Cartographer Builds?

I really only just saw the new UA, and it looks really cool! Especially the ability to charge magic items, I thought that was a necessity. Of course there are other "okay" or "poor" changes with it. However, I am definitely more interested in putting the new Cartographer subclass to good use and optimization (my DMs are generally pretty lax when it comes to using UA). A caster-leaning subclass that, if given the right proficiencies via other measures, could actually make a pretty good warrior. Does anyone have any ideas on how to use it effectively? Optimized or flavorful character builds?

My take is that it has a couple interesting tricks but nothing that another class couldn't do far better.  Could have a bit of potential as a dip for another class, but only if you are planning a heist or something.  Otherwise most of the tricks a cartographer brings to the table are REALLY situational.  And pretty much regardless of feats, without multiclassing, you are not going to make a competent caster or basher out of it.  Less of a gish, more of a gishn't.

I like the subclass but it needs a bit of tweaking to play into the stealth/scouting aspects it lends itself to. The Faerie Fire ability it awesome but it should be invisible Faerie Fire so that it can be used as an radar of sorts when cast a head or an alarm when cast behind.

For builds I think a Scribes Wizard with the Cartographer would be pretty lethal. The map could be given to your spellbook which can act as a drone exploring 600ft in front of the party. Then you can modify your spells and yadda yadda. The two classes sort of just fit.

Quote from heydanseegil >>

I like the subclass but it needs a bit of tweaking to play into the stealth/scouting aspects it lends itself to. The Faerie Fire ability it awesome but it should be invisible Faerie Fire so that it can be used as an radar of sorts when cast a head or an alarm when cast behind.

For builds I think a Scribes Wizard with the Cartographer would be pretty lethal. The map could be given to your spellbook which can act as a drone exploring 600ft in front of the party. Then you can modify your spells and yadda yadda. The two classes sort of just fit.

 
Agreed. The whole point of radar is that you can see enemies before they can see you, and act on that knowledge. But if they can see Faerie Fire being cast, they are bound to know something is amiss and/or that they are being targeted.

That would be a really cool build, especially since you can cast spells targeting allies with your maps without seeing them, and from your Manifest Mind's position. Fitting indeed.

But the true question, Does the Cartographer's level 3 feature to cut scribing time in half stack with the scribes wizards feature that does the same thing? , essentially scribing scrolls in 1/4 of the normal time?

Yes it does. And then you add in a helper to cut that in half again for even faster crafting of scrolls.

Just remember, that any helper needs to also have the spell being scribed prepared the same as the main crafter

I am playing with an all Artificer party and wanted to have a Cartographer (for the Initiative Advantage) and as a Skirmisher since the teleport seems really nice and Fairie Fire seems like a great support spell. However, after Level 3 the Cartographer kind of petered out so I wanted to multi-class.

As I fleshed out the build I first added Rogue-Thief to maximize scroll and magic item use - and I realized the power of Sneak Attack.

As I continued to explore, I developed our party strategy whcih is mainly control-focused with push and pull into AoEs. I wanted to use Fog Cloud or Darkness to provide cover and protect the Cartographer (rogue bonus action hide) since he was squishy.

I wound up adding Warlock(5) to get a bunch of useful invocations and spells (getting Hunger of Hadar for the party is really critical but Devil's Sight and other invocations really powered-up the character as well).

In the end I wondered what was left of the Cartographer (and when to take Artificer levels) but the teleport and Fairie Fire features are still quite powerful but I need to get them added to the character before levels get too high. 

Unless you play with the alternative lvl 20 capstone, cartographer only realy has power from halfling scroll crafting, the only other power spike, comes from artificer itself, with base class features.

And mostly in combat, is the lvl 11 spell storing item, where you abuse it with call lightning with a familiar + homunculus + domestic wonder + flying wonder, stacking 5 call lightnings at the same time to rain down lightning.

All off which is completely reliant on spell storing item.

other than the lvl 3 cartographer features, the lvl 5 feature ads int damage, but unless you are abusing mechanics, it's shit all the way after.

Cartographer is one of the only subclasses that you never want to lvl past lvl 3, unless you REALY want spell storing item, and the base class is enough. Every other subclass has at least something that is cool in a combat or thematic way, but cartographer in 99% only a thing for halfling the speed of crafting unfortunately, it's shit compared to the rest

Sounds like some sort of cartographer + rogue multiclass might be the best option!

Cartographer offers a few important power ups:
Mobility is excellent for the Cartographer.  You have the ability to get to different places with minimal action economy impact.  Ingenius movement and safe haven extend those to the rest of the map holders.  How is this valuable?  Really difficult to quantify but mobility is a very underrated area of play.

Working with players in darkness/full obscurement.  Darkness bubble warlocks and blind fighters can be terrible to play with.  You can't help them in their bubble.  This allows you to do so and allows those players to lean into those playstyles with better coordination.

Scroll crafting.  Just excellent.  Half time is a big change.  If your campaign supports crafting this can be big.

On tap Faerie Fire if leaned into supports the DPR of the rest of the party while keeping your slots clean for use in other ways.

What can't you do?  Its not great for damage.  You will do relatively bad damage.  FF will eat your first turn in a lot of combats and you don't get a damage bump that ever really puts you on par with martials.  As a caster you are limited by your half caster slot progression and you don't get anything of the significant power of fireball/lightning bolt/conjure barrage to give you a boost at 9th level or with the spell storing item at 11th.  I

Its a fun subclass for a creative player, but a creative player will probably enjoy something else more.

I started playing an armorer when the first UA came out. When the new ua with the cartographer came out, it seemed like a really cool class, but it kinda peters out in the middle a bjt.

I think this might add some oomph: At some mid level (artificer 7?), they get 1 free casting of the Scatter spell per long rest. And the number of free casting goes up at artificer level 14 and 17. Or so.

I dont think that would be too op. It would be one of those oof, we need a battle formation, go! Moments. Most times a nice additoon. Once in a blue moon it saves the party from tpk.

Playing something like a wizard, i never felt like Scatter was powerful enough to prepare, but if you give it to a half-caster artificer, i think a player could do some really cool things with it

Rogue is a great class, and the level 3 Fast Hands from the Thief Rogue is pretty good, letting you activate powerful items with a bonus action, especially in a setting with a lot of access to magic items. But giving up three levels of Artificer for it is pretty expensive. I have a straight Cartographer build with some extra magic from feats and an All-Purpose Tool and I'm super happy with it so far.

I realized that Echo Knight Fighter has very similar movement / teleport capabilities as Cartographer.

OK.  Things/ways to optimize around the Cartographer.  Some rules/thoughts first
1.  Concentration spells are bad.  If you want to optimize the carty you will be concentrating on Faerie Fire a lot.  Turn 1 is probably faerie fire with your action.
2. You do not have extra attack which limits approaches to optimize around damage.  Turn 2 is probably a cantrip, guiding bolt,  or true strike with your action.
3. Your bonus action and reaction are mostly free

Consistent bonus action usage is one place you could build.  PAM,/shillelagh Longtooth Shifter, less consistent would be Spellfire Spark, Monk multiclass for uanrmed strikes, Thief Rogue for fast hands, applying a poison is a bonus action, Dragon Scarred fear effect, Spells: Divine smite/Hail of Thorns, Healing Word, Jump, Misty Step/cloud goliath.

Of these if you are not multiclassing, Longtooth Shifter, Dragon Scarred/fear, and PAM/Shillelagh feel like the best way to fill that bonus action niche. Dragon Scarred doesn't require melee so it has its benefits over the other two.  Spellfire Spark is not bad if you only want a little bit of bonus action damage and instead plan on using your BA for other minor things.  Perhaps if you want Shillelagh and Spark you get an interesting combo.  You can get both via human or the Lorwyn elf can get you a druid cantrip.

Multiclassing Thief Rogue probably has the most interesting synergy.  Your bonus action is free for Fast Hands Shenanigans and you have the ability to craft magic items that are optimized by it as well.  You feel like a crafter who uses tools in combat to solve problems.  True Strike +2d6 of sneak isn't so bad of a way to manage your 1 attack and you can theoretically fast hands something else.

I know this was from last year when it was just UA, but here's what I'm wanting to do with the fully released Cartographer:

Basic idea:
- Before battle: If you have one level in Psion and can silently cast Mind Sliver against a target, do that.
- Initiative: You're giving everyone with a map 1d4 to Initiative.  At level 6, they're also getting advantage from your Weapon of Warning.
- Round 1: Cast Faerie Fire.  Homunculus Servant casts Web.  Bonus Action teleport an ally into combat.
- Round 2: Play the Pipes of Haunting for non-concentration fear.  Homunculus Servant makes an attack.  Bonus action cast Shillelagh.
- Round 3 and beyond: Whatever is needed.  But your allies got to go earlier in initiative because of you.  They have advantage on some enemies because of Faerie Fire.  Some enemies are enwebbed and restrained.  And some enemies have disadvantage due to the frightened condition from the Pipes of Haunting.  

Strategies for Round 3 and Beyond:
- Attack with your club or quarterstaff that's empowered with Shillelagh.  Cast Booming Blade.  The target either stays put (you win) or moves and takes extra damage (you win).  Because you can teleport up to and away from an enemy, you have kind of a free disengage.  Makes Booming Blade that much more effective.  
- Teleport up to 30 feet to a hurt or downed ally, cast Cure Wounds on them, Bonus Action teleport them 30 feet out of danger (if you're a Spring Eladrin), teleport back to them taking yourself out of danger.  

Race: 
- Human: Basically for the 2 feats.  This build needs Magic Initiate: Druid for Shillelagh, but I'd be tempted to go Musician and Tireless Reveler for the amazing Heroic Inspiration synergy you'd get.  
- Eladrin Elf: This is the more utility based one.  You get several things:
   * All the normal Elf things.  Wouldn't hurt to get "Elven Accuracy" later on either since you'd have advantage already with Faerie Fire.
   * You can scribe a first level scroll while everyone else is sleeping because you only have to rest 4 hours.
   * Big thing is their proficiency bonus teleports per long rest.  You can choose a season which have different effects
      - Autumn: Charm two targets on a failed wisdom save
      - Winter: Frighten one target on a failed wisdom save
      - Spring: Teleport a willing ally within 5 feet of you up to 30 feet
      - Summer: Do proficiency bonus fire damage to everyone within 5 feet of you

Origin Feat: Magic Initiate: Druid
- Shillelagh is the main draw.  You want it over True Strike so that you can pair it with Booming Blade.  
- Another cantrip of your choice ... Starry Wisp is an interesting ranged choice that works with "Guided Precision"
- Your one spell ... I'm tempted to say "Speak with Animals," but "Goodberry" is probably the right way to go.

If Psion gets approved as a class, that would be an absolutely amazing 1 level dip.  But I'll otherwise do this straight Artificer.  If you were allowed a Psion dip, you'd get the following at level 1:
- 2 1st level spell slots
- 4 1st level preparations.  I'm thinking Command, Dissonant Whispers, Shield and another of your choice ... maybe "Life Siphon"
- 3 cantrips: Mage Hand is required.  The other two could be Mind Sliver and Minor Illusion.
- No verbal or material components needed for Psion spells.  That means all the spells I just mentioned don't need V, S or M.
- Telepathy within 30 feet.
- Telekinetic Propel as a bonus action on every round if you need it.  5-20 feet.  

Spell Choice: 
- I'd eschew concentration spells and lean in on the Faerie Fire feature.  You get 3-5 free castings per day.  
- I'd definitely lean in on Ritual spells, maybe even taking the Ritual Caster feat.  
- Most of the other spells are your discretion.  I'm choosing the following:
   * Absorb Elements
   * Cure Wounds
   * Dispel Magic
   * Blink (this might be my choice for the Spell Storing Item)
   * Maybe Magic Weapon so I can save an Magic Item for something else.
   * Aid
   * Lesser Restoration
   * Homunculus Servant

Magic Item plans:
- Spell Storing Ring (would probably cast Aid on the party and then refuel my spell slot with the ring and transmute it to another item)
- Weapon of Warning: Give the whole party advantage on initiative rolls
- Wand of Web: I'm giving this to my Homunculus Servant
- Pipes of Haunting
- Others as you desire.  

Spell Storing Item:
- What it really needs is for the legacy spell "Thunder Step" to replace "Call Lightning."  Would be perfect.  Buuuuuuuut....
- Blink would also be amazing.  It's non concentration.  You can use it to navigate through a dungeon or in a battle.  You can give it to a squishy spellcaster and they can stay safe while concentrating on a killer spell and dropping a fireball when they shot up.  Etc.  

How is the Homunculus Servant casting Web in this scenario?

I am curious about the attraction of Shillelagh over True Strike. True Strike comes with Artificer, also lets you use your spellcasting modifier for attacks, but adds damage, can do radiant damage, and can be used with a wider variety of weapons. Booming Blade, sure, but you're still stuck with melee. And this forces you into Druid spells for Magic Initiate, and two cantrips to support this attack.