Complete Guide to the Arcana Skill in D&D 5e
As one of the intelligence based knowledge skills (the others being History, Nature, and Religion), Arcana is often derided as a near useless skill that only comes up very rarely, and even then often doesn’t have much of an impact on the game. For some characters, at some tables, this can be true. But for others, Arcana is sneakily one of the best skills in the game. Let’s go over what exactly can be done with this skill.
Arcana can be used to recall knowledge of spells, arcane lore, magical creatures, extraplanar creatures, the outer planes, or magical items or effects. It is also commonly used to decipher complex magics, magical puzzles, or as a way to interact with magical devises that aren’t strictly magic items. It can also be used to identify a spell as it’s being cast. Lastly, proficiency in Arcana is required to scribe scrolls.
Let’s talk about the knowledge recall stuff first. D&D tests a character’s knowledge about a topic through skill checks, the check retroactively determining what information your character would know. In terms of what topics Arcana covers, this can come up very often, or rarely. If your DM allows you to roll Arcana to find out information about magical monsters you may be facing soon, this could be a really big deal. Learning about a monster’s abilities, resistances, and potential spells it’s known to cast could be a lifesaver. If your campaign takes place in an especially magical world, this skill could also come up frequently as you learn about how magic works in the world. Amongst the other knowledge skills we mentioned earlier, I feel that Arcana will come up the most, as this is a game where magic is commonplace.
As for identifying a spell as it’s being cast, this is really clunky. Rules as written, you actually don’t know what spell someone else is casting until it takes effect. This flies in the face of how every single table I’ve ever seen runs enemy spellcasters. I’ve always seen (and ran it this way myself) the DM state that the enemy wizard is casting Fireball, and then the players have a chance to react with something like Counterspell. How it works RAW, the DM announces that the enemy wizard is casting a spell, then starts asking for saving throws or whatever the spell does. The players must react in the time between those two things. This is where you can take a reaction to identify the spell being cast. The problem is that this costs your reaction, which you would need to cast Counterspell or do literally anything to mitigate the spell you just learned is being cast. I suppose you could maybe rule that your character could shout to another character who has a reaction what the spell is, and then that character can cast Counterspell, but even that is really clunky. This also massively slows down gameplay, forcing you to constantly make rolls whenever another combatant casts a spell. Just ignore this application and keep running enemy spellcasters how you always have been.
Here’s the real money: scribing spell scrolls. Spell scrolls are magic items that contain one spell, can be read as an action, and then cast that spell. They are one time use, and can only be used by someone who has that spell on their spell list. If they would be able to cast that spell with the level of spell slot they have currently, they cast the spell when reading the scroll, no roll required. If the spell is of a higher level than what the spellcaster could currently cast, they must make an Arcana check with the DC equal to 10 plus the level of the spell. As for scribing scrolls ourselves, we can only scribe a spell that we have prepared, and it requires proficiency in Arcana to scribe the scroll. Note that there is no roll required here, as long as you have proficiency in Arcana, you succeed at making the scroll. There is a time and gold cost associated with scribing, becoming very expensive and time consuming past 2nd level spells. This means that your scribing will likely be limited to 2nd level spells and below, but that isn’t a problem at all. There are dozens of amazing low level spells that I would love to have extra free castings of, such as Shield, Feather Fall, Bless, Invisibility, Spider Climb, Absorb Elements, Silvery Barbs, Vortex Warp, Misty Step, Healing Word, Aid, Spike Growth, or Entangle. This is even a way for a Paladin to store up smites on downtime days for use later. Scribe a Wrathful Smite scroll on your downtime day, then combo it with a regular Divine Smite when you need it, all for just one spell slot! Any spellcaster, even Eldritch Knights and Arcane Trickers, can scribe scrolls, meaning that all spellcasters benefit greatly from grabbing proficiency in Arcana. Seriously people, scribe scrolls more often. It’s a quick and easy way to turn gold and downtime into real power on the battlefield.
In summary, if you have the spellcasting or Pact Magic feature, grab Arcana proficiency just for spell scrolls alone. That ability is reason enough to pick up this skill, and is criminally underutilized at most tables.
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