Basically I am looking at having my bard take Banishing Smite and Destructive wave as his spells for magical secrets. This would be to increase his damage output as a Valour Bard. The description of Magical secrets suggests I can, but Paladins can't usually take these spells until they are around 17th Level. Has anyone seen anything that would suggest that Bards cannot take Paladin or Ranger spells?
[RPG] Can a 10th Level Bard use Magical secrets to gain 5th level Paladin spells
barddnd-5espells
Related Solutions
No. Magical Secrets specifies that the spells you learn from it must be
of a level you can cast, as shown on the Bard table, or a cantrip.
As a 10th-level Bard, you can only learn spells up to 5th level using Magical Secrets, even if you also have other levels in another spellcasting class.
Edit: This answer predates several rulings and clarifications made by WotC and Crawford in particular. I'm leaving it in place for historic purposes, but it's no longer a particularly useful answer.
Strictly speaking, there is no clear interpretation. All three cases are justifiable. Also note that 5e discourages literal "rules as written" meanings. As the designers have repeatedly said: "rulings, not rules." The rules were explicitly not written to be scrutinized as a lawyer scrutinizes the law, so we should not be surprised when the end result of "it's ambiguous" is what we find.
Firstly, "natural" melee weapons are, as far as I'm aware, considered melee weapon in 5e. [ See also.] There is no distinction between a mace and a hoof as far as "counts as a weapon" is concerned in 5e. I don't know if this is explicitly stated anywhere (I thought it was) but Unarmed Strike is explicitly listed as a weapon on the weapons table, and it's strongly implied since all monster stat blocks say things like "Bite Melee weapon attack: [...]". As far as I can tell, if you make an attack with it, it's considered a "weapon" in 5e. Something is a weapon if it's used to make an attack, then, not because it's got a weapon tag on it.
You could argue a Case 1 by saying that find steed only modifies the target of the spell. The spell still refers to "you," so even though it effects your mount, that extension does nothing. In other words, you argue that for Range: Self spells, "you" in the spell description means exactly, "you, the spell caster," and never, "you, the spell's target." This interpretation, however, also modifies spells like divine favor, detect evil and good, crusader's mantle (that one's a bit of a pickle to decode with a mount), and every other Range: Self spell. I'd argue it's all or nothing here. Either they all work on the mount (in some way), or none of them do. It doesn't matter how you rule here, but you should be consistent. Given the number and range of Paladin spells that are Range: Self I question an interpretation this narrow as being the design intent, but it's certainly supportable. About the only thing that reinforces this interpretation is the fact that the Smite class ability does not work on a find steed mount, but that's only because the class ability isn't a spell so it doesn't qualify for find steed's expansion.
The difference between Case 2 and Case 3 is deciding if find steed changes the wording of spells to "The first time both you and your mount hit with a melee weapon attack [...]" or changes to "The first time either you or your mount hit with a melee weapon attack [...]". Honestly, there's not enough information to decide either way. The spells are not written with find steed in mind, and find steed is not worded to make the end result clear.
You can argue Case 2 by saying, "The spell is intended to only affect a single melee attack; if it were intended to affect multiple targets, it would be higher level or otherwise deal less damage."
You can argue Case 3 by saying, "Find steed, like find familiar or hunter's mark, is a class ability masquerading as a 2nd level spell, and that wording was put there to have an intended effect. Furthermore, making a Paladin more deadly while mounted -- a fairly rare situation in most campaigns, IMX, and small Paladins are already less threatening -- is in-line with the desired result of the theme and flavor of the class. Given also the relative scarcity of spell slots, the additional power is probably not significant in most cases." This is not a particularly crunchy argument, but given that 5e does not separate crunch and fluff, it is legitimate.
If I were to rule conservatively, I would probably rule Case 2. If I were in a more liberal frame of mind, Case 3 would be reasonable. As it stands, I don't see any compelling justification for any one interpretation.
Best Answer
Magical Secrets lets you choose spells of a level you can cast.
By 10th level a bard can cast 5th level spells. Banishing Smite and Destructive Wave are both 5th level spells... There's nothing stopping you from choosing these spells.