School Of Abjuration Spell Statistics [DnD 5e]

To abjure means to solemnly renounce or reject beliefs, claims, or causes, or to abstain from something. From a magical perspective, the School of Abjuration focuses on protecting allies and banishing ill effects.

Many Wizards of other schools look down on abjurers, as they perceive the school’s tradition to be rooted in denial and negation rather than positive assertion. Yet all spellcasters dabble in the art, knowing that any occult knowledge is incomplete without abjuration.

Here are 21 statistics on School of Abjuration spells from DnD 5e’s three main rulebooks:

The School of Abjuration has the longest spell in the game — Prismatic Wall. The 9th-level spell is a total of 706 words. That’s about 3 minutes of reading for a person with an average reading speed.
The shortest spell in the School of Abjuration is Invulnerability at 10 words (3 seconds of reading). Funnily enough, it’s also a 9th-level spell, and ranks as the shortest spell in the fifth edition of DnD.

There are 52 Abjuration spells, which is right in the middle as far as magic school representation goes.
The average word count for Abjuration spells is 151 words — that ranks as the third-highest among schools of magic.

Interestingly, Abjuration has the shortest median word count of any magical school, at 84 words. That means that most Abjuration spells are fairly short, while a handful of super long spells inflate the school’s average word count.
Wizards have the most Abjuration spells at 28; Warlocks and Rangers tie for the least at 10.

However, percentages are more telling; Abjuration spells make up 32% of the Paladin’s spell list, followed by Clerics at 22%. Sorcerers, at sub-6%, have the least Abjuration-heavy spellbook of any spellcaster.

60% of Abjuration spells are buffs. That’s more than any other school of magic. It also explains why Abjuration’s median word count is the lowest in the game — other than healing spells, buffs have the shortest average word count of 5e spell types.

32 of Abjuration’s spells require material components; 13 of those spells consume part or all of the material components when cast.

The most expensive Abjuration spells that consume the material are Planar Binding (jewel worth at least 1,000 gp) and Symbol (mercury, phosphorus, and powdered diamond and opal worth at least 1,000 gp)
The most expensive Abjuration spell overall is Imprisonment — used on a Tarrasque, this spell costs 16,500 gp (500 gp per 33 hit die) worth of whatever special component is needed for the type of imprisonment. The spell does not consume these materials though.
There are 20 concentration Abjuration spells and 2 ritual Abjuration spells — Forbiddance and Ceremony.
The Player’s Handbook introduced 45 Abjuration spells, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything added 6, and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything included 1 Abjuration spell (Intellect Fortress).

42% of Abjuration spells have a range of “Touch,” more than any other school of magic.

There are 18 area of effect Abjuration spells in DnD 5e. That’s about a third of the school’s spells. Note that this number includes group buffs, like Aid.
Only 12 Abjuration spells can be upcast. That works out to 23% of the school’s spells — much lower than the gamewide average of 35%.
Abjuration has 6 damaging spells. 3 deal Elemental damage (Absorb Elements, Prismatic Spray, and Prismatic Wall), 1 deals Cold damage (Armor of Agathys), 1 deals Necrotic damage (Symbol), and 1 deals Force damage (Banishing Smite).
Spells in the school of Abjuration require a total of 5 Charisma saving throws, 3 Constitution, 4 Wisdom, 3 Dexterity, and 1 Intelligence. Note that this includes saving throws that happen at any point during the spell’s effect, which is why you see Symbol with 4 separate saving throws in the chart.

The school of Abjuration’s most damaging ability is Symbol. Set with the Death glyph, this spell deals an average of 55 Necrotic damage on a failed save.
2/3 of Abjuration spells have a casting time of 1 action. While that may seem high, 76% of 5e spells have a casting time of 1 action overall.

Abjuration spells have varying durations, but one hour and one minute are the most common.

Like most schools of magic, Abjuration has more lower-level spells than higher-level ones.

Methodology

All data is taken from the three main fifth edition rulebooks (Player’s Handbook, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything).

Word counts do not include the spell name, level, school, casting time, range, components, or duration. Nor do they include the stat blocks of any summoned or conjured creatures. They also do not include the words “At Higher Levels” for spells that can be upcast. Word counts do, however, include all text included in charts, including numbers.

One statistic from above is somewhat subjective: spell types (damage, heal, buff, debuff, utility). I tried to take a common-sense approach to what category each spell falls into and limited each spell to two types. Some spells that I classified as “Buff and Debuff,” like Magic Circle and Dispel Evil and Good, another player could reasonably call “Utility.”

Still, I believe that my logic would align with most players on most spell classifications and hope that these numbers prove useful for relative comparisons of spell schools, if nothing else.

As a final disclaimer, I did all of this by hand, so there are almost certainly some small errors in my work — I’m only human.