Hey everyone, some friends and I were looking through the PHB again and noticed something strange about the cleric's spell casting. The cleric knows every spell on the list but can only prepare a few of them. However, this means that a level 1 cleric has the potential to cast any spell on his list except that he doesnt have a high enough spell slot. However, due to the multiclass spell progression table, it is possible. Say for example I took 1 level of cleric and then 19 wizard. I would have access to all the spells for both classes evn though I only took one level of cleric. Am I missing something becasue this seems really strange to me.
You are missing the portion of multi-classing that specifies that you prepare what spells you can from each of your classes as if you only had that class, and that means your level too.
If you are a cleric 1, wizard 19, you prepare cleric spells exactly as you would if you were a cleric 1 and that's it - including that you would only have 1st level spell slots, so you can only prepare 1st level spells.
Rules under multi-classing details this.
A 19 wizard/1 cleric is a 20th level caster and thus has all spell slots available to them to cast spells as a full caster. The character can only cast level 1 Cleric spells and the cleric cantrips known. The character can freely use the 1st level spell slots for either Wizard or Cleric. Because you are a 20th level caster you can still use a higher slot to cast scalable spells as higher level spells even for the 1st level Cleric spells.
On a side note I believe the character would gain far more by going 18/2 instead of 19/1 as they then gain channel divinity and a divine domain and effectively lose nothing by losing a Wizard level ... but I assume you are simply giving an example.
My friend argues that in the case of the cleric you can cast the spell if you have the spell slot avaible to for it. But from I understand from what im being told is that the multiclass casters table determines the power of the spell (by being able to cast it into a higher spell slot) but you cannot necessarily cast a higher level spell (say in the 1cleric/19wizard case, i could not cast a 3rd level cleric spell, but i could cast a 1st level cleric spell in the 3rd level slot).
mr.troutz wrote:
mr.troutz wrote:
mr.troutz wrote:
oh I think I see, the multi class table progresses the slots you have, but the slots do not determine which spells you have avaiable to prepare each day. Is that right?
mr.troutz wrote:
sorry im being the worst about this, but the cleric spell casting says "you prepare a list of cleric spells that are available for you to cast. When you do so choose a number of cleric spells equal to your Wisdom modfier + your cleric level (minium one spell). The spell must be of a level for which you have spell slots for.
For me that last sentence could mean that the cleric spell's can be based on the multiclasses table, even if its preapred indivdually becasue you now share spell slots. Unless it worked like pact magic, in which case both teh spell lists and spell slots are based soley on the indivdual class. Which is fine if that s the case, thats how I imagine that's how it should work, but then if taht is the case why is the multiclass spell casting table even a thing? why doesnt it jsut work like pact magic then?
mr.troutz wrote:
mr.troutz wrote:
Ok i see, that makes sense. Thanks so much for clearing that up guys 