D&D 5E Feats that allow you to become a quarter caster?

[TrueBagelMan]

I don't think they are horrible at all but a bit strong, after all with them you get a 3rd level spell before quarter-casters like Arcane Trickster (which gets level 3 spells at 13th level).

I wouldn't allow additional castings of the earlier spells, though. If you want another casting, take it again IMO.

If I follow it with all three as you have them it would be:

• 2 Cantrips
• 2 Firsts (two castings per long rest for each spell)
• 2 Seconds (two castings of one of these per long rest)
• 1 Third

A slightly weaker version would be:

Feat: Magic Adept
Prerequisite: Magic Initiate Feat
You have trained to be better in magic then you already are. You gain access to a 1st and 2nd level from the same spell list of Magic Initiate.

Feat: Magic Practitioner
Prerequisite: Magic Adept feat
Your dabbling in the arts nearly rivals studied casters. You gain access to a another cantrip and 2nd level from the same spell list of Magic Initiate.

You would get 3 cantrips, 2 first, and 2 second level spells. All four would be castable once per long rest.

Combing those with ritual caster would make for quite a spell caster IMO.

As a slight aside, wouldn't "Practitioner" come before "Adept" as I think someone who is adept is usually thought to be better?

I mixed practitioner and adept up.

 

[TrueBagelMan]

I made a whole chain of feats that provided increased access to spells, higher level spells, and spell slots for my Primeval Thule campaign. Each had the previous as a prerequisite and it topped off at 6th level spells.

Playtests went well enough, but I should stress that I didn't allow any full casters in that campaign aside from warlocks. My chain worked very well within that framework, especially since the casting ability came at the expense of ASIs.

Can you put the feats on this chain? I’m curious to see them.

 

[auburn2]

To be honest, I really think the best thing to do is just let a character take magic initiate repeatedly. Every time they take it they get another 1st level spell and 2 more cantrips. So by 12th level a variant human fighter who took magic initiate for every ASI would have 5 1st level spells he can cast once a day and 10 cantrips. That is more 1st level spell castings per day than a full blown 12th level wizard and twice as many cantrips as the wizard has. Not too shabby for someone who has never taken a single level in a spell casting class. I might even house rule it so the spells are "known" and each time he took the feat he gets one slot to cast any of his magic initiate spells. A lot of 1st level spells remain useful throughout the game - Shield, comprehend languages, detect magic, unseen servant .... and saves on others go up with proficiency so this would still be a very useful feat at high levels (more useful than many of the other feats). The cantrips too are based off of character level, so they scale as well.

I really don't like the original idea for a few reasons. First one feat should not be a lot more powerful than another. In this case magic adept is far more powerful than magic initiate and magic practicioner is more powerful than any other feat in the game.

It also penalizes casters and characters who multiclass to get some spells. Consider what you would have to do to get something similar to this with a class dip - you would need to take a full 5 levels in a primary caster class and this would give it to a fighter or barbarian without a dip at all.

 

[auburn2]

This was actually in the Playtest rules, "D&D Next", right to the end. There were 3 more feats, 1 granting just a 2nd level spell once per day, 1 granting a 3rd, and the last one granting a 4th. There were no additional cantrips and the only prerequisite was the previous feat in the "chain".

I was sorry to see they didn't make the final cut before publication.

If they did not make the final cut it is probably because it did not do well in PT.

 

[auburn2]

There is one critical flaw in this argument: Martial/caster multiclassing sucks. Unless you rely on exploits like the sorcadin, or the wizard who dips two levels in fighter so they can nova harder with Action Surge, you will be significantly weaker than a single-classed character of the same level.

Feats should be judged in comparison to other feats or to ASIs. Which would you rather have at 4th level: +1 to your attack and damage rolls, or one 1st-level and one 2nd-level spell slot? It's not immediately obvious, which suggests that this is a reasonable option.

At 12th level, your primary stat is presumably maxed out, so now you're comparing one 1st-level, one 2nd-level, and one 3rd-level slot to, let's say, the Sentinel feat*. Which is better at 12th level? Sentinel is a darn good feat, but I lean toward the spell slots, which makes me think they're a bit too strong; the power gap between 2nd-level and 3rd-level spells is far bigger than the gap between 1st- and 2nd-level. If this were cut back to just granting one 3rd-level slot, I think it would line up better.

*I picked Sentinel as an example of a feat which is very strong, but not notoriously overpowered like GWM or Sharpshooter.

Martial/caster classing only sucks if your goal in playing d&d is to make the most powerful character possible. If that is the case why bother with things like skills, tools and languages at all? More importantly why have feats that give you these things when taking one will always result in a weaker than a character who took an ASI or a combat-related feat?

I agree with your second part - feats should be judged in comparison to other feats or an ASI and that is why I don't like it. Instead of Sentinel, why not compare it to magic initiate? Magic practicioner is much more powerful than magic initiate. At 12th level a character could take magic initiate or magic practicioner and virtually anyone would take the latter.

 

[DammitVictor]

TL;DR
PC wants to create a system where you use feats to get access to more spells. Need to know if this is balanced.

Feat: Magic Adept
Prerequisite: Magic Initiate Feat, 8th level
You have trained to be better in magic then you already are. You gain access to a 1st and 2nd level from the same spell list of Magic Initiate. The 1st level spell from Magic Initiate feat can be cast a second time before taking a long rest.

Feat: Magic Practitioner
Prerequisite: Magic Adept feat, 12th level
You get a 3rd level spell and another 2nd level spell from the spell list. You get a second use of the 1st and 2nd level spell from Magic Adept.

I would suggest doing what your thread title hints at: Feats that allow you to become a quarter caster.

1. Magic Initiate remains about the same: pick a spell, pick a class that gets that spell.
2. Magic Adept is available at level 4. Pick a class (other than Warlock) that you've picked for Magic Initiate. You gain Spells Known equal to your spellcasting ability plus 1/4 your level and Spells Per Day as a multiclass spellcaster equal to 1/4 your level. If you already have spellcasting ability, levels in other spellcasting classes stack for determining your Spells Per Day but not your maximum spell level known.
3. Magic Practitioner is available at level 8. It improves everything from Magic Adept to be based on 1/2 your level, including spells per day for EK/AT.

Tried to do this for Warlock, but it'd take more work than I'm willing to put in right now.

 

[Pauln6]

Martial/caster classing only sucks if your goal in playing d&d is to make the most powerful character possible. If that is the case why bother with things like skills, tools and languages at all? More importantly why have feats that give you these things when taking one will always result in a weaker than a character who took an ASI or a combat-related feat?

I agree with your second part - feats should be judged in comparison to other feats or an ASI and that is why I don't like it. Instead of Sentinel, why not compare it to magic initiate? Magic practicioner is much more powerful than magic initiate. At 12th level a character could take magic initiate or magic practicioner and virtually anyone would take the latter.

Cantrips scale with level so I would not say that casting one higher level spell per day is so much more powerful. Drow High Magic feat grants one second and one third level spell per day after all.

 

[ccs]

Looks interesting. Give it a try & see how it plays.

What's the worst that's going to happen?
The monsters you were planning on them killing will be killed more?
You'll have to adjust some encounters to make sure they still present enough challenge? (you were going to do this anyways, no matter what feats/ASIs were chosen, right??)
Maybe after a time you all decide it's not having a beneficial effect on the game & you retire it.

 

[cbwjm]

I think it should be fine. I've created something similar* and it is quite a feat investment that could be going towards boosting your stats.

*I think mine granted a cantrip, 1st level and 2nd level spell and then the next feat granted a 2nd and a 3rd level spell.

Each needed the previous feat (magic initiate is the first) in the chain as you have here, I didn't bother with level limits though. I think I have them posted on DnD beyond for the wizard class which is the only class I set up on the website.

 

[Pauln6]

I think level limits should be there with subclasses and humans in mind. Also consider whether the spells count as spells known to allow multiple castings for sorcerers sorcery points and Warlock up-casting. I think the general rule is avoid that but you could allow it if the spell is already on the class's spell list I suppose.