(a) a light crossbow and 20 bolts, or (b) any simple weapon

(a) a component pouch, or (b) an arcane focus

(a) a scholar's pack, or (b) a dungeoneer's pack

Leather armor, any simple weapon, and enough arcane components to restore 3 spell levels

Cantrips

At 1st level, you know three cantrips of your choice from the Heretic spell list.
You learn additional Heretic cantrips at higher levels, as shown in the Cantrips Known column of the Heretic table.

Preparing and Casting Spells

The Heretic table shows how many spell slots you have to cast Heretic spells of 1st level and higher.
To cast a Heretic spell, you must prepare it and expend a spell slot of that spell’s level or higher.

You prepare spells by drawing on the alien principles your mind has begun to understand.

Your Heretic spell preparation works like the cleric and wizard:

• You prepare a number of Heretic spells equal to your Charisma modifier + your Heretic level, minimum 1.
• You can change your prepared spells at the end of a long rest.

You can restore spell slots using special rules described under Ritual Conduit.

Spellcasting Ability

Charisma is your spellcasting ability for your Heretic spells.
You wield magic not through study or bloodline, but through the force of an expanded, distorted perception of reality.

Spell save DC = 8 + proficiency bonus + Charisma modifier
Spell attack modifier = proficiency bonus + Charisma modifier

Ritual Casting

You can cast any Heretic spell with the ritual tag as a ritual, provided you have it prepared.

Your subclass or features may grant additional ritual options.

Spellcasting Focus

You can use an arcane focus as a spellcasting focus for your Heretic spells.
Some subclasses (such as the Duelist) may provide alternative foci.

Ritual Conduit

1st-Level Heretic Feature

Your mind is a funnel for forces just beyond the thin membrane of mortal reality.
Your spell slots do not recover through rest—instead, you must perform a ritual to restore them.

This ritual requires:

• A drawn ritual circle 5 feet in diameter
• 10–30 minutes, depending on the highest-level spell slot being recovered
• Incense, inks, or sigils worth 25 sp × spell level restored
  
  
• You must remain within 10 feet of the circle for the entire ritual.
  
  
• If interrupted, the ritual fails and expended materials are wasted.
  
  

You can perform this ritual once per short or long rest.

The ritual circle disappears after:

• 1 hour
• You move more than 10 feet away from it
• Another ritual circle is created

You cannot benefit from more than one ritual circle at a time.

Heretic Spell Slot Recovery

How Slot Recovery Works

Max Slots Held

This represents the total number of spell slots you can have at a time.
You can never hold more than this number, regardless of what levels the slots are.

Max Spell Levels Recoverable

This is the total number of spell slot levels you can restore with a Ritual Conduit ritual.

For example:

• At level 9, you can recover 16 total levels.
• You could restore:
• two 5th-level slots + one 3rd-level slot (5+5+3 = 13), or
• one 5th + one 4th + three 2nd levels + one 1st level (5+4+2+2+2+1 = 16), etc.

Ritual Time

Raising higher-level energy takes longer.
The ritual time listed is the total time spent based on the highest level slot being recovered, not per spell restored.

Limits and Clarifications

You can perform only one recovery ritual per rest.

Short or long rest, doesn’t matter — one ritual max.

Rituals are fragile.

• If you leave the 10 ft radius, it fails and you recover no spell slots.
• If a creature attacks you, interrupts you, or moves you, the ritual fails.
• You cannot concentrate on spells during the ritual.

Material Cost

25 sp × the spell level being recovered.

Examples:

• Restoring a 3rd-level slot = 75 sp
• Restoring a 1st + 1st + 2nd = 25 + 25 + 50 = 100 sp

The cost could represent rare inks, fractal sigils, incense, geometric constructs, or any other suitably otherworldy component. Feel free to flavor this as you see fit.

Flavor Guidance

Feel free to describe your ritual circles as:

• Escher-like spirals
• Impossible shapes
• Pulsing fractal runes
• Ink that drips upward
• Chalk lines that bend around shadows

Level 1 Features

Ritual Conduit

See under "Spellcasting."
This feature establishes the Heretic’s unique spell slot recovery system and implements ritual-circle-based restoration.

Spellcasting

See under "Spellcasting."

Level 2 Feature

Fractured Presence

Your mind has begun to align with principles that mortal senses cannot fully interpret. The air around you subtly warps, causing reality to “slip” in ways that defy simple logic.

You gain the following benefits:

Subtle Warp Aura

A faint disruption surrounds you in a 5-foot radius.
Creatures within this aura:

• Have disadvantage on ability checks made to track, detect, read, or interpret your emotions, intentions, or surface thoughts (such as Insight or contested Deception checks).
• Cannot gain advantage on attack rolls against you from being unseen or invisible.

Mental Distortion

When a creature attempts to read your thoughts, use telepathy on you, or detect your emotions, it must succeed a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC or:

• Perceive only nonsensical, fractal, contradictory impressions,
• And take psychic damage equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1).

This effect is a weaker echo of your future features, a “first ripple” of the unreality you will one day project naturally.

Level 3 Features

Heretic Subclass

You choose an otherworldly discipline—such as the Duelist or Hexmaster—which shapes how your emerging perception manifests.
You gain subclass features at levels 3, 6, 10, 14, and 18.

Unknowable Mind

Your psyche twists into contradictory, layered constructs that repel intrusion.

You gain:

• Resistance to psychic damage.
• When a creature attempts to read your thoughts, communicate telepathically, or cast an Enchantment or Divination spell that targets only you, it must succeed on a Charisma saving throw (DC = 8 + proficiency bonus + Charisma modifier) or take 2d6 psychic damage and become Frightened of you until the end of its next turn.

The damage increases to:

• 3d6 at 10th level, and
• 4d6 at 12th level.

Level 6 Feature

Mind-Shelled

Your consciousness has hardened into a nigh-impenetrable structure of alien logic and perception.

You gain:

• Advantage on saving throws against being Charmed or Frightened.
• If you fail such a saving throw, you may reroll it. You regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest.
• Creatures have disadvantage on Insight checks made against you.

Your thoughts are now not only unreadable—they are labyrinthine.

Level 7 Feature

Reality Echo

As your perception broadens, you begin to witness small inconsistencies in the world—faint “echoes” of unreal possibilities.
You learn to nudge these echoes into being, subtly altering outcomes.

You gain the following abilities:

Echo Tilt

When a creature you can see within 30 feet makes an ability check or saving throw, you can use your reaction to warp the local pattern of causality.

The creature must roll a d4 and:

• Add the result to the roll if the creature is an ally, or
• Subtract it if the creature is an enemy.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier, and regain all uses when you finish a long rest.

Echo Fragment

As a bonus action, you may create a faint illusionary afterimage of yourself that occupies your space until the start of your next turn.
The afterimage:

• Provides you half cover against ranged attacks made by creatures farther than 30 feet away.
• Vanishes if struck or interacted with.

These distortions are not illusions of sight alone—your presence briefly “refuses” to settle into a single stable reality.

Level 10 Feature

Aberrant Perception

Your senses expand into dimensions most minds cannot conceptualize. You instinctively notice places where reality is thin, where minds waver, or where unseen things tread.

You gain the following benefits:

Hyper-Perception

You gain blindsight to a range of 10 feet.
You do not need eyes to sense the presence of creatures or objects within this radius.

Pierce the Veil

You can see:

• Invisible creatures
• Ethereal or extraplanar beings overlapping your space
• Illusory surfaces or objects

as faint distortions, shifting silhouettes, or broken reflections.

You cannot automatically determine their nature—you simply perceive their presence.

Occult Insight

You have advantage on Intelligence (Arcana) and Wisdom (Perception) checks made to detect:

• Magical auras
• Warp phenomena
• Aberrations
• Planar distortions
• Illusions or dreamlike anomalies

Your mind has developed eyes into places where eyes were never meant to be.

Level 12 Feature

Warp Instinct

Reality reacts sluggishly around you, as if your presence rewrites the immediate future.

When a creature you can see:

• Hits you with an attack, or
• Targets you with a spell,

you may use your reaction to force the creature to reroll the attack roll or spell attack roll.
It must use the new roll.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and regain all uses after finishing a long rest.

Level 14 Feature

Eldritch Aperture

Your mind opens wider, creating a permanent conduit between your perception and what exists just beyond thought.

Double-Sight

You are under the constant effects of see invisibility, except this sight manifests as:

• Silhouettes
• Overlayed motion
• Fractal residues of the unseen

This does not require concentration.

Cognitive Echo

Whenever you cast a spell that targets only yourself, you can choose one creature you can see within 30 feet.
That creature gains a brief echo of your altered perception, granting:

• Advantage on their next attack roll, ability check, or saving throw they make before the end of their next turn.

Dimensional Whispers

You always know if a creature within 30 feet of you:

• Is under an illusion
• Is shapeshifted
• Is not native to the current plane

Your senses are no longer limited to the mortal world’s geometry.

Level 16 Feature

Aura of Disbelief

Your presence destabilizes reality for those unused to its deeper layers.

You emit a 10-foot aura.
Enemies inside it suffer:

• Disadvantage on saving throws against being Charmed or Frightened.
• A –2 penalty to attack rolls against you and your allies.

This aura does not affect entities originating from any Outer Planes or creatures immune to the Frightened condition, though they still take the attack penalty.

Level 18 Feature

Mastery of the Unknown

Your understanding of the unreal has reached its peak.
You gain the following benefits:

Cosmic Insight

You have advantage on checks to:

• Detect illusions
• See through false realities
• Identify extraplanar creatures
• Recognize warp distortions or planar overlaps

Reality Fracture (1/day)

As an action, you tear open a localized anomaly.

You create a 20-foot radius area centered on a point you can see within 60 feet.
The area becomes a zone of warped geometry and impossible non-Euclidean distortions for 1 minute.

Within this area:

• You and allies you choose have resistance to nonmagical damage.
• Once per round, you may use your reaction to swap the positions of any two creatures inside the zone (including yourself).
• Enemy ranged attacks or spells that pass through the area must succeed a Charisma saving throw against your spell DC or be made with disadvantage.
• Enemies that start their turn inside must make a Wisdom saving throw or take 2d8 psychic damage and become incapacitated until the end of their turn.

This is a controlled, focused echo of the kind of reality distortions produced by entities from beyond.

Level 20 Feature

Paragon of Paradox

The majority of your being no longer operates entirely within the constraints of mortal existence.

You gain the following benefits:

Override Fate

Once per turn, you may treat a d20 roll made by you or an ally within 30 feet as though the result was 10 + your Charisma modifier.
You may do this once per short or long rest.

Planar Symmetry

You count as a native creature to:

• The Material Plane
• The Ethereal Plane
• The Astral Plane
• One other plane of your choice (chosen at level 20)

For effects that differentiate between planar origins, you may choose which of these planar identities you count as.

Spell Amplification

Once per long rest, when you cast a spell of 5th level or lower, you may cast it as if it were 2 levels higher without expending a higher-level slot.

Stabilized Distortion

Unless you allow it, you are immune to:

• The Frightened condition
• Telepathy that would read thoughts
• Having your mind read or magically surveilled

Your existence now straddles multiple layers of reality, and the world must bend to accommodate you.

Heretic Subclass: Parallax

Subclass Overview

Some Heretics glimpse truths beyond the world, and manifest those truths externally.
Others fail to remain wholly inside themselves.

A Parallax Heretic exists at a slight offset from reality — never fully aligned with a single point of view, location, or presence. Their thoughts refract. Their perceptions overlap. Their body lags behind their awareness, or arrives moments too early.

Rather than overwhelming minds with force, Parallax Heretics undermine certainty itself. Enemies hesitate, unsure if they have already acted or whether what they perceive is reliable. Allies find their senses subtly enhanced, their reactions sharpened by a second perspective that is not entirely their own.

As their understanding deepens and they adjust to their new existence, a Parallax Heretic learns to anchor fragments of themselves to others, defend allies by misdirecting hostile intent, and ultimately render even supernatural perception unreliable. To them, perfect sight is a blatant falsehood — nothing more than a brittle assumption waiting to be broken.

Parallax Heretics excel at battlefield denial, reaction-based defense, and perception-based control. They thrive when positioned carefully, watching everything, and acting only at the moment when intervention matters most.

Bonus Spells

You gain access to the following additional spells at the listed Heretic levels. These count as Heretic spells for you, but do not count against the number of Heretic spells you know.

Parallax Features

Peripheral Selves
3rd-level Parallax feature

Your presence subtly manifests in places you are not fully occupying.

• You may perform simple interactions (such as opening an unlocked door, retrieving a small unattended object, or tracing a symbol) within 10 feet of you as though you were present there, provided no other creature is actively observing the interaction.
• When you make a Charisma (Deception), Charisma (Performance), or Charisma (Intimidation) check, you may describe your voice or image briefly appearing in more than one place. You gain advantage on the check if the target cannot clearly see you.

These manifestations are illusory and cannot deal damage or activate magical items.

Fractured Form

3rd-level Parallax feature

Your physical presence has begun fraying at the seams, allowing you to perform multiple split-second actions at once.

You gain an additional reaction. This reaction may only be used with features from this subclass. If you use your normal reaction, this feat cannot be used with the same event that triggered that reaction.

Metaphysical Agony
6th-level Parallax feature

When you use a reaction granted by a Parallax feature, you may impose one of the following effects on the triggering creature:

• The creature takes psychic damage equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1), and has disadvantage on its next saving throw before the end of its next turn.
• The creature must choose whether to move or take an action on its next turn. It cannot do both.

You may apply Metaphysical Agony once per round.

Flicker

6th-level Parallax feature

You gain the ability to intensify the distortion of your physical presence. Once per short rest, you may activate this ability as a full action. While active, this ability functions like the Mirror Image spell, except that you may take a reaction when a duplicate is destroyed.

Split Sight

10th-level Parallax feature

Your very being has frayed to the point of defying basic laws of physical space; The concept of “location” steadily becomes even more irrelevant to you. 

As a bonus action, you may choose an allied character within your vision and line of sight. Your being splits and partially attaches to them, lasting for as long as they stay within your vision and line of sight. While split, you may use your target’s vision range and line of sight for casting spells or triggering reactions from this subclass, and they may use your Charisma modifier to make relevant skill checks and saves; however, any time either character suffers a condition based on sight (i.e Blinded), it is also taken by the other character. 

You can only split yourself across one other character at a time, and you must actively maintain the effect.

• If you are incapacitated, stunned, or unconscious, the effect immediately ends.
• Whenever you take damage, you must succeed on a Constitution saving throw as if you were maintaining concentration (DC 10 or half the damage taken, whichever is higher), or the effect ends.
• You can end Split Sight at any time (no action required).

Maintaining Split Sight does not count as concentrating on a spell and does not interfere with concentration on other effects.

Fractured Perception

14th-level Parallax feature

Opportunity attacks against allies within 30 feet of you require the attacker to succeed on a Wisdom saving throw against your spell DC or fail altogether.

Cognitive Anchor
14th-level Parallax feature

As a bonus action, choose a creature you can see within 60 feet. You fix its perception to the space it currently occupies.

Until the end of your next turn, the creature treats the area beyond that space as unstable. The first time the creature attempts to move from its space, it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC or its movement is reduced to 0 for that turn.

On a success, the creature may move normally, but its speed is reduced by 10 feet until the end of its next turn.

Clouded Perception

18th-level Parallax feature

Your distortions no longer rely on deception — they overwrite certainty itself.

• Illusions you create through spells or subclass features are indistinguishable from reality, even to creatures with truesight or similar abilities that would normally reveal illusions.
• When a creature with truesight, blindsight, or similar extraordinary senses perceives one of your illusions, it must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC or treat the illusion as fully real until the end of its next turn.
• While a creature is affected in this way, it has disadvantage on saving throws against illusion or enchantment spells you cast.