RAW suggests that you cannot make an off hand attack with the Light property if you use your action to cast True Strike, which is making a weapon attack without the attack action. Is this on purpose, and if so, what is the reasoning behind limiting a casters ability to make an off hand attack? The light property states the extra attack triggers off of the Attack Action only so can't trigger off of the weapon attacked used in the cantrip.
I understand that there is a difference between the Attack Action and the Magic Action, but it gets a little muddled with True Strike where you are indeed making a weapon attack, it doesn't seem like much of a stretch to allow an off hand weapon bonus attack if the player chooses to dual wield daggers for example.
RAW suggests that you cannot make an off hand attack with the Light property if you use your action to cast True Strike, which is making a weapon attack without the attack action. Is this on purpose, and if so, what is the reasoning behind limiting a casters ability to make an off hand attack? The light property states the extra attack triggers off of the Attack Action only so can't trigger off of the weapon attacked used in the cantrip.
I understand that there is a difference between the Attack Action and the Magic Action, but it gets a little muddled with True Strike where you are indeed making a weapon attack, it doesn't seem like much of a stretch to allow an off hand weapon bonus attack if the player chooses to dual wield daggers for example.
There are ways to pair the two even in RAW -- Eldritch Knight's War Magic feature, for instance, allows you to cast a cantrip like True Strike as part of the Attack action
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) 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 purpose behind this is to limit the extra attack of the Light property or the Dual Wielder feat to when you take the Attack action and no other action, even if it let you make an attack somehow. This rule out the Magic action of casters or magic items or Multiattack action by monsters for example.
I understand the importance with leveled spells and activating magic items, scrolls etc. They are distinctly magic. Like I said, it's muddled for true strike where a weapon attack is made. If you don't make a weapon attack, you can't use true strike. True Strike is a weapon attack, but it's called a magic action. Perhaps it's just my perspective, but I feel it is the equivalent of attacking with a magic weapon. Attacking with a Frost Brand for example is similar in action and effect as attacking with True Strike, an empowered weapon attack. I suppose this is all semantics. I'm not suggesting you can cast Fire Bolt and then do an off hand attack, but was trying to see why it wouldn't make sense to allow off hand strikes to trigger off of weapon attack cantrips specifically. I know you can use meta magic to quicken True Strike to a bonus action to allow for two in a round, but that's not exactly the point.
A battle master fighter can use two daggers and spend maneuver dice to augment an weapon attack and make an off hand attack with another dagger. Mechanically, it feels very similar. A Sorcerer dual wielding daggers using a cantrip to empower one weapon attack and then make an off hand attack. The disadvantage to the caster in this case is not being able to use their casting stat on the offhand strike.
If you need to take advantage of your Attack Action and also True Strike, one way is thanks to Eldritch Knight's War Magic as @AntonSirius said, or through other examples like College of Valor Bard's Extra Attack or Bladesinging's Extra Attack.
A battle master fighter can use two daggers and spend maneuver dice to augment an weapon attack and make an off hand attack with another dagger. Mechanically, it feels very similar. A Sorcerer dual wielding daggers using a cantrip to empower one weapon attack and then make an off hand attack. The disadvantage to the caster in this case is not being able to use their casting stat on the offhand strike.
From a balance perspective, the fighter can't do much else but melee attacks, while the sorcerer has a lot of other options for what they can do in combat
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Like I said, it's muddled for true strike where a weapon attack is made. If you don't make a weapon attack, you can't use true strike. True Strike is a weapon attack, but it's called a magic action.
It's the contrary, if you don't cast True Strike you can't make one attack with the weapon used in the spell’s casting.
Wether the spell is cast with the Magic action or the Attack action, the attack can be made.
But features you can use when you take the the Attack action won't be usable if another action is taken, even if said action let you make an attack and it's similar result because of a question of action economy.
RAW suggests that you cannot make an off hand attack with the Light property if you use your action to cast True Strike, which is making a weapon attack without the attack action. Is this on purpose, and if so, what is the reasoning behind limiting a casters ability to make an off hand attack? The light property states the extra attack triggers off of the Attack Action only so can't trigger off of the weapon attacked used in the cantrip.
I understand that there is a difference between the Attack Action and the Magic Action, but it gets a little muddled with True Strike where you are indeed making a weapon attack, it doesn't seem like much of a stretch to allow an off hand weapon bonus attack if the player chooses to dual wield daggers for example.
There are ways to pair the two even in RAW -- Eldritch Knight's War Magic feature, for instance, allows you to cast a cantrip like True Strike as part of the Attack action
This is true, but then you're playing a fighter that gets to take the attack action all the time and can trigger the offhand strike with the light property for dual wielding every turn.
My perspective was from that of a caster. A caster can also take the attack action and dual wield, it just felt like it would make sense to allow the offhand strike off of melee cantrips as well.
So yes, there are means, at later levels with certain class combinations, to do a cantrip as part of the attack action (to trigger offhand strike), but there seems to be no way to use the light property to trigger an offhand strike from another flavor of melee attack.
If you need to take advantage of your Attack Action and also True Strike, one way is thanks to Eldritch Knight's War Magic as @AntonSirius said, or through other examples like College of Valor Bard's Extra Attack or Bladesinging's Extra Attack.
The only focus on the Attack Action is that it's required to make an offhand extra attack via the light property. The conversation I'm trying to stir up is if there should be an exception to requiring the Attack Action if you use the Magic Action to perform a Melee Attack.
I've read through the other posts already on true strike, thank you for the reference. I felt this was a little different than those threads.
A battle master fighter can use two daggers and spend maneuver dice to augment an weapon attack and make an off hand attack with another dagger. Mechanically, it feels very similar. A Sorcerer dual wielding daggers using a cantrip to empower one weapon attack and then make an off hand attack. The disadvantage to the caster in this case is not being able to use their casting stat on the offhand strike.
From a balance perspective, the fighter can't do much else but melee attacks, while the sorcerer has a lot of other options for what they can do in combat
In general, yes. I have to agree with this perspective and can't argue against it.
I'd like to expand on it a little and suggest that the cantrip is the equivalent of the fighters melee weapon. They can cast that all day and usually do as there is a limit to spell slots. Leveled spells are certainly more versatile and can have much larger impacts than the fighters sword as you've stated, but there is a limit to the number of spell slots available and are usually used with some caution. The cantrip increases in damage at the same rate as the fighter gets additional attacks making them somewhat on par.
As with Plaguescarred's assertion that the magic action is for lots of things including leveled spells and magic item activations, I'm not suggesting that a caster can make an offhand attack by doing any magic action, just by first making an attack with a weapon with the light property. Melee cantrips allow you to make an attack with a weapon of the light property as an action, so I suggest allowing an offhand attack off of it. This would also be on par with the fighters. The scaling of damage of the cantrips as you level mirrors the extra attacks of the fighter, as I've said, so it scales in a very similar way if you could choose to include an off hand attack.
But I do see your point of imposing a limitation on the caster as they can do so many other things. Having a weapon in each hand is a limitation however, as some spells require you to have a free hand for part of the components, so allowing this would come with some compromise in versatility.
Like I said, it's muddled for true strike where a weapon attack is made. If you don't make a weapon attack, you can't use true strike. True Strike is a weapon attack, but it's called a magic action.
It's the contrary, if you don't cast True Strike you can't make one attack with the weapon used in the spell’s casting.
Wether the spell is cast with the Magic action or the Attack action, the attack can be made.
But features you can use when you take the the Attack action won't be usable if another action is taken, even if said action let you make an attack and it's similar result because of a question of action economy.
I 100% agree with you that these are the rules as written.
I'm less asking for a clarification of the existing rules as I'm exploring opinion on allowing an exception for melee cantrips to be allowed to also trigger an offhand extra attack with the light property on the weapon used in the casting.
It wouldn't break anything if a DM was to allow a character to make the extra attack of the Light property as a Bonus Action after casting True Strike and making one attack with a Light weapon.
But if also aiming to use other features that would otherwise not be usable when doing so if it was taking the Attack action instead, then DM's caution is advised.
It wouldn't break anything if a DM was to allow a character to make the extra attack of the Light property as a Bonus Action after casting True Strike and making one attack with a Light weapon.
But if also aiming to use other features that would otherwise not be usable when doing so if it was taking the Attack action instead, then DM's caution is advised.
I see your point about allowing other Attack Action related triggers. That is something I didn't take into account as I was rather focused on just the Light property feature. I'll have to dig through those and see if that would break anything. Thanks for the feedback.
Like I said, it's muddled for true strike where a weapon attack is made. If you don't make a weapon attack, you can't use true strike. True Strike is a weapon attack, but it's called a magic action.
It's the contrary, if you don't cast True Strike you can't make one attack with the weapon used in the spell’s casting.
Wether the spell is cast with the Magic action or the Attack action, the attack can be made.
But features you can use when you take the the Attack action won't be usable if another action is taken, even if said action let you make an attack and it's similar result because of a question of action economy.
I 100% agree with you that these are the rules as written.
I'm less asking for a clarification of the existing rules as I'm exploring opinion on allowing an exception for melee cantrips to be allowed to also trigger an offhand extra attack with the light property on the weapon used in the casting.
I think the argument against this is sort of implicitly built into the rules already -- that casters simply don't specialize in physical combat to a degree that would allow them to benefit from weapon properties in that way
A wizard can certainly dual wield daggers and make a Bonus Action attack after the Attack action if they want. If they take the Magic action though, they're focused on casting, not stabbing. Even though the Light property doesn't rise to the level of a full Weapon Mastery, that wizard simply isn't trained to get the extra attack off if they're also casting True Strike, whereas other builds like Eldritch Knight do have that kind of training
(Things get a little muddier on that level if we're talking about, say, a dual-wielding ranger instead of a wizard of course, but the basic assumption is still there -- that casting a spell isn't something everyone can casually do in the middle of melee combat like it's just another attack)
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Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
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RAW suggests that you cannot make an off hand attack with the Light property if you use your action to cast True Strike, which is making a weapon attack without the attack action. Is this on purpose, and if so, what is the reasoning behind limiting a casters ability to make an off hand attack? The light property states the extra attack triggers off of the Attack Action only so can't trigger off of the weapon attacked used in the cantrip.
I understand that there is a difference between the Attack Action and the Magic Action, but it gets a little muddled with True Strike where you are indeed making a weapon attack, it doesn't seem like much of a stretch to allow an off hand weapon bonus attack if the player chooses to dual wield daggers for example.
There are ways to pair the two even in RAW -- Eldritch Knight's War Magic feature, for instance, allows you to cast a cantrip like True Strike as part of the Attack action
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
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 purpose behind this is to limit the extra attack of the Light property or the Dual Wielder feat to when you take the Attack action and no other action, even if it let you make an attack somehow. This rule out the Magic action of casters or magic items or Multiattack action by monsters for example.
I understand the importance with leveled spells and activating magic items, scrolls etc. They are distinctly magic. Like I said, it's muddled for true strike where a weapon attack is made. If you don't make a weapon attack, you can't use true strike. True Strike is a weapon attack, but it's called a magic action. Perhaps it's just my perspective, but I feel it is the equivalent of attacking with a magic weapon. Attacking with a Frost Brand for example is similar in action and effect as attacking with True Strike, an empowered weapon attack. I suppose this is all semantics. I'm not suggesting you can cast Fire Bolt and then do an off hand attack, but was trying to see why it wouldn't make sense to allow off hand strikes to trigger off of weapon attack cantrips specifically. I know you can use meta magic to quicken True Strike to a bonus action to allow for two in a round, but that's not exactly the point.
A battle master fighter can use two daggers and spend maneuver dice to augment an weapon attack and make an off hand attack with another dagger. Mechanically, it feels very similar. A Sorcerer dual wielding daggers using a cantrip to empower one weapon attack and then make an off hand attack. The disadvantage to the caster in this case is not being able to use their casting stat on the offhand strike.
I thought it would be worth a discussion.
If you need to take advantage of your Attack Action and also True Strike, one way is thanks to Eldritch Knight's War Magic as @AntonSirius said, or through other examples like College of Valor Bard's Extra Attack or Bladesinging's Extra Attack.
If you don't know it yet, I think this thread could be useful for your thoughts: Questions regarding Shillelagh, War Magic, True Strike and Extra attacks
From a balance perspective, the fighter can't do much else but melee attacks, while the sorcerer has a lot of other options for what they can do in combat
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
It's the contrary, if you don't cast True Strike you can't make one attack with the weapon used in the spell’s casting.
Wether the spell is cast with the Magic action or the Attack action, the attack can be made.
But features you can use when you take the the Attack action won't be usable if another action is taken, even if said action let you make an attack and it's similar result because of a question of action economy.
This is true, but then you're playing a fighter that gets to take the attack action all the time and can trigger the offhand strike with the light property for dual wielding every turn.
My perspective was from that of a caster. A caster can also take the attack action and dual wield, it just felt like it would make sense to allow the offhand strike off of melee cantrips as well.
So yes, there are means, at later levels with certain class combinations, to do a cantrip as part of the attack action (to trigger offhand strike), but there seems to be no way to use the light property to trigger an offhand strike from another flavor of melee attack.
The only focus on the Attack Action is that it's required to make an offhand extra attack via the light property. The conversation I'm trying to stir up is if there should be an exception to requiring the Attack Action if you use the Magic Action to perform a Melee Attack.
I've read through the other posts already on true strike, thank you for the reference. I felt this was a little different than those threads.
In general, yes. I have to agree with this perspective and can't argue against it.
I'd like to expand on it a little and suggest that the cantrip is the equivalent of the fighters melee weapon. They can cast that all day and usually do as there is a limit to spell slots. Leveled spells are certainly more versatile and can have much larger impacts than the fighters sword as you've stated, but there is a limit to the number of spell slots available and are usually used with some caution. The cantrip increases in damage at the same rate as the fighter gets additional attacks making them somewhat on par.
As with Plaguescarred's assertion that the magic action is for lots of things including leveled spells and magic item activations, I'm not suggesting that a caster can make an offhand attack by doing any magic action, just by first making an attack with a weapon with the light property. Melee cantrips allow you to make an attack with a weapon of the light property as an action, so I suggest allowing an offhand attack off of it. This would also be on par with the fighters. The scaling of damage of the cantrips as you level mirrors the extra attacks of the fighter, as I've said, so it scales in a very similar way if you could choose to include an off hand attack.
But I do see your point of imposing a limitation on the caster as they can do so many other things. Having a weapon in each hand is a limitation however, as some spells require you to have a free hand for part of the components, so allowing this would come with some compromise in versatility.
I 100% agree with you that these are the rules as written.
I'm less asking for a clarification of the existing rules as I'm exploring opinion on allowing an exception for melee cantrips to be allowed to also trigger an offhand extra attack with the light property on the weapon used in the casting.
It wouldn't break anything if a DM was to allow a character to make the extra attack of the Light property as a Bonus Action after casting True Strike and making one attack with a Light weapon.
But if also aiming to use other features that would otherwise not be usable when doing so if it was taking the Attack action instead, then DM's caution is advised.
I see your point about allowing other Attack Action related triggers. That is something I didn't take into account as I was rather focused on just the Light property feature. I'll have to dig through those and see if that would break anything. Thanks for the feedback.
I think the argument against this is sort of implicitly built into the rules already -- that casters simply don't specialize in physical combat to a degree that would allow them to benefit from weapon properties in that way
A wizard can certainly dual wield daggers and make a Bonus Action attack after the Attack action if they want. If they take the Magic action though, they're focused on casting, not stabbing. Even though the Light property doesn't rise to the level of a full Weapon Mastery, that wizard simply isn't trained to get the extra attack off if they're also casting True Strike, whereas other builds like Eldritch Knight do have that kind of training
(Things get a little muddier on that level if we're talking about, say, a dual-wielding ranger instead of a wizard of course, but the basic assumption is still there -- that casting a spell isn't something everyone can casually do in the middle of melee combat like it's just another attack)
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)