D&D 5E Do you allow Bladesingers to cast Mending, Shillelagh or Magic Stone as part of the attack action?

[ECMO3]

The Bladesinger version of extra attack lets the Bladesinger cast a cantrip as part of an attack:

Starting at 6th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn. Moreover, you can cast one of your cantrips in place of one of those attacks.

There is nothing in there saying the Cantrip has to have a casting time of 1 action, so RAW this works.

RAI I think mending is not intended to work this way.

Magic Stone and Shillelagh are not Wizard spells, but a Wizard could have them easily through a multiclass or feat. Not sure about RAI here.

Finally the most abuse to this comes from a medium armor XBE-Sharpshooter-Hexblade-Bladesinger who dumps intelligence to 13 and makes two Charisma-based sharpshooter attacks followed by an eldritch blast while having Shield, Absorb Elements, Counterspell, Misty Step, Tiny Hut and a bunch of rituals as a Wizard at her disposal. Despite being a powergaming move, I think this is both clearly RAW and RAI.

What do you do at your table?

 

[pukunui]

I have not had to deal with this situation in any of my games (no one has ever played a bladesinger). However, I would rule that you couldn't use mending since it has a casting time longer than one action. I would most likely allow any other cantrip with a casting time of one action or one bonus action, however, so magic stone and shillelagh would both be on the table.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I mean, as it's not at all powerful, and clearly RAW, I don't see why anyone would not allow it. Maybe not Mending not because it's OP but because it doesn't make sense (I might allow it if it was being used to heal a construct or something).

As you point out, RAW/RAI with the right MC you can Eldritch Blast which is outrageous even after two normal attacks, let alone Sharpshooter nonsense lol.

 

[Maxperson]

The Bladesinger version of extra attack lets the Bladesinger cast a cantrip as part of an attack:

Starting at 6th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn. Moreover, you can cast one of your cantrips in place of one of those attacks.

No it doesn't work. Specific beats general and you specifically cannot cast a cantrip with an casting time of longer than 1 action in 1 action UNLESS the cantrip in question explicitly says that Bladesingers can do so, and the more general Bladesinger rule makes no such specific exception.

There is nothing in there saying the Cantrip has to have a casting time of 1 action, so RAW this works.

Again, the Bladesinger RAW must explicitly make an exception to mending or the specific casting time defeats the more general Bladesinger rule.

RAI I think mending is not intended to work this way.

Specific beats general RAW makes it clear that mending would not work.

 

[ECMO3]

No it doesn't work. Specific beats general and you specifically cannot cast a cantrip with an casting time of longer than 1 action in 1 action UNLESS the cantrip in question explicitly says that Bladesingers can do so, and the more general Bladesinger rule makes no such specific exception.

It does explicitly say they can. I refer you to the text, note bolded:

Starting at 6th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn. Moreover, you can cast one of your cantrips in place of one of those attacks.

So if I take the attack action, I get two attacks and in place of one of those attacks I can cast one of my cantrips (mending is one of my cantrips).

Specific vs general is actually WHY this works. The general rule for spell casting is that it takes a minute to cast mending, or a bonus action to cast magic stone or Shillalagh. What I can't do is cast any one of those three spells using one spell casting action, if I do that with mending it takes an entire minute (10 consecutive spell casting actions while concentrating). I specifically need to use the attack action to cast it quicker.

Again, the Bladesinger RAW must explicitly make an exception to mending or the specific casting time defeats the more general Bladesinger rule.

It does make that exception, allowing you to cast a cantrip as part of the attack action. Without that explicit exception you can never cast a cantrip as part of the attack action, you would need to use the spell casting action or a bonus action.

 

[Maxperson]

It does explicitly say they can. I refer you to the text, note bolded:

Starting at 6th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn. Moreover, you can cast one of your cantrips in place of one of those attacks.

It does not. Nowhere in there is the phrase, "this includes cantrips with longer than 1 action casting times" or "This includes mending." Those would be examples of SPECIFIC beats general. One of the most common errors I see with 5e is the misunderstanding of what it means to be specific.

You see it in Crawford's ruling. I mean, he rules that see invisibility does not see invisibility because it doesn't specifically say that it can. If that doesn't tell you what level of specificity that rule needs to enter play, I don't know what will.

Humans cannot fly as a general rule. The fly spell specifically allows the user to fly anyway. It specifically beats the general rule.

The Bladesinger general rule is a variation on the ability to cast multiple spells. There's no specific exemption in the Bladesinger rule to allow longer than 1 action cantrips.

Specific vs general is actually WHY this works. The general rule for spell casting is that it takes a minute to cast mending, or a bonus action to cast magic stone or Shillalagh. What I can't do is cast any one of those three spells using one spell casting action, if I do that with mending it takes an entire minute (10 consecutive spell casting actions while concentrating). I specifically need to use the attack action to cast it quicker.

No. Specific beats general is why it fails. There is literally nothing specific that exempts mending. The vague "you can cast one of your cantrips" doesn't specifically allow longer casting time cantrips to be quickened.

It does make that exception, allowing you to cast a cantrip as part of the attack action. Without that explicit exception you can never cast a cantrip as part of the attack action, you would need to use the spell casting action or a bonus action.

It specifically allows cantrips. It does not specifically exempt longer than 1 action cantrips.

 

[Tonguez]

Provided that you refluff the stones as playing cards I’m absolutely loving the idea of using one attack to cast a cantrip on your ammunition or staff mes amis

 

[TheSword]

The Bladesinger version of extra attack lets the Bladesinger cast a cantrip as part of an attack:

Starting at 6th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn. Moreover, you can cast one of your cantrips in place of one of those attacks.

There is nothing in there saying the Cantrip has to have a casting time of 1 action, so RAW this works.

RAI I think mending is not intended to work this way.

Magic Stone and Shillelagh are not Wizard spells, but a Wizard could have them easily through a multiclass or feat. Not sure about RAI here.

Finally the most abuse to this comes from a medium armor XBE-Sharpshooter-Hexblade-Bladesinger who dumps intelligence to 13 and makes two Charisma-based sharpshooter attacks followed by an eldritch blast while having Shield, Absorb Elements, Counterspell, Misty Step, Tiny Hut and a bunch of rituals as a Wizard at her disposal. Despite being a powergaming move, I think this is both clearly RAW and RAI.

What do you do at your table?

How is your character getting to throw 2 stones and cast eldritch blast?

Surely it’s throw one stone and get one casting of eldritch blast, where is is the second stone throw coming from? Is your player thinking they get to make an attack with one stone as part of the bonus action?

Also why is mending an issue? What is your character mending urgently in the middle of combat that this has come up?

The strict rules are that bonus actions are bonus actions and actions are actions. This ability doesn’t reference that so ultimately I think it’s up to the table. There’s an argument for both interpretations.

My personal ruling would be that at 6th level magic stone is a pretty mediocre spell when you realize that it doesn’t include the throw, Shillelagh is also helpful but not especially powerful. So I would let bonus cantrips be cast. However, I wouldn’t let the ability speed up the casting of a spell that takes 10 rounds though. Even if there was a good reason to spam mending.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It does not. Nowhere in there is the phrase, "this includes cantrips with longer than 1 action casting times" or "This includes mending." Those would be examples of SPECIFIC beats general. One of the most common errors I see with 5e is the misunderstanding of what it means to be specific.

I think this reasoning is valid. The Bladesinger ability does not specifically mention changing the casting time of cantrips, so it doesn't work with cantrips that do not have casting time of one action.

As for magic stone, the cantrip only enchants the stones, throwing them is a separate action*. If you have extra attack(2) you can throw 2 magic stones. You can throw another if you are hasted. You still need to have made them first with a bonus action, but that doesn't have to be in the same round.

*This also means there is no point quickening magic stone if a sorcerer where to acquire the spell, and it can't be twinned.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

What is your character mending urgently in the middle of combat that this has come up?

Artificer pets. "If the mending spell is cast on it, it regains 2d6 hit points. "