as a 15.

In addition, you can spend 1 hour pondering your orb to gain one of the following features:

• Orb Empowerment. Cast one spell you know that requires concentration, targets only one creature, and does not impose a saving throw. You or a creature of your choice becomes under this spell's effects, no concentration required. The spell cannot be cast normally until the chosen creature loses its effects, and its duration is replaced with this class feature's (see below).
• Orb Foreknowledge. Choose one creature on which you have successfully scryed before. If the creature is on the same plane of existence as you, it must make a Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, you keenly discern its behavioral patterns; you have advantage on attack rolls you make against it and saving throws imposed by it, and it has disadvantage on attack rolls it makes against you and saving throws imposed by you.
• Orb Impersonation. You create an Orb Avatar. The avatar appears within 5 feet of you or an ally you are scrying on. The avatar has all of your character's statistics, but does not act on its own and requires your direct control through your orb. When you create the avatar, you lose half of your maximum hit points, and it gains maximum hit points equal to that amount. You can perceive with your senses through the avatar as if you were in its place, and it expends your spell slots for any spells you cast through it. Once the avatar reaches 0 hit points, it disappears until you create it again. While the avatar looks like you, any creature can easily recognize that it is not a person.

When you use one of these features, it lasts until you finish a long rest or until you use this feature again to gain a different feature.