D&D (2024) Thief Rogue / True Strike

[Mistwell]

Seeing the wording of the “enspelled” weapons confirms my fears that players will not be able to craft weapons that have abilities that can be used with fast hands.

This is not the overwhelming majority of perspectives I am seeing online to reading the text of these abilities. Of course. the overwhelming majority can be wrong, and has been wrong before. But there is one thing I believe strongly: if you think you're 100% certain you know what the intent is here, or that your reading of it must be certainly the correct one, you're probably mistaken

For me, the specifics of Fast Hand simply requiring 1) a magic item, 2) that activates using a magic action, then it works with fast hands as a bonus action. That text overrides the general rule of spellcasting, and the requirement of a bonus action is in fact the requirement of activation for the item.

 

[ECMO3]

Seeing the wording of the “enspelled” weapons confirms my fears that players will not be able to craft weapons that have abilities that can be used with fast hands.

These items don’t have powers that activate upon usage, they only enable the user to meet the requirements needed to cast a spell.

See I read it completely the opposite - you expend a charge to cast a spell. So you don't cast it, the weapon does (and it even uses the bonuses from the weapon not yours) and you will be able to activate magic items with fast hands.

Also Pack Tactics is where I got the idea to use it for True Strikes, and he actually has a copy of the DMG.

This is whole discussion is about: could a spell caster take 3 levels of Rogue/Thief to reliably cast any two leveled spells every round? I do not believe it written that way or intended to be that way.

Yes, if they had magic items to do that. But 3 levels of Rogue, especially Rogue-Thief is a pretty big dip to be able to do this.

Note: The ‘attack bonus’ for enspelled items would not apply to true strike, since those are determined by the attack action.

You do not use the attack action to cast Truestrike, you use the Magic Action (unless you are an Eldritch Knight, Bladesinger or Valor Bard).

The spell does not scale by level like other spells (with DC/AB going up). It does scale with extra damage at each tier. It would be reasonable to rule that an item could be created to cast a lower level spell at a higher level. True Strike at “level 3” would do the 1d6 of extra damage.

It would take level 5 to do the extra 1d6 with Truestrike.

 

[Eric Olson1]

These the facts that I am using to make my opinion about intent:

1. quote from Crawford's youtube video: "The thief will be able to take a magic item that requires a magic action for activation and thanks to fast hands, activate it as a bonus action." The bolded text is different than the PHB and would be important to say if you were distinguishing “magic action for casting spell”, “magic action for activation” or “magic action for magical abilities” (the 3 sub-types in the PHB)
2. 4th edition was broken because of this – so much that removed it completely from 2014. It is my opinion that they are wise and have a memory – it is iconic, but they want to add it back carefully under the DMs control
3. Descriptions were carefully edited in the 2024 edition. This is not random. Every change had intent. Defining the 3 types of magic actions is new and associated references (like fast hands) have their text written to align to a type of magic action.
4. Descriptions of the magic items seem to also be deliberate. Some say that use allows you to cast a spell (enspelled). Others say that use causes an effect (like the cloak of invisibility). It would certainly have been easier and more “consistent” for the cloak of invisibility to say “pulling the cloak over your head allows you to cast the invisibility spell”.. but it does not say that. Why? Intent.

Plus my personal feeling: “fast hands” is something you do with your hands (quickly). You do this by NOT concentrating/focusing on it, instead it comes naturally. “James Bond” would not use item that allows him to attach a keyboard and start to hack a computer system himself … He would attach an item that automatically did the hacking, while he was thinking about other things.

True Strike cast as a spell (like with an enspelled item) would give you the ability to focus your aiming with the ability associated with the item - but the energy is limited by the rarity of the item. (item energy + your focus). You could make the case where you thought the focus could also be limited, but I don't think that is necessary.
If you had an item that said "expending a charge creates the effect of true strike", then the effect is coming 100% from the item -- so it magically is helping you aim, you would use the attack bonus from the item (not you). You are not expending mental focus on the item so it would work for fast hands. DMs could (and probably should) create such an item for the players. If the enspelled crafting created an item that didn't require you to "cast a spell", it would say so.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

See I read it completely the opposite - you expend a charge to cast a spell. So you don't cast it, the weapon does (and it even uses the bonuses from the weapon not yours) and you will be able to activate magic items with fast hands.

Also Pack Tactics is where I got the idea to use it for True Strikes, and he actually has a copy of the DMG.

And Kobold Tactics shows a text that says something that does not support his interpretation of the rules.

Yes, if they had magic items to do that. But 3 levels of Rogue, especially Rogue-Thief is a pretty big dip to be able to do this.



You do not use the attack action to cast Truestrike, you use the Magic Action (unless you are an Eldritch Knight, Bladesinger or Valor Bard).



It would take level 5 to do the extra 1d6 with Truestrike.

 

[pukunui]

I don't think there will be class restrictions on it. Being a caster (if that is a restriction) is not the same as being a caster class. A Thief that knows the Truestrike Cantrip (or any spell) is a caster.

Sure. But if you know true strike already, (e.g. You’re a high elf or you’ve multiclassed), then you don’t really need a magic item that can cast it for you.

 

[ECMO3]

And he seems to be unable to read properly...

Well he actually HAS a copy of the DMG and you presumably don't .... so I don't really think you even have a basis to say he is reading it wrong.

 

[ECMO3]

Sure. But if you know true strike already, (e.g. You’re a high elf or you’ve multiclassed), then you don’t really need a magic item that can cast it for you.

Oh you are missing the earlier discussion from the thread, this is about getting sneak attack twice a turn, once with a bonus action with Fast Hands using a scroll (which could not be used until higher level) and once with an action.

You need to have a magic item with Truestrike for the Fast Hands part of it.

 

[ECMO3]

These the facts that I am using to make my opinion about intent:

1. quote from Crawford's youtube video: "The thief will be able to take a magic item that requires a magic action for activation and thanks to fast hands, activate it as a bonus action." The bolded text is different than the PHB and would be important to say if you were distinguishing “magic action for casting spell”, “magic action for activation” or “magic action for magical abilities” (the 3 sub-types in the PHB)

I don't think they are subtypes. It is all one action type in the PHB.

Further the new Fast Hands does not follow this verbiage. Fast Hands does not say "activate". Fast Hands says "... or take the Magic action to use a magic item that requires that action."

If I am to accept your interpretation that these Magic Action subtypes are purposefully distinct and that such wording is intentional, then the clear implication is Fast Hands also intentionally allows you to do all 3 subtypes as they did not use words excluding or specifying one of the subtypes.

To summarize if there are in fact three subtypes of Magic actions (activation, cast a spell, magical abilities); the wording of Fast Hands lets take a bonus action to use a Magic Item that does any of those three subtypes.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Well since he actually HAS a copy of the DMG and you presumably don't .... so I don't really think you even have a basis to say he is reading it wrong.

He showed the text in his video. I attached a screenshot for you.

As I said willfully misleading.

 

[ECMO3]

He showed the text in his video. I attached a screenshot for you.

No he didn't and even pointed that out in the beginning of the video; that he is not allowed to show text from the DMG.