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

Question

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?

Answer 1

Only if one of your classes matches the feat

For example, if you are a Cleric then you can use a spell slot to cast the 1st level spell learnt from the Magic Initiate (Cleric) feat.

If you are not a Cleric then you can't.

From the Sage Advice Compendium:

Magic Initiate

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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.

Answer 2

No, you can't use spell slots, unless you choose the class associated with your Spellcasting feature.

Without loss of generality, suppose you are a Wizard who takes the Magic Initiate feat (PHB, p. 168), and pick the cleric class for the feat. The relevant part of the description of the feat says:

Choose a class: bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, warlock, or wizard. You learn two cantrips of your choice from that class’s spell list.

In addition, choose one 1st-level spell to learn from that same list. Using this feat, you can cast the spell once at its lowest level, and you must finish a long rest before you can cast it in this way again.

So the 1st-level spell you choose for the feat is a cleric spell (as are the cantrips). Even if the 1st-level spell you choose for the feat is on both the cleric and wizard spell lists, it still counts as a cleric spell for you.

Unfortunately, as of the 2018 PHB errata, the wizard's Spellcasting feature says, (emphasis mine):

The Wizard table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your wizard spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher.

A wizard may only cast wizard spells with their wizard spell slots. This is confirmed in the official ruling on Magic Initiative in the Sage Advice Compendium:

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. [...]

If the cleric spell chosen counted as a wizard spell for you, you would be able to cast it using your spell slots, but the SAC confirms that the class you choose for Magic Initiate must be one of your classes for this to be the case.

On the other hand, if the wizard took the Magic Initiate feat and picked the wizard class for the feat, the chosen spell would be a wizard spell for you, and would be eligible for casting with your wizard spell slots. This is confirmed in the Sage Advice Compendium ruling, which continues:

[...] 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.

Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster

In particular, casting a spell with your spell slots as an Eldritch Knight fighter or Arcane Trickster rogue requires two things: that you know the spell, and that it is a wizard spell. The spell gained from Magic Initiate satisfies both of these conditions if you choose the wizard class for the feat.

The Eldritch Knight's Spellcasting feature says (PHB, p. 75; emphasis mine):

The Eldritch Knight Spellcasting table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your wizard spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.

Similarly, the Arcane Trickster's Spellcasting feature says (PHB, p. 98; emphasis mine):

The Arcane Trickster Spellcasting table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your wizard spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.

If you pick the wizard class for the Magic Initiate feat, and therefore the 1st-level spell you learn from the feat is a wizard spell for you, it meets all the conditions for being able to expend spell slots to cast it as an Eldritch Knight or an Arcane Trickster.

This ruling is confirmed by the same Sage Advice Compendium ruling quoted earlier (emphasis mine):

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.

Since your Spellcasting feature says you can use your spell slots to cast wizard spells, then if you take Magic Initiate and pick the wizard class, you can cast that 1st-level wizard spell using your spell slots.

Answer 3

Yes, if

1. the class you chose for Magic Initiate is one of bard, sorcerer, or warlock and you have a level in that class, or
2. you chose wizard for Magic Initiate and you are an Arcane Trickster or Eldritch Knight.

Why?

The spells gained from Magic Initiate count as spells known of the class you chose (see below for the source). Some classes allow you to use your spell slots to cast the spells you know of that class¹, so this includes the 1st-level spell from Magic Initiate if the classes match. However, this is not the case for all classes. The other classes require you to have a spell prepared before they permit you to use your spell slots to cast it², and the spells you can prepare are either all of the class’s spells for which you have spell slots or, for wizards, the spells in your spellbook. Knowing the spell is completely meaningless to them³, so they cannot use their spell slots to cast the 1st-level spell gained from Magic Initiate.

Bard, sorcerer, and warlock are the only classes in the first category that can be chosen for Magic Initiate, so this is where the first clause comes from. The second clause is necessary because, unlike wizards themselves, Arcane Tricksters and Eldritch Knights can use their spell slots to cast the wizard spells they know, which will include the 1st-level spell from Magic Initiate if they chose wizard.

This is how I make sense to the Sage Advice Compendium entry below, which seems to imply in the first sentence that wizards can use their spell slots to cast the 1st-level spell from the feat if they chose wizard and then goes on to contradict that. This is also from whence I took the ruling that the Magic Initiate spells are considered spells of the chosen class.

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.

Source

¹ See e.g. PHB p. 53 (emphasis added): “The Bard table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your bard spells of 1st level and higher. […] For example, if you know the 1st-level spell cure wounds and have a 1st-level and a 2nd-level spell slot available, you can cast cure wounds using either slot. […] You know four 1st-level spells of your choice from the bard spell list. The Spells Known column of the Bard table shows when you learn more bard spells of your choice.”
² See e.g. PHB p. 58 (emphasis added): “The Cleric table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your cleric spells of 1st level and higher. […] You prepare the list of cleric spells that are available for you to cast. […] If you prepare the 1st-level spell cure wounds, you can cast it using a 1st-level or 2nd-level slot.”
³ This is not entirely true, since wizards can add wizard spells they know to their spellbook, as confirmed by the Sage Advice Compendium entry. …Interestingly, the entry seems to imply the condition that the wizard spell does not only appear on the wizard spell list, but is also known as a wizard spell (“if you are a wizard and pick that class for the feat”, not “if you are a wizard and the 1st-level spell you chose appears on the wizard spell list”). Therefore, a bard/wizard multiclasser cannot add their bard spells that also appear on the wizard spell list to their spellbook, while an Arcane Trickster/wizard can add all their wizard spells known from the Arcane Trickster subclass. (Not that it would be of any practical use, except maybe for selling them to another wizard.)

Answer 4

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.

Answer 5

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.