...is pretty much what I use when looking at damage. Nothing is perfect or exact. This is just one way to try and compare stuff.
Understood, but the DMG provides expected AC by level for the full range, so damage that rolls to hit is particularly easy to reason about. Things get a lot more difficult when it comes to saves, of course.
Incidentally, and I only bring this up since the video you linked discussed Eldritch Blast + Agonizing Blast + Hex, that itself is a particularly easy comparison to battle smith + steel defender - very easy comparison, since they take similar action economy to inflict similar damage (although the Defender is more bonus action heavy as targets go down and health per target goes up, as it consumes a bonus every round regardless, and the Warlock only needs to maintain Hex when someone dies), and both are on a pseudocaster chassis. As usual, it's tough to decide what magic items the Warlock has at what levels, so you'll need to make assumptions there; a Rod of the Pact Keeper +1 will be pretty significant for competing with a Repeating Heavy Crossbow. On the other hand, for fighting targets where you don't need to spend a bonus action moving Hex, the Defender will probably also have to compete against Maddening Hex, which will make life even harder for it.
Personally, I think any sort of Opportunity Attack calculation is flawed. Especially when the Steel Defender works best as a tank by imposing disadvantage on enemy attacks. If it's doing that on the regular, then it's not getting Opportunity Attacks. And the Battle Smith isn't, either, with their modified crossbow.
So, per round, that breaks down to 10.5 (1d10 + 5) + 8.5 (1d8 + 4) average damage; 19 if you pool them together. So, yeah, that's 57 total, but that total isn't all that helpful. Breaking it down to DPR is far more useful. And while that number isn't insignificant, it also means the Battle Smith is always using their bonus action. And, depending on a number of factors (race, spell selection, the general unpredictability of combat) they may not wish to always be attacking.
Well, Repeating Shot really shines in the L5-L9 range, where you get a second crossbow bolt during your action but there's no temptation to swap to a +2 longbow for the same damage but more accuracy.
To a point. Odds are there are more magic longbows to be found across the various books than magic crossbows. I made one up for a party once, for people to fight over, but an innately magic longbow means the artificer can reallocate the infusion towards something else.
To a point. Odds are there are more magic longbows to be found across the various books than magic crossbows. I made one up for a party once, for people to fight over, but an innately magic longbow means the artificer can reallocate the infusion towards something else.
That doesn't help the Artificer directly, who can't just skim sourcebooks for infusions (outside of Commons). Artificers do have direct access to +2 and Repeating weapons, though.
Personally, I think any sort of Opportunity Attack calculation is flawed. Especially when the Steel Defender works best as a tank by imposing disadvantage on enemy attacks. If it's doing that on the regular, then it's not getting Opportunity Attacks. And the Battle Smith isn't, either, with their modified crossbow.
So, per round, that breaks down to 10.5 (1d10 + 5) + 8.5 (1d8 + 4) average damage; 19 if you pool them together. So, yeah, that's 57 total, but that total isn't all that helpful. Breaking it down to DPR is far more useful. And while that number isn't insignificant, it also means the Battle Smith is always using their bonus action. And, depending on a number of factors (race, spell selection, the general unpredictability of combat) they may not wish to always be attacking.
Again, AoO is available. How often depends on the table, sure. But a player with two creatures or a feat like pole arm master should take that into account, in some way. I admit that the alternate use of the steel defender’s reaction is something I didn’t think about. An archer or ranged character benefits GREATLY from a buddy that can make AoO. All the benefit of being ranged with the AoO still being in play.
...is pretty much what I use when looking at damage. Nothing is perfect or exact. This is just one way to try and compare stuff.
Understood, but the DMG provides expected AC by level for the full range, so damage that rolls to hit is particularly easy to reason about. Things get a lot more difficult when it comes to saves, of course.
Incidentally, and I only bring this up since the video you linked discussed Eldritch Blast + Agonizing Blast + Hex, that itself is a particularly easy comparison to battle smith + steel defender - very easy comparison, since they take similar action economy to inflict similar damage (although the Defender is more bonus action heavy as targets go down and health per target goes up, as it consumes a bonus every round regardless, and the Warlock only needs to maintain Hex when someone dies), and both are on a pseudocaster chassis. As usual, it's tough to decide what magic items the Warlock has at what levels, so you'll need to make assumptions there; a Rod of the Pact Keeper +1 will be pretty significant for competing with a Repeating Heavy Crossbow. On the other hand, for fighting targets where you don't need to spend a bonus action moving Hex, the Defender will probably also have to compete against Maddening Hex, which will make life even harder for it.
Yep. 274. Or is there another place?
I guess you could say the battle smith is using all if their action economy each round all the time. Still using zero resources that have uses though. A short rest reset, sure, but hex is 1/2 or 1/3 of their main resource. Even at level 9+ the battle smith gets and ADDITIONAL resources to use for damage/healing without touching their spell slots.
Is it the using their infusions for them only the balancing factor? Is it the lack of other skills (having spells for utility and abilities for combat, instead of vise versa) the balancing factor?
To a point. Odds are there are more magic longbows to be found across the various books than magic crossbows. I made one up for a party once, for people to fight over, but an innately magic longbow means the artificer can reallocate the infusion towards something else.
That doesn't help the Artificer directly, who can't just skim sourcebooks for infusions (outside of Commons). Artificers do have direct access to +2 and Repeating weapons, though.
Explain to me how finding a magic weapon they do not need to infuse doesn't help the Artificer. They would no longer be spending the infusion to create a magical weapon.
Is it the using their infusions for them only the balancing factor? Is it the lack of other skills (having spells for utility and abilities for combat, instead of vise versa) the balancing factor?
I think the main balancing factors are that SD scaling is so... *poor*, and Artificers face the constant struggle that any infusion in their own gear is support they're not offering their party. That repeating heavy crossbow could be in the Fighter's capable hands, and the Defender is a pile of hit points that generally hits as hard as a rapier but worse and mostly can't be upgraded with feats and items (that AC of 15 is probably going nowhere fast). Which is not to say that it's bad or anything, just that it's not crazy OP (although it's a good deal more powerful if your gm rules it has hands, so it can run up to the enemy and stuff a bag of holding into a bag of holding).
Personally, I think any sort of Opportunity Attack calculation is flawed. Especially when the Steel Defender works best as a tank by imposing disadvantage on enemy attacks. If it's doing that on the regular, then it's not getting Opportunity Attacks. And the Battle Smith isn't, either, with their modified crossbow.
So, per round, that breaks down to 10.5 (1d10 + 5) + 8.5 (1d8 + 4) average damage; 19 if you pool them together. So, yeah, that's 57 total, but that total isn't all that helpful. Breaking it down to DPR is far more useful. And while that number isn't insignificant, it also means the Battle Smith is always using their bonus action. And, depending on a number of factors (race, spell selection, the general unpredictability of combat) they may not wish to always be attacking.
Again, AoO is available. How often depends on the table, sure. But a player with two creatures or a feat like pole arm master should take that into account, in some way. I admit that the alternate use of the steel defender’s reaction is something I didn’t think about. An archer or ranged character benefits GREATLY from a buddy that can make AoO. All the benefit of being ranged with the AoO still being in play.
Opportunity Attacks, any reaction really, are situational reactions and not something which can be accurately accounted for. Including them in any sort of damage calculation isn't helpful because the character cannot control when those conditions arise. And even if you could include it accurately, it probably isn't worth that much. Even the Parry reaction available to some monsters, which increases their AC against one melee attack by their proficiency bonus, only increases their Defensive CR by +1.
Yes, they benefit from being able to make an Opportunity Attack. Everyone does. But you can't always count on an enemy retreating from melee without disengaging. You cannot assume enemy tactics.
Personally, I think any sort of Opportunity Attack calculation is flawed. Especially when the Steel Defender works best as a tank by imposing disadvantage on enemy attacks. If it's doing that on the regular, then it's not getting Opportunity Attacks. And the Battle Smith isn't, either, with their modified crossbow.
So, per round, that breaks down to 10.5 (1d10 + 5) + 8.5 (1d8 + 4) average damage; 19 if you pool them together. So, yeah, that's 57 total, but that total isn't all that helpful. Breaking it down to DPR is far more useful. And while that number isn't insignificant, it also means the Battle Smith is always using their bonus action. And, depending on a number of factors (race, spell selection, the general unpredictability of combat) they may not wish to always be attacking.
Again, AoO is available. How often depends on the table, sure. But a player with two creatures or a feat like pole arm master should take that into account, in some way. I admit that the alternate use of the steel defender’s reaction is something I didn’t think about. An archer or ranged character benefits GREATLY from a buddy that can make AoO. All the benefit of being ranged with the AoO still being in play.
Opportunity Attacks, any reaction really, are situational reactions and not something which can be accurately accounted for. Including them in any sort of damage calculation isn't helpful because the character cannot control when those conditions arise. And even if you could include it accurately, it probably isn't worth that much. Even the Parry reaction available to some monsters, which increases their AC against one melee attack by their proficiency bonus, only increases their Defensive CR by +1.
Yes, they benefit from being able to make an Opportunity Attack. Everyone does. But you can't always count on an enemy retreating from melee without disengaging. You cannot assume enemy tactics.
You can't. Correct. But SO MANY things like spells and abilities come down to enemy reaction or interaction to them, and aren't immediately able to be calculated in a straight forward manner. Illusion magic, spike growth spell, reaction attacks. These are useful and powerful. I'm hearing you say they shouldn't be accounted for because they aren't easily quantifiable. I think that is silly. Some classes and subclasses, feats, spells, and other abilities make use of the reaction economy heavily. Can you be guaranteed that you'll get to use any of that when you want to? No. That's where tactics from the player start to be necessary.
And raising the defensive CR by +1 is know joke. Constrict does the same thing, and that is very powerful. Pack Tactics raise the attack CR by +1. Very strong.
BS can leverage AOOs pretty well by combination the radiant infusion on your weapon of choice, grabbing sentinel and just box in a target with the SD. They are getting hit by something during their turn if they don't have teleportation or can break LoS.
By way of an example, a CR 0 Owl won't take any AoOs from this combo. But more to the point, Sentinel won't upgrade the Defender, which is one of its balancing points. This is a good combo, for sure, I'm just emphasizing that feats won't generally upgrade the Defender. Some feats will work, which can be good or bad - e.g. Inspiring Leader works on it, which is great if your party isn't at 6 bodies yet and not so great if you are and hence have to boot someone to make room for the Defender.
Interestingly, Chef might work on it. The Defender is immune to exhaustion, so it can starve indefinitely, but it has no actual rules covering its ability to eat. It does need to breathe (just like a car does, so that's not necessarily weird), implying it has *some* sort of intake orifice, and of course it's entitled to normal Perception checks, so it has a working nose, tongue, and skin.
It isn't that effects which are not 100% reliable cannot and should not be accounted for. It's that one must acknowledge that these effects are not 100% reliable.
Attacks of opportunity require the target to willingly provoke them, with very few exceptions. Many targets are not willing to do this. Spike Growth can do damage, or it can prevent enemies from moving over the affected ground, each of which is useful in different ways. Illusion magic is almost entirely DM judgment, and at some tables it's basically nonexistent because heavy wargamer DMs simply don't allow it...but at other tables it's among the most influential magic PCs can access. None of these can be quantified in a way everyone else will accept, however, and not all of them will apply to any situation.
Mostly, I see this thread serving as an excellent example of how wobbly 5e combat is and how narrow the usefulness of DPR calculations is, especially over time. Whether or not the Battlesmith is outweighing martials depends way too heavily on other outside factors to really be handled here. All I can say is that I've been playing a Battlesmith for a year and a half now, and she's never been her party's primary damage cannon. She can absolutely hold her own, but 'hold her own' is the best I can say for Star in the middle of Tier 2.
Oh, I'm entirely on board with an Artificer keeping all her infusions to herself. Entirely. It's just always worth remembering that you're entitled not to.
Middle of Tier 2 is particularly great since you have all the components you need to 1/day guarantee that thing that was offending you leaves this plane of existence: the Rope Trick spell and the infusions Spellwrought Tattoo and Bag of Holding. If your Defender has been permitted to have hands, this makes things even easier.
Aye. Any THP work with the SD pretty well. Tasha giving it HD to spend is about the only reason to ever have it take a rest. It's a fairly tough little bugger to try to take out even with mediocre AC.
I do wish there was some infusions for those who did want to upgrade it in different capacities
Well, there are infusions that should work on it, like... let me see, what would be both legal and possibly worth it... winged boots. Or if you want to cause a deep moral quandary, you could put a headband of intellect on it.
In general Subclass specific Infusions would have been nice, like the Eldritch invocations that are Pact specific. But it seems WotC didn't want that (although one could argue that Armourers two extra for only armorparts is kinda a bit like that). I would have loved some Infusions like a rig for the Steel Defender that let's you ride it or something that would let you give him a ranged attack option.
In general Subclass specific Infusions would have been nice, like the Eldritch invocations that are Pact specific. But it seems WotC didn't want that (although one could argue that Armourers two extra for only armorparts is kinda a bit like that). I would have loved some Infusions like a rig for the Steel Defender that let's you ride it or something that would let you give him a ranged attack option.
You can already ride it if you're Small, but yeah, e.g. an infusion to render your defender Large would be neat.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Understood, but the DMG provides expected AC by level for the full range, so damage that rolls to hit is particularly easy to reason about. Things get a lot more difficult when it comes to saves, of course.
Incidentally, and I only bring this up since the video you linked discussed Eldritch Blast + Agonizing Blast + Hex, that itself is a particularly easy comparison to battle smith + steel defender - very easy comparison, since they take similar action economy to inflict similar damage (although the Defender is more bonus action heavy as targets go down and health per target goes up, as it consumes a bonus every round regardless, and the Warlock only needs to maintain Hex when someone dies), and both are on a pseudocaster chassis. As usual, it's tough to decide what magic items the Warlock has at what levels, so you'll need to make assumptions there; a Rod of the Pact Keeper +1 will be pretty significant for competing with a Repeating Heavy Crossbow. On the other hand, for fighting targets where you don't need to spend a bonus action moving Hex, the Defender will probably also have to compete against Maddening Hex, which will make life even harder for it.
Personally, I think any sort of Opportunity Attack calculation is flawed. Especially when the Steel Defender works best as a tank by imposing disadvantage on enemy attacks. If it's doing that on the regular, then it's not getting Opportunity Attacks. And the Battle Smith isn't, either, with their modified crossbow.
So, per round, that breaks down to 10.5 (1d10 + 5) + 8.5 (1d8 + 4) average damage; 19 if you pool them together. So, yeah, that's 57 total, but that total isn't all that helpful. Breaking it down to DPR is far more useful. And while that number isn't insignificant, it also means the Battle Smith is always using their bonus action. And, depending on a number of factors (race, spell selection, the general unpredictability of combat) they may not wish to always be attacking.
Well, Repeating Shot really shines in the L5-L9 range, where you get a second crossbow bolt during your action but there's no temptation to swap to a +2 longbow for the same damage but more accuracy.
To a point. Odds are there are more magic longbows to be found across the various books than magic crossbows. I made one up for a party once, for people to fight over, but an innately magic longbow means the artificer can reallocate the infusion towards something else.
That doesn't help the Artificer directly, who can't just skim sourcebooks for infusions (outside of Commons). Artificers do have direct access to +2 and Repeating weapons, though.
Again, AoO is available. How often depends on the table, sure. But a player with two creatures or a feat like pole arm master should take that into account, in some way. I admit that the alternate use of the steel defender’s reaction is something I didn’t think about. An archer or ranged character benefits GREATLY from a buddy that can make AoO. All the benefit of being ranged with the AoO still being in play.
Yep. 274. Or is there another place?
I guess you could say the battle smith is using all if their action economy each round all the time. Still using zero resources that have uses though. A short rest reset, sure, but hex is 1/2 or 1/3 of their main resource. Even at level 9+ the battle smith gets and ADDITIONAL resources to use for damage/healing without touching their spell slots.
Is it the using their infusions for them only the balancing factor? Is it the lack of other skills (having spells for utility and abilities for combat, instead of vise versa) the balancing factor?
Explain to me how finding a magic weapon they do not need to infuse doesn't help the Artificer. They would no longer be spending the infusion to create a magical weapon.
I think the main balancing factors are that SD scaling is so... *poor*, and Artificers face the constant struggle that any infusion in their own gear is support they're not offering their party. That repeating heavy crossbow could be in the Fighter's capable hands, and the Defender is a pile of hit points that generally hits as hard as a rapier but worse and mostly can't be upgraded with feats and items (that AC of 15 is probably going nowhere fast). Which is not to say that it's bad or anything, just that it's not crazy OP (although it's a good deal more powerful if your gm rules it has hands, so it can run up to the enemy and stuff a bag of holding into a bag of holding).
Opportunity Attacks, any reaction really, are situational reactions and not something which can be accurately accounted for. Including them in any sort of damage calculation isn't helpful because the character cannot control when those conditions arise. And even if you could include it accurately, it probably isn't worth that much. Even the Parry reaction available to some monsters, which increases their AC against one melee attack by their proficiency bonus, only increases their Defensive CR by +1.
Yes, they benefit from being able to make an Opportunity Attack. Everyone does. But you can't always count on an enemy retreating from melee without disengaging. You cannot assume enemy tactics.
You can't. Correct. But SO MANY things like spells and abilities come down to enemy reaction or interaction to them, and aren't immediately able to be calculated in a straight forward manner. Illusion magic, spike growth spell, reaction attacks. These are useful and powerful. I'm hearing you say they shouldn't be accounted for because they aren't easily quantifiable. I think that is silly. Some classes and subclasses, feats, spells, and other abilities make use of the reaction economy heavily. Can you be guaranteed that you'll get to use any of that when you want to? No. That's where tactics from the player start to be necessary.
And raising the defensive CR by +1 is know joke. Constrict does the same thing, and that is very powerful. Pack Tactics raise the attack CR by +1. Very strong.
Great tactics. 👍
By way of an example, a CR 0 Owl won't take any AoOs from this combo. But more to the point, Sentinel won't upgrade the Defender, which is one of its balancing points. This is a good combo, for sure, I'm just emphasizing that feats won't generally upgrade the Defender. Some feats will work, which can be good or bad - e.g. Inspiring Leader works on it, which is great if your party isn't at 6 bodies yet and not so great if you are and hence have to boot someone to make room for the Defender.
Interestingly, Chef might work on it. The Defender is immune to exhaustion, so it can starve indefinitely, but it has no actual rules covering its ability to eat. It does need to breathe (just like a car does, so that's not necessarily weird), implying it has *some* sort of intake orifice, and of course it's entitled to normal Perception checks, so it has a working nose, tongue, and skin.
It isn't that effects which are not 100% reliable cannot and should not be accounted for. It's that one must acknowledge that these effects are not 100% reliable.
Attacks of opportunity require the target to willingly provoke them, with very few exceptions. Many targets are not willing to do this. Spike Growth can do damage, or it can prevent enemies from moving over the affected ground, each of which is useful in different ways. Illusion magic is almost entirely DM judgment, and at some tables it's basically nonexistent because heavy wargamer DMs simply don't allow it...but at other tables it's among the most influential magic PCs can access. None of these can be quantified in a way everyone else will accept, however, and not all of them will apply to any situation.
Mostly, I see this thread serving as an excellent example of how wobbly 5e combat is and how narrow the usefulness of DPR calculations is, especially over time. Whether or not the Battlesmith is outweighing martials depends way too heavily on other outside factors to really be handled here. All I can say is that I've been playing a Battlesmith for a year and a half now, and she's never been her party's primary damage cannon. She can absolutely hold her own, but 'hold her own' is the best I can say for Star in the middle of Tier 2.
Also? I saw that line, Quindraco. Ahem: Required Reading for anyone who says 'any infusion you use is support you're not giving your party'.
Please do not contact or message me.
Oh, I'm entirely on board with an Artificer keeping all her infusions to herself. Entirely. It's just always worth remembering that you're entitled not to.
Middle of Tier 2 is particularly great since you have all the components you need to 1/day guarantee that thing that was offending you leaves this plane of existence: the Rope Trick spell and the infusions Spellwrought Tattoo and Bag of Holding. If your Defender has been permitted to have hands, this makes things even easier.
Well, there are infusions that should work on it, like... let me see, what would be both legal and possibly worth it... winged boots. Or if you want to cause a deep moral quandary, you could put a headband of intellect on it.
In general Subclass specific Infusions would have been nice, like the Eldritch invocations that are Pact specific. But it seems WotC didn't want that (although one could argue that Armourers two extra for only armorparts is kinda a bit like that). I would have loved some Infusions like a rig for the Steel Defender that let's you ride it or something that would let you give him a ranged attack option.
You can already ride it if you're Small, but yeah, e.g. an infusion to render your defender Large would be neat.