Planeswalkers in D&D Ravnica

While Magic and D&D both have settings filled with cool creatures, magical spells, and enchanted items, their cosmology is not quite the same. In D&D, all mundane worlds coexist in the Prime Material Plane, and travel between them requires just a simple teleportation spell (or a Spelljammer ship.) Gods and otherworldly creatures then inhabit other planes of existence that require spells like Plane Shift or Astral Projection to visit.

In Magic, however, every world is a different plane. And travel between them requires very powerful magic, such that it's typically only possible for planeswalkers.

So, naturally, I figured: how do I let players become Planeswalkers?

Designing a future Ravnica campaign, I've come up with the following rules, including a Feat called "Planeswalker Spark."

First, the rules:

Spells that allow interplanar travel are not available unless some story progress comes with a breakthrough that would allow them. We know that artifacts like the Planar Bridge built in Kaladesh allow for interplanar travel (as did Phyrexian Planar Gates,) so it might be possible to later allow these spells to be learned. But for now, things like Plane Shift, Astral Projection, or Etherealness are prohibited.

However, players can take a feat that gives them a planeswalker spark. This spark is dormant at first. The feat can be taken any time the player could take any other feat, but it remains dormant until at least thirteenth level (total level - there is no class requirement for this, so you could be a Barbarian planeswalker, which is what I'd say Domri Rade is.)

Ok, so the feat is the following:

Planeswalker Spark:

You have within you a planeswalker spark, giving you the potential to become a planeswalker. You can take this feat any time you could gain a feat, but it remains dormant at least until you reach thirteenth level. Once you are thirteenth level or higher, the DM decides if an event is profound enough to ignite your planeswalker spark, turning you into a planeswalker. When the spark ignites, you immediately make your first planeswalk, explained below.

As a planeswalker, you gain the ability to cast Plane Shift once per long rest. You can only use this spell to transport yourself alone to another Plane of the Magic Multiverse. Casting Plane Shift in this way does not require material components, however, the first time you cast it, which you must do when your planeswalker spark ignites, you go to a random plane determined by rolling on the table below.

Once you have visited a plane, you can choose to travel to that plane again in the future using this feature. Because you are a native of Ravnica, you are automatically familiar enough with your home plane to travel back there using this feature.

If you speak with other planeswalkers, you can gain enough familiarity with other planes you have not visited in order to attempt to intentionally travel to a plane you have not yet visited.

You can spend ten work weeks of downtime traveling between planes in order to practice drawing upon the mana of the land to summon others with you when you planeswalk. Subtract a number of weeks equal to your intelligence modifier (if you have a negative modifier, the process will take additional weeks.) Once you have completed this training, your Plane Shift spell granted by this feat is no longer limited and can be cast on yourself and up to eight additional willing creatures (or a single unwilling creature) as normal for the spell.

Planes of Dominia Table:
d20
1-4 Dominaria
5: Kamigawa
6: Lorwyn/Shadowmoor (roll again. 1-10 is Lorwyn, 11-20 is Shadowmoor.)
7-8: Zendikar
9-11: Innistrad
12: Theros
13: Tarkir
14: Kaladesh
15: Amonkhet
16-17: Ixalan
18-19: Eldraine
20: New Phyrexia

So that's the feat.

The logic here is that players can't get Plane Shift until level 13 usually (it's what's required for pure casters to get 7th level spells) so it shouldn't break the game too much. Additionally, level 13 should leave them powerful enough to survive for a day in a harsh new environment (New Phyrexia might be a bit of a challenge.)

I was initially going to try to include every single Magic plane that has been the primary setting for a set, but decided to cut out some of the ones I didn't think would be too interesting. Rabiah is really just the real world Middle East. Ulgrotha I don't really know enough about to make interesting. Alara's big defining thing is no longer there, if I recall correctly. Mercadia I think was just that one city with not a lot else to make it interesting. Rath no longer really exists since it overlaid Dominaria. The original Phyrexia was destroyed. Mirrodin is of course New Phyrexia now, so it's represented. I believe we're otherwise covered (though I know there's a new one coming next year.) Obviously Ravnica's the primary setting that they'll be traveling from initially.

Of course, only allowing the players who have taken this feat to actually go to other planes would be pretty annoying for the rest of the party, which is why I've included this downtime option - essentially making them players in a game of magic, summoning their party members as legendary creatures.

While I'm going to try to go light on major arc-plots - the campaign is designed so that players can drop in and out on sessions as their schedules permit, because adulthood - I imagine that having some planeswalkers in the party will allow for bigger things to happen.

In fact, there will actually be a big bad hanging out in the background, and no, it isn't Nicol Bolas (though I think at some point we'll have to address the whole War of the Spark thing happening - probably while they're not on Ravnica.) Instead, starting fairly early, we might have some adventures involve finding odd monsters with strange, biomechanical parts and people using a glyph that looks oddly like a Greek letter Phi...