Just an idea: edit: proven not to work as per post below.
The Guardian Armourer has Thunder Gauntlets that will each "count. as a simple melee weapon while you aren’t holding anything in it" so that "A creature hit by the gauntlet has disadvantage on attack rolls against targets other than you until the start of your next turn." With the Booming Blade cantrip "You brandish the weapon used in the spell’s casting and make a melee attack with it against one creature within 5 feet of you. On a hit, the target ... becomes sheathed in booming energy until the start of your next turn. If the target willingly moves 5 feet or more before then, the target takes 1d8 (2d8 from 5th level) thunder damage, and the spell ends." At 5th level, the Armourer gets an Extra Attack and "can attack twice, rather than once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn." "On a hit, (with the Shocking Grasp cantrip), the target takes (2)d8 (from 5th level) lightning damage, and it can't take reactions until the start of its next turn." If you still have movement left you could then step back and your opponent can't make an opportunity attack as "when a hostile creature that you can see moves out of your reach. [because] To make the opportunity attack, you use your reaction to make one melee attack against the provoking creature."
And you, being clever, may have moved off to the far side of your opponent from allies of yours. A polearm wielding ally, being clever, could have remained out of the short reach of your opponent or could have moved out of range if able to do so between the opponent getting shocked and their making of their next attacks. In this case, the polearm wielder could still make an opportunity attack if your opponent moved toward you.
The opponent suffers disadvantage on melee attacks on anyone but you but will take booming blade damage and other attacks if moving towards you. It's a thunder and lightning, slice and dice combo.
edit: Booming Blade has a requirement of "a melee weapon worth at least 1 sp". It could be up to the DM as to whether this is included in the cost of the armour or whether the artificer could craft such value in.
Using Booming Blade in combination with the gauntlet's "taunt" feature when you can force movement is a great strategy. However, when you cast a cantrip, you are not taking the "Attack" action, you are taking the "Cast a Spell" action, as such, you would be able to cast only one of the two cantrips and make no other attacks.
Alternatively:
A dip into fighter however would allow you action surge and cast both spells in the same turn.
Eldritch Knight 7th level War Magic would allow you to attack as a bonus action when you cast a cantrip for some additional damage
The Telekinetic feat can use your bonus action to push the creature away from you eliminating the chance for an AoO
The Mobile feat allows you to avoid AoO when you attack a creature in melee.
A dip in rogue would allow you to disengage as a bonus action, eliminating the chance for an AoO
Swashbuckler 3rd level Fancy Footwork allows you to avoid AoO when you attack a creature in melee.
I'm sure there are some other methods, but these are the ones that come to mind at the moment.
You can still kind of make this work, just go 6 levels Bladesinger Wizard with your 3 levels Armorer. Now you can Shocking Grasp and then punch them with the gauntlets and run away behind your polearm wielding teammate.
You can still kind of make this work, just go 6 levels Bladesinger Wizard with your 3 levels Armorer. Now you can Shocking Grasp and then punch them with the gauntlets and run away behind your polearm wielding teammate.
Wow, options must be short if it might take 6 levels and a requirement to strip down to leathers. The loss of armour could certainly add to a bait potential if I wanted to lure the opponent away from that polearm wielding teammate as originally planned. :D
Wow, options must be short if it might take 6 levels and a requirement to strip down to leathers. The loss of armour could certainly add to a bait potential if I wanted to lure the opponent away from that polearm wielding teammate as originally planned. :D
You actually don't lose much AC, as with just a minor investment in DEX say 14 and 16 INT (which is the bare minimum you will have as a Artificer/Wizard), with studded leather armor and Bladesong active you have 17 AC with 18 INT you match plate and with 20 INT you have 19 AC which surpasses plate. With a heavier investment in DEX (which is not required) you can actually surpass plate by quite a bit of AC. The main drawback is no shield but that's usually compensated for by Bladesong.
Wow, options must be short if it might take 6 levels and a requirement to strip down to leathers. The loss of armour could certainly add to a bait potential if I wanted to lure the opponent away from that polearm wielding teammate as originally planned. :D
You actually don't lose much AC, as with just a minor investment in DEX say 14 and 16 INT (which is the bare minimum you will have as a Artificer/Wizard), with studded leather armor and Bladesong active you have 17 AC with 18 INT you match plate and with 20 INT you have 19 AC which surpasses plate. With a heavier investment in DEX (which is not required) you can actually surpass plate by quite a bit of AC. The main drawback is no shield but that's usually compensated for by Bladesong.
:D That's cool! You'd look relatively hitable with just studded leather but still have an AC to rival the artificer's plate+shield/half-plate+dex+shield.
Bladesinging offers a great alternative way to go and, with an investment of 6 levels, the question is how far someone might want to go with artificer.
1 a starting level of artificer gives con save proficiency, cantrips and a bit of spell casting. 2 levels give infusions and make the best of being a half caster. 3 levels are mainly taken for subclass with armoured mainly taken for the armour for which bladesingers provide an alternative. Even if the smith's tools enabled armourer abilities could be used without use of metal armour, they could easily be largely eclipsed should the bladesinger find a blade worth singing about. I suspect that, with the strengths of bladesingers that you mention, perhaps a different subclass of artificer might provide a better match.
Armorer is not bad to multi with Bladesinger because it lets you hit with INT modifier to reduce your dependency on DEX to hit which a straight Bladesinger requires. The other subclass I would consider is Battle Smith because again it opens up hitting with INT but more importantly it opens up the type of weapon the Bladesinger can roll with (looking at the million and 1 magic longswords that seem to drop in my campaigns lol).
In terms of progression if the campaign ended at level 10 then a 6/4 split of Wizard/Artificer would be my preferred option as it gives me 2 ASIs to max INT with. For campaigns that last to Level 11 and beyond I would probably stick to Artificer 3 just to pick up the subclass.
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Just an idea:
edit: proven not to work as per post below.
The Guardian Armourer has Thunder Gauntlets that will each "count. as a simple melee weapon while you aren’t holding anything in it" so that "A creature hit by the gauntlet has disadvantage on attack rolls against targets other than you until the start of your next turn."
With the Booming Blade cantrip "You brandish the weapon used in the spell’s casting and make a melee attack with it against one creature within 5 feet of you. On a hit, the target ... becomes sheathed in booming energy until the start of your next turn. If the target willingly moves 5 feet or more before then, the target takes 1d8 (2d8 from 5th level) thunder damage, and the spell ends."
At 5th level, the Armourer gets an Extra Attack and "can attack twice, rather than once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn."
"On a hit, (with the Shocking Grasp cantrip), the target takes (2)d8 (from 5th level) lightning damage, and it can't take reactions until the start of its next turn."
If you still have movement left you could then step back and your opponent can't make an opportunity attack as "when a hostile creature that you can see moves out of your reach. [because] To make the opportunity attack, you use your reaction to make one melee attack against the provoking creature."
And you, being clever, may have moved off to the far side of your opponent from allies of yours. A polearm wielding ally, being clever, could have remained out of the short reach of your opponent or could have moved out of range if able to do so between the opponent getting shocked and their making of their next attacks. In this case, the polearm wielder could still make an opportunity attack if your opponent moved toward you.
The opponent suffers disadvantage on melee attacks on anyone but you but will take booming blade damage and other attacks if moving towards you.
It's a thunder and lightning, slice and dice combo.
edit: Booming Blade has a requirement of "a melee weapon worth at least 1 sp". It could be up to the DM as to whether this is included in the cost of the armour or whether the artificer could craft such value in.
Using Booming Blade in combination with the gauntlet's "taunt" feature when you can force movement is a great strategy. However, when you cast a cantrip, you are not taking the "Attack" action, you are taking the "Cast a Spell" action, as such, you would be able to cast only one of the two cantrips and make no other attacks.
Alternatively:
I'm sure there are some other methods, but these are the ones that come to mind at the moment.
Thanks, if my 8 str deep gnome artificer did take this option it would be very much as a dex based fighter. :D
All told it might be best if I called it a day on this one.
You can still kind of make this work, just go 6 levels Bladesinger Wizard with your 3 levels Armorer. Now you can Shocking Grasp and then punch them with the gauntlets and run away behind your polearm wielding teammate.
Wow, options must be short if it might take 6 levels and a requirement to strip down to leathers. The loss of armour could certainly add to a bait potential if I wanted to lure the opponent away from that polearm wielding teammate as originally planned. :D
You actually don't lose much AC, as with just a minor investment in DEX say 14 and 16 INT (which is the bare minimum you will have as a Artificer/Wizard), with studded leather armor and Bladesong active you have 17 AC with 18 INT you match plate and with 20 INT you have 19 AC which surpasses plate. With a heavier investment in DEX (which is not required) you can actually surpass plate by quite a bit of AC. The main drawback is no shield but that's usually compensated for by Bladesong.
:D That's cool! You'd look relatively hitable with just studded leather but still have an AC to rival the artificer's plate+shield/half-plate+dex+shield.
Bladesinging offers a great alternative way to go and, with an investment of 6 levels, the question is how far someone might want to go with artificer.
1 a starting level of artificer gives con save proficiency, cantrips and a bit of spell casting.
2 levels give infusions and make the best of being a half caster.
3 levels are mainly taken for subclass with armoured mainly taken for the armour for which bladesingers provide an alternative. Even if the smith's tools enabled armourer abilities could be used without use of metal armour, they could easily be largely eclipsed should the bladesinger find a blade worth singing about.
I suspect that, with the strengths of bladesingers that you mention, perhaps a different subclass of artificer might provide a better match.
Armorer is not bad to multi with Bladesinger because it lets you hit with INT modifier to reduce your dependency on DEX to hit which a straight Bladesinger requires. The other subclass I would consider is Battle Smith because again it opens up hitting with INT but more importantly it opens up the type of weapon the Bladesinger can roll with (looking at the million and 1 magic longswords that seem to drop in my campaigns lol).
In terms of progression if the campaign ended at level 10 then a 6/4 split of Wizard/Artificer would be my preferred option as it gives me 2 ASIs to max INT with. For campaigns that last to Level 11 and beyond I would probably stick to Artificer 3 just to pick up the subclass.