I've been playing my Artificer Hjalmar Gunderson (linked in my signature) for 5 or 6 years or so now, started with the original UA iteration (it was rough, but stuck with it as it was inspired by Taryon Darington and perfect for the the Cormyr/Netherese Invasion future tech campaign setting from earlier editions that our current campaign is set in. I still loved him for the flavour though), changing up my play style with the updates in the next UA edition, then the Eberron release and finally with the slight changes to the Tasha's release. Just last session we finally reached level 20 and defeated the BBEG (Kyuss, the Worm That Walks and his followers). Next session will be our sunset session, tying off lose ends and describing our epilogues.

We got a big screwed over in our response to saving Cormyr. Its a looooong and complicated explanation to explain our eldritch horror, planar jumping campaign arc, but long story short, after using major image to show the Queen's court how we defeated Kyuss and returned her and her city to the Material Plane, many of the members of the court just keeled over dead after witnessing an elder evil, lovecraftian god level entity... So she had no choice but to exile us for acts of terrorism, regardless of our obvious acts of heroism and loyalty to the crown. Three in game years of service to the queen, our country and city, down the drain because of one spell. But hell, what a ride. Within the campaign, we did the Against the Giants module and absolutely nailed it, had a blast. We made our way through Nightmare Keep from 2nd Ed and came to realise how safe you are from dying in 5e. We helped defend a city against an invading army of goblinoids using the mass warfare rules from that UA way back when (it was much more of tabletops skirmish rules than DnD for those couple of sessions, very reminiscent of the warfare episodes of A Crown of Candy from Dimension 20). We went to the Feywild, inadvertently got involved in Gloaming Court politics and discovered that one of our party members was potentially born a changling ... or swapped by one ... or not one just related to one (... we're not sure yet, that trail went cold). We ended up in the Demonweb Pits and realised we were being manipulated by Llolth for the last few levels and sessions (our palalock thought he was serving a good entity and it was the Spider Queen the entire time, "just for the Llols" as our DM kept saying haha). We went to Sigil and became an employee of Bigsby for a time (a human Bibsgy, of course) and accidentally gained the Ire of the Lady of Pain we were there. We did a couple of Kobold Press thingies including killing a Nova Dragon's mate and getting obliterated by it in revenge, immediately waking in the Ghostwalk module from 3rd ed as well as many homebrew things in-between, including traversing fallen Netherese ships from the Shadovari Invasion and battling their Shader-Kai like inhabitants, rooting out Sembian spies and reclaiming the blueprints and plans for mass produced thungermongers developed by my branch of the govt (R&D) and leaked on the black market.

Hjalmar being one of three from the original seven players who lived through the whole campaign, Im just elated I get to say I got to go a full campaign with a full progression of a character, especially one of my favourite characters of all time. He was never an offensive character, purely utility. He was the party's healer through the whole campaign, seeing out two clerics and a Dreaming Druid, all trying to take the title of the healer of the party but none would out heal an alchemist, especially the way I played him. There's nothing to this post except some self success me saying "yay, I did it! Fellow artificers if you can, stick with it and solo class to the end! It's sooooooo satisfying!" Those +6 to all saves at lvl20 was totally worth not multiclassing! Someone of you may have seen me pop up in the artificer forum from time to time and had some mad discussions about theory crafting, assistance and advice (from me and for me) and just general banter and I appreciate it all! 

Anyway, in celebration I did this painting last month celebrating Hjalmar at his higher levels! Enjoy and thanks for all the fish!

Congrats! It must have been pretty interesting to take a character from UA, to multiple releases and updates, all the way up to the class being basically abandoned by WOTC :P I kid, but we all know the Artificer doesn't get nearly the love the other classes enjoy. Still, it's pretty cool to see that, even playing as the "worst" subclass, you still had a great time and even managed to outshine multiple dedicated full-casters as the party's primary healer. It makes me excited to continue playing as an Artificer in my own game.

Congratulations! This is a rare accomplishment. I never gave artificers a fair shake (I blame DnD society!), but this was pretty neat to see. Maybe I will take another look at them if I ever get the chance to be a player again.

Absolutely do! If youre a utility player, they are SO satisfying! I absolutely LOVE my Alchemist and I'll defend them till the cows come home ... however, now I've played the healer archetype, if I were to ever play an artificer again, I'd go Battle Smith next time.

Quote from TransmorpherDDS >>

Congrats! It must have been pretty interesting to take a character from UA, to multiple releases and updates, all the way up to the class being basically abandoned by WOTC :P I kid, but we all know the Artificer doesn't get nearly the love the other classes enjoy. Still, it's pretty cool to see that, even playing as the "worst" subclass, you still had a great time and even managed to outshine multiple dedicated full-casters as the party's primary healer. It makes me excited to continue playing as an Artificer in my own game.

 Absolutely carry on with it! I've played a lot of classes across a lot of the tiers of play and I have to say I had the most satisfying fun with this class. Man, Im nostalgic with all the things I got to do and make with the class too. One of the best things I made (with a tools roll of over 30 with a nat 20, enhance ability, guidance from the druid and Flash of Genius) was a syringe to inject potions, using my actions to trigger the effects of a potion of healing, a potion of heroism, a potion of giant strength, etc. 

The Alchemist only has the of being the worst because the sheer majority of DnD players like to shine in the spotlight or do ground breaking damage. If you're purely a utility support player and get enjoyment from that, then its definitely not the worst by far (for me, personally, I find the Artillerist and Armourer to be the most "meh" out of the merger Artificer choices because "oh good, yet another spellslinger" and "look, Im just Ironman, nothing else, no originality, just Ironman" hahaha).

And I COMPLETELY agree, Im sad Artificer gets no more love. I find it odd they're not adding Artificer to DnDOne or 6e or whatever they're calling it, especially when they're pretty much rewriting the whole book anyway. Hopefully we'll see more in future.

Congrats!  That sounds like a fantastic campaign.  Nice artwork, and thanks for sharing the story.

I am two years into a campaign that will go to 20 (my first, as well- 15 is the tops I have played so far), and I, too, am playing an artificer (level 13 artillerist).

I have thoroughly enjoyed the class, as you have. Something to look forward to at every level. You won't out-wizard the wizard, or out-fight the fighter, but the game play has been a blast.  You have talked me out of multi-classing into wizard after Sundance gets his 2nd cannon at 15th. I'm sticking with it all the way!

Good luck on your next adventure.

Quote from joemilitello >>

Congrats!  That sounds like a fantastic campaign.  Nice artwork, and thanks for sharing the story.

I am two years into a campaign that will go to 20 (my first, as well- 15 is the tops I have played so far), and I, too, am playing an artificer (level 13 artillerist).

I have thoroughly enjoyed the class, as you have. Something to look forward to at every level. You won't out-wizard the wizard, or out-fight the fighter, but the game play has been a blast.  You have talked me out of multi-classing into wizard after Sundance gets his 2nd cannon at 15th. I'm sticking with it all the way!

Good luck on your next adventure.

 Absolutely go right through, those +6 to all saves at lvl20 is TOO GOOD to pass up. Some classes have capstones worth missing, but not this one!

Playing an Artillerist, but as a melee focused build. Booming blade for damage and focused on Str/athletic. At lvl 10 we were fighting an adult dragon and i used Strength Armor infusion, enlarge/reduce spell, flash of genius feature and Shield Master Feat to grapple and prone the dragon. We had 2 fighters and a barbarian in the fight. Imagine the smiles on their faces when the dragon was brought down and they could action surge with advantage against him 🤣.

Quote from Bhuraelea >>

Playing an Artillerist, but as a melee focused build. Booming blade for damage and focused on Str/athletic. At lvl 10 we were fighting an adult dragon and i used Strength Armor infusion, enlarge/reduce spell, flash of genius feature and Shield Master Feat to grapple and prone the dragon. We had 2 fighters and a barbarian in the fight. Imagine the smiles on their faces when the dragon was brought down and they could action surge with advantage against him 🤣.

Out of curiosity, do you mostly use the healing cannon or the flamethrower, as a melee artificer?

Quote from Bhuraelea >>

Playing an Artillerist, but as a melee focused build. Booming blade for damage and focused on Str/athletic. At lvl 10 we were fighting an adult dragon and i used Strength Armor infusion, enlarge/reduce spell, flash of genius feature and Shield Master Feat to grapple and prone the dragon. We had 2 fighters and a barbarian in the fight. Imagine the smiles on their faces when the dragon was brought down and they could action surge with advantage against him 🤣.

 YESSSSS! Artificers may not be spotlight players, but boy howdy, we set up the spotlight for others!

I find the healing one slightly broken and my DM doesn’t like it, so I usually use the crusher feat on my mace to push monsters closer together and then smoke 2 or three of them with the flamethrower. Against single targets I usually use the force ballista.

variant Human: Crusher, heavy armor and Shield master Feat at lvl 10. Dex, wisdom and Charisma are dump stats. Str 18 con 14 int 16.

Awesome painting, btw!