I like to start with the artisans tool and flavor the spells/effects based off of that.
Jewelers tools: Gem casting, powering homunculus or steel defender constructs with jewels.
Calligraphers tools: Writes prayers or wishes in celestial which are magically granted, uses with woodcarvers tools to carve sacred idols and totems as eldritch cannons.
Mason's tools: The earth genasi carves giant runes into their own rocky skin.
Weaver's tools: Edna Mode style super suits, sky is the limit.
With multiple sets of tools available to each artificer, I like having a mix of magical and mundane flavor to cover the whole spell list. Certain tool sets also compliment or enhance each other flavorwise, like alchemists+glassblowers tools, jewelers+smith's tools, or tinker+carpenter tools.
How I've decided to flavor catapult is my character has a ball of sticky twine that attaches to the object I'm throwing and yeeting it with that. Sort of a medieval version of those Sticky Hands you find in dollar stores.
I find myself coming back to this thread after a year or two of being a DM once a week. It feels as if my appreciation for certain classes and abilities has drastically shifted from when I was primarily a player, and upon recent introspection, I find myself favoring artificer as one of my absolute favorite classes. I love the feel of the class and how you can go from the tried and true mad chemist to the high tech iron man style characters, or better yet, flavor it in a more arcane rout, with a traditional suit of armor inscribed with runes and given various attachments to just look like some old-fashioned madlad. Really allows for creative interpretations.
That being said, here's some fun ideas for alchemist flavoring.
alchemist’s supplies - As with my old post, I still think the idea of an arm-mounted distillation mechanism is my favorite take. It has a large flask with a special seal for introducing the new reagents and chemicals, the condensing mechanism is wrapped around the forearm for space conservation, and the collection vessel has two functions; Without an attached flask/container, it immediately expels the resulting reaction/compound as a spell (Firebolt, Healing Word). If I attach a container, it deposits it as an experimental elixir or some other character-made item, like a potion, poison, or even booze. I also would think putting the entire distillation/chemical setup inside of your shield would be interesting as well. Maybe the shield's straps could even serve as small table legs that fold out whenever you're not in battle?
Fire Bolt - A small vial/container of common flour that is heated before being blasted at the target.
Chill Touch - Remember those weird sticky hand things from the 25c machine outside of grocery stores? Imagine that but it gives you gangrene. I know chill touch isn't on the list, but if I played an artificer I'd probably get Spell Sniper at some point and learn it that way.
Healing Word - A misty concoction that smells strongly of aloe. When fired at an ally the green liquid rapidly evaporates as it reaches the target, enveloping them in a rejuvenating mist.
Ray of Sickness - Chlorine gas is pressurized in a chamber with slices of manchineel fruit until it becomes liquid, then it is pressure-blasted at the target as if it were a laser.
Flaming Sphere - A small clockwork trinket with insectoid legs, which carries a dual-chambered mechanism containing Arsine and chlorine. Require remote control via alchemy supplies, and upon the user's input it releases the chemicals and creates a violent circular explosion/flame.
Acid Arrow - a clear liquid with a terribly pungent odor, along 3 drops of mercury and the tongue of a monitor lizard. Shot out as a large glob of steaming liquid that swirls into a point as it picks up speed.
Gaseous Form - Absinthe based solution with diced mushrooms and corn syrup. The smell makes you lightheaded.
Mass Healing Word - Healing word, but just shot into the air and misty-rained down upon the targets.
Blight - Finely ground bonemeal, the blood of a rat, and extract of nightshade, all mixed together into a pinkish paste. Superheated and then blasted at the target like a shotgun blast.
Death Ward - Not gunna sugarcoat it, it's basically just heroin.
Cloudkill - A bit of brimstone and some spring water, tossed into a flask shaken 3 times over high heat, and chucked wherever you need things to die.
Raise Dead - A mixture of mercury, ground dandelion seeds, honey, iron filings, pure water, salt and the 500 gp diamond. Filtering the compound through the diamond slowly causes it to be dissolved into the mixture. You drain the blood from the corpse and then pump the mixture into the body. Afterwards, activate the chemical reaction with heat and a jolt of electricity.
Revivify - A a mixture of pure water and honey, heated inside of a vial with the 300 gp diamond and a small amount of gold and silver. As its heated, the diamond dissolves in the solution as the liquid takes on a shining composition.
Haste - a small mechanism that routinely pumps a root beer-colored liquid into the target as long as I'm able to control the output manually.
Identify - magic luminol solution in a spray bottle and a pair weird monocle/magnifying glass with black lenses and small light attached. Spray the item and start writing out the information based on what the solution reveals. Casting it as a normal spell causes the light to shine brightly and then burn out, which grants me more information but expends more energy.
My character is a Armorer subclass. Spare the dying = Defibrillator Cure wounds = Stickers Magic Missiles = Firing literal missiles from back Tasha's brew = Attach a cylinder to hand and fire its contents Absorb elements = Armor glows and sucks it up Catapult = Rail gun finger singshot
Unseen Servant- literally 3 kobolds under an invisible cloak I fashioned.
Mage Hand - one of the kobolds sticks his hand out from under the cloak
That is the best! I'm sure their is other spells that would work too.
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Use cook's utensils as your focus and make sure cupcakes are applied to every spell effect somehow. War baker is now a thing. ;)
I love that!
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This isn't actually a signature, just something I copy and paste onto the bottom of all my posts. Or is it? Yep, it is. Or is it..? I’m a hobbit, and the master cranial imploder of the "Oops, I Accidently Destroyed Someone's Brain" cult. Extended sig. I'm actually in Limbo, it says I'm in Mechanus because that's where I get my WiFi from. Please don't tell the modrons, they're still angry from the 'Spawning Stone' fiasco. No connection to Dragonslayer8 other than knowing them in real life.
Worth a mention that you aren't required to go steampunk, even if that's the most obvious option. Artificers can be artists, not just tinkers.
You have to use thieves' tools or any artisan's tools you are proficient with. Valid tool sets include Calligrapher's Supplies, Cartographer's Tools, and Painter's Supplies. You can elegantly draw your magic.
Your spells can be beautiful works of art carved out of magic with Woodworker's Tools, Leatherworker's Tools, or Glassblower's Tools. It's magic, so you don't actually need heat to use your Glassblower's Tools to cast spells, nor a chunk of actual wood to carve a spell with your Woodworker's Tools. Though if you wanted to prepare things ahead of time you certainly could whittle little wooden tokens for all your spells.
Eh, maybe in Ebberon. Artificers in Ebberon have a history and position within society, they are specifically a type of war mage used in a recent war. Artificers in the Forgotten Realms are just "These are a main class now so I guess they exist here too". The default flavour leans into the gnomish tinker archetype, but they aren't all gnomes or tinkers.
Elves have been making elven chain, elven boots, elven cloaks and so on for generations. Now that artificers exist, some of that work is likely to be done by elven artificers. And those elves are likely to be as elegant and snooty as the rest of their kind. An elf might choose beautiful, finely carved wood for their Homunculus Servant or Defender rather than metal, and that's fine, the mending cantrip will work just as well to repair wood as metal. It's magic, not technology.
Likewise an artificer could be a more brutal type. A low-tech leatherworker artificer might patch his creations together out of leather, hide, fur, feathers, and bone. His Homunculus Servant looks like taxidermy until it moves.
I was so excited to play a steampunk type, I didn't even consider these alternatives! Super cool, character ideas! How about a Firbolg artificer Alchemist/herbalist, magic manifested through herbal tinctures,powders, salves etc?
His homunculus would look like a animated, flying flower.
I've actually just gotten into flavoring my recent Artificer character, both how he casts and how his spells work.
The character is a centaur, and his horse half has this large apparatus draped over the back, part sattlebag and part barding, it is covered in fritzing mechanisms and numerous mechanical arms and other, more esoteric mechanisms. Here are some notable spell flavors:
Tasha's Caustic Brew: A firehose extends from one part of the Apparatus and is manually engaged to fire.
Faerie Fire: An animated disco ball flies into the air and sprays glitter.
Mage Hand: A small drone with a claw to grab items
Chaos Bolt: A handheld rube-goldberg machine that uses a sufficient quantity of chaos shenanigans in a small space to open a rift in space, and yeet the resulting ball of chaos at an enemy.
So I'm doing the same thing, and seeing as how your character is an alchemist they should know that Copper Sulfate can form a green flame, so the idea I and my friend had was to either make a blade out of the material and then grease it up and have a way to spark it well unsheathing it, or use a normal blade and then make a flammable substance out of the copper sulfate and something highly flamable
id say its my favourite part tbh, the flavor possibilities with being almost forced to come up with machines and gadgets that supplement spellcasting are endless! and if you were to do a wizard that did steampunk-esc spells it wouldn't really fit you character or the flavor would be off. it just fits the artificer playstyle a lot better and you can center your whole like personality around making little gadgets and stuff and all your other class abilities really pour into that flavour of character! so like yeah you could be a crazy mage with gadgets but the title of "mage with gadgets" will forever belong to the artificer. thats just my take on it, i think the needing to cast certain ways wasn't meant to give an addvantage or disadvantage, just to sort of help people flavor artificers more!
Some descriptions I wrote for my Armorer. He experimented a bit with interdimensional spaces, his whole armor were metal scales that, if not in use, would store in each other and would, upon activation, spread out like a fan.
Cantrips:
Spare the Dying: Similar to a defibrilator, a small device is placed upon the chest of the target. It pulsates slowly in a blueish light, not unlikely to a beating heart. The devic is made out of brass pads, which are connected to the black metal device with a tube. Some small control panels are scattered across the the device as well as a red button to start and stop the process.
Thorn Whip: The left gauntlet has a little opening, from which a barbwire-like whip is fired at the target. After usage the whip is retracted into the gauntlet, but no material space for it is visible.
1st Level:
Feather Fall: A bunch of miniature parachutes that are stored in small adhesive metal disks, which are thrown at the targets. They are stored in a pouch on the belt. The parachutes themselves are not big enough to slow a fall, but they still do. Because magic. Once the target is landed or the spell ran out the parachutes disappear in thin air and the disks fall down to the ground.
Identify: With a magical monocle magic items can be investigated. The frame and chain are a brass/platin alloy, the lense itself is red. On the frame one might see bright golden runes.
Magic Missile: A visor is brought into view on the helmet to lock on targets. The left shoulder pad springs up and magical missiles fire at the target. They are bright blue, scream horrendously, leave a light smoke trace and explode upon contact.
Thunderwave: A oval crystal disk is placed in the chest piece of the armor. If she is hit with either a thunder gauntlet or a shock crystal she rapidly starts glowing for half a second in a bright, blinding light before a shockwave is emerging from it. The disk can also be seperated from the armor for a more directed attack.
2nd Level:
Heat Metal: A crystal in the helmet is activated, which can rotate around the head of the cast on a rail integrated in the helmet. This allows the crystal to keep track of the target. From the crystal itself an immense beam of heat and energy is sent to the target to heat it up. The constant directional targeting requires concentration and manual adjustment from the caster. If the connection is broken the crystal has to cooldown for a short time before it can be used again.
Invsibility: On the inner side of the forearm of the armor a small device is installed, which can influence incoming light rays and manipulate them around the armor. During the casting of the spell the caster has to recalibrate the refraction a lot, needing him to concentrate on the effect in order to stay invisible.
Mirror Image: On the upper arms small illusion projectors are installed which when activated summon mirror images of the armor. When a mirror image is hit it's appearance is heavily distorted and enemies can easily make it out as an illusion.
Shatter: A small throwable item is located at the belt. It's surface is dull and black. It consists of two four-sided die, facing each other on a flat side. The facing sides are however seperated by a few millimeters. A small rod is connecting the two. If turned in opposite directions a noticeable "KRACK" is heard. After that the caster has four seconds to deliver the device into the target area, either throwing or placing, before an immense shockwave exits the device. Afterwards it can be collected again, turned into the former position and used again, after a certain amount of recharge time.
Spider Climb: Six metallic spider legs grow from the backpack. The legs have suction cup-like endings. With small thumb joysticks, that are located near the gloves, the spider legs can be controlled. This however demands concentration.
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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.
A few of my favorites, by way of inspiration/idea-sharing:
-Guidance (Alchemist's Tools): A vial of smelling salts, steeped in absinthe, menthol, and a number of other chemicals even stronger-smelling and less identifiable. A single whiff is all it takes - whoever gets so whiff'd tends to end up with a little bit of a nosebleed, but they've also never felt so wired in their life.
-Mending (Alchemist's Tools): Strips of bandaging cloth, saturated with alchemical restorative and repairing agents carefully prepared at the lab back home. Carefully applying these strips, which take on a shimmery grey coloration as a side effect of the imbuing process, allows the agents to restore the item. -Mending (Smith's Tools): A small brass tap hammer, carved with runes that glow faintly while in use. Tapping a broken device repeatedly with the hammer reforges it, allowing the artificer to restore it to working order.
-Shield (Tinker's Tools): A cloak broach in the shape of a kite shield, with an artificial mechanical eye worked into it that's never entirely still. The eye carefully watches for incoming blows, activating a burst of defensive magical power whenever it detects an imminent threat. -Absorb Elements (TInker's Tools): The same cloak broach, modified with a Sharingan Eye (if I want to torment my DM) or backed with a glyph-carved copper disk if I'm being more reasonable and less weeaboo.
-Heroism (Alchemist's Supplies/Brewer's Supplies): A vial of golden liquid that burns when consumed, filling the drinker with fiery resolve. Actual, literal Liquid Courage.
-Disguise Self (Tinker's Tools): A set of spectacles with carefully etched arcane sigils worked into their frames. When worn, the artificer can disguise herself as normal, or evoke the ability for no one to recognize her despite looking exactly the same unless she tells someone who she is. This may or may not be an awful Superman joke.
I am replying to this so I can find those buttons again. They’re awesome
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I like to start with the artisans tool and flavor the spells/effects based off of that.
Jewelers tools: Gem casting, powering homunculus or steel defender constructs with jewels.
Calligraphers tools: Writes prayers or wishes in celestial which are magically granted, uses with woodcarvers tools to carve sacred idols and totems as eldritch cannons.
Mason's tools: The earth genasi carves giant runes into their own rocky skin.
Weaver's tools: Edna Mode style super suits, sky is the limit.
Carpenters tools: Low tech solutions. Catapult=Catapult, Longstrider=Stilts
With multiple sets of tools available to each artificer, I like having a mix of magical and mundane flavor to cover the whole spell list. Certain tool sets also compliment or enhance each other flavorwise, like alchemists+glassblowers tools, jewelers+smith's tools, or tinker+carpenter tools.
How I've decided to flavor catapult is my character has a ball of sticky twine that attaches to the object I'm throwing and yeeting it with that. Sort of a medieval version of those Sticky Hands you find in dollar stores.
I’m playing an Artificer for the first time this weekend and have re-flavored a few spells-
Guidance = Mental Stim- a little item on the palm of his hand that provides a small burst of Positive Energy Plane energy to your brain.
Fairie Fire= Targeting Matrix- Small swarm of tiny Gyrocopters shine focused searchlights in an area
Thunderwave= Sonic Repulser- taps a button on the back of his hand and two small speaker pop out of his shoulders to blast with sound.
Fireball= Plasma Burst- well you get the idea
My Kobold Artificer Battle Smith:
Firebolt: A rod with a button.
Prestidigitation: Essentially a multi-tool
Mending: A pair of magnets that get incredibly hot and fuses them together.
Featherfall: A parachute.
See Invisibility: His goggles.
Revivify: A pair of shock paddles that use diamonds as the wire to activate them.
Hey... Artillerist here
This is how I've flavoured my spells
Firebolt = Tracer Fire
Shocking grasp = The shocker (butt end of arcane firearm is a tazer)
Thunderwave = Sonic boom
Shield = Energy Shield
Detect Magic = Ultra Hi-def goggles
Darkvision = Nightvision goggles
Identify = Close examination (uses goggles with magnification)
Scorching ray = Multi-laser
Heat metal = Induction element
Cure wounds = First aid kit
Lesser restoration = antibiotics and antivenom
Web = Interlaced polymer strands
Hex = Logic paradox
Misty step = Quantum leap
Shatter = Concussion bomb
Catapult = Projectile cannon (lower part of arcane firearm looks like grenade launcher on assault rifle)
I find myself coming back to this thread after a year or two of being a DM once a week. It feels as if my appreciation for certain classes and abilities has drastically shifted from when I was primarily a player, and upon recent introspection, I find myself favoring artificer as one of my absolute favorite classes. I love the feel of the class and how you can go from the tried and true mad chemist to the high tech iron man style characters, or better yet, flavor it in a more arcane rout, with a traditional suit of armor inscribed with runes and given various attachments to just look like some old-fashioned madlad. Really allows for creative interpretations.
That being said, here's some fun ideas for alchemist flavoring.
alchemist’s supplies - As with my old post, I still think the idea of an arm-mounted distillation mechanism is my favorite take. It has a large flask with a special seal for introducing the new reagents and chemicals, the condensing mechanism is wrapped around the forearm for space conservation, and the collection vessel has two functions; Without an attached flask/container, it immediately expels the resulting reaction/compound as a spell (Firebolt, Healing Word). If I attach a container, it deposits it as an experimental elixir or some other character-made item, like a potion, poison, or even booze.
I also would think putting the entire distillation/chemical setup inside of your shield would be interesting as well. Maybe the shield's straps could even serve as small table legs that fold out whenever you're not in battle?
Fire Bolt - A small vial/container of common flour that is heated before being blasted at the target.
Chill Touch - Remember those weird sticky hand things from the 25c machine outside of grocery stores? Imagine that but it gives you gangrene. I know chill touch isn't on the list, but if I played an artificer I'd probably get Spell Sniper at some point and learn it that way.
Healing Word - A misty concoction that smells strongly of aloe. When fired at an ally the green liquid rapidly evaporates as it reaches the target, enveloping them in a rejuvenating mist.
Ray of Sickness - Chlorine gas is pressurized in a chamber with slices of manchineel fruit until it becomes liquid, then it is pressure-blasted at the target as if it were a laser.
Flaming Sphere - A small clockwork trinket with insectoid legs, which carries a dual-chambered mechanism containing Arsine and chlorine. Require remote control via alchemy supplies, and upon the user's input it releases the chemicals and creates a violent circular explosion/flame.
Acid Arrow - a clear liquid with a terribly pungent odor, along 3 drops of mercury and the tongue of a monitor lizard. Shot out as a large glob of steaming liquid that swirls into a point as it picks up speed.
Gaseous Form - Absinthe based solution with diced mushrooms and corn syrup. The smell makes you lightheaded.
Mass Healing Word - Healing word, but just shot into the air and misty-rained down upon the targets.
Blight - Finely ground bonemeal, the blood of a rat, and extract of nightshade, all mixed together into a pinkish paste. Superheated and then blasted at the target like a shotgun blast.
Death Ward - Not gunna sugarcoat it, it's basically just heroin.
Cloudkill - A bit of brimstone and some spring water, tossed into a flask shaken 3 times over high heat, and chucked wherever you need things to die.
Raise Dead - A mixture of mercury, ground dandelion seeds, honey, iron filings, pure water, salt and the 500 gp diamond. Filtering the compound through the diamond slowly causes it to be dissolved into the mixture. You drain the blood from the corpse and then pump the mixture into the body. Afterwards, activate the chemical reaction with heat and a jolt of electricity.
Revivify - A a mixture of pure water and honey, heated inside of a vial with the 300 gp diamond and a small amount of gold and silver. As its heated, the diamond dissolves in the solution as the liquid takes on a shining composition.
Haste - a small mechanism that routinely pumps a root beer-colored liquid into the target as long as I'm able to control the output manually.
Identify - magic luminol solution in a spray bottle and a pair weird monocle/magnifying glass with black lenses and small light attached. Spray the item and start writing out the information based on what the solution reveals. Casting it as a normal spell causes the light to shine brightly and then burn out, which grants me more information but expends more energy.
It's ok Ranger, you'll always be cool to me.. Unless druid gets another use for its wild shape charges.
My character is a Armorer subclass.
Spare the dying = Defibrillator
Cure wounds = Stickers
Magic Missiles = Firing literal missiles from back
Tasha's brew = Attach a cylinder to hand and fire its contents
Absorb elements = Armor glows and sucks it up
Catapult = Rail gun finger singshot
That is the best! I'm sure their is other spells that would work too.
This isn't actually a signature, just something I copy and paste onto the bottom of all my posts. Or is it? Yep, it is. Or is it..? I’m a hobbit, and the master cranial imploder of the "Oops, I Accidently Destroyed Someone's Brain" cult. Extended sig. I'm actually in Limbo, it says I'm in Mechanus because that's where I get my WiFi from. Please don't tell the modrons, they're still angry from the 'Spawning Stone' fiasco.
No connection to Dragonslayer8 other than knowing them in real life.
I love that!
This isn't actually a signature, just something I copy and paste onto the bottom of all my posts. Or is it? Yep, it is. Or is it..? I’m a hobbit, and the master cranial imploder of the "Oops, I Accidently Destroyed Someone's Brain" cult. Extended sig. I'm actually in Limbo, it says I'm in Mechanus because that's where I get my WiFi from. Please don't tell the modrons, they're still angry from the 'Spawning Stone' fiasco.
No connection to Dragonslayer8 other than knowing them in real life.
I'm playing a Tabaxi Artillerist.
All of his spells and abilities are weaponized cat toys.
Force ballista is a scratching post/cannon
Flamethrower is a little cat fishing rod with the pilot light on it
Shield is a high tech yarn ball
Etc
Worth a mention that you aren't required to go steampunk, even if that's the most obvious option. Artificers can be artists, not just tinkers.
You have to use thieves' tools or any artisan's tools you are proficient with. Valid tool sets include Calligrapher's Supplies, Cartographer's Tools, and Painter's Supplies. You can elegantly draw your magic.
Your spells can be beautiful works of art carved out of magic with Woodworker's Tools, Leatherworker's Tools, or Glassblower's Tools. It's magic, so you don't actually need heat to use your Glassblower's Tools to cast spells, nor a chunk of actual wood to carve a spell with your Woodworker's Tools. Though if you wanted to prepare things ahead of time you certainly could whittle little wooden tokens for all your spells.
that leans more into Artibard multiclass
Eh, maybe in Ebberon. Artificers in Ebberon have a history and position within society, they are specifically a type of war mage used in a recent war. Artificers in the Forgotten Realms are just "These are a main class now so I guess they exist here too". The default flavour leans into the gnomish tinker archetype, but they aren't all gnomes or tinkers.
Elves have been making elven chain, elven boots, elven cloaks and so on for generations. Now that artificers exist, some of that work is likely to be done by elven artificers. And those elves are likely to be as elegant and snooty as the rest of their kind. An elf might choose beautiful, finely carved wood for their Homunculus Servant or Defender rather than metal, and that's fine, the mending cantrip will work just as well to repair wood as metal. It's magic, not technology.
Likewise an artificer could be a more brutal type. A low-tech leatherworker artificer might patch his creations together out of leather, hide, fur, feathers, and bone. His Homunculus Servant looks like taxidermy until it moves.
Do what's fun for you.
I was so excited to play a steampunk type, I didn't even consider these alternatives! Super cool, character ideas! How about a Firbolg artificer Alchemist/herbalist, magic manifested through herbal tinctures,powders, salves etc?
His homunculus would look like a animated, flying flower.
I've actually just gotten into flavoring my recent Artificer character, both how he casts and how his spells work.
The character is a centaur, and his horse half has this large apparatus draped over the back, part sattlebag and part barding, it is covered in fritzing mechanisms and numerous mechanical arms and other, more esoteric mechanisms. Here are some notable spell flavors:
Tasha's Caustic Brew: A firehose extends from one part of the Apparatus and is manually engaged to fire.
Faerie Fire: An animated disco ball flies into the air and sprays glitter.
Mage Hand: A small drone with a claw to grab items
Chaos Bolt: A handheld rube-goldberg machine that uses a sufficient quantity of chaos shenanigans in a small space to open a rift in space, and yeet the resulting ball of chaos at an enemy.
That's based as hell dude, well done. Centaurs are cool, I wish more people would play them.
It's ok Ranger, you'll always be cool to me.. Unless druid gets another use for its wild shape charges.
So I'm doing the same thing, and seeing as how your character is an alchemist they should know that Copper Sulfate can form a green flame, so the idea I and my friend had was to either make a blade out of the material and then grease it up and have a way to spark it well unsheathing it, or use a normal blade and then make a flammable substance out of the copper sulfate and something highly flamable
id say its my favourite part tbh, the flavor possibilities with being almost forced to come up with machines and gadgets that supplement spellcasting are endless! and if you were to do a wizard that did steampunk-esc spells it wouldn't really fit you character or the flavor would be off. it just fits the artificer playstyle a lot better and you can center your whole like personality around making little gadgets and stuff and all your other class abilities really pour into that flavour of character! so like yeah you could be a crazy mage with gadgets but the title of "mage with gadgets" will forever belong to the artificer. thats just my take on it, i think the needing to cast certain ways wasn't meant to give an addvantage or disadvantage, just to sort of help people flavor artificers more!
Some descriptions I wrote for my Armorer. He experimented a bit with interdimensional spaces, his whole armor were metal scales that, if not in use, would store in each other and would, upon activation, spread out like a fan.
Cantrips:
Spare the Dying: Similar to a defibrilator, a small device is placed upon the chest of the target. It pulsates slowly in a blueish light, not unlikely to a beating heart. The devic is made out of brass pads, which are connected to the black metal device with a tube. Some small control panels are scattered across the the device as well as a red button to start and stop the process.
Thorn Whip: The left gauntlet has a little opening, from which a barbwire-like whip is fired at the target. After usage the whip is retracted into the gauntlet, but no material space for it is visible.
1st Level:
Feather Fall: A bunch of miniature parachutes that are stored in small adhesive metal disks, which are thrown at the targets. They are stored in a pouch on the belt. The parachutes themselves are not big enough to slow a fall, but they still do. Because magic. Once the target is landed or the spell ran out the parachutes disappear in thin air and the disks fall down to the ground.
Identify: With a magical monocle magic items can be investigated. The frame and chain are a brass/platin alloy, the lense itself is red. On the frame one might see bright golden runes.
Magic Missile: A visor is brought into view on the helmet to lock on targets. The left shoulder pad springs up and magical missiles fire at the target. They are bright blue, scream horrendously, leave a light smoke trace and explode upon contact.
Thunderwave: A oval crystal disk is placed in the chest piece of the armor. If she is hit with either a thunder gauntlet or a shock crystal she rapidly starts glowing for half a second in a bright, blinding light before a shockwave is emerging from it. The disk can also be seperated from the armor for a more directed attack.
2nd Level:
Heat Metal: A crystal in the helmet is activated, which can rotate around the head of the cast on a rail integrated in the helmet. This allows the crystal to keep track of the target. From the crystal itself an immense beam of heat and energy is sent to the target to heat it up. The constant directional targeting requires concentration and manual adjustment from the caster. If the connection is broken the crystal has to cooldown for a short time before it can be used again.
Invsibility: On the inner side of the forearm of the armor a small device is installed, which can influence incoming light rays and manipulate them around the armor. During the casting of the spell the caster has to recalibrate the refraction a lot, needing him to concentrate on the effect in order to stay invisible.
Mirror Image: On the upper arms small illusion projectors are installed which when activated summon mirror images of the armor. When a mirror image is hit it's appearance is heavily distorted and enemies can easily make it out as an illusion.
Shatter: A small throwable item is located at the belt. It's surface is dull and black. It consists of two four-sided die, facing each other on a flat side. The facing sides are however seperated by a few millimeters. A small rod is connecting the two. If turned in opposite directions a noticeable "KRACK" is heard. After that the caster has four seconds to deliver the device into the target area, either throwing or placing, before an immense shockwave exits the device. Afterwards it can be collected again, turned into the former position and used again, after a certain amount of recharge time.
Spider Climb: Six metallic spider legs grow from the backpack. The legs have suction cup-like endings. With small thumb joysticks, that are located near the gloves, the spider legs can be controlled. This however demands concentration.
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.
I am replying to this so I can find those buttons again. They’re awesome