D&D 5E Cartomancer feat - OP at high levels

[ECMO3]

I've never seen this feat used in play, but I was reading it and I think it is going to be WAY, WAY powerful:

Prerequisite: 4th Level, Spellcasting Feature

You have learned to channel your magic through a deck of cards. You can use a card deck as your spellcasting focus, and you gain the following benefits:

Card Tricks. You learn the Pretidigitation cantrip and can use it to create illusions that duplicate the effects of stage magic. When you use Prestidigitation in this way, you can conceal the verbal and somatic components of the spell as ordinary conversation and card handling.

Hidden Ace. When you finish a long rest, you can choose one spell from your class’s spell list and imbue that spell into a card. The chosen spell must have a casting time of 1 action, and it must be a level for which you have spell slots. The card remains imbued with this spell for 8 hours. While the card is imbued with the spell, you can use a bonus action to flourish the card and cast the spell within. The card then immediately loses its magic.


Card Tricks is not that great and Hidden Ace is good in tier 1 and 2 but not OP. I would rate it as a B tier in levels 1-4, an A in levels 5-8, S in levels 9 and 10. But then once you get 6th level spells it starts to get out of hand.

If I think of an 18th level Cleric or Wizard - I would get a free cast of any 9th level spell on my list AND get to cast it as a bonus action. If I had 1 level of Cleric I could pick a 9th level Cleric spell? Is this way OP in play like it seems to be?

 

[DrJawaPhD]

The wording is not very clear but my interpretation of "cast the spell within" is that you need a spell slot available to do so.

Assuming that interpretation it doesn't seem overpowered. That would mean no free spellslot, although you do get the flexibility of being able to select a spell that you don't personally know but could have picked from your class, combined with a free Quickened/Subtle spell metamagic once per day.

 

[Distracted DM]

I've never seen this feat used in play, but I was reading it and I think it is going to be WAY, WAY powerful:

Prerequisite: 4th Level, Spellcasting Feature

You have learned to channel your magic through a deck of cards. You can use a card deck as your spellcasting focus, and you gain the following benefits:

Card Tricks. You learn the Pretidigitation cantrip and can use it to create illusions that duplicate the effects of stage magic. When you use Prestidigitation in this way, you can conceal the verbal and somatic components of the spell as ordinary conversation and card handling.

Hidden Ace. When you finish a long rest, you can choose one spell from your class’s spell list and imbue that spell into a card. The chosen spell must have a casting time of 1 action, and it must be a level for which you have spell slots. The card remains imbued with this spell for 8 hours. While the card is imbued with the spell, you can use a bonus action to flourish the card and cast the spell within. The card then immediately loses its magic.


Card Tricks is not that great and Hidden Ace is good in tier 1 and 2 but not OP. I would rate it as a B tier in levels 1-4, an A in levels 5-8, S in levels 9 and 10. But then once you get 6th level spells it starts to get out of hand.

If I think of an 18th level Cleric or Wizard - I would get a free cast of any 9th level spell on my list AND get to cast it as a bonus action. If I had 1 level of Cleric I could pick a 9th level Cleric spell? Is this way OP in play like it seems to be?

This was called out when the book released and it's seen a lot of discussion and is either terribly worded or terribly OP. AFAIK there's been no Sage Advice answer on it.

RAW it seems:

1. You don't need to know the spell.
2. You don't need to use a spell slot on it.
3. You cast as a bonus action with a "flourish" of the card- so it works within Silence; sort of a quickened+subtle spell.

A level 1 cleric could NOT pick a 9th level spell because the feature specifies you need to have spell slots for that level. That's the limiter, and that the spell is somewhere on your class' spell list.
Yes, a character can get an extra 9th level spell with it. Yes, it's very powerful. Yes, high level games are wonky. Yes, this is still OP even for that level of play.

 

[Maxperson]

I've never seen this feat used in play, but I was reading it and I think it is going to be WAY, WAY powerful:

Prerequisite: 4th Level, Spellcasting Feature

You have learned to channel your magic through a deck of cards. You can use a card deck as your spellcasting focus, and you gain the following benefits:

Card Tricks. You learn the Pretidigitation cantrip and can use it to create illusions that duplicate the effects of stage magic. When you use Prestidigitation in this way, you can conceal the verbal and somatic components of the spell as ordinary conversation and card handling.

Hidden Ace. When you finish a long rest, you can choose one spell from your class’s spell list and imbue that spell into a card. The chosen spell must have a casting time of 1 action, and it must be a level for which you have spell slots. The card remains imbued with this spell for 8 hours. While the card is imbued with the spell, you can use a bonus action to flourish the card and cast the spell within. The card then immediately loses its magic.


Card Tricks is not that great and Hidden Ace is good in tier 1 and 2 but not OP. I would rate it as a B tier in levels 1-4, an A in levels 5-8, S in levels 9 and 10. But then once you get 6th level spells it starts to get out of hand.

If I think of an 18th level Cleric or Wizard - I would get a free cast of any 9th level spell on my list AND get to cast it as a bonus action. If I had 1 level of Cleric I could pick a 9th level Cleric spell? Is this way OP in play like it seems to be?

As written it gives you an extra spell of a high level, which is pretty strong. It doesn't get around the inability to cast a spell as a bonus action unless the other spell is a cantrip, so that doesn't really break it by allowing two high level spells to be cast in the same round. I also don't think that getting one spell of another class list is broken. Bards do it as part of their class.

I think it's strong, but not overpowered.

 

[Maxperson]

This was called out when the book released and it's seen a lot of discussion and is either terribly worded or terribly OP. AFAIK there's been no Sage Advice answer on it.

RAW it seems:

1. You don't need to know the spell.
2. You don't need to use a spell slot on it.
3. You cast as a bonus action with a "flourish" of the card- so it works within Silence; sort of a quickened+subtle spell.

You don't cast the spell by flourishing the card. You flourish the card AND cast the spell. All the components need to be followed since you are casting it, so it wouldn't work in silence unless it didn't have a verbal component.

 

[Distracted DM]

You don't cast the spell by flourishing the card. You flourish the card AND cast the spell. All the components need to be followed since you are casting it, so it wouldn't work in silence unless it didn't have a verbal component.

This is part of the bad wording, but read it again: you can use a bonus action to flourish the card and cast the spell within.
The spell doesn't require components- it's simply cast with a flourish. If we look at other items and features that cause spells to be cast, we find that casting doesn't require that you follow the spell's components or casting time.

See Elemental Gem: When you use an action to break the gem, an elemental is summoned as if you had cast the conjure elemental spell, and the gem's magic is lost.

You don't take 1 minute to cast the spell, you cast it as an action specified in the item. You also don't require the components listed for the spell.

 

[Maxperson]

This is part of the bad wording, but read it again: you can use a bonus action to flourish the card and cast the spell within.
The spell doesn't require components- it's simply cast with a flourish. If we look at other items and features that cause spells to be cast, we find that casting doesn't require that you follow the spell's components or casting time.

See Elemental Gem: When you use an action to break the gem, an elemental is summoned as if you had cast the conjure elemental spell, and the gem's magic is lost.

You don't take 1 minute to cast the spell, you cast it as an action specified in the item. You also don't require the components listed for the spell.

I can see that you can read it the way you say, but it can also be validly read as requiring both the flourish and the spellcasting. The DM will need to rule which way it goes.

Also, note that the card doesn't use the same wording as the gem. The gem summons the elemental AS IF you had cast the spell. The lack of the lack of the "as if" in the feat means that the spell is actually being cast, not something "as if" you "had" cast the spell. Different wording and different meanings.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

This is part of the bad wording, but read it again: you can use a bonus action to flourish the card and cast the spell within.
The spell doesn't require components- it's simply cast with a flourish. If we look at other items and features that cause spells to be cast, we find that casting doesn't require that you follow the spell's components or casting time.

That is not how I would interpret the unclear wording. Focusing on what you highlighted in italics, I interpret that diction as stating that you do two things, A) you flourish the card, and B) you cast the spell within. I would rule that you still need spell components and an available spell slot to cast the spell. And casting time is one thing that is clearly identified - it must be a cast time of 1 Action, which then becomes usable as a Bonus Action.

The elemental gem item isn't a great analogy because it is worded more clearly, and its existence doesn't set any precedence that Cartomancer should work the same.

 

[Distracted DM]

I've provided an example to support my interpretation- I could go grab more, but I think we're all applying our own differing logic to the feature.
One could almost say that it's worded quite poorly

 

[Maxperson]

I've provided an example to support my interpretation- I could go grab more, but I think we're all applying our own differing logic to the feature.
One could almost say that it's worded quite poorly

Like much of 5e. I'm not sure if they are just very sloppy, or if they deliberately write things vaguely in order to push their rulings over rules philosophy. I lean towards the latter.