D&D (2024) Not a fan of the new Eldritch Knight

[ECMO3]

So, you think that an Eldritch Knight on page 97 learns a "wizard cantrip" which means a cantrip from the wizard spell list, but then after that, wizard cantrip means a Eldritch Knight Cantrip gained from the Eldritch knight subclass.

I think in both cases they are talking about a Cantrip gained from the Eldritch Knight subclass. I have said this numerous times, I don't know why you keep asking it.

Do you know why an Eldritch Knight's abilities only work with spells an Eldritch Knight knows? Because nothing in the fighter, wizard or eldritch knight allows you to cast a spell you do not know.

This is untrue. Wizards at high level can cast spells they do not know. They can even cast spells not on the Wizard list.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think in both cases they are talking about a Cantrip gained from the Eldritch Knight subclass. I have said this numerous times, I don't know why you keep asking it.



This is factually untrue. Wizards at high level can cast spells they do not know. They can even cast spells not on the Wizard list.

Wizards use the same wording as EK. So RAW their spells work with war magic.

Elf cantrip and Magic Initiate depends how rules lawyer you are. Personally I say yes but I wouldn't argue with a DM over it.

DMs getting the PHB thrown at them if they disagree with the Wizard part espicially if it's not Session 0 and I'm an EK7/ wiz xyz or similar.

 

[ECMO3]

That doesn't mean that you are somehow required to have other casting stats. In fact, that seems to be a pretty terrible choice.

Seems to you.

You insisting it is true doesn't give me any reason to believe it is true

Believe it or don't believe it, it is still true.

Since I've pretty much never seen someone multiclass something that needed three different casting stats, because that seems like a horrible idea that is completely anti-synergistic... no, I can't show you that.

Again just because you psesonally have not seen it, does not mean it doesn;t exist.

Further in the 2014 rules races had spells tied to specific abilities, so any Tiefling or Drow playing a Wizard, Cleric, Druid or Ranger or any High Elf playing a Socrerer, Bard, Warlock etc had multiple casting stats.

Moreover I did not ask you to show me a multiclass that had three different casting stats, I asked you to show me 9 real world multiclass casters characters being played right now that do not need this. You threw up a strawman Cleric-Wizard-Eldritch Knight that is not even a real PC and only had one Cleric Cantrip and did not need to track multiple casting stats, then you went on to say this was not how 90% of people build Eldritch Knights with no evidence at all to support your positon

I used a real example to back up my post, one of three multiclassed casters I am playing I could have used. You can't provide a single character in play. You claim this is not an issue for 90% of characters, but can't provide a single one?

Because, generally, if you are making a character, you synergize your abilities, or make those abilities not matter and so you don't bother to track it.

Yes and that is why you play an Eldritch Knight with your Warlock-Paladin base, so your fighter levels provide more spell slots to fuel smites and Charisma-based spells.

It is why you play a Cleric to get your Wizard Heavy armor instead of a Fighter - so that you don't lose a caster level.

It is why you take a Sorcerer level on your Cleric - to get Constitution save proficiency.

Synergy is exactly WHY you do this!

I don't need to track whether or not I have any particular score to cast mage hand, light, or guidance.

Which would be fine if those are the only three Cantrips, but they aren't and if your Wizard/EK/Cleric has Toll the Dead you do need to track whether it is Cleric or Wizard.

 

[ECMO3]

Wizards use the same wording as EK. So RAW their spells work with war magic.

I am talking about RAI as noted many pages ago.

RAW is quite ambiguous.

 

[Zardnaar]

I am talking about RAI as noted many pages ago.

RAW is quite ambiguous.

Nope it's not ambiguous with EK and Wizard.

Exact same words used. Wizard cantrip both cases vs a cantrip from the wizard spell list.

RAW exact same phrasing.

 

[Chaosmancer]

By making choices to avoid needing that high ability score for the DC or attack bonus we are acknowledging that separate ability score and class spell list. It just becomes easier with an active choice to ignore the those details based on that spell selection.

With the CHA based EK and warlock multiclass example we know we can take jump as an EK spell and we can get away with ignoring INT for that spell. But we cannot do that with sleep because then we need to use the INT score to calculate the save DC. In making a choice to ignore INT we are still tracking spells by class, and keeping track of which we can take or not take; which is a good way to avoid MAD issues but still tracking nonetheless.

The multiclass rules tell us that we prepare spells for each class separately and therefore track those spells by the class. We can make that easier to manage and it is still happening.

In the EK case I read the text as wizard spell and see that as a spell on the wizard spell list. I interpret the qualifier your wizard spells as specific to the wizard spells the EK has learned through the class because it is used to indicate ownership from the lens of the class in which it is described, but I can see it being interpreted as any wizard spell the character has obtained from the wizard list. In either interpretation the spell is still being tracked.

2cp

I think my initial point is getting blurred by all this.

That "wizard spell" in Improved War Magic means "An Eldritch Knight spell learned by this subclass from the Wizard Spell list" and that you must specifically track only those spells you've learned as an Eldritch Knight to use with this ability... seems overly fiddly to me. It literally twists on a single word being interpreted in a single way.

Sure, if you decide to build a Wizard Cleric, you track your spells separately. But you don't necessarily bother to track them for a High Elf Wizard with Magic Initiate (Intelligence based) and Fey Touched (intelligence based) because every single one of those spells can use your spell slots and use your intelligence mod and Intelligence saving throw. So saying that you are required to track these things and that makes it not fiddly to have "wizard spell" mean "High elf spell", "Magic Initiate spell", "Fey Touched spell" and "spell gained by the wizard class" seems overly complicated. And if all your choices ended up coming from the wizard spell list, you can't even really argue that missing them is going to break something.

Which is why I think it doesn't make sense to read the War Magic and Improved War Magic as only working with the few spells you get from the subclass itself. It makes far more sense to read it as broadly as possible, which is it works with all spells and cantrips from the wizard spell list. Because that's the least complicated way to run it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

These two posts seem to agree and making the character sheet in D&D Beyond seems to backup that you have to track all your cantrips from various sources separately.


Just to filter and condense what people have been talking about so far so I can get it straight in my brain.

1. According to the other first two posts quoted, You have to track all cantrips separately. If you take two instances of Mind Sliver - one from your 8 INT EK (chosen from the wizard spell list) and one from 17 charisma Warlock, each casting of those will have a different 'to hit' bonus. There doesn't seem to be any debate here. Seems pretty clear and I'm pretty sure this is how it always worked.

2. There's lots of reasons to drop INT on a EK but it surely isn't required. One of which is to boost CHA or WIS for mutli-classing, another is to create an interesting Face with high CHA. If you do so, you need to track spell sources.

3. There is still debate as to whether you can only use EK cantrips for EK abilities like War Magic. To go further, there's still debate whether you can use Wizard cantrips/spells for War Magic if they weren't given to you specifically by the EK subclass. If they were, say, given to you by taking a level of wizard or Origin feat, they might not be eligible.

4. There is still a debate on stacking various stat bonuses when multi-classing which isn't specific to EK but effects many builds with EK.

Have I missed anything?

I think it is worth pointing out for #1 that while DnD Beyond allows you to take the same cantrip twice, it seems a bit of a stretch to read intent into that. There is literally no circumstance in the entire game where doing so is beneficial. No one would ever do that. So, the fact that the program allows this is equally likely to be a programming artifact because no text was ever written to prevent you from choosing the same cantrip twice. And it wasn't prevented, because it doesn't make any sense to do so.

#3 is my main point of contention, though I am also discussing #4 seperately.

I do not disagree with #2

 

[Chaosmancer]

I assume you're happy to concede that an EK cannot cast cantrips they do not possess, right? Were it to read

When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can replace one of the attacks with a casting of a Wizard cantrip that has a casting time of an action.​

​

The wording would be open to interpretation that the EK needn't have learned the cantrip prior to using it with War Magic, just so long as it was a Wizard cantrip.

This argument would be similar to saying that the rules state you can drink a potion as a bonus action, but that since they don't specify it needs to be a potion you own, you could drink any potion from the DMG without having to find it first.

There is no reason to ever consider someone can cast a spell they do not know, and I don't think that ever has to be clarified in the text.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I think in both cases they are talking about a Cantrip gained from the Eldritch Knight subclass. I have said this numerous times, I don't know why you keep asking it.

Because this "When you reach Fighter level 10, you learn another cantrip you learned as an Eldritch Knight of your choice." and this "Whenever you gain a Fighter level, you can replace one spell on your [Eldritch Knight spell] list with another Eldritch Knight spell you have learned for which you have spell slots." are nonsense statements.

How do you replace a spell on your list with a spell from your list and why would you do so when you can cast your entire list? It makes no sense.

This is untrue. Wizards at high level can cast spells they do not know. They can even cast spells not on the Wizard list.

I'm sorry, did I miss an ability that allows wizards to... are you talking about Wish?! Seriously?! Please tell me you have some other argument than the effects of a spell allow you to do something that you normally cannot do. Because that is a bad faith answer if I've ever heard one. I seriously hope I'm just missing something dumb instead of something like that.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Again just because you psesonally have not seen it, does not mean it doesn;t exist.

Strawman. I never said they don't exist. Just that they are incredibly rare because they tend to be badly made characters.

Further in the 2014 rules races had spells tied to specific abilities, so any Tiefling or Drow playing a Wizard, Cleric, Druid or Ranger or any High Elf playing a Socrerer, Bard, Warlock etc had multiple casting stats.

And we are discussing the 2024 rules where that is no longer the case. WHY do you think it is no longer the case? I think it is because people didn't like it, it made them feel bad about their characters, and made it so they didn't use those abilities. Pointing to a problem that was fixed doesn't convince me that it isn't seen as problem

Moreover I did not ask you to show me a multiclass that had three different casting stats, I asked you to show me 9 real world multiclass casters characters being played right now that do not need this. You threw up a strawman Cleric-Wizard-Eldritch Knight that is not even a real PC and only had one Cleric Cantrip and did not need to track multiple casting stats, then you went on to say this was not how 90% of people build Eldritch Knights with no evidence at all to support your positon

I used a real example to back up my post, one of three multiclassed casters I am playing I could have used. You can't provide a single character in play. You claim this is not an issue for 90% of characters, but can't provide a single one?

Do you want me to make random characters? I personally don't play multiclass characters, and none of my DnD groups currently have any multiclass characters. Your insistence that I somehow come up with a real character that does something no real character I'm currently aware of does is bizarre. You aren't even addressing the point, just saying "My character was real with a character sheet and you just gave a sketched example therefore I am right and you are wrong!"

Yes and that is why you play an Eldritch Knight with your Warlock-Paladin base, so your fighter levels provide more spell slots to fuel smites and Charisma-based spells.

It is why you play a Cleric to get your Wizard Heavy armor instead of a Fighter - so that you don't lose a caster level.

It is why you take a Sorcerer level on your Cleric - to get Constitution save proficiency.

Synergy is exactly WHY you do this!

Most people I know who play paladin play... Paladin. No fighter levels. No eldritch knight subclass. Once I say a paladin take a few levels of hexblade.

Most people I know who play wizard... play wizard. They don't multi-class into cleric for heavy armor because.. they are playing a wizard and not having armor is part of that kit, and they decided they were okay with it.

I've played multiple clerics. I have never once taken a level of sorcerer. Because I'm playing a cleric. And if I desperately wanted consitution save proficiency (which I have never once wanted) then I would use a feat to get it, not take a spellcasting class that offers me nothing I want and that I can't leverage effectively.

You have these complex builds in your mind that are "optimal" but what you are doing is not what most people do or play.

Which would be fine if those are the only three Cantrips, but they aren't and if your Wizard/EK/Cleric has Toll the Dead you do need to track whether it is Cleric or Wizard.

If I'm playing at all intelligently, then it is going to be whichever one is using my best spellcasting score. But whether that is coming from Eldritch Knight or Wizard doesn't really matter, because both are using Intelligence.