The Eldritch cannon lasts one hour, and every bonus action, the Artificer can give multiple creatures within a radius 1d8+int temp HP. If the characters use this an hour before expected combat, twice every 6 seconds for one hour, they gain at minimum 1, at maximum 13 temporary health. Have I misread something? Or does my party get at least 600 temporary health because my 20 int artificer thought an hour ahead? This can't be right.
I'm running artillerist right now, and my party loves having that busted out. no something else to remember, that temp HP doesn't disappear when the cannon does. So I don't activate it until the first fight of the day (usually a nice light one) and once the battle is over, he just goes ham until every one has the max temp HP (I'm only level 5 so that's 12 at the moment)
Then in the next combat I use a different cannon, spending a spell slot to do so.
It's completely broken for combat in close quarters, I'm surprised this thread isn't longer. Because I'm running Out of the Abyss I've had to increase the average CR of encounters I throw at them by about 4-6 for that ability alone. It allows our party of 5 + the veritable entourage of NPCs to essentially have 4-11 free DAMAGE REDUCTION every round, which is completely free in a hallway where they can keep the turret at the center of their marching order, not that that would even matter either bc it's somehow tankier than the party average (they're all incredibly tanky). In addition, because it's Temp HP, even if they aren't hurt that round there's a decent chance they can replace the amount they had with a higher number.
Because of the player's build he doesn't have anything else he can use his bonus action for. The 1hr time limit doesn't really matter; the only way for me as a DM to take advantage of that is to throw weak encounters at them before a boss fight, and even then it only takes a single spell slot for it to return for a second fight. They killed Ilvara and her troupe at level 4, and I had to throw a CR 11 homebrew monster with legendary resistances/actions/lair actions to knock 2 of them unconscious at level 5. It's way better than any healing the rest of the party provides combined; and we have a paladin and a cleric/paladin.
I know I sound salty, but I actually love this; it allows me to throw funner, scarier encounters at them without worrying about whether or not it's excessive.
The Protector Eldritch Cannon is amazeballs. My Artificer has been using it and it absolutely trivializes combat for those near it. The DM is getting creative by doing the following to add threat:
Spread out the fight and attack from multiple angles. The Protector Eldritch Cannon only affects a 10ft radius, so if characters are more than 20ft apart they cannot all be given the tHP.
Focus fire. After a round or two of fighting with intelligent opponents the DM has had them sometimes start focusing fire/damage on one or two members of the party; if 2-3 enemies hit someone it frequently breaks through the tHP to remind the party they are not invincible.
AoE damage with save for half does a wonderful job of clearing the group's tHP. Sure, the tHP protected the party from the tHP, but now they are also susceptible to attacks from the rest of the NPCs.
My barbarian took a three-level dip just for this one ability.
Also the Protector Eldritch Cannon can be made tiny; it fits nicely on his back. Now it is pretty much untargetable (the whole 'item being carried" rule) and can actually be thrown (improvised weapon) to where a party member needs healing.
I would argue that it is better than healing spirit (better range, better hP (temp) not concentration, unlimited HP per cast,and it can body tank by itself in a pinch)
But remember, as mentioned above, it does not make you invincible but is another layer in addition to, cover, AC, spells, etc.
It is very powerful when you first get it, but is less powerful over time. And everyone who wants to get the ongoing benefit has to bunch up, making them more vulnerable to AOE effects. The cannon itself has a beefy AC 18, but it's saving throws are garbage with all attributes at +0. It's obviously designed to be countered by AOE spells and breath weapons.
At level 5 couple fireballs has a great chance of destroying the cannon even with the temporary hit points. At almost every level an appropriate level dragon has an excellent chance to destroy the cannon with a single breath, and then the party is all bunched up for nothing.
If you think it's overpowered, then have an enemy attack it. The Artificer can resummon it, but it wastes an action and a spell slot, plus at least a turn or two to get it back into position where it can defend the front line if the artillerist isn't in the front line anyway.
The turret is one of several things that are pet-related that I see DM's complaining about being overpowered when in reality they only take a good two or three hits to take down; they simply just don't want to sacrifice the action economy attacking something other than their players.
If you have an artillerist in your party that relies on it, it's not that farfetched to throw in an NPC or two who's sole purpose is to make sure that turret dies the way that archmages bring along apprentices to counterspell. This especially works if the enemy has a "We've heard about/studied your exploits and are prepared to take you on" vibe to them.
If you're talking action economy, having enemies waste more than one action trying to kill it already creates a huge discrepancy. It's a bonus action to gain benefit from the turret, and given its health pool, it will usually take 1-3 attacks/a 3rd level spell or higher to kill it in one shot (depending on level of the artificer of course). Not only that, it only takes a single action to re-summon it with a low level spell-slot. The enemies are statistically likely to have dumped more actions into killing it than the artificer did to benefit from it.
The difference between this pet-related ability is that it has the health pool of a medium to large companion, but also benefits from being tiny. An argument could be made that it could completely avoid a fireball spell by simply being held underneath some armor.
The very nature of needing an extremely fine-tuned enemy to counteract a singular ability that makes an entire party extremely tanky probably proves that the ability is a tad over powered. Obviously it's not un-counterable, but in a setting like out of the Abyss, or really any medium to low-magic setting, most encounters do not have enemies with enough intelligence or prior-knowledge that would justify them perfectly countering the turret.
If you think it's overpowered, then have an enemy attack it. The Artificer can resummon it, but it wastes an action and a spell slot, plus at least a turn or two to get it back into position where it can defend the front line if the artillerist isn't in the front line anyway.
The turret is one of several things that are pet-related that I see DM's complaining about being overpowered when in reality they only take a good two or three hits to take down; they simply just don't want to sacrifice the action economy attacking something other than their players.
If you have an artillerist in your party that relies on it, it's not that farfetched to throw in an NPC or two who's sole purpose is to make sure that turret dies the way that archmages bring along apprentices to counterspell. This especially works if the enemy has a "We've heard about/studied your exploits and are prepared to take you on" vibe to them.
It's generally out-and-out cheating to individually target the cannon unless the artillerist doesn't keep it in someone's inventory. In the general case, the cannon is untargetable and therefore functionally indestructible - you deal with it by punching the artificer.
Even when it's not carried, it's usually immune to most spells, which is only exacerbated by the fact that it doesn't care about visibility and many spells do (e.g. all 3 cannons work while the cannon is invisible and in magical darkness).
If you think it's overpowered, then have an enemy attack it. The Artificer can resummon it, but it wastes an action and a spell slot, plus at least a turn or two to get it back into position where it can defend the front line if the artillerist isn't in the front line anyway.
The turret is one of several things that are pet-related that I see DM's complaining about being overpowered when in reality they only take a good two or three hits to take down; they simply just don't want to sacrifice the action economy attacking something other than their players.
If you have an artillerist in your party that relies on it, it's not that farfetched to throw in an NPC or two who's sole purpose is to make sure that turret dies the way that archmages bring along apprentices to counterspell. This especially works if the enemy has a "We've heard about/studied your exploits and are prepared to take you on" vibe to them.
It's generally out-and-out cheating to individually target the cannon unless the artillerist doesn't keep it in someone's inventory. In the general case, the cannon is untargetable and therefore functionally indestructible - you deal with it by punching the artificer.
Even when it's not carried, it's usually immune to most spells, which is only exacerbated by the fact that it doesn't care about visibility and many spells do (e.g. all 3 cannons work while the cannon is invisible and in magical darkness).
I don't believe this is the case. According to Tasha's:
The cannon is a magical object. Regardless of size, the cannon has an AC of 18 and a number of hit points equal to five times your artificer level. It is immune to poison damage and psychic damage. If it is forced to make an ability check or a saving throw, treat all its ability scores as 10 (+O). If the mending spell is cast on it, it regains 2d6 hit points. It disappears if it is reduced to 0 hit points or after 1 hour.
If it can be forced to make an ability check or a saving throw and it can be reduced to 0 HP it can definitely be targeted.
If you think it's overpowered, then have an enemy attack it. The Artificer can resummon it, but it wastes an action and a spell slot, plus at least a turn or two to get it back into position where it can defend the front line if the artillerist isn't in the front line anyway.
The turret is one of several things that are pet-related that I see DM's complaining about being overpowered when in reality they only take a good two or three hits to take down; they simply just don't want to sacrifice the action economy attacking something other than their players.
If you have an artillerist in your party that relies on it, it's not that farfetched to throw in an NPC or two who's sole purpose is to make sure that turret dies the way that archmages bring along apprentices to counterspell. This especially works if the enemy has a "We've heard about/studied your exploits and are prepared to take you on" vibe to them.
It's generally out-and-out cheating to individually target the cannon unless the artillerist doesn't keep it in someone's inventory. In the general case, the cannon is untargetable and therefore functionally indestructible - you deal with it by punching the artificer.
Even when it's not carried, it's usually immune to most spells, which is only exacerbated by the fact that it doesn't care about visibility and many spells do (e.g. all 3 cannons work while the cannon is invisible and in magical darkness).
Where do you get the idea that the cannon isn't targetable? It's a pet like any other.
There's nothing that prevents the cannon from being targeted even if the artificer creates a tiny one and carries it around in their hand or it gets mounted onto the tank as a shoulder pod or something similar. You declare that you attack the cannon, and the cannon's location is the same as whatever creature is carrying it. You could also hit it with things like Green Flame Blade or Acid Splash if you're aiming for the artificer, or target it specifically with Magic Missile.
Regarding invisibility, there's a few ways you could chose to rule it.
RAW, Invisibility only works when you cast it on creatures, and since the turret is a construct, you wouldn't be able to make it invisible at all.
You could choose to let the cannon become invisible but have it under the same rules and restrictions as a creature, IE invisibility drops when it performs an action (I would rule that firing off a wave of temp HP falls under this to keep it fair)
The cannon if held by the artificer becomes invisible when the artificer uses invisibility on themselves, but if the cannon makes an attack with the artificers bonus action, that counts as a hostile action and the artificer loses invisibility.
If you think it's overpowered, then have an enemy attack it. The Artificer can resummon it, but it wastes an action and a spell slot, plus at least a turn or two to get it back into position where it can defend the front line if the artillerist isn't in the front line anyway.
The turret is one of several things that are pet-related that I see DM's complaining about being overpowered when in reality they only take a good two or three hits to take down; they simply just don't want to sacrifice the action economy attacking something other than their players.
If you have an artillerist in your party that relies on it, it's not that farfetched to throw in an NPC or two who's sole purpose is to make sure that turret dies the way that archmages bring along apprentices to counterspell. This especially works if the enemy has a "We've heard about/studied your exploits and are prepared to take you on" vibe to them.
It's generally out-and-out cheating to individually target the cannon unless the artillerist doesn't keep it in someone's inventory. In the general case, the cannon is untargetable and therefore functionally indestructible - you deal with it by punching the artificer.
Even when it's not carried, it's usually immune to most spells, which is only exacerbated by the fact that it doesn't care about visibility and many spells do (e.g. all 3 cannons work while the cannon is invisible and in magical darkness).
Can you find the general rule that says carried objects can't be targeted?
Fire bolt says it can target objects, then specifies that it will ignite objects but not worn or carried objects, so you absolutely can target a carried cannon with fire bolt it just won't ignite. Meanwhile Heat Metal explicitly includes carried objects.
As far as I can find there are no rules about non-spell attacks targeting carried objects. If a guy wants to shoot your cannon with an arrow or hit it with a great sword he can. It has an AC 18 so it's not an easy hit at low levels. Spells that require a saving throw might be more reliable since all its saving throws are +0. The DM might also rule that it has partial cover depending on how it is being carried.
That raises an interesting question though, can you toss your protector cannon in your backpack for full cover? With the fire or force cannons that would obviously impede their function, but the protector cannon doesn't shoot protection in a direction, it radiates it out in all directions.
That raises an interesting question though, can you toss your protector cannon in your backpack for full cover? With the fire or force cannons that would obviously impede their function, but the protector cannon doesn't shoot protection in a direction, it radiates it out in all directions.
Honestly it could go either way because about half the healing spells in DnD require being able to see the target, while the others just specify a number of targets in range.
Personally though, I'd argue that the cannon needs line of sight to the party member to grant the effect of temporary HP, thereby making it vulnerable to being attacked. Otherwise it wouldn't need stats and in that case, it would absolutely be too overpowered.
If you do hide it though, there has to be a way for the enemy to figure out what's going on. Maybe have an enemy do an Insight or Arcana check to figure out that there's something going on with the artificer's backpack that keeps healing them, giving them a target to shoot for. Targeting the backpack could also run the risk of destroying anything else inside it along with the cannon.
Where do you get the idea that the cannon isn't targetable? It's a pet like any other.
There's nothing that prevents the cannon from being targeted even if the artificer creates a tiny one and carries it around in their hand or it gets mounted onto the tank as a shoulder pod or something similar. You declare that you attack the cannon, and the cannon's location is the same as whatever creature is carrying it. You could also hit it with things like Green Flame Blade or Acid Splash if you're aiming for the artificer, or target it specifically with Magic Missile.
The cannon is explicitly an object, not a creature. Spells that only target/damage creatures (like Magic Missile) would not affect a cannon by RAW. Fireball, similarly, would have no effect on a cannon that is worn or carried, and would only damage a non-worn/carried cannon if the cannon were flammable and thus ignited. A spell needs to mention how it affects objects in the description, or else it doesn't affect objects (the old "spells do what they say" adage). Weapon attacks can almost certainly target the cannon as an object even if it's worn or carried, though.
It may be a little OP at early tiers but playing at level 12 in our campaign we can routinely have monsters do 60-70 damage in a round with multi attack. Yes that max 13 hp is a buffer but not overwhelming.
The Eldritch cannon lasts one hour, and every bonus action, the Artificer can give multiple creatures within a radius 1d8+int temp HP. If the characters use this an hour before expected combat, twice every 6 seconds for one hour, they gain at minimum 1, at maximum 13 temporary health. Have I misread something? Or does my party get at least 600 temporary health because my 20 int artificer thought an hour ahead? This can't be right.
Kieran McMillan
I am the DM, haven't played Artificer, so I don't know how Artificer works beyond what my players tell me, and the limited research I've done.
Kieran McMillan
Temporary hit points don’t stack. They can pre-load 8+Int, but that’s the max. Of course, every round the Artificer can try to refill those.
Cheers! Makes far more sense. Was being told something else.
Kieran McMillan
Yeah, temp HP does not stack.
I'm running artillerist right now, and my party loves having that busted out. no something else to remember, that temp HP doesn't disappear when the cannon does. So I don't activate it until the first fight of the day (usually a nice light one) and once the battle is over, he just goes ham until every one has the max temp HP (I'm only level 5 so that's 12 at the moment)
Then in the next combat I use a different cannon, spending a spell slot to do so.
It's completely broken for combat in close quarters, I'm surprised this thread isn't longer. Because I'm running Out of the Abyss I've had to increase the average CR of encounters I throw at them by about 4-6 for that ability alone. It allows our party of 5 + the veritable entourage of NPCs to essentially have 4-11 free DAMAGE REDUCTION every round, which is completely free in a hallway where they can keep the turret at the center of their marching order, not that that would even matter either bc it's somehow tankier than the party average (they're all incredibly tanky). In addition, because it's Temp HP, even if they aren't hurt that round there's a decent chance they can replace the amount they had with a higher number.
Because of the player's build he doesn't have anything else he can use his bonus action for. The 1hr time limit doesn't really matter; the only way for me as a DM to take advantage of that is to throw weak encounters at them before a boss fight, and even then it only takes a single spell slot for it to return for a second fight. They killed Ilvara and her troupe at level 4, and I had to throw a CR 11 homebrew monster with legendary resistances/actions/lair actions to knock 2 of them unconscious at level 5. It's way better than any healing the rest of the party provides combined; and we have a paladin and a cleric/paladin.
I know I sound salty, but I actually love this; it allows me to throw funner, scarier encounters at them without worrying about whether or not it's excessive.
The Protector Eldritch Cannon is amazeballs. My Artificer has been using it and it absolutely trivializes combat for those near it. The DM is getting creative by doing the following to add threat:
My barbarian took a three-level dip just for this one ability.
Also the Protector Eldritch Cannon can be made tiny; it fits nicely on his back. Now it is pretty much untargetable (the whole 'item being carried" rule) and can actually be thrown (improvised weapon) to where a party member needs healing.
I would argue that it is better than healing spirit (better range, better hP (temp) not concentration, unlimited HP per cast,and it can body tank by itself in a pinch)
But remember, as mentioned above, it does not make you invincible but is another layer in addition to, cover, AC, spells, etc.
Completely overpowered.. needs to be removed from the game..
It is very powerful when you first get it, but is less powerful over time. And everyone who wants to get the ongoing benefit has to bunch up, making them more vulnerable to AOE effects. The cannon itself has a beefy AC 18, but it's saving throws are garbage with all attributes at +0. It's obviously designed to be countered by AOE spells and breath weapons.
At level 5 couple fireballs has a great chance of destroying the cannon even with the temporary hit points. At almost every level an appropriate level dragon has an excellent chance to destroy the cannon with a single breath, and then the party is all bunched up for nothing.
If you think it's overpowered, then have an enemy attack it. The Artificer can resummon it, but it wastes an action and a spell slot, plus at least a turn or two to get it back into position where it can defend the front line if the artillerist isn't in the front line anyway.
The turret is one of several things that are pet-related that I see DM's complaining about being overpowered when in reality they only take a good two or three hits to take down; they simply just don't want to sacrifice the action economy attacking something other than their players.
If you have an artillerist in your party that relies on it, it's not that farfetched to throw in an NPC or two who's sole purpose is to make sure that turret dies the way that archmages bring along apprentices to counterspell. This especially works if the enemy has a "We've heard about/studied your exploits and are prepared to take you on" vibe to them.
If you're talking action economy, having enemies waste more than one action trying to kill it already creates a huge discrepancy. It's a bonus action to gain benefit from the turret, and given its health pool, it will usually take 1-3 attacks/a 3rd level spell or higher to kill it in one shot (depending on level of the artificer of course). Not only that, it only takes a single action to re-summon it with a low level spell-slot. The enemies are statistically likely to have dumped more actions into killing it than the artificer did to benefit from it.
The difference between this pet-related ability is that it has the health pool of a medium to large companion, but also benefits from being tiny. An argument could be made that it could completely avoid a fireball spell by simply being held underneath some armor.
The very nature of needing an extremely fine-tuned enemy to counteract a singular ability that makes an entire party extremely tanky probably proves that the ability is a tad over powered. Obviously it's not un-counterable, but in a setting like out of the Abyss, or really any medium to low-magic setting, most encounters do not have enemies with enough intelligence or prior-knowledge that would justify them perfectly countering the turret.
It's generally out-and-out cheating to individually target the cannon unless the artillerist doesn't keep it in someone's inventory. In the general case, the cannon is untargetable and therefore functionally indestructible - you deal with it by punching the artificer.
Even when it's not carried, it's usually immune to most spells, which is only exacerbated by the fact that it doesn't care about visibility and many spells do (e.g. all 3 cannons work while the cannon is invisible and in magical darkness).
I don't believe this is the case. According to Tasha's:
If it can be forced to make an ability check or a saving throw and it can be reduced to 0 HP it can definitely be targeted.
Where do you get the idea that the cannon isn't targetable? It's a pet like any other.
There's nothing that prevents the cannon from being targeted even if the artificer creates a tiny one and carries it around in their hand or it gets mounted onto the tank as a shoulder pod or something similar. You declare that you attack the cannon, and the cannon's location is the same as whatever creature is carrying it. You could also hit it with things like Green Flame Blade or Acid Splash if you're aiming for the artificer, or target it specifically with Magic Missile.
Regarding invisibility, there's a few ways you could chose to rule it.
Can you find the general rule that says carried objects can't be targeted?
Fire bolt says it can target objects, then specifies that it will ignite objects but not worn or carried objects, so you absolutely can target a carried cannon with fire bolt it just won't ignite. Meanwhile Heat Metal explicitly includes carried objects.
As far as I can find there are no rules about non-spell attacks targeting carried objects. If a guy wants to shoot your cannon with an arrow or hit it with a great sword he can. It has an AC 18 so it's not an easy hit at low levels. Spells that require a saving throw might be more reliable since all its saving throws are +0. The DM might also rule that it has partial cover depending on how it is being carried.
That raises an interesting question though, can you toss your protector cannon in your backpack for full cover? With the fire or force cannons that would obviously impede their function, but the protector cannon doesn't shoot protection in a direction, it radiates it out in all directions.
Honestly it could go either way because about half the healing spells in DnD require being able to see the target, while the others just specify a number of targets in range.
Personally though, I'd argue that the cannon needs line of sight to the party member to grant the effect of temporary HP, thereby making it vulnerable to being attacked. Otherwise it wouldn't need stats and in that case, it would absolutely be too overpowered.
If you do hide it though, there has to be a way for the enemy to figure out what's going on. Maybe have an enemy do an Insight or Arcana check to figure out that there's something going on with the artificer's backpack that keeps healing them, giving them a target to shoot for. Targeting the backpack could also run the risk of destroying anything else inside it along with the cannon.
The cannon is explicitly an object, not a creature. Spells that only target/damage creatures (like Magic Missile) would not affect a cannon by RAW. Fireball, similarly, would have no effect on a cannon that is worn or carried, and would only damage a non-worn/carried cannon if the cannon were flammable and thus ignited. A spell needs to mention how it affects objects in the description, or else it doesn't affect objects (the old "spells do what they say" adage). Weapon attacks can almost certainly target the cannon as an object even if it's worn or carried, though.
It may be a little OP at early tiers but playing at level 12 in our campaign we can routinely have monsters do 60-70 damage in a round with multi attack. Yes that max 13 hp is a buffer but not overwhelming.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?