Paladin spellcasting and item with spell slots

[megavandalor]

Hey everyone.

I'm wondering about how the spell slot items interact exacly with spellcasting progression.
I have a Paladin 11, with 14 wisdom. At this level, i have 0 3rd level spells, which means that if I had a high enough wisdom I could cast 1 3rd level spell, which I can't. So far so good. But then I have an item that gives me a 3rd level spell slot and still I do not have any available. I'm wondering if this is a bug or if it is the way it is supposed to be?

In my mind, the spell slot item should grant me the spell, as I have the ability to cast 3rd level (just don't have high enough wisdom to have it as a bonus slot).

[chad878262]

But then I have an item that gives me a 3rd level spell slot and still I do not have any available. I'm wondering if this is a bug or if it is the way it is supposed to be

I am not sure if it works this way in PnP or not, but I *think* you'd get the bonus slot if your WIS was high enough. A +2 item to boost your WIS to 16 would be a good way to test if you gain just 1 level 3 spell (from 16 WIS) or 2 (from 16 WIS + the Pally 3 item). Without 16 WIS to grant 'access' to casting a pally spell you won't get the bonus spell.

[megavandalor]

I have 11 wis with a +3 item, so a +4 would not help in this case
From the spellcasting progression table I imagined that something that gave me a spell slot (either item or the high wis bonus) would allow me to cast at this level, but maybe the item requires you to have at least one spell slot already.

[zhazz]

First off, let's address a common misconception. You don't need 16 Wisdom to cast 3rd level paladin spells. You only need 13. This goes for all caster classes, albeit with different abilities (cha/int).

What you need is to have a Spellcasting Ability Score (not Modifier) of 10 + Spell Level.

If it was the Modifier, then classes with access to 9th level spells would need 10 + 9 * 2 = 28 Wis/Int/Cha, despite getting access to 9th level spells at character level 17 (assuming full caster level progression), at which point they usually only 18 to 20 in that ability.


As for the bonus spell slots they won't do anything for your character, unless it is natively capable of casting spells of the same spell level as the bonus spell slot. As you can see on the Paladin Spellcasting Progression chart Paladins aren't able to natively cast 3rd levels spells before level 12.

Paladins and rangers are special in that they gain the understanding of spells, before they are capable of casting them. Why exactly that is, I don't know. It is both silly and confusing that spells appear in the spell book before they are usable. At least for caster classes, who gain spells automatically, with no means of manually adding more (such as wizards).


Edit:
The reason why bonus spell slots won't give a character access to spells they might already know, but aren't natively capable of casting, is a game engine limitation put in place to avoid gaming the system. Gaming the system only applies to Wizards, but does present a balancing issue. Wizards can learn any spell as long as their intelligence score is high enough. That means a level 1 Wizard can technically learn a 9th level spell, despite not being capable of casting those before level 17.

And this is where gaming the system could then occur. If a level 1 Wizard were to learn, let's say the 8th level spell Deadly Lahar, from a scroll. They could then, without the aforementioned limitation, equip an item that grants them a bonus 8th level spell slot, and cast a spell that deals 18d6 damage over a large area +3d6/round for 3 rounds to anything hit by the spell.

I think we can all agree that such would be a serious balancing issue

[megavandalor]

First off, let's address a common misconception. You don't need 16 Wisdom to cast 3rd level paladin spells. You only need 13. This goes for all caster classes, albeit with different abilities (cha/int).
What you need is to have a Spellcasting Ability Score (not Modifier) of 10 + Spell Level.
If it was the Modifier, then classes with access to 9th level spells would need 10 + 9 * 2 = 28 Wis/Int/Cha, despite getting access to 9th level spells at character level 17 (assuming full caster level progression), at which point they usually only 18 to 20 in that ability.

Sure, that much is clear. I was saying that we need 16 wis for a Bonus spell of 3rd level.

As for the bonus spell slots they won't do anything for your character, unless it is natively capable of casting spells of the same spell level as the bonus spell slot. As you can see on the Paladin Spellcasting Progression chart Paladins aren't able to natively cast 3rd levels spells before level 12.

Well, that's what got me confused - because it said 0 spells of that level. Why would it say 0 instead of "-" like level 10 for example? To me being able to cast 0 spells of that level would imply that I could if I had bonus spells based on a higher wisdom. But I see that it does not work like that.

Paladins and rangers are special in that they gain the understanding of spells, before they are capable of casting them. Why exactly that is, I don't know. It is both silly and confusing that spells appear in the spell book before they are usable. At least for caster classes, who gain spells automatically, with no means of manually adding more (such as wizards).


Edit:
The reason why bonus spell slots won't give a character access to spells they might already know, but aren't natively capable of casting, is a game engine limitation put in place to avoid gaming the system. Gaming the system only applies to Wizards, but does present a balancing issue. Wizards can learn any spell as long as their intelligence score is high enough. That means a level 1 Wizard can technically learn a 9th level spell, despite not being capable of casting those before level 17.

And this is where gaming the system could then occur. If a level 1 Wizard were to learn, let's say the 8th level spell Deadly Lahar, from a scroll. They could then, without the aforementioned limitation, equip an item that grants them a bonus 8th level spell slot, and cast a spell that deals 18d6 damage over a large area +3d6/round for 3 rounds to anything hit by the spell.

I think we can all agree that such would be a serious balancing issue

Yeah, the confusing part to me is the "0" spell slots instad of "-". But anyway - question answered, thank you very much.

[zhazz]

You're welcome

I have my own theory as to why the Paladin/Ranger Spellcasting Progression chart lists a 0 instead of a —. Likely it is to indicate that the class gains the knowledge of that level of spells, but aren't able to cast any of them.

As I said, this might just be a theory, but it's the only one I've got. Doesn't change anything to make that particular part of the classes make sense though!