Are you saying that the slot-less castings of Misty Step from Step of the Fey are not warlock spells? That they are also unassociated with a casting stat?
The Archey Patron has two different level 3 features, one making Misty Step always prepared, and another letting cast it without expending a spell slot some times but it would be unnecessary if features letting you cast spells without expending a spell slot counted as always prepared isn't it?
That makes zero sense. They had to do a separate listing for misty step because of the CHA mod uses per long rest
It would have been even more confusing to leave it off the list of prepared spells
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
The Archey Patron has two different level 3 features, one making Misty Step always prepared, and another letting cast it without expending a spell slot some times but it would be unnecessary if features letting you cast spells without expending a spell slot counted as always prepared isn't it?
Archey Spells: The magic of your patron ensures you always have certain spells ready; when you reach a Warlock level specified in the Archfey Spells table, you thereafter always have the listed spells prepared. Level 3: Calm Emotions, Faerie Fire, Misty Step, Phantasmal Force, Sleep
Step of the Fey: Your patron grants you the ability to move between the boundaries of the planes. You can cast Misty Step without expending a spell slot a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of once), and you regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest. In addition, whenever you cast that spell, you can choose one of the following additional effects.
Additionally, you can cast Misty Step without expending a spell slot a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of once) per Long Rest.
Anyway, I think the spells that Archfey gives you, or any other Warlock features, are not in doubt: they are Warlock spells for you, and they are always prepared.
And if the spells mentioned in the different Eldritch Invocations weren't Warlock spells, we'd run into the problem discussed earlier about which spellcasting ability to use for some spells.
For me, the main question to resolve is the one Plaguescarred already said on the previous page:
[...] I think they should clarify if the Warlock feature Eldritch Invocations letting you cast spells without expending a spell slot can also let you cast them with a spell slot. [...]
Eldritch Invocations aren't mentioned in the Spellcasting rules for Multiclassing, so that might be another reason to think they can't be used with your own slots even for upcasting. Depending on the Invocation, it's not needed really, if you can cast it whenever you want and the upcast gives no benefit.
Remembering what @AntonSirius mentioned earlier in the thread, here's what you get in DDB for a level 2 Warlock. In the tool, your own spell slots cannot be expended for Eldritch Invocations spells (or at least the ones I've chosen).
Eldritch Invocations aren't mentioned in the Spellcasting rules for Multiclassing, so that might be another reason to think they can't be used with your own slots even for upcasting. Depending on the Invocation, it's not needed really, if you can cast it whenever you want and the upcast gives no benefit.
false life (Fiendish Vigor) is the only one it would matter for, I think
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Are you saying that the slot-less castings of Misty Step from Step of the Fey are not warlock spells? That they are also unassociated with a casting stat?
No it's a Warlock spell on the Warlock spell list who's name appears in parentheses after the spell’s school of magic.
The Eldritch Invocation spells that could benefit if upcast using a spell slot would be False Life, Invisibility and Jump.
Only False Life. The other two are restricted to being cast on yourself when cast through the Eldritch Invocation.
It's not what's being discussed. No spell cast without expanding a spell slot can be upcast and self targeting restriction apply only when cast from Eldritch Invocation.
But If those spell count as always prepared and can be cast as normal via Pact Magic using spell slot, they're not cast using Eldritch Invocation without expanding a spell slot and no such restriction apply.
The Eldritch Invocation spells that could benefit if upcast using a spell slot would be False Life, Invisibility and Jump.
Only False Life. The other two are restricted to being cast on yourself when cast through the Eldritch Invocation.
It's not what's being discussed. No spell cast without expanding a spell slot can be upcast and self targeting restriction apply only when cast from Eldritch Invocation.
But If those spell count as always prepared and can be cast as normal via Pact Magic using spell slot, they're not cast using Eldritch Invocation without expanding a spell slot and no such restriction apply.
After rereading the previous posts and checking how DDB works, I'm inclined to think that Eldritch Invocation spells count as Warlock spells, but you can't cast them using Pact Magic slots.
The Eldritch Invocation spells that could benefit if upcast using a spell slot would be False Life, Invisibility and Jump.
Only False Life. The other two are restricted to being cast on yourself when cast through the Eldritch Invocation.
It's not what's being discussed. No spell cast without expanding a spell slot can be upcast and self targeting restriction apply only when cast from Eldritch Invocation.
But If those spell count as always prepared and can be cast as normal via Pact Magic using spell slot, they're not cast using Eldritch Invocation without expanding a spell slot and no such restriction apply.
Yes. Sorry, I'm tired.
Things fall apart a bit if they aren't Warlock Spells, but I don't see any basis for them being prepared. Many of these are intended to be at will "leveled spells"* and I think they are not meant to be prepared. Warlocks, at least pure class Warlocks, have very few spell slots available so using one to upcast a spell you can cast at base level for free feels wasteful. That said, the Undying Patron gives False Life as always prepared. If the Fiendish Vigor invocation gave it to as always prepared, it would diminish the Undying's benefit slightly.
*I am using the 2014 term because in 2024, they aren't cast with a spell slot and you can cast a spell with a spell slot in the same turn, which you couldn't do in 2014.
The Eldritch Invocation spells that could benefit if upcast using a spell slot would be False Life, Invisibility and Jump.
Only False Life. The other two are restricted to being cast on yourself when cast through the Eldritch Invocation.
It's not what's being discussed. No spell cast without expanding a spell slot can be upcast and self targeting restriction apply only when cast from Eldritch Invocation.
But If those spell count as always prepared and can be cast as normal via Pact Magic using spell slot, they're not cast using Eldritch Invocation without expanding a spell slot and no such restriction apply.
Yes. Sorry, I'm tired.
Things fall apart a bit if they aren't Warlock Spells, but I don't see any basis for them being prepared. Many of these are intended to be at will "leveled spells"* and I think they are not meant to be prepared. Warlocks, at least pure class Warlocks, have very few spell slots available so using one to upcast a spell you can cast at base level for free feels wasteful. That said, the Undying Patron gives False Life as always prepared. If the Fiendish Vigor invocation gave it to as always prepared, it would diminish the Undying's benefit slightly.
I could buy the idea that Eldritch Invocations spells are not prepared if we put them them in the bag "spells you have access to" (blue color):
Gaining Spells
Before you can cast a spell, you must have the spell prepared in your mind or have access to the spell from a magic item, such as a Spell Scroll. Your features specify which spells you have access to, if any; whether you always have certain spells prepared; and whether you can change the list of spells you have prepared.
Does anyone know the username of JC in the forums to ask him how to interpret the Warlock class? 😅
A useful example that should serve to demonstrate how all of this works is the Invisibility spell.
The Eldritch Invocation called One with Shadows imbues a Warlock with the ability to cast the Invisibility spell in a certain way:
One with Shadows
Prerequisite: Level 5+ Warlock
While you’re in an area of Dim Light or Darkness, you can cast Invisibility on yourself without expending a spell slot.
However, as it turns out, the Invisibility spell actually exists on the Warlock spell list. This makes it a Warlock spell by default:
Warlock spells, which appear in the Warlock spell list later in the class’s description.
Therefore, this spell automatically qualifies to be prepared and cast using the Pact Magic feature, which is designed to interact with Warlock spells. The ability to do this is totally independent of the One with Shadows invocation. The Pact Magic feature and the Eldritch Invocation feature are separate from each other, and each describes their own rules for spellcasting.
If this Warlock decides that he wants to be able to cast the spell with a spell slot, he will have to prepare the spell in advance using the normal rules from the Pact Magic feature. This counts against the total number of spells that a Warlock can add to his list of prepared spells with the Pact Magic feature. Once he uses the Pact Magic feature to prepare the spell, he can then use the Pact Magic feature to cast the spell with a spell slot.
If in the moment the Warlock decides that he wants to cast Invisibility on himself while standing in Dim Light or Darkness without expending a spell slot to do so, he will have to use the Eldritch Invocation class feature to do that, not the Pact Magic class feature.
Although the One with Shadows invocation imbues the Warlock with the ability to cast Invisibility in a certain way without expending a spell slot, this invocation does NOT explicitly say that this spell is "known" or "learned" or "always prepared". Nor do the general rules for Eldritch Invocations mention anything like this. Features do what they say and nothing more. This feature allows the Warlock to cast this spell in the manner described. This represents a specific vs general exception to the general rules of spellcasting that a spell "must be prepared" in order to cast it.
Because this invocation does not explicitly say that the spell is always prepared, it does not qualify for this Pact Magic rule that pertains to spells that are always prepared:
If another Warlock feature gives you spells that you always have prepared, those spells don’t count against the number of spells you can prepare with this feature, but those spells otherwise count as Warlock spells for you.
Therefore, if the Warlock did not prepare this spell in advance with the Pact Magic feature and instead chose to fill up his list of prepared spells with other spells . . . in the moment, the Warlock would NOT be able to use the Pact Magic feature to cast this spell with a spell slot, even though it IS a Warlock spell. This is not because the spell is ineligible for the Pact Magic feature, but because it was not placed on the prepared list. In other words, it's a Warlock spell because it appears on the Warlock spell list, NOT because it is always prepared by another Warlock feature.
Now for a couple of hypotheticals:
Suppose that the One with Shadows invocation was written differently. Suppose that it had wording similar to the Contact Patron class feature, where the feature itself provides its own rules and methodologies for directly casting the spell without a spell slot AND the feature also explicitly says that this Warlock has this spell "always prepared". in THAT case, the spell would become eligible for the special Pact Magic rule regarding spells that are always prepared by other Warlock class features. It was already a Warlock spell, so in that way it wouldn't matter. But it would also become an "always prepared" spell, which means that it wouldn't count against the list of spells that are prepared by the Pact Magic feature. In THAT case, if this Warlock had access to this particular version of the One with Shadows Eldritch Invocation, then "in the moment" if this Warlock decided that he wanted to use the Pact Magic feature to cast the spell with a spell slot, he would be able to do so -- he would not be required to prepare the spell in advance, it would just be always prepared and available to cast with the Pact Magic feature.
The other hypothetical is sort of the opposite. Suppose we go back to the actual version of One with Shadows that is written. But we also remove the Invisibility spell from the Warlock class list. Now, in THAT case, you would not be able to cast this spell with a spell slot by using the Pact Magic feature at all. There would be no mechanism in which the spell would qualify to be used by that feature. Instead, you would only be able to cast the spell with the Eldritch Invocation feature and you would have to use the rules for that feature for that spellcasting.
As written, the Eldritch Invocation feature does not provide a Spellcasting Ability, so that value is presumably +0 wherever one is required by the spell description so this might factor into the decision making of which Invocations you'd want to take as the player that is playing a Warlock.
The Eldritch Invocation spells that could benefit if upcast using a spell slot would be False Life, Invisibility and Jump.
Only False Life. The other two are restricted to being cast on yourself when cast through the Eldritch Invocation.
It's not what's being discussed. No spell cast without expanding a spell slot can be upcast and self targeting restriction apply only when cast from Eldritch Invocation.
But If those spell count as always prepared and can be cast as normal via Pact Magic using spell slot, they're not cast using Eldritch Invocation without expanding a spell slot and no such restriction apply.
After rereading the previous posts and checking how DDB works, I'm inclined to think that Eldritch Invocation spells count as Warlock spells, but you can't cast them using Pact Magic slots.
Yeah, this is the most sensible interpretation to me
If you take an invocation that gives you a certain spell -- One With Shadows to get invisibility, for example -- a GOO warlock would still be able to cast it without any V or S components, but would not be able to use a Pact slot to upcast it
If they want to be able to upcast it, they can always select invisibility as a spell at their next level-up, and swap out the invocation. Or keep them both, if there's enough utility for them in the "free" casting option
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I believe a Warlock with Psychic Spells can cast Invisibility from a Spell Scroll without Verbal or Somatic components regardless if it has it prepared, has Eldritch Invocation: One with Shadows or not because it's a Warlock spell on the Warlock spell list who's name appears in parentheses after the spell’s school of magic.
I believe a Warlock with Psychic Spells can cast Invisibility from a Spell Scroll without Verbal or Somatic components regardless if it has it prepared, has Eldritch Invocation: One with Shadows or not because it's a Warlock spell on the Warlock spell list who's name appears in parentheses after the spell’s school of magic.
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I believe a Warlock with Psychic Spells can cast Invisibility from a Spell Scroll without Verbal or Somatic components regardless if it has it prepared, has Eldritch Invocation: One with Shadows or not because it's a Warlock spell on the Warlock spell list who's name appears in parentheses after the spell’s school of magic.
After rereading the previous posts and checking how DDB works, I'm inclined to think that Eldritch Invocation spells count as Warlock spells, but you can't cast them using Pact Magic slots.
This interpretation is not supported by the Rules as Written. There isn't really any such thing as a Warlock spell that cannot be cast by using the Pact Magic feature. The Pact Magic feature explicitly works with Warlock spells -- that's one of the main design concepts for the feature.
In general (with some exceptions), the Eldritch Invocation feature provides a Warlock with a means to cast some spells that are not Warlock spells -- that's one of the main purposes of that feature. The general rules of the Eldritch Invocation feature and also the rules provided for each individual invocation (with some exceptions) do not explicitly cause a spell to become a Warlock spell, nor do they explicitly add a spell to the Warlock spell list, nor do they become "known" or "learned" or "always prepared" spells. They simply imbue the Warlock with the ability to cast those spells. As such, many of these spells do not qualify as Warlock spells and thus are unable to be cast by using the Pact Magic feature for that reason.
We should be careful about basing any RAW discussions on the implementation of the DDB online tool. Whenever there is a discrepancy between this implementation and the written rules, the written rules always take priority.
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Are you saying that the slot-less castings of Misty Step from Step of the Fey are not warlock spells? That they are also unassociated with a casting stat?
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
For me, this is the way I read it:
Anyway, I think the spells that Archfey gives you, or any other Warlock features, are not in doubt: they are Warlock spells for you, and they are always prepared.
And if the spells mentioned in the different Eldritch Invocations weren't Warlock spells, we'd run into the problem discussed earlier about which spellcasting ability to use for some spells.
For me, the main question to resolve is the one Plaguescarred already said on the previous page:
Eldritch Invocations aren't mentioned in the Spellcasting rules for Multiclassing, so that might be another reason to think they can't be used with your own slots even for upcasting. Depending on the Invocation, it's not needed really, if you can cast it whenever you want and the upcast gives no benefit.
Remembering what @AntonSirius mentioned earlier in the thread, here's what you get in DDB for a level 2 Warlock. In the tool, your own spell slots cannot be expended for Eldritch Invocations spells (or at least the ones I've chosen).
false life (Fiendish Vigor) is the only one it would matter for, I think
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
No it's a Warlock spell on the Warlock spell list who's name appears in parentheses after the spell’s school of magic.
Misty Step Level 2 Conjuration (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard)
The Eldritch Invocation spells that could benefit if upcast using a spell slot would be False Life, Invisibility and Jump.
Only False Life. The other two are restricted to being cast on yourself when cast through the Eldritch Invocation.
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It's not what's being discussed. No spell cast without expanding a spell slot can be upcast and self targeting restriction apply only when cast from Eldritch Invocation.
But If those spell count as always prepared and can be cast as normal via Pact Magic using spell slot, they're not cast using Eldritch Invocation without expanding a spell slot and no such restriction apply.
After rereading the previous posts and checking how DDB works, I'm inclined to think that Eldritch Invocation spells count as Warlock spells, but you can't cast them using Pact Magic slots.
Yes. Sorry, I'm tired.
Things fall apart a bit if they aren't Warlock Spells, but I don't see any basis for them being prepared. Many of these are intended to be at will "leveled spells"* and I think they are not meant to be prepared. Warlocks, at least pure class Warlocks, have very few spell slots available so using one to upcast a spell you can cast at base level for free feels wasteful. That said, the Undying Patron gives False Life as always prepared. If the Fiendish Vigor invocation gave it to as always prepared, it would diminish the Undying's benefit slightly.
*I am using the 2014 term because in 2024, they aren't cast with a spell slot and you can cast a spell with a spell slot in the same turn, which you couldn't do in 2014.
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I could buy the idea that Eldritch Invocations spells are not prepared if we put them them in the bag "spells you have access to" (blue color):
Does anyone know the username of JC in the forums to ask him how to interpret the Warlock class? 😅
A useful example that should serve to demonstrate how all of this works is the Invisibility spell.
The Eldritch Invocation called One with Shadows imbues a Warlock with the ability to cast the Invisibility spell in a certain way:
However, as it turns out, the Invisibility spell actually exists on the Warlock spell list. This makes it a Warlock spell by default:
Therefore, this spell automatically qualifies to be prepared and cast using the Pact Magic feature, which is designed to interact with Warlock spells. The ability to do this is totally independent of the One with Shadows invocation. The Pact Magic feature and the Eldritch Invocation feature are separate from each other, and each describes their own rules for spellcasting.
If this Warlock decides that he wants to be able to cast the spell with a spell slot, he will have to prepare the spell in advance using the normal rules from the Pact Magic feature. This counts against the total number of spells that a Warlock can add to his list of prepared spells with the Pact Magic feature. Once he uses the Pact Magic feature to prepare the spell, he can then use the Pact Magic feature to cast the spell with a spell slot.
If in the moment the Warlock decides that he wants to cast Invisibility on himself while standing in Dim Light or Darkness without expending a spell slot to do so, he will have to use the Eldritch Invocation class feature to do that, not the Pact Magic class feature.
Although the One with Shadows invocation imbues the Warlock with the ability to cast Invisibility in a certain way without expending a spell slot, this invocation does NOT explicitly say that this spell is "known" or "learned" or "always prepared". Nor do the general rules for Eldritch Invocations mention anything like this. Features do what they say and nothing more. This feature allows the Warlock to cast this spell in the manner described. This represents a specific vs general exception to the general rules of spellcasting that a spell "must be prepared" in order to cast it.
Because this invocation does not explicitly say that the spell is always prepared, it does not qualify for this Pact Magic rule that pertains to spells that are always prepared:
Therefore, if the Warlock did not prepare this spell in advance with the Pact Magic feature and instead chose to fill up his list of prepared spells with other spells . . . in the moment, the Warlock would NOT be able to use the Pact Magic feature to cast this spell with a spell slot, even though it IS a Warlock spell. This is not because the spell is ineligible for the Pact Magic feature, but because it was not placed on the prepared list. In other words, it's a Warlock spell because it appears on the Warlock spell list, NOT because it is always prepared by another Warlock feature.
Now for a couple of hypotheticals:
Suppose that the One with Shadows invocation was written differently. Suppose that it had wording similar to the Contact Patron class feature, where the feature itself provides its own rules and methodologies for directly casting the spell without a spell slot AND the feature also explicitly says that this Warlock has this spell "always prepared". in THAT case, the spell would become eligible for the special Pact Magic rule regarding spells that are always prepared by other Warlock class features. It was already a Warlock spell, so in that way it wouldn't matter. But it would also become an "always prepared" spell, which means that it wouldn't count against the list of spells that are prepared by the Pact Magic feature. In THAT case, if this Warlock had access to this particular version of the One with Shadows Eldritch Invocation, then "in the moment" if this Warlock decided that he wanted to use the Pact Magic feature to cast the spell with a spell slot, he would be able to do so -- he would not be required to prepare the spell in advance, it would just be always prepared and available to cast with the Pact Magic feature.
The other hypothetical is sort of the opposite. Suppose we go back to the actual version of One with Shadows that is written. But we also remove the Invisibility spell from the Warlock class list. Now, in THAT case, you would not be able to cast this spell with a spell slot by using the Pact Magic feature at all. There would be no mechanism in which the spell would qualify to be used by that feature. Instead, you would only be able to cast the spell with the Eldritch Invocation feature and you would have to use the rules for that feature for that spellcasting.
As written, the Eldritch Invocation feature does not provide a Spellcasting Ability, so that value is presumably +0 wherever one is required by the spell description so this might factor into the decision making of which Invocations you'd want to take as the player that is playing a Warlock.
Yeah, this is the most sensible interpretation to me
If you take an invocation that gives you a certain spell -- One With Shadows to get invisibility, for example -- a GOO warlock would still be able to cast it without any V or S components, but would not be able to use a Pact slot to upcast it
If they want to be able to upcast it, they can always select invisibility as a spell at their next level-up, and swap out the invocation. Or keep them both, if there's enough utility for them in the "free" casting option
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I believe a Warlock with Psychic Spells can cast Invisibility from a Spell Scroll without Verbal or Somatic components regardless if it has it prepared, has Eldritch Invocation: One with Shadows or not because it's a Warlock spell on the Warlock spell list who's name appears in parentheses after the spell’s school of magic.
Invisibility Level 2 Illusion (Bard, Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard)
The idea of casting a spell from a scroll with no V components is genuinely hilarious
EDIT: I'm not saying it's necessarily an incorrect reading by strict RAW, because spell scrolls in general remain a mess. But it's extremely funny
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Why would you need to read it aloud?
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Hehe yeah you appear to read notes then disappear as the scroll crumble to dust :)
This interpretation is not supported by the Rules as Written. There isn't really any such thing as a Warlock spell that cannot be cast by using the Pact Magic feature. The Pact Magic feature explicitly works with Warlock spells -- that's one of the main design concepts for the feature.
In general (with some exceptions), the Eldritch Invocation feature provides a Warlock with a means to cast some spells that are not Warlock spells -- that's one of the main purposes of that feature. The general rules of the Eldritch Invocation feature and also the rules provided for each individual invocation (with some exceptions) do not explicitly cause a spell to become a Warlock spell, nor do they explicitly add a spell to the Warlock spell list, nor do they become "known" or "learned" or "always prepared" spells. They simply imbue the Warlock with the ability to cast those spells. As such, many of these spells do not qualify as Warlock spells and thus are unable to be cast by using the Pact Magic feature for that reason.
We should be careful about basing any RAW discussions on the implementation of the DDB online tool. Whenever there is a discrepancy between this implementation and the written rules, the written rules always take priority.