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

[ECMO3]

Well, knock me down with a feather.

I guess if it needs two feats to start to work and 6 levels of one class and at least one class of another it isn’t going to be crazy.

It does take a long time to come online, 8 levels with a variant human or 10 levels with another race (getting agonizing blast as well).

When it does come online it is wicked powerful though because of how Eldritch Blast scales with level. at 10th level it is 2d6+2d10+20+5xCharisma. That is before Hex or any other riders. It adds a 3rd blast at level 11.

You also

 

[ECMO3]

It can't apply to mending since it replaces one attack IN the ATTACK ACTION, so the cantrip has to be an attack of some kind. Nowhere in the ability does it invalidate the Attack Action rules EXCEPT with respect to replacing one attack with a cantrip.

This is absolutely not true and would mean you could not cast things like Blade Ward or Guidance or Toll the dead either. If this were true it would say replace the cantrip with an attack cantrip.

There are no cantrips (and no spells for that matter) that use an attack "IN the ATTACK ACTION". None! Not Green Flame Blade, not Eldritch Blast, not Firebolt.

By allowing ANY Cantrip to use the attack action you are overiding the normal casting time.

Further there are other things that are NOT attacks that you can use an attack "IN the ATTACK ACTION" action to do, specifically grapple and shove AND there are other subclass abilities that let you replace attacks with something else, specifically commanders strike battlemaster maneuver.

Your argument would be like saying I can only replace an attack with a grapple check if grapple requires an attack roll, which it doesn't ...... so I can never replace an attack with a grapple check .... even though the rules say I can.

 

[Maxperson]

By allowing ANY Cantrip to use the attack action you are overiding the normal casting time.

That's completely false. There is no requirement to let casting times vary simply by allowing some cantrips to be used during the attack action. Absent an inherent requirement, and it is absent, it requires the text to specifically override the additional time component of Mending.

 

[ECMO3]

Not one of which can be used with the Attack Action. The Attack Action is a very specific action used only to attack something.

Cantrips can't be used with the attack action either. The Bladesinger ability specifically overides this!

 

[ECMO3]

That's completely false. There is no requirement to let casting times vary simply by allowing some cantrips to be used during the attack action. Absent an inherent requirement, and it is absent, it requires the text to specifically override the additional time component of Mending.

The casting time is an action or a bonus action or a minute for every single cantrip in the PHB. That is then casting time. If you allow ANY of these as part of the attack action you are overiding that.

If I cast firebolt as part of an attack I am overiding the normal casting time.

 

[ECMO3]

Correct, which is why the specific rules in the Bladesinger ability that allow it to replace one attack within the attack action exist. It SPECIFICALLY allows the cantrip into the attack action, but does not override other rules, such as allowing attack =/= attack. That last bit excludes mending all by itself.

It does not specifically allow that. The text in the Bladesinger say nothing at all about an attack action for the Cantrip and the attack action itself can already be used for things other than making an attack.

How do you resolve the ability to make a Grapple attempt as part of the attack action when a Grapple attempt is a contest and not an attack?

 

[Maxperson]

Cantrips can't be used with the attack action either. The Bladesinger ability specifically overides this!

Yes it does, and that's the only specificity in the ability. The broad and vague "your cantrips" is not specific under how 5e uses specificity.

 

[Maxperson]

The casting time is an action or a bonus action or a minute for every single cantrip in the PHB. That is then casting time. If you allow ANY of these as part of the attack action you are overiding that.

No you aren't, because bonus action and action fall within the time frame of attack action. None of those is longer than an action. Only the minute is longer and there is nothing inherent in the Bladesinger ability that specifically overrides that.

If I cast firebolt as part of an attack I am overiding the normal casting time.

If you use it during 1 action you are overriding using it during 1 action? How does that work?

 

[Maxperson]

How do you resolve the ability to make a Grapple attempt as part of the attack action when a Grapple attempt is a contest and not an attack?

Specific beats general is how.

From grapple.

"GRAPPLING
When you want to grab a creature or wrestle with it, you can use the Attack action to make a special melee attack, a grapple."

Note the specificity there. It does not give some vague "your cantrips" like statement.

 

[Irlo]

Specific beats general is how.

From grapple.

"GRAPPLING
When you want to grab a creature or wrestle with it, you can use the Attack action to make a special melee attack, a grapple."

Note the specificity there. It does not give some vague "your cantrips" like statement.

I admit I do not follow your arguments about specificity. The bladesinger feature seems to me to be the specific rule that supercedes the general rules around casting times for cantrips. I get that you don't see it that way. I just can't figure out why that is.

There's going to be no consensus here. If we can't agree that the bladesinger feature of necessity changes the casting time of the cantrip to something different than one action, and if we can't agree that there is nothing expressed or implied in the feature that requires the cantrip to require an attack roll, then nothing else is going to come of this conversation.

I enjoy bantering about the logical inconsistencies of rules, though, so this hasn't been a total loss.