I think this would *technically* maybe work according to the rules as written, but it feels wrong and I need some advice. Bladesingers with Tasha's Cauldron features can replace one of the attacks they make with their 6th-level Extra Attack feature with a cantrip. Booming blade requires a weapon worth 1sp. If a Bladesinger is using Shadow Blade and a shortsword in the hopes of leveraging Two-Weapon Fighting, can they:
Take the Attack action -> Make one attack with Shadow Blade -> Cast Booming Blade with the shortsword in lieu of their second attack -> then make a TWF attack with Shadow Blade again as a bonus action?
*Technically* with TWF you make the bonus action attack with a weapon in the opposite hand as the one you used when you took the Attack action. However, with Bladesinger's weird complexity you took the Attack action with Shadow Blade and made an attack as part of the same action with your shortsword, so the argument goes that you could go back to the "opposite" hand after making the Booming Blade attack.
I'm thinking I won't allow this at my table, because it just feels like it shouldn't work this way. You take the Attack action with Shadow Blade, so whatever else you do after that as part of the action, you'll have to use the Bonus Action attack of TWF with a weapon that meets the criteria in your other hand. What do you guys think? Have you run into this issue at your tables?
When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you're holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you're holding in the other hand. You don't add your ability modifier to the damage of the bonus attack, unless that modifier is negative.
You took the Attack action and attacked with the short sword. Sure, the attack was part of a spell, but it was still an attack, so I think it's legal.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
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The first is the Extra Attack feature, and here's the kicker: You don't only have to attack with one weapon. If you want to attack with a battleaxe and warhammer, you could. The only time two weapons really matters is when using Two-Weapon Fighting. There, you must be carrying two weapons with the Light property.
The second is casting any spell with both somatic and material components means the components can be performed together. The spell description itself for booming blade says the weapon used to cast the spell is what you attack with. Specifically, "You brandish the weapon used in the spell’s casting and make a melee attack with it against one creature within 5 feet of you." So there's no getting around that. You can't use the shortsword to cast the spell and attack with shadow blade instead.
But you can attack with both using Extra Attack; no TWF required. Just know that doing so means both hands would be occupied and that limits spellcasting. For example, you cannot cast shield unless you also have War Caster. This is a common problem for followers of the Bladesinging tradition; who are probably better off with a component pouch than a focus.
Thanks! The issue isn’t using the Shadow Blade for the Booming Blade attack, but rather bouncing back and forth between them for the TWF bonus action attack. If you use the short sword to attack with BB as your second “Extra Attack”, after making your first attack with Shadow Blade, would you then allow the player to return to the Shadow Blade for the TWF bonus action attack?
I don’t think I’m going to allow it. I know with a regular fighter you can go back and forth - say from a short sword to a dagger - using each of them for one attack in the “Extra Attack” feature, then use whichever one you wanted for the TWF bonus action attack. The problem is BB is casting a spell, even if you’re substituting it for an attack within the Bladesinger’s Extra Attack feature, and despite making a melee attack with it as part of the casting, you aren’t “taking the attack action with it”. Rather, you’re taking the attack action to make an attack with Shadow Blade, then casting a spell in place of another attack; or at least that’s how I interpret it.
Thanks! The issue isn’t using the Shadow Blade for the Booming Blade attack, but rather bouncing back and forth between them for the TWF bonus action attack. If you use the short sword to attack with BB as your second “Extra Attack”, after making your first attack with Shadow Blade, would you then allow the player to return to the Shadow Blade for the TWF bonus action attack?
I don’t think I’m going to allow it. I know with a regular fighter you can go back and forth - say from a short sword to a dagger - using each of them for one attack in the “Extra Attack” feature, then use whichever one you wanted for the TWF bonus action attack. The problem is BB is casting a spell, even if you’re substituting it for an attack within the Bladesinger’s Extra Attack feature, and despite making a melee attack with it as part of the casting, you aren’t “taking the attack action with it”. Rather, you’re taking the attack action to make an attack with Shadow Blade, then casting a spell in place of another attack; or at least that’s how I interpret it.
So you're interpreting the "and" in the following sentence: "When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you're holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you're holding in the other hand." to mean that both of those things must be fulfilled by a weapon in the same hand rather than allowing bot of those conditions to be filled, but by separate weapons?
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Thanks! The issue isn’t using the Shadow Blade for the Booming Blade attack, but rather bouncing back and forth between them for the TWF bonus action attack. If you use the short sword to attack with BB as your second “Extra Attack”, after making your first attack with Shadow Blade, would you then allow the player to return to the Shadow Blade for the TWF bonus action attack?
I don’t think I’m going to allow it. I know with a regular fighter you can go back and forth - say from a short sword to a dagger - using each of them for one attack in the “Extra Attack” feature, then use whichever one you wanted for the TWF bonus action attack. The problem is BB is casting a spell, even if you’re substituting it for an attack within the Bladesinger’s Extra Attack feature, and despite making a melee attack with it as part of the casting, you aren’t “taking the attack action with it”. Rather, you’re taking the attack action to make an attack with Shadow Blade, then casting a spell in place of another attack; or at least that’s how I interpret it.
So you're interpreting the "and" in the following sentence: "When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you're holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you're holding in the other hand." to mean that both of those things must be fulfilled by a weapon in the same hand rather than allowing bot of those conditions to be filled, but by separate weapons?
The conditions for TWF are:
Be holding 2 light* melee weapons (*removed by feat)
Take attack action
Make an attack with the weapon other than the one you want to use for TWF.
All conditions are met even using BB/GFB for one of the attacks.
Thanks! The issue isn’t using the Shadow Blade for the Booming Blade attack, but rather bouncing back and forth between them for the TWF bonus action attack. If you use the short sword to attack with BB as your second “Extra Attack”, after making your first attack with Shadow Blade, would you then allow the player to return to the Shadow Blade for the TWF bonus action attack?
I don’t think I’m going to allow it. I know with a regular fighter you can go back and forth - say from a short sword to a dagger - using each of them for one attack in the “Extra Attack” feature, then use whichever one you wanted for the TWF bonus action attack. The problem is BB is casting a spell, even if you’re substituting it for an attack within the Bladesinger’s Extra Attack feature, and despite making a melee attack with it as part of the casting, you aren’t “taking the attack action with it”. Rather, you’re taking the attack action to make an attack with Shadow Blade, then casting a spell in place of another attack; or at least that’s how I interpret it.
So you're interpreting the "and" in the following sentence: "When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you're holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you're holding in the other hand." to mean that both of those things must be fulfilled by a weapon in the same hand rather than allowing bot of those conditions to be filled, but by separate weapons?
Not really - in a normal situation I would say that as long as the conditions are met you could use either weapon for the TWF attack. The complexity here is that you are replacing an attack within the Attack action with the casting of a spell that also happens to contain a melee attack. By RAW, technically, this checks out as DxJxC says. I take issue with the insertion of the casting of the BB spell within the attack action in such a way that it circumvents the normal limitation of using that powerful spell with TWF, in addition to another attack with a different, powerful weapon (shadow blade). It just seems too strong for my table, and doesn't feel like it's intended to work in this way. To be clear, I think by RAW it would work fine, but at my table I'll probably not allow it because I feel like the intent is that this shouldn't.
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I think this would *technically* maybe work according to the rules as written, but it feels wrong and I need some advice. Bladesingers with Tasha's Cauldron features can replace one of the attacks they make with their 6th-level Extra Attack feature with a cantrip. Booming blade requires a weapon worth 1sp. If a Bladesinger is using Shadow Blade and a shortsword in the hopes of leveraging Two-Weapon Fighting, can they:
Take the Attack action -> Make one attack with Shadow Blade -> Cast Booming Blade with the shortsword in lieu of their second attack -> then make a TWF attack with Shadow Blade again as a bonus action?
*Technically* with TWF you make the bonus action attack with a weapon in the opposite hand as the one you used when you took the Attack action. However, with Bladesinger's weird complexity you took the Attack action with Shadow Blade and made an attack as part of the same action with your shortsword, so the argument goes that you could go back to the "opposite" hand after making the Booming Blade attack.
I'm thinking I won't allow this at my table, because it just feels like it shouldn't work this way. You take the Attack action with Shadow Blade, so whatever else you do after that as part of the action, you'll have to use the Bonus Action attack of TWF with a weapon that meets the criteria in your other hand. What do you guys think? Have you run into this issue at your tables?
You took the Attack action and attacked with the short sword. Sure, the attack was part of a spell, but it was still an attack, so I think it's legal.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Okay, so, there are a few things going on here.
The first is the Extra Attack feature, and here's the kicker: You don't only have to attack with one weapon. If you want to attack with a battleaxe and warhammer, you could. The only time two weapons really matters is when using Two-Weapon Fighting. There, you must be carrying two weapons with the Light property.
The second is casting any spell with both somatic and material components means the components can be performed together. The spell description itself for booming blade says the weapon used to cast the spell is what you attack with. Specifically, "You brandish the weapon used in the spell’s casting and make a melee attack with it against one creature within 5 feet of you." So there's no getting around that. You can't use the shortsword to cast the spell and attack with shadow blade instead.
But you can attack with both using Extra Attack; no TWF required. Just know that doing so means both hands would be occupied and that limits spellcasting. For example, you cannot cast shield unless you also have War Caster. This is a common problem for followers of the Bladesinging tradition; who are probably better off with a component pouch than a focus.
I'm pretty sure this question has been asked and answered before.
I only read first 2 paragraphs, but sounds like you got it.
Thanks! The issue isn’t using the Shadow Blade for the Booming Blade attack, but rather bouncing back and forth between them for the TWF bonus action attack. If you use the short sword to attack with BB as your second “Extra Attack”, after making your first attack with Shadow Blade, would you then allow the player to return to the Shadow Blade for the TWF bonus action attack?
I don’t think I’m going to allow it. I know with a regular fighter you can go back and forth - say from a short sword to a dagger - using each of them for one attack in the “Extra Attack” feature, then use whichever one you wanted for the TWF bonus action attack. The problem is BB is casting a spell, even if you’re substituting it for an attack within the Bladesinger’s Extra Attack feature, and despite making a melee attack with it as part of the casting, you aren’t “taking the attack action with it”. Rather, you’re taking the attack action to make an attack with Shadow Blade, then casting a spell in place of another attack; or at least that’s how I interpret it.
So you're interpreting the "and" in the following sentence: "When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you're holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you're holding in the other hand." to mean that both of those things must be fulfilled by a weapon in the same hand rather than allowing bot of those conditions to be filled, but by separate weapons?
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
The conditions for TWF are:
All conditions are met even using BB/GFB for one of the attacks.
Not really - in a normal situation I would say that as long as the conditions are met you could use either weapon for the TWF attack. The complexity here is that you are replacing an attack within the Attack action with the casting of a spell that also happens to contain a melee attack. By RAW, technically, this checks out as DxJxC says. I take issue with the insertion of the casting of the BB spell within the attack action in such a way that it circumvents the normal limitation of using that powerful spell with TWF, in addition to another attack with a different, powerful weapon (shadow blade). It just seems too strong for my table, and doesn't feel like it's intended to work in this way. To be clear, I think by RAW it would work fine, but at my table I'll probably not allow it because I feel like the intent is that this shouldn't.