Taking a dip into Artificer primarily for the armor and shield proficiency. I see potential in the Magical Tinkering feature.
Touch a tiny nonmagical object as an action and give it one of the following magical properties of your choice:
- The object sheds bright light in a 5-foot radius and dim light for an additional 5 feet. - Whenever tapped by a creature, the object emits a recorded message that can be heard up to 10 feet away. You utter the message when you bestow this property on the object, and the recording can be no more than 6 seconds long. - The object continuously emits your choice of an odor or a nonverbal sound (wind, waves, chirping, or the like). The chosen phenomenon is perceivable up to 10 feet away. - A static visual effect appears on one of the object's surfaces. This effect can be a picture, up to 25 words of text, lines and shapes, or a mixture of these elements, as you like.
Any suggestions for tactical uses? As far as the sheds bright light one goes I imagine Jurassic Park where Malcom throws the flare to redirect the T-Rex away from the people. Could see something similar as far as distracting with a terrible or pleasant oder.
Sounds like a way to frustrate the bard's overtures at the formal.
Though if the changes in UA take, you'll see Tinker's Magic ruin perfectly good formal party shenanigans, and have to rely on Druidcraft, Minor Illusion, or Prestidigitation instead.
There are so many cool things you can do with this.
The light doesn't seem all that useful at first glance, but you can do things like place it on an arrow or give yourself a small tactical light. You can also use it to send a signal. You, the artificer, can turn it off either by touching it ... OR by exceeding your number of magical tinkering uses. So for example, I can give a glowing ball bearing to my friend, and it will continue to glow until I make n other ball bearings glow. My friend, who can be any distance away, can see that signal.
The message can be useful for distracting noises or for crowd control. Or you can leave a short message on an object for someone to find. This one works with a tap by anyone so it has that extra utility. Want an alarm on your door? If a creature touches the knob it makes a noise.
The smell or sound again can be useful for crowd control and distractions. Or just for walking around smelling nice, invoking the ocean. Or making an enemy smell very not nice.
The static visual effect, if you have a supply of parchment, is basically a camera or a copy machine. You can create this image long enough to take it away and copy it, or you can make a document that you magically poof later, to disappear the evidence you gave over.
Sometimes the ability to make nonmagical items into baby magic items is vaguely useful too.
This is only scratching the surface of the possibilities.
Can we find equally interesting ways to exploi.. erm, creatively use in the spirit of RAW, Tinker's Magic?
As a Magic action while holding Tinker’s Tools, you can create one item in an unoccupied space within 5 feet of yourself, choosing the item from the following list:
The one thing they could do with Tinker's Magic to make it at least a little fun is to give you a RAW way to dispel the item at a time of your choosing, ideally without touching it, even if only by making another item. A very small detail but now at least your Rope isn't identical and less useful than the rope you can buy in the shop and is in your Bag of Holding. Otherwise, all the other items are easily had in any town if not already in your adventurer's kit.
In theory, as long as the space above a creature is considered "unoccupied" and "within 5 feet of you" you could create an object above a creature's head. A bucket, basket, sack, or blanket could then potentially impose the blinded condition until the start of the affected creature's turn or another creature removes the blinding object. Oil, if conjured without a containing flask, could then be applied to whatever it falls upon, creature or surface. It seems reasonable to me to grant a creature under a falling object a dexterity saving throw to avoid the effect.
DM willing, you might also be able to conjure the object already in a directly useful state:
A candle, torch already lit and providing light.
A lamp already filled with oil and lit. Effectively making it a flask of oil that will already be ignited when thrown at a creature or poured over an area.
Paper or Parchment already drawn or written upon (up to 250 handwritten words).
A string already tied to an object or binding two objects together.
A rope already secured to an anchor point within 5 feet.
A block and tackle, already threaded with rope, and already secured to an anchor point within 5 feet.
etc
Allowing scenarios like this would help ensure that Tinker's Magic is a little better than just having the objects already in your inventory.
Yea I'll probably just cry and beg to keep the old Tinkers Magic at the table if I use this character in a future game under new rules. Luckily I don't think I'll have to worry about any changes affecting this character and the Tinkers Magic in this campaign at least.
Taking a dip into Artificer primarily for the armor and shield proficiency. I see potential in the Magical Tinkering feature.
Touch a tiny nonmagical object as an action and give it one of the following magical properties of your choice:
- The object sheds bright light in a 5-foot radius and dim light for an additional 5 feet.
- Whenever tapped by a creature, the object emits a recorded message that can be heard up to 10 feet away. You utter the message when you bestow this property on the object, and the recording can be no more than 6 seconds long.
- The object continuously emits your choice of an odor or a nonverbal sound (wind, waves, chirping, or the like). The chosen phenomenon is perceivable up to 10 feet away.
- A static visual effect appears on one of the object's surfaces. This effect can be a picture, up to 25 words of text, lines and shapes, or a mixture of these elements, as you like.
Any suggestions for tactical uses? As far as the sheds bright light one goes I imagine Jurassic Park where Malcom throws the flare to redirect the T-Rex away from the people. Could see something similar as far as distracting with a terrible or pleasant oder.
On a couple of occasions I've used the sound effect version as a distraction to pull guards away from a place we were trying to sneak into.
pronouns: he/she/they
Not tactical, but something players had fun with.
Go to a formal party. Have a magical fart box. Use Mage Hand to push the object around.
Sounds like a way to frustrate the bard's overtures at the formal.
Though if the changes in UA take, you'll see Tinker's Magic ruin perfectly good formal party shenanigans, and have to rely on Druidcraft, Minor Illusion, or Prestidigitation instead.
There are so many cool things you can do with this.
The light doesn't seem all that useful at first glance, but you can do things like place it on an arrow or give yourself a small tactical light. You can also use it to send a signal. You, the artificer, can turn it off either by touching it ... OR by exceeding your number of magical tinkering uses. So for example, I can give a glowing ball bearing to my friend, and it will continue to glow until I make n other ball bearings glow. My friend, who can be any distance away, can see that signal.
The message can be useful for distracting noises or for crowd control. Or you can leave a short message on an object for someone to find. This one works with a tap by anyone so it has that extra utility. Want an alarm on your door? If a creature touches the knob it makes a noise.
The smell or sound again can be useful for crowd control and distractions. Or just for walking around smelling nice, invoking the ocean. Or making an enemy smell very not nice.
The static visual effect, if you have a supply of parchment, is basically a camera or a copy machine. You can create this image long enough to take it away and copy it, or you can make a document that you magically poof later, to disappear the evidence you gave over.
Sometimes the ability to make nonmagical items into baby magic items is vaguely useful too.
This is only scratching the surface of the possibilities.
Can we find equally interesting ways to exploi.. erm, creatively use in the spirit of RAW, Tinker's Magic?
The one thing they could do with Tinker's Magic to make it at least a little fun is to give you a RAW way to dispel the item at a time of your choosing, ideally without touching it, even if only by making another item. A very small detail but now at least your Rope isn't identical and less useful than the rope you can buy in the shop and is in your Bag of Holding. Otherwise, all the other items are easily had in any town if not already in your adventurer's kit.
Tinker's Magic creative interpretation:
In theory, as long as the space above a creature is considered "unoccupied" and "within 5 feet of you" you could create an object above a creature's head. A bucket, basket, sack, or blanket could then potentially impose the blinded condition until the start of the affected creature's turn or another creature removes the blinding object. Oil, if conjured without a containing flask, could then be applied to whatever it falls upon, creature or surface. It seems reasonable to me to grant a creature under a falling object a dexterity saving throw to avoid the effect.
DM willing, you might also be able to conjure the object already in a directly useful state:
Yea I'll probably just cry and beg to keep the old Tinkers Magic at the table if I use this character in a future game under new rules. Luckily I don't think I'll have to worry about any changes affecting this character and the Tinkers Magic in this campaign at least.
Shoelaces are string. Shoelaces tied together under a table could impede a standing up, say.
A 10' pole inserted between branches at a rider's height could foil pursuit on horseback.
Who needs Snare, when you can manifest a rope, a block and tackle, and ball bearings in 3 turns?