Extra Spell Feat = Extra Confusing [2006 Thread]

From Complete Arcane page 80:

You learn one additional spell at any level up to one lower than the highest level of spell you can currently cast. Thus, a 4th level sorcerer (maximum spell level 2nd) gains a new 0level or 1st-level spell known with which to expand her repertoire. For classes such as wizard that have more options for learning spells, Extra Spell is generally used to learn a specific spell that the character lacks access to and would be unable to research.

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Question: Can a character of one spellcasting class take this feat to learn a spell of another spellcasting class. For example, could a Wizard use this feat to gain access to Cure Light Wounds? Could a Duskblade learn WraithStrike?

No, you cannot.

This feat does not specifically add a spell to your class spell list (as other feats - like Arcane Disciple - do). Therefore, it does not add a spell to your class spell list.

Therefore, you cannot learn CLW as a Wizard.

Now, as a House Rule, it might be appropriately powered to allow it to do so.

What's confusing there? It's perfectly clear!

It does... this: "You learn one additional spell at any level up to one lower than the highest level of spell you can currently cast."

Not even the PHB does really specify what kind of spells you can learn... it only limits what kind of spells you can cast.

Bye
Thanee

It's practicaly useless for a wizard, only in that it helps if they can't learn the spells from a teacher otherwise (Spells the GM has determined are rare). It's a nice feat for a bard or sorcerer though.

What's important to understand, when reading the feat description, is, that the following part does not expand on what the feat does:

For classes such as wizard that have more options for learning spells, Extra Spell is generally used to learn a specific spell that the character lacks access to and would be unable to research.

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"...is generally used..." does not mean "...can be used..."

That's what people often read wrong, and which leads to the confusion.

It only gives a reasoning, how a wizard might use the feat, despite the feat being practically useless to a wizard, since there are so many superior methods of learning spells available. So, only in campaigns, where learning spells is heavily restricted (apart from the two spells at each level up usually), this feat might have a use for a wizard.

You learn one additional spell at any level up to one lower than the highest level of spell you can currently cast.

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That's all the feat does, there is nothing else.

The feat only allows you to learn a spell, it does not change how you learn spells.

Now the only question is, what spells can a character (normally) learn?

Technically, this allows you to learn any spell in existance from any class list there is, just like a wizard could start the game with Cure Light Wounds, since only the 0th-level spells are indicated to be drawn from the wizard class spell list; but since it does not allow you to cast these spells (nor does learning these spells in any other way, short of Arcane Disciple and very few other methods, if any, which specify, that they improve upon the character's class spell list), learning them would be pathetically useless.

The only reasonable conclusion is, that characters - of course - can only learn spells, which are on their class spell list (unless specifically stated otherwise, as in Arcane Disciple but not in Extra Spell), because learning a spell, which you cannot cast, is not very useful, and thus not reasonable.

The rules (even in the PHB) leave it to the reader to make this leap.

The part about casting spells is in the PHB, tho.

A wizard casts arcane spells which are drawn from the sorcerer/wizard spell list.

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Bye
Thanee

What Thanee said is exactly why people forget that wizards can learn spells of a higher level than they can cast.

Thanee said:

The part about casting spells is in the PHB, tho.

A wizard casts arcane spells which are drawn from the sorcerer/wizard spell list.

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Go on, go on, quote Sorcerer!

-Hyp.

Thanks for the responses.

So the folks at the WOTC boards, almost all of them, have what in Thanee's opinion is an unreasonable intepretation of this feat (since Thanee said there is only one reasonable interpretation

I tend to agree with the folks here on this issue, but I never like it when someone claims to have a monopoly on the truth. A simple "I think it means this, and here is why..." would have sufficed.

I always (ok, almost always ) say, if there is room for interpretation. There is none here.

Yes, if most of the folks on the WotC forums say it works otherwise, then most of the folks on the WotC forums are wrong.

If anyone says, that it should work otherwise, or that there is no reason not to have it work otherwise, for whatever reason, that's something different, of course.

Bye
Thanee

Mistwell said:

...what in Thanee's opinion is an unreasonable intepretation of this feat (since Thanee said there is only one reasonable interpretation...

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Please note, that I didn't say that. I said, that it is unreasonable to assume, that a wizard can (without the help of feats or anything else, just through the class abilities alone) learn cleric spells. Therefore, I conclude, that one can only learn spells, which are on one's class spell list.

And I said, that Extra Spell does not allow one to learn any spells, which one cannot normally learn; it does not change one's class spell list. Such drastic changes cannot simply be assumed without any hint in the description of the effect in question.

Bye
Thanee