If you’re a spellcaster, can you pick your own class when you gain the Magic Initiate feat?
Yes, the feat doesn’t say you can’t. For example, if you’re a wizard and gain the Magic Initiate feat, you can choose wizard and thereby learn two more wizard cantrips and another 1st-level wizard spell.
If you have spell slots, can you use them to cast the 1st-level spell you learn with the Magic Initiate feat?
Yes, but only if the class you pick for the feat is one of your classes. For example, if you pick sorcerer and you are a sorcerer, the Spellcasting feature for that class tells you that you can use your spell slots to cast the sorcerer spells you know, so you can use your spell slots to cast the 1st-level sorcerer spell you learn from Magic Initiate. Similarly, if you are a wizard and pick that class for the feat, you learn a 1st-level wizard spell, which you could add to your spellbook and subsequently prepare.
In short, you must follow your character’s normal spellcasting rules, which determine whether you can expend spell slots on the 1st-level spell you learn from Magic Initiate.
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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!
Note that the arcane archetypes (Arcane Trickster & Eldritch Knight) were at one point allowed to use their slots for the spell learned from Magic Initiate regardless of class picked, but this has since been superseded by the current official rulings. I believe they can still use their slots to cast any Wizard spell picked up with Magic Initiate (on the grounds that they use their slots for their Wizard spells), though this is something to discuss with your table because the official ruling is ambiguous here (AT/EK isn't a Wizard, but their spellcasting rules let them cast Wizard spells, therefore the first paragraph says "no" but the second says "yes").
Interestingly, a multiclass EK/Wizard is also ambiguously able to use their Wizard focus for their EK spells, by the same logic. (Wizard's Spellcasting Focus feature lets them use it for their Wizard spells, and EK casts Wizard spells.)
So if I were playing a Bard character, and I gained the Magic Initiate Fest, I could select two Cleric Cantrips, and the first level spell Cure Wounds. But even though the spell CW is on the Bard list, I couldn't cast it as a Bard, I could only cast it as a Cleric, so I would have to use my Wisdom score to determine the outcome? And I couldn't upcast the spell even if I had higher level slots? I just want o make sure I understand the subtle implications of this feat. Seems pretty limiting on a spell casting class.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
So if I were playing a Bard character, and I gained the Magic Initiate Fest, I could select two Cleric Cantrips, and the first level spell Cure Wounds. But even though the spell CW is on the Bard list, I couldn't cast it as a Bard, I could only cast it as a Cleric, so I would have to use my Wisdom score to determine the outcome? And I couldn't upcast the spell even if I had higher level slots? I just want o make sure I understand the subtle implications of this feat. Seems pretty limiting on a spell casting class.
Ok, but what about Fey/Shadow Touched? It does say in their description...
Magic Initiate has specific poor wording such that if you have levels in the class you pick for MI and that class is a know-caster, then you can cast it with slots. Fey and Shadow Touched have no such hoops - you can just cast their spells with slots, but those spells do not become class spells for you if they were not already.
The TCE feats were made with full knowledge of what MI is, what MI was intended to be, and all of its failings. They function in the manner which MI would most likely function if it were to be created today, and may (ideally) be used as the basis for an errata or (yet another) ruling regarding MI. Essentially, they're the finished products and MI is the prototype.
It is unlikely that Wizards will errata MI. they have had this conversation come up for years and at any time they could have corrected this. It is also worth mentioning that Since they have started making additional magical abilities work off of any Mental stat (your choice) this should also apply to MI if taking MI would cause you to gain a new Spell casting stat.
Example: I am playing a Variant Human Wizard and I take MI: Druid for my spell i take goodberry if I do this I cant use INT as the casting ability I would have to use Wisdom but if I take Artificer Initiate and I take Cure Wounds I have just turned My Wizard into an ok healer since he can cast and upcast the spell
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See title.
No, you only have the innate casting of that spell.
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!
Note that the arcane archetypes (Arcane Trickster & Eldritch Knight) were at one point allowed to use their slots for the spell learned from Magic Initiate regardless of class picked, but this has since been superseded by the current official rulings. I believe they can still use their slots to cast any Wizard spell picked up with Magic Initiate (on the grounds that they use their slots for their Wizard spells), though this is something to discuss with your table because the official ruling is ambiguous here (AT/EK isn't a Wizard, but their spellcasting rules let them cast Wizard spells, therefore the first paragraph says "no" but the second says "yes").
Interestingly, a multiclass EK/Wizard is also ambiguously able to use their Wizard focus for their EK spells, by the same logic. (Wizard's Spellcasting Focus feature lets them use it for their Wizard spells, and EK casts Wizard spells.)
So if I were playing a Bard character, and I gained the Magic Initiate Fest, I could select two Cleric Cantrips, and the first level spell Cure Wounds. But even though the spell CW is on the Bard list, I couldn't cast it as a Bard, I could only cast it as a Cleric, so I would have to use my Wisdom score to determine the outcome? And I couldn't upcast the spell even if I had higher level slots? I just want o make sure I understand the subtle implications of this feat. Seems pretty limiting on a spell casting class.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Correct.
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Ok, but what about Fey/Shadow Touched? It does say in their description...
Magic Initiate has specific poor wording such that if you have levels in the class you pick for MI and that class is a know-caster, then you can cast it with slots. Fey and Shadow Touched have no such hoops - you can just cast their spells with slots, but those spells do not become class spells for you if they were not already.
The TCE feats were made with full knowledge of what MI is, what MI was intended to be, and all of its failings. They function in the manner which MI would most likely function if it were to be created today, and may (ideally) be used as the basis for an errata or (yet another) ruling regarding MI. Essentially, they're the finished products and MI is the prototype.
It is unlikely that Wizards will errata MI. they have had this conversation come up for years and at any time they could have corrected this. It is also worth mentioning that Since they have started making additional magical abilities work off of any Mental stat (your choice) this should also apply to MI if taking MI would cause you to gain a new Spell casting stat.
Example: I am playing a Variant Human Wizard and I take MI: Druid for my spell i take goodberry if I do this I cant use INT as the casting ability I would have to use Wisdom but if I take Artificer Initiate and I take Cure Wounds I have just turned My Wizard into an ok healer since he can cast and upcast the spell