I had an idea to create an artificer character that is a wheelchair user. How do you think I should go about creating the character? I tend to use point buy for the stat modifiers. Thank you for any advice.
You could also choose to be Small and set up your Steel Defender as a mount, as your wheelchair. The Steel Defender RAW has two legs or four, but RAI it could be wheels too.
For any Artificer, push INT the highest you can get it, and I usually dump STR and CHA.
If you are building a 2025 character, it can be interesting to choose Magic Initiate to get two extra cantrips and a first level spell, since I find Artificers to be a little short on cantrips. I built a Cartographer with this and that character ends up feeling very much like a mage between the racial and feat spells it gained.
Is the wheelchair their defining feature, the place where they invest all their magic tinkering? Or is it just that they're an artificer who happens to also have made a cool chair? Up to you.
Sorry for how vague I was regarding my initial post. I got the idea for this character while I was at work, currently I am trying to figure out what the stats for this character would be/ how would it impact gameplay. Like initiation or dice throws.
One idea I had for their background was that they were either in an accident or they were attacked and they lost the use of their legs and afterwards changed their focus from creating weapons to creating mobility aids and prosthetics. So part of the reason they are traveling is so that they can gain more knowledge and skills. And over the course of the campaign would upgrade their wheelchair.
I've only played dnd for a few years now and I've only done a few campaigns since I've started. I haven't played a character that is an artificer yet. Thank you for the advice.
Pity they don't have unseen servant on the spell list (origin feat option maybe) then you could use that as a ritual to push your wheelchair (handcart ?) around as motive power.
I know Magic Initiate is the better play for your Origin Feat, and you don’t get it with this background, but if you were wanting to sell your inventions like you said and had to use default backgrounds you could go Merchant. Lucky is still a good Origin Feat that comes with it, and you get both Intelligence and constitution as options for your stat boosts (which you want).
Ask your DM whether or not you can use custom backgrounds. If you can’t and are set on the inventor flavor, you MAY want to go merchant background. If you care more about power, go custom to pick up Magic Initiate as stated previously in the comments.
….having said all that… I hate to be “that guy” or a downer, but if you are new to DnD, you may wish to reconsider starting out as an Artificer. At the very least, I would make sure you have either the DM or a friend at the table prepared to help you build around which items to create using your abilities.
If it weren’t for your wheelchair idea, I would as a compromise suggest taking three levels of Artificer to become a Battle Smith and then take the rest as a fighter that takes the Eldritch Knight subclass. Not only is it potent in that you can dump your strength and fight melee with your intellect, but the fighter class is generally considered simpler. Then again, multiclassing can be confusing. Still, if you were interested in that angle, perhaps you could be an amputee instead? You could still pick a species with the small size option to ride your battle smith robot companion to alleviate a leg injury. Or you could go Ash from Evil dead and have lost your hand. It’s a shame there is no cyborg race/species that I am aware of. The closest we have is Warforged.
One least thing: speaking of riding your pet if you are small, there is a feat called mounted combatant. While the boost to your stats doesn’t benefit you, it would allow you to fight in combat on your battle smith robot. Again though, this is kind of advanced stuff.
i apologize if I am worrying you or overloading you with too much information. I just want to present all of the data I am familiar with while at the same time trying to ensure you have the most fun. If you have any questions, do not be afraid to reach out. The community here on this site is extremely supportive. Best of luck!
It's fine! Any information is great. Although I didn't start out as an artificer. My 1st character was a wizard, the campaign after was bard, then I had a fighter for a one shot, and the campaign I'm currently a part of, my character is a cleric. I tend to get the urge to create characters sometimes and I tend to use dnd beyond as a way to make them. I do tend to use the characters I make in dnd beyond on campaigns that I am a player in as well as when I am dm.
I thought about mage hand as a useful cantrip for them to use. Along with them fighting with a slingshot and using magic stone for more damage.
At level 4, the telekinetic feat could be super fun on this character. You get invisible mage hand and a very fun telekinetic shove.
Dumping Wisdom can be fun on an Artificer... and possibly fit very well into how the character had an accident, if you like. :-)
My second character was an Artificer. It's a very flexible class, which is I think what some people find complicated. For me, this makes it very forgiving - lots of ways to change up the build as you learn how it functions with the rest of the party. It can be played very simply or with a lot of complexity, as the player likes. You can set up the build and keep it that way forever, or constantly tinker with it by changing out spells.
Any of the Artificers could work well for you. The artillerist gets a flamethrower, the armorer has terrific built in weapons, the cartographer gets teleportation, the alchemist gets potions and the battle smith gets a friend that could be a mount.
I would say... please don't limit yourself. If you want to fight with a slingshot great, but there's no reason a badass wheelchair user can't use any of the Artificer weapons.
I won't limit myself. I thought that the slingshot would be good for a level 1 artificer and would continue to upgrade to different weapons as the character would level up and change.
It's fine! Any information is great. Although I didn't start out as an artificer. My 1st character was a wizard, the campaign after was bard, then I had a fighter for a one shot, and the campaign I'm currently a part of, my character is a cleric. I tend to get the urge to create characters sometimes and I tend to use dnd beyond as a way to make them. I do tend to use the characters I make in dnd beyond on campaigns that I am a player in as well as when I am dm.
Ah, I see. Ok than!
Just out of curiosity, when you say you make characters for when you DM, are you saying that you create characters for your players to play, and/or do you create them as NPC’s/ possible opponents?
The reason I ask is I created a homebrew monster a while back, have forgotten how i did it and do bot feel like making a monster statblock for a cameo my character is making in the oneshot. Thus, part of me almost wants to resort to more of a PVP situation should the situation arise in the unlikely event that my players want to attack him.
I mostly use them as NPCs. I am still pretty new at being a dm and when I was a dm I mostly followed the campaign books. I think that a PVP situation would be best.
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I had an idea to create an artificer character that is a wheelchair user. How do you think I should go about creating the character? I tend to use point buy for the stat modifiers. Thank you for any advice.
Can you be more specific in your question? Have you picked a subclass for your artificer? Is this 2025 or 2014?
There is the concept of the Combat Wheelchair, which you may find useful, and is not specific to the Artificer. Here is some discussion of the Combat Wheelchair.
You could also choose to be Small and set up your Steel Defender as a mount, as your wheelchair. The Steel Defender RAW has two legs or four, but RAI it could be wheels too.
For any Artificer, push INT the highest you can get it, and I usually dump STR and CHA.
If you are building a 2025 character, it can be interesting to choose Magic Initiate to get two extra cantrips and a first level spell, since I find Artificers to be a little short on cantrips. I built a Cartographer with this and that character ends up feeling very much like a mage between the racial and feat spells it gained.
Is the wheelchair their defining feature, the place where they invest all their magic tinkering? Or is it just that they're an artificer who happens to also have made a cool chair? Up to you.
Sorry for how vague I was regarding my initial post. I got the idea for this character while I was at work, currently I am trying to figure out what the stats for this character would be/ how would it impact gameplay. Like initiation or dice throws.
One idea I had for their background was that they were either in an accident or they were attacked and they lost the use of their legs and afterwards changed their focus from creating weapons to creating mobility aids and prosthetics. So part of the reason they are traveling is so that they can gain more knowledge and skills. And over the course of the campaign would upgrade their wheelchair.
I've only played dnd for a few years now and I've only done a few campaigns since I've started. I haven't played a character that is an artificer yet. Thank you for the advice.
Pity they don't have unseen servant on the spell list (origin feat option maybe) then you could use that as a ritual to push your wheelchair (handcart ?) around as motive power.
Life's hard - get a helmet!
I thought about mage hand as a useful cantrip for them to use. Along with them fighting with a slingshot and using magic stone for more damage.
I know Magic Initiate is the better play for your Origin Feat, and you don’t get it with this background, but if you were wanting to sell your inventions like you said and had to use default backgrounds you could go Merchant. Lucky is still a good Origin Feat that comes with it, and you get both Intelligence and constitution as options for your stat boosts (which you want).
Ask your DM whether or not you can use custom backgrounds. If you can’t and are set on the inventor flavor, you MAY want to go merchant background. If you care more about power, go custom to pick up Magic Initiate as stated previously in the comments.
….having said all that… I hate to be “that guy” or a downer, but if you are new to DnD, you may wish to reconsider starting out as an Artificer. At the very least, I would make sure you have either the DM or a friend at the table prepared to help you build around which items to create using your abilities.
If it weren’t for your wheelchair idea, I would as a compromise suggest taking three levels of Artificer to become a Battle Smith and then take the rest as a fighter that takes the Eldritch Knight subclass. Not only is it potent in that you can dump your strength and fight melee with your intellect, but the fighter class is generally considered simpler. Then again, multiclassing can be confusing. Still, if you were interested in that angle, perhaps you could be an amputee instead? You could still pick a species with the small size option to ride your battle smith robot companion to alleviate a leg injury. Or you could go Ash from Evil dead and have lost your hand. It’s a shame there is no cyborg race/species that I am aware of. The closest we have is Warforged.
One least thing: speaking of riding your pet if you are small, there is a feat called mounted combatant. While the boost to your stats doesn’t benefit you, it would allow you to fight in combat on your battle smith robot. Again though, this is kind of advanced stuff.
i apologize if I am worrying you or overloading you with too much information. I just want to present all of the data I am familiar with while at the same time trying to ensure you have the most fun. If you have any questions, do not be afraid to reach out. The community here on this site is extremely supportive. Best of luck!
Don't overlook the Artisan background either. It gives the Crafter feat which is a nice double down on the artificer/inventor scope of the character.
Also agree with Actionsparda in that Merchant ties in nicely with the concept.
Life's hard - get a helmet!
It's fine! Any information is great. Although I didn't start out as an artificer. My 1st character was a wizard, the campaign after was bard, then I had a fighter for a one shot, and the campaign I'm currently a part of, my character is a cleric. I tend to get the urge to create characters sometimes and I tend to use dnd beyond as a way to make them. I do tend to use the characters I make in dnd beyond on campaigns that I am a player in as well as when I am dm.
At level 4, the telekinetic feat could be super fun on this character. You get invisible mage hand and a very fun telekinetic shove.
Dumping Wisdom can be fun on an Artificer... and possibly fit very well into how the character had an accident, if you like. :-)
My second character was an Artificer. It's a very flexible class, which is I think what some people find complicated. For me, this makes it very forgiving - lots of ways to change up the build as you learn how it functions with the rest of the party. It can be played very simply or with a lot of complexity, as the player likes. You can set up the build and keep it that way forever, or constantly tinker with it by changing out spells.
Any of the Artificers could work well for you. The artillerist gets a flamethrower, the armorer has terrific built in weapons, the cartographer gets teleportation, the alchemist gets potions and the battle smith gets a friend that could be a mount.
I would say... please don't limit yourself. If you want to fight with a slingshot great, but there's no reason a badass wheelchair user can't use any of the Artificer weapons.
I won't limit myself. I thought that the slingshot would be good for a level 1 artificer and would continue to upgrade to different weapons as the character would level up and change.
Ah, I see. Ok than!
Just out of curiosity, when you say you make characters for when you DM, are you saying that you create characters for your players to play, and/or do you create them as NPC’s/ possible opponents?
The reason I ask is I created a homebrew monster a while back, have forgotten how i did it and do bot feel like making a monster statblock for a cameo my character is making in the oneshot. Thus, part of me almost wants to resort to more of a PVP situation should the situation arise in the unlikely event that my players want to attack him.
As a DM, what do (all of) you think of this?
I mostly use them as NPCs. I am still pretty new at being a dm and when I was a dm I mostly followed the campaign books. I think that a PVP situation would be best.