Can you cast a spell learned from the Magic Initiate feat using spell slots?

Say I play a wizard who learns cure wounds by taking the Magic Initiate feat. Could I cast that spell using the Wizard's spell slots?


No. You are not a Cleric so you can't use a spell slot to cast the 1st level spell learnt from the Magic Initiate (Cleric) feat (or whatever class you picked for the feat).

From the Sage Advice Compendium:

Magic Initiate

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.

  • \$\begingroup\$ It may also be worth updating the answer to mention the 2018 PHB errata, which updated each class's Spellcasting feature to say you can only use that class's slots to cast spells of that class (e.g. "cleric spells" for cleric), in accordance with what the SAC says. \$\endgroup\$ – V2Blast Jul 1 '19 at 23:04
  • \$\begingroup\$ @V2Blast I'm not seeing how that errata affects this ruling. \$\endgroup\$ – jgn Jan 13 at 2:35
  • \$\begingroup\$ @jgn: What the SAC says hasn't changed; even before that errata, the SAC claimed "the Spellcasting feature for that class tells you that you can use your spell slots to cast the sorcerer spells you know" (even though the feature originally just said, "The Sorcerer table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your spells of 1st level and higher", and assumed "sorcerer spells" was implied by the following sentence). The errata made it so that that's actually true; it now reads: "The Sorcerer table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your sorcerer spells of 1st level and higher." \$\endgroup\$ – V2Blast Jan 13 at 2:43

If you think about the source of where the magic is coming from for each magic user, you can see that it just doesn't make sense for you to use higher level spell slots.

For example, a wizard can't call upon a cleric's deity to grant him more power, and a bard can't call upon a sorcerer's demonic entity for more spells.

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    \$\begingroup\$ This may be a good in-fiction explanation/way-of -thinking, but usually answers need to cite the rules and sources to be considered useful which is probably why you were downvoted. \$\endgroup\$ – Rubiksmoose Dec 4 '17 at 14:15
  • \$\begingroup\$ Thanks for the comment. I will bear that in mind. Since I'm new to this site (been DMing for over 20 years), my answers start off at a -4, so it wasn't actually down-voted as far as I can tell. The rules explanation was in one of the other answers, so I thought I would add a reasoned answer to it. \$\endgroup\$ – Smirk Dec 5 '17 at 7:24
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Smirk In general, an answer should stand on its own, self contained. If there is a reason to need info from another answer (such as a lengthy chain of reasoning that would be tedious to repeat), you can link to it. Welcome to the site. If you want to "level up", feel free to take the tour! \$\endgroup\$ – keithcurtis Apr 28 '18 at 19:40

The Sage Advice Compendium appears to be misquoting it's own source texts (which is truly frustrating because the most indelible measure of being wrong is being wrong by your own logic) as, in the PHB, the Sorcerer Spellcasting feature makes no mention of specifically casting "Sorcerer" spells.

The above ruling is wrong, at least in the 5e rule set as written (including errata). After a careful reading of the spellcasting ability description of all classes you will find the specificity of the cleric description to be an exception in terms of wording.

Further examination of the multiclassing section of the PHB will net you the understanding that spell slots are a feature tied to Character Level, though the ability to cast spells in general using a spell slot requires having a class with the spellcasting feature, as they are the only classes with spellslots to use.

Looking through the Spellcasting chapter of the PHB will also reveal that regardless of the source of the magical knowledge, all spells follow the set out rules in the same way. In this section there is no mention of spell slots being class specific, and evidence would lead one to conclude that the function of spells being denoted as class specific pertains to the traditions in which they are learned and thus the ability modifiers applied to them.

The only difference in casting type is in the form of the distinction made between the Spellcasting and Pact Magic class features.

Add to this the fact that the only specification in the Magic Initiate feature regarding learning the spell is that it is learnt as a spell from a specific class which means the ability modifiers added to it are derived from that class' specification for spell modifier and it is obvious to me that RAW allows the spell to be cast with any spell slot, at least before the question was answered by the Wizards Team in which they misquote their own material.

This leads me to believe that either the team misread their personal notes on the topic and substituted them for final copy materials to reference, or that they need to issue another errata, or, finally, that given that the DM is the be all and end all of rules and that all forms of common sense from the material given would lead you to deduce that you can cast a spell with any spell slot because there is absolutely no mention of spell slots being class specific, most DMs should probably ignore the above ruling.

This is the way I have been running my games since we moved to 5e at least, and its the one that makes the most sense deriving from the base texts only. Though the team may have notes that clarify this, they have not shared them, and the SAC quotes a non-existent line of text, so I'm not entirely sure this ruling will stand for long anyway.

  • \$\begingroup\$ I think your answer would benefit from a clear "yes" or "no" response to the original question. I believe you're implying the answer is "no" but the wording is indirect and buried toward the end. \$\endgroup\$ – Bloodcinder Apr 23 '18 at 12:00
  • \$\begingroup\$ From the PHB: "The Sorcerer table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these sorcerer spells, you must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher." Thus there is wording that limits spells slots to sorcerer spells even if it's not entirely obvious. Being that SA is there to clear up not obvious things, it seems that this is a pretty clear ruling IMO. \$\endgroup\$ – Rubiksmoose Apr 23 '18 at 12:45
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    \$\begingroup\$ Note that Multiclassing is an optional rule; using its modifications to rules in a chain of reasoning to deduce how non-optional spellcasting rules operate is a deductive logic error. \$\endgroup\$ – SevenSidedDie Apr 23 '18 at 14:12
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    \$\begingroup\$ I have reworded a section of this answer that can be seen as disparaging those DMs that disagree with your interpretation. We have a Be Nice policy here and that includes being nice to those who disagree or may disagree with your opinions. \$\endgroup\$ – Rubiksmoose Apr 23 '18 at 16:07
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    \$\begingroup\$ This was errata'd, (but presumably later) by the way. The copy of the most recent errata I have has each spellcaster's spellcasting feature specify the class name. \$\endgroup\$ – Stackstuck Nov 18 '18 at 17:57

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