Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Magic Initiate questions

Hello all! Since I currently can't check that in Early Access, I post the question on forums instead.

From what I understand, Magic Initiate after latest changes works in such way - you get 2 cantrips that scale off respective stat and upgrade with 5 / 11 lvl, 1 level 1 spell slot that is restored on long rest and can learn 1 first level spell from the class the feat is related to. This spell can be used with your own spell slots if you have them, but only at spell level 1.

Does the same rule apply if you take your own class as a magic initiate feat? For example, if a Sorcerer takes Magic Initiate: Sorcerer, can the learned spell be used only at spell level 1 or it can be upcasted?

If former, do you think they should allow upcasting in such cases? The reason for that could be that taking your own class as a magic initiate feat does not give you access to any new spells, so it could just allow to get an additional first level spell of your class that could be upcasted instead.

I think this is incorect ...
Unless i remember something wrong, spells you get from Magic Initiate feat are given to you to use for free (without spellslot cost) once per Long Rest and thats it.
Unless the spell contains some re-cast feature by itself, like Hex do.

I believe you cant do that.

Crawford, the rules sage for 5e, has said the intention for the Magic Initiate feat is that one would be able to use their own spells slots to cast the 1st level spell that is gained by the feat. But, the 5e feat does not explicitly say this, so Larian implemented it in a fashion where you can only cast the spell once by Long rest. So, using the feat to add to one's 'known spells', to one's spellbook, or to one's spell list isn't really an option in BG3.

There is a reason that the original wording for feats/features like this was "You know the [x] spell, and can cast it once at [base level] without spending a spell slot". This wording is specific and non-frivolous: You know the spell. that is not fluff. You know the spell; you can cast spells you know using your spell slots. This is covered in the magic rules and re-covered from the other direction in the multiclassing rules.

It wasn't explicitly stated because it didn't need to be, and 5e design standards (at least when it was first devised and released) are to say exactly what needs to be said, and that things do as they say and not what they don't. when a feature tells you that you know a spell, it doesn't actually need to say that you can cast that spell using spell slots; it's baked into the spellcasting rules.

Unfortunately, in the more recent books, they've back-tracked on this principle and started to explicitly re-state elements, which in turn has had the undesired effect of causing people to think that the earlier features don't allow this; that is not (intended to be) the case.

no the charisma spells don't mix with the intel spells in any way
we don't know anything about lvl 11 but about 1/2 the lvl 5 things don't even work

I did an investigation and found an interesting thread.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/du...ou-allow-upcasting-magic-initiate-spells

Post 9 quote (taken from Sage Advice compendium, which was officially linked by Jeremy Crawford):


So, according to that, 1) you can pick your own class as Magic Initiate feat and 2) the learned spell gets added to your spell list if you pick your own class as a Magic Initiate feat.

If it does not work that way in BG3, maybe Larian should fix that.