Introduction
The eldritch knight fighter (EK) in my game is contemplating whether to dip into wizard (Wiz) for more magical versatility in combat.
Spell Slots
The multiclassing spellcasting rules (PHB p.164/165) say:
You determine your available spell slots by adding together all your levels in the bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, and wizard classes, half your levels (rounded down) in the paladin and ranger classes, and a third of your fighter or rogue levels (rounded down) if you have the Eldritch Knight or the Arcane Trickster archetypes. Use this total to determine your spell slots by consulting the Multiclass Spellcaster table.
So a EK6/Wiz5 would add up to a 7th level spellcaster (6/3 + 5). A snippet of the mentioned table shows:
\begin{array}{l}
\text{level} & \text{1st} & \text{2nd} & \text{3rd} & \text{4th} & \text{5th} & \text{6th} & \text{7th} & \text{8th} & \text{9th} \\
\hline
1 & 2 & – & – & – & – & – & – & – & – \\
2 & 3 & – & – & – & – & – & – & – & – \\
3 & 4 & 2 & – & – & – & – & – & – & – \\
4 & 4 & 3 & – & – & – & – & – & – & – \\
5 & 4 & 3 & 2 & – & – & – & – & – & – \\
6 & 4 & 3 & 3 & – & – & – & – & – & – \\
7 & 4 & 3 & 3 & 1 & – & – & – & – & –
\end{array}
The table implies that the EK spell slots and the Wiz spell slots are simply one and the same pool of spell slots, but I didn't find an explicit mention of this. Or is this table only for the added class through multiclassing?
We’re both unsure of how to interpret this when it comes to expanding spell slots.
Question
Multiclass Spellcaster: do the classes have a shared pool of spell slots? If so, does it matter which class’ spells are cast when expending spell slots?
Our confusion comes from our inexperience with 5e and multiclassing – let alone spellcasters. Are we missing something, or are we just overthinking it?
Related (but without clear answer to this question):
Best Answer
You only have one pool of slots
You cast whatever spells you can cast, in whatever manner you cast them. They use slots, which are a generic resource independent of your specific spellcasting class. There aren't 'Wizard' or 'Cleric' slots, for example - just 'spell slots'. So your PC might cast only Eldritch Knight spells with all their slots or only Wizard spells with all their slots or some combination of both.
So, yes, you should ignore the class tables and just look at the table for multiclass spellcasters.