D&D 5E Eldritch Knight/Bladesinger Multiclass War Magic-Extra attack class features

[LeGamer]

I agree with CreamCloud0's response: No, these don't stack.

War Magic requires that you are using your action to cast a cantrip - that's a Magic Action in D&D 2024 terms.
Whereas Bladesinger is replacing an extra attack of the Attack Action as a cantrip.

And from a game balance perspective my answer is also no, as you're looking to cast more cantrips in a turn. That's very dodgy to me as cantrip damage is already intended to scale (albeit more slowly) similarly to multiple attacks. Cantrip + bonus action single weapon attack is reasonably balanced I would think. Attacks + replacing one of these with a Cantrip + potentially bonus action two-weapon fighting attacks is starting to get overpowered. Multiple cantrips + attacks ... absolutely not!

Yeah, but Crawford does not call it a magic action. He seems to see the war magic as 'if you cast a cantrip with your action' to mean if any 'main action' results in a cantrip casting, then you get the bonus action attack. which is fair since the War Magic does not call it a 'magic action' (is this not a new category rule for the oneEdition, so not may be even backward compatible with wording found in the previous edition?) ie. War Magic itself is not a feature that is an action. it's a trigger, that triggers anytime a cantrip gets casts with any main action.

additionally, you are now the second person thinking in terms of 2 cantrips? huh? under the old rules there is no way to get two cantrips out of the synergy of War Magic and Bladesinger feature. so...you are building 'refutations' that don't exist. i'm not familiar with oneDnD changes, so i'm guessing you are somehow mixing that in?

 

[LeGamer]

From the wording perspective, both do similar thing. You can attack and cast. Warmagic is less powerfull version since it burns 2 actions (one for casting and bonus for attack). Bladesinger on the other hand, can do it using one action. Personally, i would rule it as no, you can't use both features. You eather use action to cast spell (cantrip included) which triggers WarMagic or you use action Attack, which triggers Extra attack feature that allows you to swap one attack for cantrip.

except War Magic does not say "you use the action to cast a spell". It says "use your action to cast a cantrip". And when you use the bladsinger extra attack feature, you are 'using your action' and 'you are casting a cantrip' and thus like i said, the wording is easily read in a way that the synergy is perfectly compatible, so i understand why Crawford ruled it as compatible.

 

[LeGamer]

i would say no, because both feature stipulate for the effect to trigger you need to be performing the cantrip casting/attack action as an action, which if triggered by the effect of the other feature, you're not, warmagic the attack is made as a bonus action and bladesinger extra attack the cantrip is being substituted for an individual attack.

so by my judgement they wouldn't synergize together.

and also, hey, welcome to the forums!

or it can be read as the War Magic is a trigger, while the Bladesinger feature is the action.
ie.
1) you use your action to attack with the bladesinger ability. substitute in a cantrip as one of the attacks.
2) Warmagic is checking if any cantrip is being cast during your action (note war magic makes no mention of 'cast a spell action', just 'if a cantrip is cast'). it notices that a cantrip has been cast.... and it triggers.

just highlighting how the language supports either interpretation. Crawford ultimately decided to read War Magic more as a trigger, and not an action in itself. i.e it is not an 'extra attack' feature that would conflict with other extra attack features from other classes which is normally the case, which Crawford mentions later on in the video.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I thought the rules were pretty clear with this. But maybe not.

Spellcasting: If you cast a cantrip, you cannot attack and therefore don’t trigger multiple attacks. Even if the spellcasting is something like booming blade.

Attack action: Having extra attacks doesn’t mean you can use one attack to cast a cantrip. Extra attack means you can attack more than once with a single attack action.

Therefore, if you use a cantrip, Warcaster kicks on and gives you a bonus action attack.

If you use the attack action to attack twice, the bladesinger ability kicks in and you can change one of the extra attacks into a cantrip.

The latter(Bladesinger) is the better ability because it frees up your bonus action to do something else. The two abilities don’t seem to stack.

Although, you could argue that the cantrip cast from bladesinger triggers the extra bonus action attack from Warcaster but that cantrip doesn’t use your action so it wouldn’t trigger the extra attack because the ability specifically says “use your action to cast a cantrip”

My 2 cents.

 

[CreamCloud0]

or it can be read as the War Magic is a trigger, while the Bladesinger feature is the action.
ie.
1) you use your action to attack with the bladesinger ability. substitute in a cantrip as one of the attacks.
2) Warmagic is checking if any cantrip is being cast during your action (note war magic makes no mention of 'cast a spell action', just 'if a cantrip is cast'). it notices that a cantrip has been cast.... and it triggers.

just highlighting how the language supports either interpretation. Crawford ultimately decided to read War Magic more as a trigger, and not an action in itself. i.e it is not an 'extra attack' feature that would conflict with other extra attack features from other classes which is normally the case, which Crawford mentions later on in the video.

i don't see it as that, warmagic is checking if your action to be spent on casting a cantrip, not 'part of your action', plus you're not using your action to cast a cantrip, you're using it to take the attack action, which you're then substituting part of that action to cast a cantrip, i feel the wording is quite clear and is not supportive of either interpretation.

but i've made my stance clear, do with it what you will.

 

[GrimCo]

I would allow it in this form- Extra attack- cast cantrip and make attack, then you can use bonus action for another attack. So, for the cost of your Action and Bonus action you can make two attacks and cast one cantrip. Not that overpowered for lv 13 character to be honest.

 

[jgsugden]

...WarMagic: Beginning at 7th level, when you use your action to cast a cantrip, you can make one weapon attack as a
bonus action.
Extra Attack 6th-level Bladesinging feature: 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.
...

You say that rules lawyering will fail us, but I disagree - because people forget that lawyering is not always about being nitpicky about wording. Sometimes the legal challenge results in a ruling where we say the words, as written, do not match the clear intent, and that it would be unfair to apply them mindlessly. This is not what is done in every case, mind you, but it is something I would look at here and is something that results in a clear ruling to me.

What was the intent of each ability? To allow you to add some spellcasting to a weapon attack. I'd approach them from the perspective of intent and make the following 'combined' ruling that honors the extra attack with a cantrip of the Extra Attack ability and the bonus weapon attack of the WarMagic:

When you use the attack action you get to make two attacks. You may substitute a cantrip for one of them, but the other must be a weapon or unarmed attack. You may also then use your bonus action to make another weapon or unarmed attack.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

You say that rules lawyering will fail us, but I disagree - because people forget that lawyering is not always about being nitpicky about wording. Sometimes the legal challenge results in a ruling where we say the words, as written, do not match the clear intent, and that it would be unfair to apply them mindlessly. This is not what is done in every case, mind you, but it is something I would look at here and is something that results in a clear ruling to me.

What was the intent of each ability? To allow you to add some spellcasting to a weapon attack. I'd approach them from the perspective of intent and make the following 'combined' ruling that honors the extra attack with a cantrip of the Extra Attack ability and the bonus weapon attack of the WarMagic:

When you use the attack action you get to make two attacks. You may substitute a cantrip for one of them, but the other must be a weapon or unarmed attack. You may also then use your bonus action to make another weapon or unarmed attack.

Considering that bladesinger isn’t a core PHB class, I imagine they never thought of how the two might interact. If it were a core class, I’m sure there would be less overlap or have some kind of guidance in the rules. The same way it says multiple attacks don’t stack from different classes. That said, my opinion is the rules are pretty clear you don’t get to stack the two abilities and I don’t think there was any Intention for them to stack because the designers probably never thought about how they’d interact. but, a dm ruling on a non-core class to stack with a core class so a player can benefit from both seems reasonable as long as the player isn’t going to cheese it up. Given you can make an off hand attack with a bonus action, it probably isn’t game breaking to allow the extra attack.

IMO.

 

[Laurefindel]

For me there isn’t much ambiguity and the RaW is clear; these two features shouldn’t stack. Either you use your action to cast a cantrip or you use the attack action, but war magic isn’t worded as “if at some point during your turn you cast a cantrip…”

That said; it’s neither OP nor out of character to do 2 attacks and a cantrip using both your action and bonus action on a lvl13 build evenly-split multiclass fighter-mage concept. The campaign is about to end and you managed to find a nice capstone. In the meantime the fighter has been doing 3 attacks for the last two levels and your pure-wizard friend is chugging 7th level spells. I don’t see any issues here.

 

[jgsugden]

Considering that bladesinger isn’t a core PHB class, I imagine they never thought of how the two might interact. If it were a core class, I’m sure there would be less overlap or have some kind of guidance in the rules. The same way it says multiple attacks don’t stack from different classes. That said, my opinion is the rules are pretty clear you don’t get to stack the two abilities and I don’t think there was any Intention for them to stack because the designers probably never thought about how they’d interact. but, a dm ruling on a non-core class to stack with a core class so a player can benefit from both seems reasonable as long as the player isn’t going to cheese it up. Given you can make an off hand attack with a bonus action, it probably isn’t game breaking to allow the extra attack.

IMO.

Fair opinion, but I was not basing my argument on the belief they considered these together (although - while I was not basing my argument on them considering them together, I would be shocked if they did not go through and look for multiclassing concerns ... it is a historic step they take for each new subclass per prior videos on their process).

My ruling is based upon thinking about what each of these abilities is intended to achieve separately, and what would happen if you enacted both at the same time.

Multi-attack gets you two attacks and one can be a cantrip. Warmagic says that when you attack you get to do another attack as a bonus action. The primary and simplest implementation of this is what I described: You get to do 2 attacks (one of which can be substituted with a cantrip) and then (if you use a cantrip as part of the attack) you are enabled to use a bonus action to make one more attack (which can't be a cantrip). That seems to enable the intent visible in the crafting of both of these abilities.

YMMV.