I LOVE the Artificer class and all of the subclasses but I personally feel that their very first trait, Magical Tinkering, is a bit of a bust. Wizards get Arcane Recovery (which is MUCH more useful) and many other classes get traits that are much more effective at 1st level. With the changes coming over the next few years (according to the official announcements), I'd like to discuss how Magical Tinkering might be changed to be more useful without becoming OP.
First, the RAW:
Magical Tinkering
At 1st level, you learn how to invest a spark of magic into mundane objects. To use this ability, you must have thieves’ tools or artisan’s tools in hand. You then 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.
The chosen property lasts indefinitely. As an action, you can touch the object and end the property early.
You can bestow magic on multiple objects, touching one object each time you use this feature, though a single object can only bear one property at a time. The maximum number of objects you can affect with this feature at one time is equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of one object). If you try to exceed your maximum, the oldest property immediately ends, and then the new property applies.
I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel...simply give it more options than making a simple light, sound, or smell. What if it were programable...able to switch between as many effects as the creator's PB? That way you could create an object that sheds light until it's touched and then it projects the 25 words of text or whatever? I also think that 10" is a bit restrictive and the effects should be 15 or 20'.
Can it be possible to create dummy statues to let the other characters train their swings, smashs and/or whacks ?? At least, is what I was thinking about with Magical tinkering.
I think it's kind of intended to compensate for the Artificer's extremely limited Cantrips. The Tinkering options fulfill, for the most part, the same functions as Prestidigitation...
The big difference is that Tinkering effects are functionally permanent, but to balance that feature out the solution seems to be to just make them functionally... useless. Like, being able to create a light, but a light that only provides enough light to look at an object immediately next to your character. The only real use I can think of is that someone with Dark Vision can have functionally a pen-light handy in case you need to look at something without the limitation of everything being in greyscale. If you were just to double the range it would still be less useful than the Light spell, but would give you enough range to actually see something other than stuff that's in your immediate vicinity, but still less than just spending a copper on a torch.
Being able to record short messages is potentially useful, but again, it's horribly limited by its range. If you could produce objects that simply produce sounds from a decent distance away there would be a ton of fun ways to use them to create distractions or perhaps send messages, but the range is so short you could either just say what you want to say to a person, or if you're trying to subtly send a message you'd be better off just writing it down.
I LOVE the Artificer class and all of the subclasses but I personally feel that their very first trait, Magical Tinkering, is a bit of a bust. Wizards get Arcane Recovery (which is MUCH more useful) and many other classes get traits that are much more effective at 1st level. With the changes coming over the next few years (according to the official announcements), I'd like to discuss how Magical Tinkering might be changed to be more useful without becoming OP.
First, the RAW:
Magical Tinkering
At 1st level, you learn how to invest a spark of magic into mundane objects. To use this ability, you must have thieves’ tools or artisan’s tools in hand. You then 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.
The chosen property lasts indefinitely. As an action, you can touch the object and end the property early.
You can bestow magic on multiple objects, touching one object each time you use this feature, though a single object can only bear one property at a time. The maximum number of objects you can affect with this feature at one time is equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of one object). If you try to exceed your maximum, the oldest property immediately ends, and then the new property applies.
I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel...simply give it more options than making a simple light, sound, or smell. What if it were programable...able to switch between as many effects as the creator's PB? That way you could create an object that sheds light until it's touched and then it projects the 25 words of text or whatever? I also think that 10" is a bit restrictive and the effects should be 15 or 20'.
What are some other ideas out there?
Some power upgrades:
Let the light be weaker, so just 5 feet of dim light (like a hooded lantern) if the Artificer desires.
Likewise let the verbal sound, nonverbal sound, and odor options operate at 5 feet instead of 10.
Let the Artificer Tinker as a bonus action, making it much more feasible to shoot people with tinkered ammunition.
For similar reasons, let 1 Tinker action/bonus action affect multiple objects at once, like the spell Magic Stone does.
Those are deliberately weak buffs, because I don't like the UA approach of overbuffing and then reducing the buff. You could do more, for certain. But I think always-on access to ammunition that makes the shot target radically worse at stealth is enough of a step that it should be playtested before it's buffed any further.
Some good ideas out there. This is just the kind of feedback I was looking for. I had a couple of others I came up with:
One item can give off enough heat to warm anyone within 5'. Not hot enough to start a fire but warm enough to not freeze to death.
One item can be used to chill a cold item. Iced drinks anyone?
Instead of something that MAKES noise, how about something that DAMPENS noise? You wear one of these gadgets and gain a +2 to Stealth or something.
TBH I can see all kinds of small buffs for skills from these. You make a honing stone to help with making a dagger or arrows...+2 to any rolls for doing that.
How about using them as cameras? State that one item can hold one image and then show as a sort of hologram or something.
Or a Rolodex to hold recipes that grants a +2 to any rolls made for cooking?
I like some of the suggestions for lights. Everyone forgets that Darkvision uses grayscale so a light would be handy. It's also useful in that it can't be smothered so it works with no air, leaves no smoke, and generates no sparks or heat to set off flammables.
Some good ideas out there. This is just the kind of feedback I was looking for. I had a couple of others I came up with:
One item can give off enough heat to warm anyone within 5'. Not hot enough to start a fire but warm enough to not freeze to death.
One item can be used to chill a cold item. Iced drinks anyone?
Instead of something that MAKES noise, how about something that DAMPENS noise? You wear one of these gadgets and gain a +2 to Stealth or something.
TBH I can see all kinds of small buffs for skills from these. You make a honing stone to help with making a dagger or arrows...+2 to any rolls for doing that.
How about using them as cameras? State that one item can hold one image and then show as a sort of hologram or something.
Or a Rolodex to hold recipes that grants a +2 to any rolls made for cooking?
I like some of the suggestions for lights. Everyone forgets that Darkvision uses grayscale so a light would be handy. It's also useful in that it can't be smothered so it works with no air, leaves no smoke, and generates no sparks or heat to set off flammables.
It can basically already be used as a camera I believe? I like to use it to put images of unknown languages or sigils on a piece of paper, so that I can bring an exact copy to someone in town more knowledgeable about whatever it is.
Honestly I think it's mostly fine as-is; it's basically a sort of Prestidigitation but you have to be quite creative to get the most out of it.
While a 5 foot light doesn't sound like much, you can use it to make stones to drop into a void to see how deep it is, or for a character with darkvision to leave a trail for the rest of the party to follow without having to produce torches etc. (and give your position away). Remember; just because a light only illuminates a 5 foot area doesn't mean that the light source itself isn't visible from further away (we can see street lights from space even though they shine dull light mostly onto the ground).
The sound seems mostly for fun or annoyance; just enchant yourself a soundboard onto your vambrace so you can play that fart noise when some noble sits down. Though if you want to get creative; spy on someone to see if they have a habit of tapping their desk, or armrest on a chair, then enchant that to play sounds to annoy or gaslight them (e.g- make them hear voices).
Continuous sound/odor is pure annoyance/distraction fare, though you can also use it to make a gift more appealing or such. If you're a Rock Gnome you can put these on a clockwork toy and send it at the enemy with a terrible stink or distracting sound. Any Artificer could also put these on an object and give it to a Homunculus Servant etc. (same with the sound object if the Homunculus has the means to operate it)
Visual effect is good for conveying a message without speaking or leaving any trace (compared to written notes). Or put it on a mirror so anyone looking into it has a moustache.
The main thing I'd change about the feature is to make some of the conditions more permissive. Take the sound for example; why does it only work when tapped and why for six seconds at most? Why not just let me tap to start and stop the sound but have it run continuously? We can always use a Homunculus Servant to get around this as a limitation, but I'd prefer not to have a specific infusion to fully utilise this.
Beyond that I don't think it needs a lot; if I had to come up with additional features I'd add more basic utility features from Prestidigation. For example:
You can enchant a small hard object such as a piece of stone or metal to create sparks when struck against another hard surface. This can be used to light kindling or the wick of a candle or lamp.
You can enchant a metal cooking vessel to fully chill or warm its contents after 10 minutes.
Or even just leave it open ended:
You can cause an item to provide any basic utility function you wish, such as for lightning a fire, heating food, preventing you from burning your hands and so-on. Discuss with your DM what you wish an enchantment to do, as they will have final say over what is possible.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
One thought I've had is just letting Magical Tinkering wholesale duplicate the effects of certain cantrips likes prestidigitation in addition to its other effects.
Artificers don't get a lot of cantrips and their build/sublcass does a lot to inform what cantrips they take. As a consequence most artificers I see are really taking the same couple of cantrips every time and end up missing out on some of those more flavorful options. Having Magical Tinkering duplicate more of that low end, cantrip tier utility would be one way of making that feel better without adding a lot of raw power.
While a 5 foot light doesn't sound like much, you can use it to make stones to drop into a void to see how deep it is, or for a character with darkvision to leave a trail for the rest of the party to follow without having to produce torches etc. (and give your position away). Remember; just because a light only illuminates a 5 foot area doesn't mean that the light source itself isn't visible from further away (we can see street lights from space even though they shine dull light mostly oCannto the ground).
Can't really have it both ways there. Either it emites a light that can be seen at a distance (depth checking), or it is magicically limited to 5'. Even with the magically limiting to 5' you can only use three.
Besides expanding, why not just make the permanent? Maybe permanent with expendeture of some resource (GP or GP +Spell slot). Is there some big game effect I'm not seeing to have permanent 5' lights, limited audio, odour or simple visual?
I LOVE the Artificer class and all of the subclasses but I personally feel that their very first trait, Magical Tinkering, is a bit of a bust. Wizards get Arcane Recovery (which is MUCH more useful) and many other classes get traits that are much more effective at 1st level. With the changes coming over the next few years (according to the official announcements), I'd like to discuss how Magical Tinkering might be changed to be more useful without becoming OP.
First, the RAW:
Magical Tinkering
At 1st level, you learn how to invest a spark of magic into mundane objects. To use this ability, you must have thieves’ tools or artisan’s tools in hand. You then touch a Tiny nonmagical object as an action and give it one of the following magical properties of your choice:
The chosen property lasts indefinitely. As an action, you can touch the object and end the property early.
You can bestow magic on multiple objects, touching one object each time you use this feature, though a single object can only bear one property at a time. The maximum number of objects you can affect with this feature at one time is equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of one object). If you try to exceed your maximum, the oldest property immediately ends, and then the new property applies.
I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel...simply give it more options than making a simple light, sound, or smell. What if it were programable...able to switch between as many effects as the creator's PB? That way you could create an object that sheds light until it's touched and then it projects the 25 words of text or whatever? I also think that 10" is a bit restrictive and the effects should be 15 or 20'.
What are some other ideas out there?
Can it be possible to create dummy statues to let the other characters train their swings, smashs and/or whacks ?? At least, is what I was thinking about with Magical tinkering.
My Ready-to-rock&roll chars:
Dertinus Tristany // Amilcar Barca // Vicenç Sacrarius // Oriol Deulofeu // Grovtuk
So here's my thoughts on Magical Tinkering...
I think it's kind of intended to compensate for the Artificer's extremely limited Cantrips. The Tinkering options fulfill, for the most part, the same functions as Prestidigitation...
The big difference is that Tinkering effects are functionally permanent, but to balance that feature out the solution seems to be to just make them functionally... useless. Like, being able to create a light, but a light that only provides enough light to look at an object immediately next to your character. The only real use I can think of is that someone with Dark Vision can have functionally a pen-light handy in case you need to look at something without the limitation of everything being in greyscale. If you were just to double the range it would still be less useful than the Light spell, but would give you enough range to actually see something other than stuff that's in your immediate vicinity, but still less than just spending a copper on a torch.
Being able to record short messages is potentially useful, but again, it's horribly limited by its range. If you could produce objects that simply produce sounds from a decent distance away there would be a ton of fun ways to use them to create distractions or perhaps send messages, but the range is so short you could either just say what you want to say to a person, or if you're trying to subtly send a message you'd be better off just writing it down.
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Some power upgrades:
Those are deliberately weak buffs, because I don't like the UA approach of overbuffing and then reducing the buff. You could do more, for certain. But I think always-on access to ammunition that makes the shot target radically worse at stealth is enough of a step that it should be playtested before it's buffed any further.
Some good ideas out there. This is just the kind of feedback I was looking for. I had a couple of others I came up with:
One item can give off enough heat to warm anyone within 5'. Not hot enough to start a fire but warm enough to not freeze to death.
One item can be used to chill a cold item. Iced drinks anyone?
Instead of something that MAKES noise, how about something that DAMPENS noise? You wear one of these gadgets and gain a +2 to Stealth or something.
TBH I can see all kinds of small buffs for skills from these. You make a honing stone to help with making a dagger or arrows...+2 to any rolls for doing that.
How about using them as cameras? State that one item can hold one image and then show as a sort of hologram or something.
Or a Rolodex to hold recipes that grants a +2 to any rolls made for cooking?
I like some of the suggestions for lights. Everyone forgets that Darkvision uses grayscale so a light would be handy. It's also useful in that it can't be smothered so it works with no air, leaves no smoke, and generates no sparks or heat to set off flammables.
It can basically already be used as a camera I believe? I like to use it to put images of unknown languages or sigils on a piece of paper, so that I can bring an exact copy to someone in town more knowledgeable about whatever it is.
Honestly I think it's mostly fine as-is; it's basically a sort of Prestidigitation but you have to be quite creative to get the most out of it.
The main thing I'd change about the feature is to make some of the conditions more permissive. Take the sound for example; why does it only work when tapped and why for six seconds at most? Why not just let me tap to start and stop the sound but have it run continuously? We can always use a Homunculus Servant to get around this as a limitation, but I'd prefer not to have a specific infusion to fully utilise this.
Beyond that I don't think it needs a lot; if I had to come up with additional features I'd add more basic utility features from Prestidigation. For example:
Or even just leave it open ended:
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
One thought I've had is just letting Magical Tinkering wholesale duplicate the effects of certain cantrips likes prestidigitation in addition to its other effects.
Artificers don't get a lot of cantrips and their build/sublcass does a lot to inform what cantrips they take. As a consequence most artificers I see are really taking the same couple of cantrips every time and end up missing out on some of those more flavorful options. Having Magical Tinkering duplicate more of that low end, cantrip tier utility would be one way of making that feel better without adding a lot of raw power.
Can't really have it both ways there. Either it emites a light that can be seen at a distance (depth checking), or it is magicically limited to 5'. Even with the magically limiting to 5' you can only use three.
Besides expanding, why not just make the permanent? Maybe permanent with expendeture of some resource (GP or GP +Spell slot). Is there some big game effect I'm not seeing to have permanent 5' lights, limited audio, odour or simple visual?