So Im a paladin and I’m hoping on multiclassing to warlock. One of the draws was that I get access to some very powerful warlock spells. Unfortunately looking through the Pact Magic text revealed that
“A spell you choose must be of a level no higher than what's shown in the table's Slot Level column for your level. When you reach 6th level, for example, you learn a new warlock spell, which can be 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level.”
I was disappointed i couldnt get the spell i wanted until i saw the next sentence
“Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the warlock spells you know and replace it with another spell from the warlock spell list, which also must be of a level for which you have spell slots.”
It technically doesn’t say it has to be a warlock spell slot that I need to have. And I’m going to use this to my advantage.
But likely theres some kind of errata or ruling issue that I’m running into. Im asking if there is one? And what is it? Because I can’t find one and if there is none im pretty good to go
The text you are looking for is in the multiclassing rules. It states that when learning or preparing spells you treat it as if you were a single-class character of the level you are in that class. So a Paladin 6/Warlock 1 character would never know any warlock spells that any other lvl 1 Warlock couldn't learn.
But they don't apply whenever you multiclass. The rules for spellcasting in the multiclassing rules say they only apply when "you have the Spellcasting feature from more than one class," ergo, not when you have 1 Spellcasting and 1 Pact Magic.
For example, if you're an Arcane Trickster, with 7 levels in Rogue and some number of levels in Monk, you'd follow the Arcane Trickster's table for spell slot progression instead of the multiclassing section, right? You'd have 4 1st-level spell slots and 2 2nd-level spell slots instead of just having 3 1st-level slots, because, even though you're a multiclassed character, the Spellcasting rules in the multiclass section are irrelevant with only one Spellcasting feature.
But they don't apply whenever you multiclass. The rules for spellcasting in the multiclassing rules say they only apply when "you have the Spellcasting feature from more than one class," ergo, not when you have 1 Spellcasting and 1 Pact Magic...
Is this really an argument you want to win? That warlocks (unlike every other spellcaster) are able to learn spell based on slots gained from other classes?
The rules in the multiclass section say "You determine what spells you know and can prepare for each class individually, as if you were a single-classed member of that class." This text is in the section of multiclassing rules that covers anyone who can cast spells.
But they don't apply whenever you multiclass. The rules for spellcasting in the multiclassing rules say they only apply when "you have the Spellcasting feature from more than one class," ergo, not when you have 1 Spellcasting and 1 Pact Magic...
Is this really an argument you want to win? That warlocks (unlike every other spellcaster) are able to learn spell based on slots gained from other classes?
The rules in the multiclass section say "You determine what spells you know and can prepare for each class individually, as if you were a single-classed member of that class." This text is in the section of multiclassing rules that covers anyone who can cast spells.
No, it's in the section of multiclassing rules that covers anyone who has the Spellcasting feature from more than one class. Which is why the section starts by saying, "Once you have the Spellcasting feature from more than one class, use the rules below. If you multiclass but have the Spellcasting feature from only one class, you follow the rules as described in that class."
And, no, it's not an argument I want to win. I don't come into threads on this forum with the intent of arguing what I think the best rules would be. I'm just looking to explain the rules as they are written. Do I think that, in this case, the RAW of the issue makes sense, or that it would somehow break the game for a DM to rule differently on this? No, of course not. But sometimes, the rules lead to silly or unintuitive results; I think we can all agree on that.
The rules in the multiclass section say "You determine what spells you know and can prepare for each class individually, as if you were a single-classed member of that class." This text is in the section of multiclassing rules that covers anyone who can cast spells.
No, it's in the section of multiclassing rules that covers anyone who has the Spellcasting feature from more than one class. Which is why the section starts by saying, "Once you have the Spellcasting feature from more than one class, use the rules below. If you multiclass but have the Spellcasting feature from only one class, you follow the rules as described in that class."
The Multiclassing > Spellcasting section contains rules relating to multiclassed characters that have the Spellcasting feature and also brings up the Pact Magic feature. The 'Spells Known and Prepared' subsection does not refer to either feature specifically. These rules deal with all spellcasters.
Alright, so we have the paragraph following the main heading telling us that these rules only apply to characters with more than one Spellcasting feature, and we have a later subheading dealing with an entirely separate feature. That's maybe not the best editorial choice WotC could have made, but I still see no reason to believe that the rules outside of the Pact Magic subheading apply to the Pact Magic feature. If the rules say they're dealing with Spellcasting, that's not the same as dealing with Pact Magic. They're different features, even if they share similarities.
Alright, so we have the paragraph following the main heading telling us that these rules only apply to characters with more than one Spellcasting feature, and we have a later subheading dealing with an entirely separate feature. That's maybe not the best editorial choice WotC could have made, but I still see no reason to believe that the rules outside of the Pact Magic subheading apply to the Pact Magic feature. If the rules say they're dealing with Spellcasting, that's not the same as dealing with Pact Magic. They're different features, even if they share similarities.
You can believe that if you want, and I don't think you actually do believe it. Pact Magic is a type of spellcasting. It is not the Spellcasting feature, but it is a kind of spellcasting. It has a spellcasting ability modifier and can use a spellcasting focus. The rulebook does not say that the 'Spells Known and Prepared' subsection applies only to the Spellcasting feature - that is something you are implying from the editing.
So this is interesting to me because it has a very niche effect on gameplay with paladin + warlock multiclassing.
However, it has a huge affect on Warlock + Profane soul bloodhunter multiclassing. Both get access to pact magic, treating the blood hunter as a 1/3 caster, and whether or not you assume the spellcasting multiclass rules apply to pact magic vs the wording in pact magic itself will determine whether you end up with (for example with my bloodhunter 10, warlock 4):
Personally in the game in playing we decided to apply multiclassing rules to pact magic so I only have 2nd level spells. Tbh it gets even weirder in that unlike multiclassing spellcasters, the number of cantrips also go by the combined spellcaster level, so I really don't know if my interpretation is the right one, but it made sense to us at the time.
But they don't apply whenever you multiclass. The rules for spellcasting in the multiclassing rules say they only apply when "you have the Spellcasting feature from more than one class," ergo, not when you have 1 Spellcasting and 1 Pact Magic.
You're right. The poorly written rules are poorly written. We run into that problem at least once a day on this forum.
You can either allow the loophole shenanigans or keep it consistent like it was supposed to be. 99% of DMs would not allow it anyway.
rules as written, multiclassing rules only apply to the “spell casting feature” pact magic is not spell casting and, therefore pact magic doesn’t have those rules applied. Whether intentional or not, it allows me to add a second level warlock spell at level 2 such as darkness and use my paladin spell slot to cast it!
so there is indeed a text loophole here that goes deeper than the surface. And, I don’t believe it would break the game? So I don’t see any problems with a little nudging and game manipulation here and there to improve my experience as a player if it doesn’t completely destroy the games foundations and ruin my dms day if I got phantasmal force or devils sight + darkness at warlock second level.
also, I did some digging and found this in the multi-classing rules:
“Pact Magic. If you have both the Spellcasting class feature and the Pact Magic class feature from the warlock class, you can use the spell slots you gain from the Pact Magic feature to cast spells you know or have prepared from classes with the Spellcasting class feature, and you can use the spell slots you gain from the Spellcasting class feature to cast warlock spells you know.”
This implies that the spell casting feature and the Pact magic feature are completely separate things in nature and doesn’t mention anything about being limited to learning what you can learn. Thanks for the help everyone! I’m going to have a lot of fun with this
rules as written, multiclassing rules only apply to the “spell casting feature” pact magic is not spell casting and, therefore pact magic doesn’t have those rules applied. Whether intentional or not, it allows me to add a second level warlock spell at level 2 such as darkness and use my paladin spell slot to cast it!
so there is indeed a text loophole here that goes deeper than the surface. And, I don’t believe it would break the game? So I don’t see any problems with a little nudging and game manipulation here and there to improve my experience as a player if it doesn’t completely destroy the games foundations and ruin my dms day if I got phantasmal force or devils sight + darkness at warlock second level.
also, I did some digging and found this in the multi-classing rules:
“Pact Magic. If you have both the Spellcasting class feature and the Pact Magic class feature from the warlock class, you can use the spell slots you gain from the Pact Magic feature to cast spells you know or have prepared from classes with the Spellcasting class feature, and you can use the spell slots you gain from the Spellcasting class feature to cast warlock spells you know.”
This implies that the spell casting feature and the Pact magic feature are completely separate things in nature and doesn’t mention anything about being limited to learning what you can learn. Thanks for the help everyone! I’m going to have a lot of fun with this
Unfortunately, in order to use pact slots for spellcasting spells and vice versa, you would need to multiclass 2 spellcasting classes in addition to warlock. Because of the same hole in the RAW that supposedly lets you swap warlock spells for higher than pact slot level... So good luck casting that second level warlock spell with first level warlock slots.
Rules as written, “If you multiclass but have the Spellcasting feature from only one class, you follow the rules as described in that class.” If you want to ignore the intent of the rule, then that sentence actually implies that you loose the benefits of pact magic rather than gain a loophole from it. The paladin class makes no mention of warlock spells or pact magic.
But, we all know what the rules mean so follows that. You select spells for each class based on your level for that class only.
rules as written, multiclassing rules only apply to the “spell casting feature” pact magic is not spell casting and, therefore pact magic doesn’t have those rules applied. Whether intentional or not, it allows me to add a second level warlock spell at level 2 such as darkness and use my paladin spell slot to cast it!
so there is indeed a text loophole here that goes deeper than the surface. And, I don’t believe it would break the game? So I don’t see any problems with a little nudging and game manipulation here and there to improve my experience as a player if it doesn’t completely destroy the games foundations and ruin my dms day if I got phantasmal force or devils sight + darkness at warlock second level.
also, I did some digging and found this in the multi-classing rules:
“Pact Magic. If you have both the Spellcasting class feature and the Pact Magic class feature from the warlock class, you can use the spell slots you gain from the Pact Magic feature to cast spells you know or have prepared from classes with the Spellcasting class feature, and you can use the spell slots you gain from the Spellcasting class feature to cast warlock spells you know.”
This implies that the spell casting feature and the Pact magic feature are completely separate things in nature and doesn’t mention anything about being limited to learning what you can learn. Thanks for the help everyone! I’m going to have a lot of fun with this
Unfortunately, in order to use pact slots for spellcasting spells and vice versa, you would need to multiclass 2 spellcasting classes in addition to warlock. Because of the same hole in the RAW that supposedly lets you swap warlock spells for higher than pact slot level... So good luck casting that second level warlock spell with first level warlock slots.
The relevant rule is “The Warlock table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your warlock spells of 1st through 5th level.” According to pact magic, you can only cast warlock spells with warlock slots. Without that little tidbit from the multiclassing spellcasting rules concerning pact magic (that, according to the bad interpretation, isn’t valid with only a single spell casting feature), you are stuck using your warlock slots for your warlock spells.
Edit: oh, and by the way, as soon as you do take that second Spellcasting feature class, you are stuck using the entirety of those rules, which still tell you to know and prepare spells for each class individually (including for warlock, since none of the relevant text in that section after that initial requirement mentions spellcasting specifically).
rules as written, multiclassing rules only apply to the “spell casting feature” pact magic is not spell casting and, therefore pact magic doesn’t have those rules applied. Whether intentional or not, it allows me to add a second level warlock spell at level 2 such as darkness and use my paladin spell slot to cast it!
so there is indeed a text loophole here that goes deeper than the surface. And, I don’t believe it would break the game? So I don’t see any problems with a little nudging and game manipulation here and there to improve my experience as a player if it doesn’t completely destroy the games foundations and ruin my dms day if I got phantasmal force or devils sight + darkness at warlock second level.
also, I did some digging and found this in the multi-classing rules:
“Pact Magic. If you have both the Spellcasting class feature and the Pact Magic class feature from the warlock class, you can use the spell slots you gain from the Pact Magic feature to cast spells you know or have prepared from classes with the Spellcasting class feature, and you can use the spell slots you gain from the Spellcasting class feature to cast warlock spells you know.”
This implies that the spell casting feature and the Pact magic feature are completely separate things in nature and doesn’t mention anything about being limited to learning what you can learn. Thanks for the help everyone! I’m going to have a lot of fun with this
Unfortunately, in order to use pact slots for spellcasting spells and vice versa, you would need to multiclass 2 spellcasting classes in addition to warlock. Because of the same hole in the RAW that supposedly lets you swap warlock spells for higher than pact slot level... So good luck casting that second level warlock spell with first level warlock slots.
The relevant rule is “The Warlock table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your warlock spells of 1st through 5th level.” According to pact magic, you can only cast warlock spells with warlock slots. Without that little tidbit from the multiclassing spellcasting rules concerning pact magic (that, according to the bad interpretation, isn’t valid with only a single spell casting feature), you are stuck using your warlock slots for your warlock spells.
Edit: oh, and by the way, as soon as you do take that second Spellcasting feature class, you are stuck using the entirety of those rules, which still tell you to know and prepare spells for each class individually (including for warlock, since none of the relevant text in that section after that initial requirement mentions spellcasting specifically).
I think that's what I said.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So Im a paladin and I’m hoping on multiclassing to warlock. One of the draws was that I get access to some very powerful warlock spells. Unfortunately looking through the Pact Magic text revealed that
“A spell you choose must be of a level no higher than what's shown in the table's Slot Level column for your level. When you reach 6th level, for example, you learn a new warlock spell, which can be 1st, 2nd, or 3rd level.”
I was disappointed i couldnt get the spell i wanted until i saw the next sentence
“Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the warlock spells you know and replace it with another spell from the warlock spell list, which also must be of a level for which you have spell slots.”
It technically doesn’t say it has to be a warlock spell slot that I need to have. And I’m going to use this to my advantage.
But likely theres some kind of errata or ruling issue that I’m running into. Im asking if there is one? And what is it? Because I can’t find one and if there is none im pretty good to go
thanks
I need more info here. What level paladin are you, what level warlock, and what spell(s) are you looking to swap in with this feature?
The text you are looking for is in the multiclassing rules. It states that when learning or preparing spells you treat it as if you were a single-class character of the level you are in that class. So a Paladin 6/Warlock 1 character would never know any warlock spells that any other lvl 1 Warlock couldn't learn.
ah okay, thank you for the clarification! Good, I thought I was missing something lol
For some reason the multiclass rules are rarely consulted when multiclassing...
Some variation of this very question comes up every once in a while.
Do the multiclassing spellcasting rules apply here, though? Because a paladin/warlock would only have 1 Spellcasting feature and 1 Pact Magic feature.
Multiclassing rules apply anytime you multiclass. And these rules apply how they say they do, in this case "each class".
But they don't apply whenever you multiclass. The rules for spellcasting in the multiclassing rules say they only apply when "you have the Spellcasting feature from more than one class," ergo, not when you have 1 Spellcasting and 1 Pact Magic.
For example, if you're an Arcane Trickster, with 7 levels in Rogue and some number of levels in Monk, you'd follow the Arcane Trickster's table for spell slot progression instead of the multiclassing section, right? You'd have 4 1st-level spell slots and 2 2nd-level spell slots instead of just having 3 1st-level slots, because, even though you're a multiclassed character, the Spellcasting rules in the multiclass section are irrelevant with only one Spellcasting feature.
Is this really an argument you want to win? That warlocks (unlike every other spellcaster) are able to learn spell based on slots gained from other classes?
The rules in the multiclass section say "You determine what spells you know and can prepare for each class individually, as if you were a single-classed member of that class." This text is in the section of multiclassing rules that covers anyone who can cast spells.
No, it's in the section of multiclassing rules that covers anyone who has the Spellcasting feature from more than one class. Which is why the section starts by saying, "Once you have the Spellcasting feature from more than one class, use the rules below. If you multiclass but have the Spellcasting feature from only one class, you follow the rules as described in that class."
And, no, it's not an argument I want to win. I don't come into threads on this forum with the intent of arguing what I think the best rules would be. I'm just looking to explain the rules as they are written. Do I think that, in this case, the RAW of the issue makes sense, or that it would somehow break the game for a DM to rule differently on this? No, of course not. But sometimes, the rules lead to silly or unintuitive results; I think we can all agree on that.
The Multiclassing > Spellcasting section contains rules relating to multiclassed characters that have the Spellcasting feature and also brings up the Pact Magic feature. The 'Spells Known and Prepared' subsection does not refer to either feature specifically. These rules deal with all spellcasters.
Alright, so we have the paragraph following the main heading telling us that these rules only apply to characters with more than one Spellcasting feature, and we have a later subheading dealing with an entirely separate feature. That's maybe not the best editorial choice WotC could have made, but I still see no reason to believe that the rules outside of the Pact Magic subheading apply to the Pact Magic feature. If the rules say they're dealing with Spellcasting, that's not the same as dealing with Pact Magic. They're different features, even if they share similarities.
You can believe that if you want, and I don't think you actually do believe it. Pact Magic is a type of spellcasting. It is not the Spellcasting feature, but it is a kind of spellcasting. It has a spellcasting ability modifier and can use a spellcasting focus. The rulebook does not say that the 'Spells Known and Prepared' subsection applies only to the Spellcasting feature - that is something you are implying from the editing.
So this is interesting to me because it has a very niche effect on gameplay with paladin + warlock multiclassing.
However, it has a huge affect on Warlock + Profane soul bloodhunter multiclassing. Both get access to pact magic, treating the blood hunter as a 1/3 caster, and whether or not you assume the spellcasting multiclass rules apply to pact magic vs the wording in pact magic itself will determine whether you end up with (for example with my bloodhunter 10, warlock 4):
Spellcasting rules: 4th level pact slots, max 2nd level warlock spells
Pact magic rules: 4th level pact slots & access to 4th level spells
Personally in the game in playing we decided to apply multiclassing rules to pact magic so I only have 2nd level spells. Tbh it gets even weirder in that unlike multiclassing spellcasters, the number of cantrips also go by the combined spellcaster level, so I really don't know if my interpretation is the right one, but it made sense to us at the time.
You're right. The poorly written rules are poorly written. We run into that problem at least once a day on this forum.
You can either allow the loophole shenanigans or keep it consistent like it was supposed to be. 99% of DMs would not allow it anyway.
But yeah, there is a hole in the RAW here.
Oh damn. I guess I was right?
rules as written, multiclassing rules only apply to the “spell casting feature” pact magic is not spell casting and, therefore pact magic doesn’t have those rules applied. Whether intentional or not, it allows me to add a second level warlock spell at level 2 such as darkness and use my paladin spell slot to cast it!
so there is indeed a text loophole here that goes deeper than the surface. And, I don’t believe it would break the game? So I don’t see any problems with a little nudging and game manipulation here and there to improve my experience as a player if it doesn’t completely destroy the games foundations and ruin my dms day if I got phantasmal force or devils sight + darkness at warlock second level.
also, I did some digging and found this in the multi-classing rules:
“Pact Magic. If you have both the Spellcasting class feature and the Pact Magic class feature from the warlock class, you can use the spell slots you gain from the Pact Magic feature to cast spells you know or have prepared from classes with the Spellcasting class feature, and you can use the spell slots you gain from the Spellcasting class feature to cast warlock spells you know.”
This implies that the spell casting feature and the Pact magic feature are completely separate things in nature and doesn’t mention anything about being limited to learning what you can learn. Thanks for the help everyone! I’m going to have a lot of fun with this
Unfortunately, in order to use pact slots for spellcasting spells and vice versa, you would need to multiclass 2 spellcasting classes in addition to warlock. Because of the same hole in the RAW that supposedly lets you swap warlock spells for higher than pact slot level... So good luck casting that second level warlock spell with first level warlock slots.
Rules as written, “If you multiclass but have the Spellcasting feature from only one class, you follow the rules as described in that class.” If you want to ignore the intent of the rule, then that sentence actually implies that you loose the benefits of pact magic rather than gain a loophole from it. The paladin class makes no mention of warlock spells or pact magic.
But, we all know what the rules mean so follows that. You select spells for each class based on your level for that class only.
The relevant rule is “The Warlock table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your warlock spells of 1st through 5th level.” According to pact magic, you can only cast warlock spells with warlock slots. Without that little tidbit from the multiclassing spellcasting rules concerning pact magic (that, according to the bad interpretation, isn’t valid with only a single spell casting feature), you are stuck using your warlock slots for your warlock spells.
Edit: oh, and by the way, as soon as you do take that second Spellcasting feature class, you are stuck using the entirety of those rules, which still tell you to know and prepare spells for each class individually (including for warlock, since none of the relevant text in that section after that initial requirement mentions spellcasting specifically).
I think that's what I said.