I ran into a bit of a quandary. Typically Artificers can't infuse magical items BUT, as an Armorer they can use magical armor as their Arcane Armor (no mention that it can't be) From this point, you can have Arcane armor but are unlikely to be able to infuse is. BUT At level 9 Armor Modifications kicks in which allows the Armor to be broken up into 4 parts "armor (the chest piece), boots, helmet, and the armor's special weapon" Would all of these still count as Magic because the original suit is magic OR would only 1 part, i.e. armor (the chest piece) be considered magical for this situation, allowing for the other 3 parts (boots, helm, and gauntlets) to be infused?
If all parts are still considered magic, wouldn't having magic armor as an Armorer is a complete waste since Armor Modification turns into a complete useless. i.e. the added infusions are only for the armor, so even the +2 infusions wouldn't benefit you.
Simply put. If I have an Armor of +3 Can I use Helm of Awareness on the Helm and Boots of the Winding Path on the boots?
Also it appears this Arcane Armor has Gauntlets and boots as part of it. Does this also mean that the character cannot wear other Gauntlets or Boots separately? (since they fall into the category of items that can't be worn in duplicate.
My personal thought would be the chest can remain magic but not the gauntlets, helm or boots , unless I am wearing other items in those areas that are magical. It seems this is fair and not doing this makes the Armorer kind of a lame subclass otherwise.
I myself would allow those as those are the main reason someone becomes an Armorer Artificer, and for example if your a guardian build you can at 9th level infuse your gauntlets as enhanced weapons. I think a DM not allowing those is being narrowminded or such, mostly let players have fun becoming Ironman.
Magical helm and magical boots are normally added to a character regardless of the type of armour that they are wearing.
The real benefit of the 9th level ability is that you can use your infusion on your boots and/or helm and the "arcane armour" rules still apply, so they can't be removed against your will. The infusions which you can put on your boots or helm still follow the normal rules about requiring an appropriate type of item for the infusion.
(P.S. Congratulations on getting +3 armor, which is legendary, by the time you get to 9th level ;-) )
Magical helm and magical boots are normally added to a character regardless of the type of armour that they are wearing.
The real benefit of the 9th level ability is that you can use your infusion on your boots and/or helm and the "arcane armour" rules still apply, so they can't be removed against your will. The infusions which you can put on your boots or helm still follow the normal rules about requiring an appropriate type of item for the infusion.
(P.S. Congratulations on getting +3 armor, which is legendary, by the time you get to 9th level ;-) )
I mean +3 is an example. I used it because if I said +1 or +2 some people saying "just get regular armor and use Enhance Armor +2 on it at level 10." and deflect from the actual issue.
But the argument can apply any time after level 9.
The the question is the armor, per arcane armor, is treated as a full set of armor, i.e. includes helmet and boots and gloves. That refers to that specific armor. Not added pieces. Thus, it can be argued that they are considered magical because the armor they are originally a part of is also magical. So people can then say "you can't infuse them because they are magical"
I'm sure its mostly understood but I feel it could be clarified that if armor is magical it only applies to the chest piece (and legs, for the sake of that aspect, even though legs aren't a thing in DnD) and that any armor worn even if magical and has gloves and boots and helm, etc. the magic doesn't extend to those for the sake of swapping gloves or boots to something else and there being no adverse impact to the armor's effects.
Ironically this does come into conflict with some armors like Power Armor for example, which is labeled as a self contained suit.
Magical helm and magical boots are normally added to a character regardless of the type of armour that they are wearing.
The real benefit of the 9th level ability is that you can use your infusion on your boots and/or helm and the "arcane armour" rules still apply, so they can't be removed against your will. The infusions which you can put on your boots or helm still follow the normal rules about requiring an appropriate type of item for the infusion.
(P.S. Congratulations on getting +3 armor, which is legendary, by the time you get to 9th level ;-) )
I mean +3 is an example. I used it because if I said +1 or +2 some people saying "just get regular armor and use Enhance Armor +2 on it at level 10." and deflect from the actual issue.
But the argument can apply any time after level 9.
The the question is the armor, per arcane armor, is treated as a full set of armor, i.e. includes helmet and boots and gloves. That refers to that specific armor. Not added pieces. Thus, it can be argued that they are considered magical because the armor they are originally a part of is also magical. So people can then say "you can't infuse them because they are magical"
I'm sure its mostly understood but I feel it could be clarified that if armor is magical it only applies to the chest piece (and legs, for the sake of that aspect, even though legs aren't a thing in DnD) and that any armor worn even if magical and has gloves and boots and helm, etc. the magic doesn't extend to those for the sake of swapping gloves or boots to something else and there being no adverse impact to the armor's effects.
Ironically this does come into conflict with some armors like Power Armor for example, which is labeled as a self contained suit.
The difference is that the artificer's infusions are tinkered and self built. They are not enchanted in a conventional sense but rather by way of artificer techno-magic.
This is also clear in that they 'cast' by building devices that cause effects.
So when they are infusing their own armour, they are not placing new enchantments on old but rather modifying their previous work.
I'm not sure I understand the point of your response. I'm referring to magical on the basis of rules not allowing infusions of anything magical. I know magical armor can have the arcane armor applied to it . I'm talking about infusions. Its clearly stated that infusions cannot be applied to magical items BUT arcane armor also says that is modifies the suit of armor (which can be magic) and includes cloves, boots and a helmet. The question is, would these classify as magical since they are part of the original suit of magic armor or not and only the chest is a magical part of armor.
The problem lies with what armor is as a whole in DnD. As part of its fantasy aspect armor is not strict so Plate does not require a helmet or gloves or boots in a character's design. And they receive no penalty for that. A character using +anything armor does not receive a penalty to it for wearing a Helm of Teleportation or Boots of Speed. Even though people are unlikely to assume you to wear boots over sabatons or a helmet over another helmet. The latter is more explicitly not allowed.
The errata makes it appear as those the extra components of the suit of armor used for Arcane Armor are part of the normal set and the Arcane Armor aspect just addresses all of it. But in many other cases in the same Plate, for example isn't viewed as an entire set, i.e. you are not restricted from boots, gloves, helm when wearing plate, nor are you penalized for armor when you don boots or helmet.
Several points: 1) while most armors are basically body suits (chest and abdomen) plate mail is specifically defined as including the helmet, gauntlets and boots that is where a lot of confusion originates. With the others it’s easy to see how you could add a magic X to head/hands/feet mixing and matching arcane (infused) items and magical ( enchanted) items as an armorer. 2) your arcane armor is the armor you infused, despite poorly written (vague) description this seems to be the overall meaning of the abilities. This means that you can alter the mundane armor you have infused to create the special suits of armor but you can not convert magical (enchanted) into these suits -sorry. 3) There is nothing in any of the descriptions that prohibits you from mixing and matching arcane (infused) and magical (enchanted) pieces or to prevent the artificer from wearing enchanted armor instead of infused but the enchanted can’t be infused and so it can’t be altered to make the special suits. One problem hear would be if you are using enchanted gauntlets your arcane (guardian) armor would lose the thunder gauntlets since you can’t have 2 different items on the same body part and have both function. 4) Because of the vague descriptions and interchanging of the terms arcane and magical the entire class needs (desperately) to be errataed. If I were WOtC I would at least be doing it as I did here to make the differences between infused (arcane) and enchanted (magical) items very clear to prevent abuse and misunderstanding.
if you have gotten a suit of +3 armor at L10 I can understand your pain - it would be great to be able to turn that enchanted suit into some sort of super powered suit with your infusions and tinker but sadly by RAI (RAW is just to vague and poorly written to use) it’s not possible. I suspect that unless you are desperate for that +1 AC you will find that the +2 arcane guardian/infiltrator armor is a better fit for your character and that letting someone else in your party have the +3 suit will benefit the party more than you taking it.
Welcome to not reading the class notes with game balance in mind or a class’s power growth in mind. Horu’s post as well as a number of others I’ve seen in this and other threads are typical of overpowering by selective reading. Let’s look at at what it says:
chart: 5th level spells max - the artificer is a half caster not a full caster. infusions: ”You’ve gained the ability to imbue mundane items with certain magical infusions, turning those objects into magic items”. notice munDane items your infusions do not work on enchanted items. This is where the trouble begins, I grant it would be nice to be able to alter magical(enchanted) items but this makes it clear that the main feature of the artificer (infusions) only work on mundane items. back to the chart- number of infusions active: at L10 4 active infusions, at L20, 6 active so we are not talking about a whole lot of infusions being active but enough. Assuming you go armorer and get heavy armour and are working on your plate mail you can make the chest piece +2, the boots elvenkind, the gauntlets ogre powered and the helm a helm of telepathy then make your sword +2 and your bow/xbow a repeating one (or any other combo you want) now that by itself is a pretty powerful character since it’s supposed to be a low magic game in 5e and you 6 items of significant power when the rest of your Barry probably has 0-3. At L10,14&18 you gain additional attunement slots - yes you can use these for both enchanted and infused items. Armorer “An artificer who specializes as an Armorer modifies armor to function almost like a second skin. The armor is enhanced to hone the artificer’s magic, unleash potent attacks, and generate a formidable defense. The artificer bonds with this armor, becoming one with it even as they experiment with it and refine its magical capabilities” the key piece here as I read it is the section “to hone the artificer’s magic” referencing their spells and infusions which are what make “arcane” as opposed to enchanted ( regular magical) items. You are getting this at L3 which means you are probably don’t have any magic except your infusions and are still wearing your original scale mail. You haven’t found enough treasure to afford the 200-1500 GP to buy a breastplate/half plate/splint/plate mail you want and are probably hard pressed to afford upgrading to chainmail at 75GP. You know 4 infusions and can have 2 active. So you splurge and get the chainmail use one of your infusions to make it +1 ( you don’t get +2 til L10) saving the other for your weapon. It is this armor that you are turning into your arcane guardian/infiltrator armor - a suit of infused mundane chainmail. Now, somewhere between L3 and L9 you will get the funds to buy a suit of plate mail, you will also start getting access to enchanted armor. BUT, your arcane guardian chainmail/splint mail is actually better than any +1 suit unless it’s +1 plate mail and realistically it’s better than plain +1 plate given it’s other goodies even if it’s not quite as high an AC. Further you are (probably) not the only one in your that can benefit from wearing that +1 platemail so are you going to be selfish and take it or let the Paladin/fighter/cleric have it so the party as a whole is stronger? If you get the cash before you get the +1 plate mail the entire discussion is really moot as you buy the plate mail, infuse it and turn it into your arcane guardian armor that is better than the +1 plate when you find it. L9: you get to treat the plate mail as 4 pieces and you get 2 extra armor only infusions on top of the standard 3 so you can take your mundane infused +1 plate arcane guardian armor and add an infusion of your choice to the gauntlets, helmet and boots making it quite the set and giving you 5 magic items basically for free when your party members are running around with 2-4. Now let’s say we allow you to use enchanted armor and items for your arcane guardian (or infiltrator) armor - is there any real difference? No, well yess actually, you could potentially have boots etc that you can’t create via infusion at L9 but you will get the chance to get those at L10 so it’s not really game breaking. Also at L10 your infused armor jumps to +2 while the enchanted version stays at +1 so it’s time to take that mundane armor and put it back on and gift the +1 plate to a party member or sell it - surprise! Now your infusions never go beyond +2 and 6 total active infusions so if you get a +3 plate mail later in the game and want to use it it’s not game disrupting. So could you fully mix and match? I guess so but given your abilities you are really your own private magic factory and, as a party, you are better off giving those magic (enchanted) items to your party and creating your own - really until tier 4 where enchanted items start being superior to your infused items.
The primary design goal here is that infusions should never stack with enchantments. If you just keep that in mind, it's not too hard to figure out how arcane armor works.
If armor is spike armor and can be enchanted as a +2 weapon
then it becomes +2 weapon ARCANE ARMOR
then at lv9 each 4 armor parts can each be infused with +1 enhanced weapons infusion thus its a +6 weapon
at lv 10 the +4 becomes +8 enhancement weapon + +2 weapon enchantment means you got a +10 weapon armor
go crazier go 3 levels in warlock for pact of blade get and improved pact weapon and your +10 armor can become any +10 weapon shortbow longbow light crossbow and heavy crossbow, all with proficiency
and you can magic item replication with your magic arcane armor at lv 9 as each can hold any 1 infusion there is no limit to the armors ability to be infused
your armor can be a infused bag of holding connected to the astral plane
Doesn anyone remember what happens with magic and spellcasters in the astral plane
ANSWER QUICKENED SPELLS yep by the nature of astral plane and astral item gives artificers innate quickened all spells
Negative of being astraled means aging and poison and natural healing dont function.
oh 1 more thing at level 11 you can attune to 6 items and spell store in each one, preferably non concentration lv spells up to lv2
yep thats the artificer and how i implement arcane armor purchased by all the Slayers = d&d adventurers party.
You're 0/11 on this list, although #1 is a fairly common houserule (that does not interact with anything else in the way you seem to think).
If this is how you have houseruled armorer, more power to you. But please don't present stuff like this as if it was how the game is supposed to work. It confuses newcomers.
The big misreading in this is between the L2 infusions statement that it must be a mundane item and the arcane armor/L9 armorer ability talking about your arcane armor and adding infusions to the helmet, boots and gauntlets and not making clear that these items MUST still be mundane to be infused. I’ll grant the wording is far from explicit but it is also not explicit enough to represent a special case overruling a general one. While there is nothing game breaking about allowing an armorer to mix and match enchanted and infused items as parts of their arcane guardian/infiltrator armor the basic rules on infusions should always hold so you can’t take +1 plate mail and add your armor boost infusion at L10 to make it +3 armor. Technically you can’t even add the infusion and have it move up to +2 - your infusion is simply not enough to overpower the enchantment already there. And while the armor is pretty much under your mental control that doesn’t make it sentient. Nor does it necessarily go back to some “true form” for replacing appendages. You are creating this armor with your tools, knowledge and skills as well as your infusions and magic so the appendages are what you want them to be not what some sentient magic item decides they have to be even if it doesn’t suit you anymore. Resizing: magic(enchanted) armors have traditionally been able to resize to fit the wearer so even if found in giant size a tiny fairy putting it on would have it reduce to fit her. For arcane armour from mundane items a fairy wouldn’t be buying giant sized armor she would be buying fairy sized and it wouldn’t matter.
No horu you can’t do most of those things in any campaign you are not the DM of. You are welcome to try but the vast majority of (experienced) DMs are going to get a good laugh at your dreams of superpowers and then haul you down to a reality similar to what I’ve described and if you want to play an armorer at their table your going to have to abide by their decisions. You can rewrite the rules to fulfill your fantasy at your own table all you want. But your need to be better than everyone else is not going to be allowed to break most tables games. You do realize you are sounding much like a little kid that has been told he can’t eat all the Halloween candy before Halloween he has to leave most of it to be handed out to others, but he can have several pieces today.
Light smith, to answer your original question about +3 armour and the helmet, boots and gauntlet - yes there is no game breaking reason an armorer shouldn’t be able to infuse boots, helmet and gauntlets with the infusions they want and then incorporate the +3armor and infused pieces into their arcane armor (guardian or infiltrator). I have no idea what level the character is but I am assuming it is at least L9 for the ability. At their 3 I think the +3 armor by itself may be more game breaking than allowing it to be used. If you are tier 4 it’s right in line with game powers really.
There is so much wrong going on here, below is the text of the Armorers level 9 ability it.
Armor Modifications
9th-level Armorer feature
You learn how to use your artificer infusions to specially modify your Arcane Armor. That armor now counts as separate items for the purposes of your Infuse Items feature: armor (the chest piece), boots, helmet, and the armor’s special weapon. Each of those items can bear one of your infusions, and the infusions transfer over if you change your armor’s model with the Armor Model feature. In addition, the maximum number of items you can infuse at once increases by 2, but those extra items must be part of your Arcane Armor.
Note it states "Chest Piece" for the armor infusion
"Boots" for some movement type infusion
"Helmet" Headpiece infusion of some type
and the Armors Special Weapon which my be the "Thunder Gauntlets" or the "Lightning Launcher" which will be the gauntlets in the first case but may be on the chest or head piece in the latter case, where it goes is what the player chooses.
None of these stack up the weapons are +1 at level 9 and upgrade to +2 at level 10. If the armor the character is wearing is magical already when acquired in cannot be infused but it can be made "Arcane Armor" so in that case the armor could only have 3 infusions i.e. Boots, Helmet, and Weapon. The reason they can do those 3 infusions on a suit of Magical Armor is for the class balance and design, who wants to play a class that can do all these cool things with the armor they wear unless the armor is magical then being that subclass is a mistake being made in the first place.
Agreed Jacqsynn, the basic problem with the armorer is that WOtC failed to keep their language clear between infused and enchanted items reverting from arcane to magical repeatedly creating mass confusion. My read on the RAW is that only mundane items can be infused so you can’t take +1 enchanted chain hauberk (chainmail chest piece) and infuse it to make it +2. But wording and game effect of using that enchanted chest piece along with infused mundane helmet, boots, and gauntlets to make your arcane armour (guardian/infiltrator) is effectively no different than doing so with an infused mundane chainmail chest piece so it should be allowed. However we do see a difference at L10 that I pointed out where the infused chest piece upgrades to +2 while the enchanted one stays at +1. If that is being allowed then the incorporation of a +3 chest piece should also be allowed - BUT giving out +3 armor at late tier 2 early tier 3 is actually more of a game balance problem than allowing the mix and match. By late tier 3 or tier 4 this imbalance disappears as +3 magic items become more common.
I ran into a bit of a quandary. Typically Artificers can't infuse magical items BUT, as an Armorer they can use magical armor as their Arcane Armor (no mention that it can't be) From this point, you can have Arcane armor but are unlikely to be able to infuse is. BUT At level 9 Armor Modifications kicks in which allows the Armor to be broken up into 4 parts "armor (the chest piece), boots, helmet, and the armor's special weapon" Would all of these still count as Magic because the original suit is magic OR would only 1 part, i.e. armor (the chest piece) be considered magical for this situation, allowing for the other 3 parts (boots, helm, and gauntlets) to be infused?
If all parts are still considered magic, wouldn't having magic armor as an Armorer is a complete waste since Armor Modification turns into a complete useless. i.e. the added infusions are only for the armor, so even the +2 infusions wouldn't benefit you.
Simply put. If I have an Armor of +3 Can I use Helm of Awareness on the Helm and Boots of the Winding Path on the boots?
Also it appears this Arcane Armor has Gauntlets and boots as part of it. Does this also mean that the character cannot wear other Gauntlets or Boots separately? (since they fall into the category of items that can't be worn in duplicate.
My personal thought would be the chest can remain magic but not the gauntlets, helm or boots , unless I am wearing other items in those areas that are magical. It seems this is fair and not doing this makes the Armorer kind of a lame subclass otherwise.
Are no point are you allowed to infuse magical items. When you wear a magical armor, it is in the chest piece of which the magic is. So you can have a magical chest, helm and boots on you. You can either get armor of which, in its description, states it comes with boots and helm and infuse the boots and helm to be whatever, because only the chest is magical. You do not need to be a Lv 9 Artificer in an Armor subclass to be able to do this. All that feature does, is grant you +2 infusions to use specifically on the armor, freeing up other things. So you can have +3 Armor, with Helm of Awareness, with boots of striding and shield with enhance defense on it and NOT be an Armor subclass.
To your second part, Arcane Armor can be cast and uncast at any time. You can have your magical armor, THEN infuse your helm, THEN infuse your boots, THEN make your armor Arcane Armor and it would be all the same. Arcane Armor just makes it a solid piece, but it doesn't remove the infusions that were there prior.
it means armorer cant ever use any of its infusions on magic items artifacts or legendary items.
This make artificer the weakest THAT CANT BE THE INTENT.
even a wand or spellfocus or spellbook would be useless as he must infuse the item to use it as a spellfocus. As he always needs to carry his tools in hand
Your saying anything magical makes any artificer useless yet at lv 14 You ignore all class, race, spell and level requirements on attuning to or using a magic item
and can attune to five items (7 items with armorer)
WHY WOULD THEY ALLOW YOU TO ATTUNE MORE, AND USE MAGIC ITEMS WITHOUT NEED OF ATTUNEMENT.
it implies YOU CAN INFUSE ALL MAGIC ITEMS NOW if not then at 14 you can use arcane armor WITHOUT ATTUNING
So yes at 14 YOUR CLASS REQUIREMENTS OR RESTRICTIONS ON ATTUNEMENT OR USING MAGIC ITEMS IS GONE
so ARE YOU SAYING A ARMORER IS A HEAVY ARMORED FIGHTER OR RANGER TILL LV 14.
If so then best use of armorer is heavy armor defense and small class use high int instead of str to cling to brawler medium use your thunder gauntlets to direct damage on you instead of the brawler so your a armorer backpack.
In that case get 2 dips in tempest cleric for MAX LIGHTNING THUNDER DAMAGE.
if you cant infuse arcane armor thats enchanted then armorer is just a 3 lv dip boost for every class
if this is the case then alchemist is way better than armorer as he can craft potions of giant strength and apply alchemic fire poisons or acids to weapons.
effectively the alchemist becomes the bomber and armorer is just a better ranger & battlesmith is a better beastmaster.
Id go bomber Alchemist. F_ck armorer.
Dude you are simply incorrect...
You ignore all class, race, spell and level requirements on attuning to or using a magic item.
Doesn't state at all you ignore your own class rule stating you can't infuse magical items. It just means you can handle any magical item in existence basically.
You are clearly trying to add more to the class that is obviously not there. I agree that the artificer is basically the one class that can more or less do quite anything, because that is what it is overall storied into. It is just limited by the players creativity. So if you have a DM who is very RAW, you will just hate being an Artificer, because RAW is very limiting on the class. Which it has to be, to be fair to all the other classes. Like I feel the Battlesmith should be able to upgrade the Steel Defender, the same way as applying infusions. There should just be a giant list of upgrades and insert "X" feature to explain how it works and it is just there. Making the Steel Defender have more longevity in the end. I feel the fact that the Artificer knows how to infuse weapons or replicate items, to a degree should help speed up crafting said items, beyond what simply Lv 10 gives, like it should stack. Reduce time, not need certain martials, reduce cost, anything.
RAW: The +3 armor is a magical item and cannot be infused. That includes the extra slots you get at level 9.
Also RAW: You cannot enhance your attacks with something like Booming Blade, because your Thunder Gauntlets have no cost attached to them.
Neither of these are clear in RAW as you seem to think.
The Armorer's 9th level feature specifically refers to four infusable "items", one of which is "armor (chest piece)"; this makes it clear that the "chest" is considered to cover the armour itself (which is magical and thus cannot be infused), while the other three are implied to be new items for infusion purposes, so it doesn't matter if the armour is magical or not. Whether or not this is actually allowable with magic armour may however depend upon whether your DM would normally allow a magical helm to be worn with magic armour that includes a helmet of its own (such as plate armour) since the rules for mixing gear are wildly unhelpful; if they allow that for other characters however, then they should allow it for an Artificer as there's no meaningful distinction between the two.
Secondly, Thunder Gauntlets absolutely have a cost attached to them, and that is the cost of the armour they belong to, as Thunder Gauntlets are not an item, they are a property of the armour; there is absolutely nothing in RAW to say that you cannot use the cost of the armour as the cost of the weapon, as it's the item being used, and the Thunder Gauntlets feature lets it count as a weapon, ergo, weapon with a value (which for most armour should be greater than 1 sp). A DM is free to rule this differently (though they really shouldn't, as it's 100% a dick move) but it's definitely supported by RAW that this does not work, as RAW does not actually say no.
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here are the 2 major sections af the artificer/armorer texts from Tasha:
“You can infuse more than one nonmagical object at the end of a long rest; the maximum number of objects appears in the Infused Items column of the Artificer table. You must touch each of the objects, and each of your infusions can be in only one object at a time. Moreover, no object can bear more than one of your infusions at a time. If you try to exceed your maximum number of infusions, the oldest infusion ends, and then the new infusion applies.”
“You learn how to use your artificer infusions to specially modify your Arcane Armor. That armor now counts as separate items for the purposes of your Infuse Items feature: armor (the chest piece), boots, helmet, and the armor’s special weapon. Each of those items can bear one of your infusions, and the infusions transfer over if you change your armor’s model with the Armor Model feature. In addition, the maximum number of items you can infuse at once increases by 2, but those extra items must be part of your Arcane Armor.”
I see nothing in the second countermanding the first’s statement that infusions go into non magical objects. So +3 armour can’t be infused- period. Can it be used as part of the arcane armour? Possibly, the texts are not clear on that so it’s up to the DM (well it’s up to the DM even if the texts were clear too). If we are assuming the armor in question is plate armor then the second text seems to be saying that the +3 enhancement is actually on the chest piece and the rest of the armor (helmet, gauntlets and boots) are considered mundane and can have infusions on them. In addition the armorer gets 2 extra infusions that can only be used on these extra “armor pieces (giving the armorer a max of 8 infusions they can use). To be talking about +3 armor I have to assume that the campaign is either a really high magic campaign or it’s in tier 4. At that point I don’t really see a problem with the armorer mixing the (enchanted) +3 chest piece with the infused other pieces to make the arcane armor (I do think that armor RAI was meant to be all infused but it’s not super clear (as usual for WOtC)). The gauntlets start as mundane, get an infusion (say ogre power for the extra strength damage) and then become the thunder gauntlets when worn as part of the arcane armor. They can’t get any further enhancements since you can’t have 2 infusions in one object and you can’t infuse a magic item. Something to notice is that all the infusions are able to create are the equivalent of rare (+2) or in a few cases like armor very rare (+2) items max, at no time do they list +3/legendary/artifact items as being possible. I can see the +3 chest piece being useful in one situation especially - since you can’t have the enhanced armor infusion in 2 different objects at once (see first text block) you can’t have it on both a chest piece and a shield at the same time. Having enchanted armor (as opposed to infused) means you can use that infusion on your shield creating a +2 shield (+4 AC) that you could be using as well.
At the highest levels the armorer is, without overplaying/power gaming it, a very powerful character. They can be attuned to 6 items instead of just 3 and without using any enchanted items can have 8 infused items - typically: +2 plate armor, infused helmet of choice, infused gauntlets of choice, infused boots of choice (all combined into their arcane armor), a bag of holding, an infused +2 melee weapon of choice, an infused missile weapon of choice, and one other infused magic item of choice, and they can store spells in at least 1 of those items on top of that. Given that +3/legendary/artifact items should be extremely rare most adventures at tier 4 should never get them so they are about as magically enhanced as they can be all on their own without needing to find/take any enchanted items except consumables.
I see nothing in the second countermanding the first’s statement that infusions go into non magical objects. So +3 armour can’t be infused- period.
The 9th level feature literally states (as you quoted):
That armor now counts as separate items for the purposes of your Infuse Items feature: armor (the chest piece), boots, helmet, and the armor’s special weapon
Key part highlighted in bold; the implication here is that the actual armour itself (the part that's already magical) is the "chest" item for infusion purposes. In addition to this you now also have the option to infuse boots, helmet and special weapon if you wish.
Now, is that clear enough? Absolutely not, it's shockingly vague, like a lot of the Armorer rules, but it's a clear basis to argue that of the four "items" you can infuse, only one is the base armour itself (the "chest"). This means that there is, at best, no clear RAW for this case.
What it ultimately comes down to though is this; if your DM allows a magic helmet with a magic suit of armour that already includes one (as plate does) for a non armourer player, then should the armourer be more limited than non-armourers? The answer is they shouldn't, so this ruling from your DM is crucial, as at most all the feature is allowing the armourer to do is wear the same amount of magical armour pieces as any other player.
You raise a lot of other fair points, but the fact is that the Armorer rules are just not well written; either way they're supposed to be the RAW is unclear.
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“Now, is that clear enough? Absolutely not, it's shockingly vague, like a lot of the Armorer rules, but it's a clear basis that to argue that of the four "items" you can infuse, only one is the base armour itself (the "chest"). This means that there is, at best, no clear RAW for this case.
What it ultimately comes down to though is this; if your DM allows a magic helmet with a magic suit of armour that already includes one (as plate does) for a non armourer player, then should the armourer be more limited than non-armourers? The answer is they shouldn't, so this ruling from your DM is crucial, as at most all the feature is allowing the armourer to do is wear the same amount of magical armour pieces as any other player”
the questions there are, to at least some extent: 1) when the original wizard/cleric enchanted the +3 plate mail/plate armor were all 4 pieces there on the table receiving the enchantment? Or, was only the chest piece but the enchantment establishes a field around the individual (similar to the field of a mage armor spell) while the other 3 pieces were off the table and actually still mundane. ANSWER: Who knows- each DM is going to have to decide that for themselves because there is no RAW/RAI ruling on that anywhere. In all the tables I’ve been part of for 40 years it’s been played the second way but … 2) Assuming it’s the second way, can an armorer then infuse the other 3 parts of the armor (If you assume it’s the first way then it’s all enchanted and it won’t take the infusions)? ANSWER: Since those pieces are still technically mundane then There is nothing in the RAW saying you can’t that I can see. RAI is perhaps more difficult to determine sine that comes down to the question of : Did WOtC intend for armorers to ONLY wear/use stuff they had infused? I don’t know - but the fact that they didn’t come righ5 out and say that makes me think they didn’t, and that means the answer is not only RAW but RAI - you can infuse the other items and you can mix enchanted and infused items when making arcane armor.
what you can’t do is add an infusion to an enchanted item to make it more powerful (ie you can’t infuse a +1 sword with the enhanced weapon infusion to make it a +2 sword) and you can’t put two infusions into a single object (ie you can’t put the enhanced weapon infusion AND returning weapon into a hand axe to make it a +2 (or as a few have tried to claim - a +3) returning weapon.
“Now, is that clear enough? Absolutely not, it's shockingly vague, like a lot of the Armorer rules, but it's a clear basis that to argue that of the four "items" you can infuse, only one is the base armour itself (the "chest"). This means that there is, at best, no clear RAW for this case.
What it ultimately comes down to though is this; if your DM allows a magic helmet with a magic suit of armour that already includes one (as plate does) for a non armourer player, then should the armourer be more limited than non-armourers? The answer is they shouldn't, so this ruling from your DM is crucial, as at most all the feature is allowing the armourer to do is wear the same amount of magical armour pieces as any other player”
the questions there are, to at least some extent: 1) when the original wizard/cleric enchanted the +3 plate mail/plate armor were all 4 pieces there on the table receiving the enchantment? Or, was only the chest piece but the enchantment establishes a field around the individual (similar to the field of a mage armor spell) while the other 3 pieces were off the table and actually still mundane. ANSWER: Who knows- each DM is going to have to decide that for themselves because there is no RAW/RAI ruling on that anywhere. In all the tables I’ve been part of for 40 years it’s been played the second way but … 2) Assuming it’s the second way, can an armorer then infuse the other 3 parts of the armor (If you assume it’s the first way then it’s all enchanted and it won’t take the infusions)? ANSWER: Since those pieces are still technically mundane then There is nothing in the RAW saying you can’t that I can see. RAI is perhaps more difficult to determine sine that comes down to the question of : Did WOtC intend for armorers to ONLY wear/use stuff they had infused? I don’t know - but the fact that they didn’t come righ5 out and say that makes me think they didn’t, and that means the answer is not only RAW but RAI - you can infuse the other items and you can mix enchanted and infused items when making arcane armor.
what you can’t do is add an infusion to an enchanted item to make it more powerful (ie you can’t infuse a +1 sword with the enhanced weapon infusion to make it a +2 sword) and you can’t put two infusions into a single object (ie you can’t put the enhanced weapon infusion AND returning weapon into a hand axe to make it a +2 (or as a few have tried to claim - a +3) returning weapon.
sorry if I wasn’t clear the first time.
At the end, if I am able to have a magical Breastplate, which covers nothing but one shoulder and my chest, along with a magical helm and boots and gauntlets, then I see no reason why I can't do the same in Plate. As we can find some examples showing armor is basically just the chest piece, just because plate has more description to say it comes with more, doesn't mean it is all magical. It just means I don't have to go find a helm or gauntlets or armored boots to infuse with, as I would with Breastplate. If we were to be forced to say Plate as a whole was magical, then it would prevent the use of magical gear as Arcane Armor AND it would be overall more worthless to acquire over armor like Breastplate, as other armor "covers less".
All that is really funny is, if this is truly so (which honestly, I think it is), it makes the Lv 9 ability paragraph seem WAY over written, as all it gives you is 2 extra slots of infusion and nothing else new.
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I ran into a bit of a quandary.
Typically Artificers can't infuse magical items BUT, as an Armorer they can use magical armor as their Arcane Armor (no mention that it can't be)
From this point, you can have Arcane armor but are unlikely to be able to infuse is.
BUT
At level 9 Armor Modifications kicks in which allows the Armor to be broken up into 4 parts "armor (the chest piece), boots, helmet, and the armor's special weapon"
Would all of these still count as Magic because the original suit is magic OR would only 1 part, i.e. armor (the chest piece) be considered magical for this situation, allowing for the other 3 parts (boots, helm, and gauntlets) to be infused?
If all parts are still considered magic, wouldn't having magic armor as an Armorer is a complete waste since Armor Modification turns into a complete useless. i.e. the added infusions are only for the armor, so even the +2 infusions wouldn't benefit you.
Simply put. If I have an Armor of +3
Can I use Helm of Awareness on the Helm and Boots of the Winding Path on the boots?
Also it appears this Arcane Armor has Gauntlets and boots as part of it. Does this also mean that the character cannot wear other Gauntlets or Boots separately? (since they fall into the category of items that can't be worn in duplicate.
My personal thought would be the chest can remain magic but not the gauntlets, helm or boots , unless I am wearing other items in those areas that are magical. It seems this is fair and not doing this makes the Armorer kind of a lame subclass otherwise.
I myself would allow those as those are the main reason someone becomes an Armorer Artificer, and for example if your a guardian build you can at 9th level infuse your gauntlets as enhanced weapons. I think a DM not allowing those is being narrowminded or such, mostly let players have fun becoming Ironman.
Magical helm and magical boots are normally added to a character regardless of the type of armour that they are wearing.
The real benefit of the 9th level ability is that you can use your infusion on your boots and/or helm and the "arcane armour" rules still apply, so they can't be removed against your will. The infusions which you can put on your boots or helm still follow the normal rules about requiring an appropriate type of item for the infusion.
(P.S. Congratulations on getting +3 armor, which is legendary, by the time you get to 9th level ;-) )
I mean +3 is an example. I used it because if I said +1 or +2 some people saying "just get regular armor and use Enhance Armor +2 on it at level 10." and deflect from the actual issue.
But the argument can apply any time after level 9.
The the question is the armor, per arcane armor, is treated as a full set of armor, i.e. includes helmet and boots and gloves. That refers to that specific armor. Not added pieces. Thus, it can be argued that they are considered magical because the armor they are originally a part of is also magical. So people can then say "you can't infuse them because they are magical"
I'm sure its mostly understood but I feel it could be clarified that if armor is magical it only applies to the chest piece (and legs, for the sake of that aspect, even though legs aren't a thing in DnD) and that any armor worn even if magical and has gloves and boots and helm, etc. the magic doesn't extend to those for the sake of swapping gloves or boots to something else and there being no adverse impact to the armor's effects.
Ironically this does come into conflict with some armors like Power Armor for example, which is labeled as a self contained suit.
I'm not sure I understand the point of your response.
I'm referring to magical on the basis of rules not allowing infusions of anything magical. I know magical armor can have the arcane armor applied to it . I'm talking about infusions. Its clearly stated that infusions cannot be applied to magical items BUT arcane armor also says that is modifies the suit of armor (which can be magic) and includes cloves, boots and a helmet. The question is, would these classify as magical since they are part of the original suit of magic armor or not and only the chest is a magical part of armor.
The problem lies with what armor is as a whole in DnD. As part of its fantasy aspect armor is not strict so Plate does not require a helmet or gloves or boots in a character's design. And they receive no penalty for that. A character using +anything armor does not receive a penalty to it for wearing a Helm of Teleportation or Boots of Speed. Even though people are unlikely to assume you to wear boots over sabatons or a helmet over another helmet. The latter is more explicitly not allowed.
The errata makes it appear as those the extra components of the suit of armor used for Arcane Armor are part of the normal set and the Arcane Armor aspect just addresses all of it. But in many other cases in the same Plate, for example isn't viewed as an entire set, i.e. you are not restricted from boots, gloves, helm when wearing plate, nor are you penalized for armor when you don boots or helmet.
Several points:
1) while most armors are basically body suits (chest and abdomen) plate mail is specifically defined as including the helmet, gauntlets and boots that is where a lot of confusion originates. With the others it’s easy to see how you could add a magic X to head/hands/feet mixing and matching arcane (infused) items and magical ( enchanted) items as an armorer.
2) your arcane armor is the armor you infused, despite poorly written (vague) description this seems to be the overall meaning of the abilities. This means that you can alter the mundane armor you have infused to create the special suits of armor but you can not convert magical (enchanted) into these suits -sorry.
3) There is nothing in any of the descriptions that prohibits you from mixing and matching arcane (infused) and magical (enchanted) pieces or to prevent the artificer from wearing enchanted armor instead of infused but the enchanted can’t be infused and so it can’t be altered to make the special suits. One problem hear would be if you are using enchanted gauntlets your arcane (guardian) armor would lose the thunder gauntlets since you can’t have 2 different items on the same body part and have both function.
4) Because of the vague descriptions and interchanging of the terms arcane and magical the entire class needs (desperately) to be errataed. If I were WOtC I would at least be doing it as I did here to make the differences between infused (arcane) and enchanted (magical) items very clear to prevent abuse and misunderstanding.
if you have gotten a suit of +3 armor at L10 I can understand your pain - it would be great to be able to turn that enchanted suit into some sort of super powered suit with your infusions and tinker but sadly by RAI (RAW is just to vague and poorly written to use) it’s not possible. I suspect that unless you are desperate for that +1 AC you will find that the +2 arcane guardian/infiltrator armor is a better fit for your character and that letting someone else in your party have the +3 suit will benefit the party more than you taking it.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Welcome to not reading the class notes with game balance in mind or a class’s power growth in mind. Horu’s post as well as a number of others I’ve seen in this and other threads are typical of overpowering by selective reading. Let’s look at at what it says:
chart: 5th level spells max - the artificer is a half caster not a full caster.
infusions: ”You’ve gained the ability to imbue mundane items with certain magical infusions, turning those objects into magic items”. notice munDane items your infusions do not work on enchanted items. This is where the trouble begins, I grant it would be nice to be able to alter magical(enchanted) items but this makes it clear that the main feature of the artificer (infusions) only work on mundane items.
back to the chart- number of infusions active: at L10 4 active infusions, at L20, 6 active so we are not talking about a whole lot of infusions being active but enough. Assuming you go armorer and get heavy armour and are working on your plate mail you can make the chest piece +2, the boots elvenkind, the gauntlets ogre powered and the helm a helm of telepathy then make your sword +2 and your bow/xbow a repeating one (or any other combo you want) now that by itself is a pretty powerful character since it’s supposed to be a low magic game in 5e and you 6 items of significant power when the rest of your Barry probably has 0-3.
At L10,14&18 you gain additional attunement slots - yes you can use these for both enchanted and infused items.
Armorer
“An artificer who specializes as an Armorer modifies armor to function almost like a second skin. The armor is enhanced to hone the artificer’s magic, unleash potent attacks, and generate a formidable defense. The artificer bonds with this armor, becoming one with it even as they experiment with it and refine its magical capabilities”
the key piece here as I read it is the section “to hone the artificer’s magic” referencing their spells and infusions which are what make “arcane” as opposed to enchanted ( regular magical) items.
You are getting this at L3 which means you are probably don’t have any magic except your infusions and are still wearing your original scale mail. You haven’t found enough treasure to afford the 200-1500 GP to buy a breastplate/half plate/splint/plate mail you want and are probably hard pressed to afford upgrading to chainmail at 75GP. You know 4 infusions and can have 2 active. So you splurge and get the chainmail use one of your infusions to make it +1 ( you don’t get +2 til L10) saving the other for your weapon. It is this armor that you are turning into your arcane guardian/infiltrator armor - a suit of infused mundane chainmail. Now, somewhere between L3 and L9 you will get the funds to buy a suit of plate mail, you will also start getting access to enchanted armor. BUT, your arcane guardian chainmail/splint mail is actually better than any +1 suit unless it’s +1 plate mail and realistically it’s better than plain +1 plate given it’s other goodies even if it’s not quite as high an AC. Further you are (probably) not the only one in your that can benefit from wearing that +1 platemail so are you going to be selfish and take it or let the Paladin/fighter/cleric have it so the party as a whole is stronger? If you get the cash before you get the +1 plate mail the entire discussion is really moot as you buy the plate mail, infuse it and turn it into your arcane guardian armor that is better than the +1 plate when you find it.
L9: you get to treat the plate mail as 4 pieces and you get 2 extra armor only infusions on top of the standard 3 so you can take your mundane infused +1 plate arcane guardian armor and add an infusion of your choice to the gauntlets, helmet and boots making it quite the set and giving you 5 magic items basically for free when your party members are running around with 2-4.
Now let’s say we allow you to use enchanted armor and items for your arcane guardian (or infiltrator) armor - is there any real difference? No, well yess actually, you could potentially have boots etc that you can’t create via infusion at L9 but you will get the chance to get those at L10 so it’s not really game breaking. Also at L10 your infused armor jumps to +2 while the enchanted version stays at +1 so it’s time to take that mundane armor and put it back on and gift the +1 plate to a party member or sell it - surprise!
Now your infusions never go beyond +2 and 6 total active infusions so if you get a +3 plate mail later in the game and want to use it it’s not game disrupting. So could you fully mix and match? I guess so but given your abilities you are really your own private magic factory and, as a party, you are better off giving those magic (enchanted) items to your party and creating your own - really until tier 4 where enchanted items start being superior to your infused items.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
The primary design goal here is that infusions should never stack with enchantments. If you just keep that in mind, it's not too hard to figure out how arcane armor works.
You're 0/11 on this list, although #1 is a fairly common houserule (that does not interact with anything else in the way you seem to think).
If this is how you have houseruled armorer, more power to you. But please don't present stuff like this as if it was how the game is supposed to work. It confuses newcomers.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
The big misreading in this is between the L2 infusions statement that it must be a mundane item and the arcane armor/L9 armorer ability talking about your arcane armor and adding infusions to the helmet, boots and gauntlets and not making clear that these items MUST still be mundane to be infused. I’ll grant the wording is far from explicit but it is also not explicit enough to represent a special case overruling a general one. While there is nothing game breaking about allowing an armorer to mix and match enchanted and infused items as parts of their arcane guardian/infiltrator armor the basic rules on infusions should always hold so you can’t take +1 plate mail and add your armor boost infusion at L10 to make it +3 armor. Technically you can’t even add the infusion and have it move up to +2 - your infusion is simply not enough to overpower the enchantment already there. And while the armor is pretty much under your mental control that doesn’t make it sentient. Nor does it necessarily go back to some “true form” for replacing appendages. You are creating this armor with your tools, knowledge and skills as well as your infusions and magic so the appendages are what you want them to be not what some sentient magic item decides they have to be even if it doesn’t suit you anymore.
Resizing: magic(enchanted) armors have traditionally been able to resize to fit the wearer so even if found in giant size a tiny fairy putting it on would have it reduce to fit her. For arcane armour from mundane items a fairy wouldn’t be buying giant sized armor she would be buying fairy sized and it wouldn’t matter.
No horu you can’t do most of those things in any campaign you are not the DM of. You are welcome to try but the vast majority of (experienced) DMs are going to get a good laugh at your dreams of superpowers and then haul you down to a reality similar to what I’ve described and if you want to play an armorer at their table your going to have to abide by their decisions. You can rewrite the rules to fulfill your fantasy at your own table all you want. But your need to be better than everyone else is not going to be allowed to break most tables games. You do realize you are sounding much like a little kid that has been told he can’t eat all the Halloween candy before Halloween he has to leave most of it to be handed out to others, but he can have several pieces today.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Light smith, to answer your original question about +3 armour and the helmet, boots and gauntlet - yes there is no game breaking reason an armorer shouldn’t be able to infuse boots, helmet and gauntlets with the infusions they want and then incorporate the +3armor and infused pieces into their arcane armor (guardian or infiltrator). I have no idea what level the character is but I am assuming it is at least L9 for the ability. At their 3 I think the +3 armor by itself may be more game breaking than allowing it to be used. If you are tier 4 it’s right in line with game powers really.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
There is so much wrong going on here, below is the text of the Armorers level 9 ability it.
Armor Modifications
9th-level Armorer feature
You learn how to use your artificer infusions to specially modify your Arcane Armor. That armor now counts as separate items for the purposes of your Infuse Items feature: armor (the chest piece), boots, helmet, and the armor’s special weapon. Each of those items can bear one of your infusions, and the infusions transfer over if you change your armor’s model with the Armor Model feature. In addition, the maximum number of items you can infuse at once increases by 2, but those extra items must be part of your Arcane Armor.
Note it states "Chest Piece" for the armor infusion
"Boots" for some movement type infusion
"Helmet" Headpiece infusion of some type
and the Armors Special Weapon which my be the "Thunder Gauntlets" or the "Lightning Launcher" which will be the gauntlets in the first case but may be on the chest or head piece in the latter case, where it goes is what the player chooses.
None of these stack up the weapons are +1 at level 9 and upgrade to +2 at level 10. If the armor the character is wearing is magical already when acquired in cannot be infused but it can be made "Arcane Armor" so in that case the armor could only have 3 infusions i.e. Boots, Helmet, and Weapon. The reason they can do those 3 infusions on a suit of Magical Armor is for the class balance and design, who wants to play a class that can do all these cool things with the armor they wear unless the armor is magical then being that subclass is a mistake being made in the first place.
Agreed Jacqsynn, the basic problem with the armorer is that WOtC failed to keep their language clear between infused and enchanted items reverting from arcane to magical repeatedly creating mass confusion. My read on the RAW is that only mundane items can be infused so you can’t take +1 enchanted chain hauberk (chainmail chest piece) and infuse it to make it +2. But wording and game effect of using that enchanted chest piece along with infused mundane helmet, boots, and gauntlets to make your arcane armour (guardian/infiltrator) is effectively no different than doing so with an infused mundane chainmail chest piece so it should be allowed. However we do see a difference at L10 that I pointed out where the infused chest piece upgrades to +2 while the enchanted one stays at +1. If that is being allowed then the incorporation of a +3 chest piece should also be allowed - BUT giving out +3 armor at late tier 2 early tier 3 is actually more of a game balance problem than allowing the mix and match. By late tier 3 or tier 4 this imbalance disappears as +3 magic items become more common.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
This is probably covered, but to assist....
Are no point are you allowed to infuse magical items. When you wear a magical armor, it is in the chest piece of which the magic is. So you can have a magical chest, helm and boots on you. You can either get armor of which, in its description, states it comes with boots and helm and infuse the boots and helm to be whatever, because only the chest is magical. You do not need to be a Lv 9 Artificer in an Armor subclass to be able to do this. All that feature does, is grant you +2 infusions to use specifically on the armor, freeing up other things. So you can have +3 Armor, with Helm of Awareness, with boots of striding and shield with enhance defense on it and NOT be an Armor subclass.
To your second part, Arcane Armor can be cast and uncast at any time. You can have your magical armor, THEN infuse your helm, THEN infuse your boots, THEN make your armor Arcane Armor and it would be all the same. Arcane Armor just makes it a solid piece, but it doesn't remove the infusions that were there prior.
Dude you are simply incorrect...
Doesn't state at all you ignore your own class rule stating you can't infuse magical items. It just means you can handle any magical item in existence basically.
You are clearly trying to add more to the class that is obviously not there. I agree that the artificer is basically the one class that can more or less do quite anything, because that is what it is overall storied into. It is just limited by the players creativity. So if you have a DM who is very RAW, you will just hate being an Artificer, because RAW is very limiting on the class. Which it has to be, to be fair to all the other classes. Like I feel the Battlesmith should be able to upgrade the Steel Defender, the same way as applying infusions. There should just be a giant list of upgrades and insert "X" feature to explain how it works and it is just there. Making the Steel Defender have more longevity in the end. I feel the fact that the Artificer knows how to infuse weapons or replicate items, to a degree should help speed up crafting said items, beyond what simply Lv 10 gives, like it should stack. Reduce time, not need certain martials, reduce cost, anything.
RAW: The +3 armor is a magical item and cannot be infused. That includes the extra slots you get at level 9.
Also RAW: You cannot enhance your attacks with something like Booming Blade, because your Thunder Gauntlets have no cost attached to them.
Nugz - Kobold Level 4 Bloodhunter/Order of the Mutant - Out there looking for snacks and evil monsters.
Ultrix Schwarzdorn - Human Level 6 Artificer/Armorer - Retired and works in his new shop.
Quercus Espenkiel - Gnome Level 9 Wizard/Order of Scribes - Turned into a book and sits on a shelf.
Artin - Fairy Level 4 Sorcerer/Wild Magic - Busy with annoying the townsfolk. Again.
Jabor - Fire Genasi - Level 4 Wizard/School of Evocation - The First Flame, The Last Chaos. Probably in jail, again.
Neither of these are clear in RAW as you seem to think.
The Armorer's 9th level feature specifically refers to four infusable "items", one of which is "armor (chest piece)"; this makes it clear that the "chest" is considered to cover the armour itself (which is magical and thus cannot be infused), while the other three are implied to be new items for infusion purposes, so it doesn't matter if the armour is magical or not. Whether or not this is actually allowable with magic armour may however depend upon whether your DM would normally allow a magical helm to be worn with magic armour that includes a helmet of its own (such as plate armour) since the rules for mixing gear are wildly unhelpful; if they allow that for other characters however, then they should allow it for an Artificer as there's no meaningful distinction between the two.
Secondly, Thunder Gauntlets absolutely have a cost attached to them, and that is the cost of the armour they belong to, as Thunder Gauntlets are not an item, they are a property of the armour; there is absolutely nothing in RAW to say that you cannot use the cost of the armour as the cost of the weapon, as it's the item being used, and the Thunder Gauntlets feature lets it count as a weapon, ergo, weapon with a value (which for most armour should be greater than 1 sp). A DM is free to rule this differently (though they really shouldn't, as it's 100% a dick move) but it's definitely supported by RAW that this does not work, as RAW does not actually say no.
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here are the 2 major sections af the artificer/armorer texts from Tasha:
“You can infuse more than one nonmagical object at the end of a long rest; the maximum number of objects appears in the Infused Items column of the Artificer table. You must touch each of the objects, and each of your infusions can be in only one object at a time. Moreover, no object can bear more than one of your infusions at a time. If you try to exceed your maximum number of infusions, the oldest infusion ends, and then the new infusion applies.”
“You learn how to use your artificer infusions to specially modify your Arcane Armor. That armor now counts as separate items for the purposes of your Infuse Items feature: armor (the chest piece), boots, helmet, and the armor’s special weapon. Each of those items can bear one of your infusions, and the infusions transfer over if you change your armor’s model with the Armor Model feature. In addition, the maximum number of items you can infuse at once increases by 2, but those extra items must be part of your Arcane Armor.”
I see nothing in the second countermanding the first’s statement that infusions go into non magical objects. So +3 armour can’t be infused- period. Can it be used as part of the arcane armour? Possibly, the texts are not clear on that so it’s up to the DM (well it’s up to the DM even if the texts were clear too). If we are assuming the armor in question is plate armor then the second text seems to be saying that the +3 enhancement is actually on the chest piece and the rest of the armor (helmet, gauntlets and boots) are considered mundane and can have infusions on them. In addition the armorer gets 2 extra infusions that can only be used on these extra “armor pieces (giving the armorer a max of 8 infusions they can use). To be talking about +3 armor I have to assume that the campaign is either a really high magic campaign or it’s in tier 4. At that point I don’t really see a problem with the armorer mixing the (enchanted) +3 chest piece with the infused other pieces to make the arcane armor (I do think that armor RAI was meant to be all infused but it’s not super clear (as usual for WOtC)). The gauntlets start as mundane, get an infusion (say ogre power for the extra strength damage) and then become the thunder gauntlets when worn as part of the arcane armor. They can’t get any further enhancements since you can’t have 2 infusions in one object and you can’t infuse a magic item.
Something to notice is that all the infusions are able to create are the equivalent of rare (+2) or in a few cases like armor very rare (+2) items max, at no time do they list +3/legendary/artifact items as being possible. I can see the +3 chest piece being useful in one situation especially - since you can’t have the enhanced armor infusion in 2 different objects at once (see first text block) you can’t have it on both a chest piece and a shield at the same time. Having enchanted armor (as opposed to infused) means you can use that infusion on your shield creating a +2 shield (+4 AC) that you could be using as well.
At the highest levels the armorer is, without overplaying/power gaming it, a very powerful character. They can be attuned to 6 items instead of just 3 and without using any enchanted items can have 8 infused items - typically: +2 plate armor, infused helmet of choice, infused gauntlets of choice, infused boots of choice (all combined into their arcane armor), a bag of holding, an infused +2 melee weapon of choice, an infused missile weapon of choice, and one other infused magic item of choice, and they can store spells in at least 1 of those items on top of that. Given that +3/legendary/artifact items should be extremely rare most adventures at tier 4 should never get them so they are about as magically enhanced as they can be all on their own without needing to find/take any enchanted items except consumables.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
The 9th level feature literally states (as you quoted):
Key part highlighted in bold; the implication here is that the actual armour itself (the part that's already magical) is the "chest" item for infusion purposes. In addition to this you now also have the option to infuse boots, helmet and special weapon if you wish.
Now, is that clear enough? Absolutely not, it's shockingly vague, like a lot of the Armorer rules, but it's a clear basis to argue that of the four "items" you can infuse, only one is the base armour itself (the "chest"). This means that there is, at best, no clear RAW for this case.
What it ultimately comes down to though is this; if your DM allows a magic helmet with a magic suit of armour that already includes one (as plate does) for a non armourer player, then should the armourer be more limited than non-armourers? The answer is they shouldn't, so this ruling from your DM is crucial, as at most all the feature is allowing the armourer to do is wear the same amount of magical armour pieces as any other player.
You raise a lot of other fair points, but the fact is that the Armorer rules are just not well written; either way they're supposed to be the RAW is unclear.
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“Now, is that clear enough? Absolutely not, it's shockingly vague, like a lot of the Armorer rules, but it's a clear basis that to argue that of the four "items" you can infuse, only one is the base armour itself (the "chest"). This means that there is, at best, no clear RAW for this case.
What it ultimately comes down to though is this; if your DM allows a magic helmet with a magic suit of armour that already includes one (as plate does) for a non armourer player, then should the armourer be more limited than non-armourers? The answer is they shouldn't, so this ruling from your DM is crucial, as at most all the feature is allowing the armourer to do is wear the same amount of magical armour pieces as any other player”
the questions there are, to at least some extent:
1) when the original wizard/cleric enchanted the +3 plate mail/plate armor were all 4 pieces there on the table receiving the enchantment? Or, was only the chest piece but the enchantment establishes a field around the individual (similar to the field of a mage armor spell) while the other 3 pieces were off the table and actually still mundane.
ANSWER: Who knows- each DM is going to have to decide that for themselves because there is no RAW/RAI ruling on that anywhere. In all the tables I’ve been part of for 40 years it’s been played the second way but …
2) Assuming it’s the second way, can an armorer then infuse the other 3 parts of the armor (If you assume it’s the first way then it’s all enchanted and it won’t take the infusions)?
ANSWER: Since those pieces are still technically mundane then There is nothing in the RAW saying you can’t that I can see. RAI is perhaps more difficult to determine sine that comes down to the question of : Did WOtC intend for armorers to ONLY wear/use stuff they had infused? I don’t know - but the fact that they didn’t come righ5 out and say that makes me think they didn’t, and that means the answer is not only RAW but RAI - you can infuse the other items and you can mix enchanted and infused items when making arcane armor.
what you can’t do is add an infusion to an enchanted item to make it more powerful (ie you can’t infuse a +1 sword with the enhanced weapon infusion to make it a +2 sword) and you can’t put two infusions into a single object (ie you can’t put the enhanced weapon infusion AND returning weapon into a hand axe to make it a +2 (or as a few have tried to claim - a +3) returning weapon.
sorry if I wasn’t clear the first time.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
At the end, if I am able to have a magical Breastplate, which covers nothing but one shoulder and my chest, along with a magical helm and boots and gauntlets, then I see no reason why I can't do the same in Plate. As we can find some examples showing armor is basically just the chest piece, just because plate has more description to say it comes with more, doesn't mean it is all magical. It just means I don't have to go find a helm or gauntlets or armored boots to infuse with, as I would with Breastplate. If we were to be forced to say Plate as a whole was magical, then it would prevent the use of magical gear as Arcane Armor AND it would be overall more worthless to acquire over armor like Breastplate, as other armor "covers less".
All that is really funny is, if this is truly so (which honestly, I think it is), it makes the Lv 9 ability paragraph seem WAY over written, as all it gives you is 2 extra slots of infusion and nothing else new.