Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in- Marketplace
Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in
This came up as my table was discussing various features and tactics, related to the Eldritch Cannon. I can cast it once per day for free, and again with a spell slot. Each time it is created it'll last an hour. Or, I can dismiss it early.
But battles rarely take more than three rounds (barely 20 seconds!). So the majority of the time is wasted, unless we happen to wander into another battle soon after.
So what do you think? Could I power down my cannon, stash it in a pack or hand-carry it, and then power up again when needed? Or would that be too OP, and unbalance things too much in my favour?
RAW, no you cannot. You can summon it and then you have to summon it again.
This is annoying not just because of the spell slot but because it means possibly that your first turn of combat has to be spent activating the cannon instead of having it around all the time.
Worse, it means that the Short Rest that is beneficial to everyone else in the party is actively detrimental to the Artillerist, costing them a spell slot.
By contrast, the steel defender and homunculus stay up indefinitely, until they run out of hit points.
I am not sure why this choice was made, honestly. If you are playing at your own table, I don't think it would be particularly OP to just let you keep the cannon up all the time, stored in a Sleep mode. The cannon is already decently costly to use - your bonus action on every turn. It means you don't have a bonus action for any other feature, or for downing a potion, or any of the other things that say a Battle Smith or Armorer with Extra Attack can do. You can't even have the cannon default to say Protector mode as a default, the way you can set the Steel Defender or Homunculus to dodge.
Exactly! I'll have to discuss with my DM whether we can make a little homebrew change. We're already homebrewing a bunch of other things, including "wild magic" power surges that I can trigger if I roll a crit. I'm fine with it taking an action or magic action to deploy the turret if it means I can keep it all day.
That reminds me; in dndbeyond's character sheet it displays a "Special" mode for the Cannon, separate from the regular three modes, with 15 uses. Anyone know what this is? Homebrew? Future upgrade/change?
Because it's a full hour, you often summon it a little bit before you expect combat. And if you are doing some sort room-to-room dungeon crawl, you can probably get a few fights into a single hour of character time.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/efota/the-artificer#Level3EldritchCannon
Taking an action to activate and lasting only an hour means you often get to use this for one combat encounter and then have to use a spell slot to get another one, which is why as much as i wanted fireball spell, i went with srmorer instead for my charavter.
If youre starting at level 11 or so, them artillerist is good because you can put fireball in your spell storing item and cast a level.3 fireball 10 times per day.
But the cannon is a pain to deal with. Your spell slots dont do a lot so using them to create a cannon shouldnt be too big a deal. But you might want to keep a watchful eye on your dm and the map and when anythjng gives off a wiff of combat., just summon it.
“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” — Voltaire
That "Special" mode is the cannon's hit points.
Note: In a DNDBeyond sheet, out of the box it will try to add your modifier to the force ballista and flamethrower damage. That's not correct per the rules. You'll have to customize it to subtract off the modifier. The damage for both of those is only the d8s
Ah, good to know. I'll use a separate HP counter for it anyway. And we're playing IRL so I'll just roll my d8s normally!
Just as there are some things in the game that add pressure for some to take short rests as often as possible, there are some things in the game meant to add pressure for the group NOT to take short rests as often as possible. An hour duration ensures that it lasts long enough for many fights in a 'dungeon', or that it can be put up when danger is near, and last long enough for the actual fight to occur.
Personally I think the advantages of having it outweigh the cost of a spell slot, especially in large fights, or times when multiple fights occur within a short period of time. If you don't think it worth it for a particular fight, don't use it, use something else.
Just as a wizard doesn't break out the meteor storm in every fight, and the Paladin doesn't smite with every swing, so too must the Artificer guage when and where to best use its abilities.
Playing D&D since 1982
Have played every version of the game since Basic (original Red Box Set), except that abomination sometimes called 4e.
This is only the case if you lack information that combat is likely in the next hour, otherwise you just create a portable tiny cannon and carry it about.