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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 9761027" data-attributes="member: 6779196">That doesn’t answer the question. A Fighter can cast a spell and then attack. But they can’t attack and then cast a spell. What’s the in-fiction reason for that?Well, this depends on what casting a spell actually is in the fiction. I’m rather fond of Gorilla of Destiny’s theory of magic, which postulates that casting a spell involves releasing energy (in the form of a spell slot) into an n-dimensional field (that he calls a Gygax field, but I think should more properly be called “the weave”), and shaping the waves to a particular amplitude and direction to produce a particular magical effrct. Verbal, somatic, and material components, then, may be memory aids for the caster to remember precisely how to manipulate the field to the proper specifications for the spell you want to cast, though my preferred interpretation is that they actually create a resonance in that field to induce the appropriate waves. It may be that spellcasters themselves don’t agree on the mechanics, and the memory aid interpretation is favored by wizards, while the resonance interpretation is favored by bards. Regardless, when Readying to cast a spell, the caster performs those components and expends the magical energy (the “spell slot”) but doesn’t release that energy into the weave/Gygax field immediately. They instead hold that energy in suspension until the opportune moment.Why a fighter with caster levels (or the arcane knight subclass) is able to do this after attacking with their weapon but is not able to release the energy immediately after attacking depends on why they’re able to cast a spell before attacking but not after attacking. Because what the heck an “action surge” is and why it works the way it does is currently undefined. It’s an abstract rules construct. Give me an explanation for what it is and why it works like the rules say it does, and I’ll incorporate that into an explanation of why holding the magical energy is possible to do with it but immediately releasing it into the weave/Gygax field isn’t.</blockquote>

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