Beyond the gimmie best feats like Lucky and Tough the subclass is going to determine which feats work best.
Alchemists: Elemental Adept, Spell Sniper, and Tavern Brawler. Elemental Adept and Spell Sniper keep you relevant in combat later in a campaign. Tavern Brawler is not only flavorful but lets you toss vials of acid and alchemist fire much more accurately.
Artillerist: Elemental Adept, Spell Sniper, and Alert. Elemental Adept might get taken more than once and Spell Sniper is needed to be able to blast and stay out of the range of huge area effect spells later on. Being surprised sucks and getting to go first when your big spells can end a combat before it begins is a huge deal, thus I love Alert. If Helm of Awareness survives playtest then Alert will become redundant.
Battle Smith: Magic Initiate (Wizard), War Caster, and Shield Master. Magic Initiate (Wizard) should be taken by every Battle Smith in order to get access to Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade, it's a no brainer. Once you have access to those two cantrips then War Caster lets you gish your way into annoying the heck out of your DM. Shield Master shores up the downside to being a gish, you're gonna have to get breathed upon by the dragons, and this makes it survivable.
Armorer: Magic Initiate (Wizard), War Caster, Shield Master for Guardians. Sharpshooter, Mobile, or Prodigy. Guardians use their feats the same way as Battle Smiths do, but the impact is more pronounced. Be sure to take Thunderwave as your first level spell with Magic Initiate so you can do superhero landings. Once a Guardian with Booming Blade and War Caster gets access to Improved Invisibility and Winged Boots, they turn into an absolute nightmare of combat control (Your DM will hate you). Infiltrator has fewer raw benefits from feats, since you don't want to gish and want to stay at range. Sharpshooter is pretty much a gimmie, but the rest depend a lot on the playstyle you are going for with Lucky being the best generic feat to take.
Beyond the gimmie best feats like Lucky and Tough the subclass is going to determine which feats work best.
Alchemists: Elemental Adept, Spell Sniper, and Tavern Brawler. Elemental Adept and Spell Sniper keep you relevant in combat later in a campaign. Tavern Brawler is not only flavorful but lets you toss vials of acid and alchemist fire much more accurately.
Artillerist: Elemental Adept, Spell Sniper, and Alert. Elemental Adept might get taken more than once and Spell Sniper is needed to be able to blast and stay out of the range of huge area effect spells later on. Being surprised sucks and getting to go first when your big spells can end a combat before it begins is a huge deal, thus I love Alert. If Helm of Awareness survives playtest then Alert will become redundant.
Battle Smith: Magic Initiate (Wizard), War Caster, and Shield Master. Magic Initiate (Wizard) should be taken by every Battle Smith in order to get access to Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade, it's a no brainer. Once you have access to those two cantrips then War Caster lets you gish your way into annoying the heck out of your DM. Shield Master shores up the downside to being a gish, you're gonna have to get breathed upon by the dragons, and this makes it survivable.
Armorer: Magic Initiate (Wizard), War Caster, Shield Master for Guardians. Sharpshooter, Mobile, or Prodigy. Guardians use their feats the same way as Battle Smiths do, but the impact is more pronounced. Be sure to take Thunderwave as your first level spell with Magic Initiate so you can do superhero landings. Once a Guardian with Booming Blade and War Caster gets access to Improved Invisibility and Winged Boots, they turn into an absolute nightmare of combat control (Your DM will hate you). Infiltrator has fewer raw benefits from feats, since you don't want to gish and want to stay at range. Sharpshooter is pretty much a gimmie, but the rest depend a lot on the playstyle you are going for with Lucky being the best generic feat to take.
Warcaster is actually not that good for an Artificer since more or less half of the abilities are wasted once you start infusing items.
Beyond the gimmie best feats like Lucky and Tough the subclass is going to determine which feats work best.
Alchemists: Elemental Adept, Spell Sniper, and Tavern Brawler. Elemental Adept and Spell Sniper keep you relevant in combat later in a campaign. Tavern Brawler is not only flavorful but lets you toss vials of acid and alchemist fire much more accurately.
Artillerist: Elemental Adept, Spell Sniper, and Alert. Elemental Adept might get taken more than once and Spell Sniper is needed to be able to blast and stay out of the range of huge area effect spells later on. Being surprised sucks and getting to go first when your big spells can end a combat before it begins is a huge deal, thus I love Alert. If Helm of Awareness survives playtest then Alert will become redundant.
Battle Smith: Magic Initiate (Wizard), War Caster, and Shield Master. Magic Initiate (Wizard) should be taken by every Battle Smith in order to get access to Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade, it's a no brainer. Once you have access to those two cantrips then War Caster lets you gish your way into annoying the heck out of your DM. Shield Master shores up the downside to being a gish, you're gonna have to get breathed upon by the dragons, and this makes it survivable.
Armorer: Magic Initiate (Wizard), War Caster, Shield Master for Guardians. Sharpshooter, Mobile, or Prodigy. Guardians use their feats the same way as Battle Smiths do, but the impact is more pronounced. Be sure to take Thunderwave as your first level spell with Magic Initiate so you can do superhero landings. Once a Guardian with Booming Blade and War Caster gets access to Improved Invisibility and Winged Boots, they turn into an absolute nightmare of combat control (Your DM will hate you). Infiltrator has fewer raw benefits from feats, since you don't want to gish and want to stay at range. Sharpshooter is pretty much a gimmie, but the rest depend a lot on the playstyle you are going for with Lucky being the best generic feat to take.
Warcaster is actually not that good for an Artificer since more or less half of the abilities are wasted once you start infusing items.
War Caster is amazing simply because of the OA using Booming Blade. It's all about combat control, and dictating where the bad guys are and who they are going to attack. The concentration effect is useful for both subclasses so as to not lose have whatever concentration buff they have going and still preserve their reaction. Granted the somatic components section is weak for Artificers, and useless to the Guardian Armorer, but that isn't why you take the feat.
Beyond the gimmie best feats like Lucky and Tough the subclass is going to determine which feats work best.
Alchemists: Elemental Adept, Spell Sniper, and Tavern Brawler. Elemental Adept and Spell Sniper keep you relevant in combat later in a campaign. Tavern Brawler is not only flavorful but lets you toss vials of acid and alchemist fire much more accurately.
Artillerist: Elemental Adept, Spell Sniper, and Alert. Elemental Adept might get taken more than once and Spell Sniper is needed to be able to blast and stay out of the range of huge area effect spells later on. Being surprised sucks and getting to go first when your big spells can end a combat before it begins is a huge deal, thus I love Alert. If Helm of Awareness survives playtest then Alert will become redundant.
Battle Smith: Magic Initiate (Wizard), War Caster, and Shield Master. Magic Initiate (Wizard) should be taken by every Battle Smith in order to get access to Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade, it's a no brainer. Once you have access to those two cantrips then War Caster lets you gish your way into annoying the heck out of your DM. Shield Master shores up the downside to being a gish, you're gonna have to get breathed upon by the dragons, and this makes it survivable.
Armorer: Magic Initiate (Wizard), War Caster, Shield Master for Guardians. Sharpshooter, Mobile, or Prodigy. Guardians use their feats the same way as Battle Smiths do, but the impact is more pronounced. Be sure to take Thunderwave as your first level spell with Magic Initiate so you can do superhero landings. Once a Guardian with Booming Blade and War Caster gets access to Improved Invisibility and Winged Boots, they turn into an absolute nightmare of combat control (Your DM will hate you). Infiltrator has fewer raw benefits from feats, since you don't want to gish and want to stay at range. Sharpshooter is pretty much a gimmie, but the rest depend a lot on the playstyle you are going for with Lucky being the best generic feat to take.
Warcaster is actually not that good for an Artificer since more or less half of the abilities are wasted once you start infusing items.
War Caster is amazing simply because of the OA using Booming Blade. It's all about combat control, and dictating where the bad guys are and who they are going to attack. The concentration effect is useful for both subclasses so as to not lose have whatever concentration buff they have going and still preserve their reaction. Granted the somatic components section is weak for Artificers, and useless to the Guardian Armorer, but that isn't why you take the feat.
Too bad the Artificers doesn't have Booming Blade in their spell list...
Battle Smith: Magic Initiate (Wizard), War Caster, and Shield Master. Magic Initiate (Wizard) should be taken by every Battle Smith in order to get access to Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade, it's a no brainer.
Armorer: Magic Initiate (Wizard), War Caster, Shield Master for Guardians.
Too bad the Artificers doesn't have Booming Blade in their spell list...
Thankfully, Wizard does have it on their spell list which is why Battle Smiths and Armorers should take Magic Initiate (Wizard).
Battle Smith: Magic Initiate (Wizard), War Caster, and Shield Master. Magic Initiate (Wizard) should be taken by every Battle Smith in order to get access to Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade, it's a no brainer.
Armorer: Magic Initiate (Wizard), War Caster, Shield Master for Guardians.
Too bad the Artificers doesn't have Booming Blade in their spell list...
Thankfully, Wizard does have it on their spell list which is why Battle Smiths and Armorers should take Magic Initiate (Wizard).
It's a lot of wasted feats just do be able to make a slightly better AO attack every once in a while which means that Warcaster in and of itself is a pretty useless feat for Artificers. If you take GWM you can wack an opponent for pretty similar damage but you don't have to spend 8 levels to be able to do it and you can actually use the feat on every turn of combat.
Be a high elf, get your booming blade as a racial. Be battle smith. Snag warcaster, greatweapon master, and elven accuracy. Booming blade opportunity attacks, ability to keep your concentration from being hit in the face, when you do gain advantage kill things with +10 more damage and 3 rolls per attack. Warcaster might be the level 12 feat as at that level you may be getting hit so hard advantage will still keep some of those saves feasible.
Battle Smith: Magic Initiate (Wizard), War Caster, and Shield Master. Magic Initiate (Wizard) should be taken by every Battle Smith in order to get access to Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade, it's a no brainer.
Armorer: Magic Initiate (Wizard), War Caster, Shield Master for Guardians.
Too bad the Artificers doesn't have Booming Blade in their spell list...
Thankfully, Wizard does have it on their spell list which is why Battle Smiths and Armorers should take Magic Initiate (Wizard).
It's a lot of wasted feats just do be able to make a slightly better AO attack every once in a while which means that Warcaster in and of itself is a pretty useless feat for Artificers. If you take GWM you can wack an opponent for pretty similar damage but you don't have to spend 8 levels to be able to do it and you can actually use the feat on every turn of combat.
It's not a "slightly better AO attack" at level five it's 1d8+3 verses 4d8+3, and furthermore it scales as the character levels up.
Be a high elf, get your booming blade as a racial. Be battle smith. Snag warcaster, greatweapon master, and elven accuracy. Booming blade opportunity attacks, ability to keep your concentration from being hit in the face, when you do gain advantage kill things with +10 more damage and 3 rolls per attack. Warcaster might be the level 12 feat as at that level you may be getting hit so hard advantage will still keep some of those saves feasible.
Battle Smith: Magic Initiate (Wizard), War Caster, and Shield Master. Magic Initiate (Wizard) should be taken by every Battle Smith in order to get access to Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade, it's a no brainer.
Armorer: Magic Initiate (Wizard), War Caster, Shield Master for Guardians.
Too bad the Artificers doesn't have Booming Blade in their spell list...
Thankfully, Wizard does have it on their spell list which is why Battle Smiths and Armorers should take Magic Initiate (Wizard).
It's a lot of wasted feats just do be able to make a slightly better AO attack every once in a while which means that Warcaster in and of itself is a pretty useless feat for Artificers. If you take GWM you can wack an opponent for pretty similar damage but you don't have to spend 8 levels to be able to do it and you can actually use the feat on every turn of combat.
It's not a "slightly better AO attack" at level five it's 1d8+3 verses 4d8+3, and furthermore it scales as the character levels up.
A GWM attack will do 2D6 or 1D12 (depending on weapon) +10 +Int modifier (at least +3) that's about 20 points of damage. With your build you wouldn't even be able to do it before level 8 so again, that's a very heavy investment for something you probably won't be able to use that often.
It's not a "slightly better AO attack" at level five it's 1d8+3 verses 4d8+3, and furthermore it scales as the character levels up.
A GWM attack will do 2D6 or 1D12 (depending on weapon) +10 +Int modifier (at least +3) that's about 20 points of damage. With your build you wouldn't even be able to do it before level 8 so again, that's a very heavy investment for something you probably won't be able to use that often.
This isn't a thread for a most optimal build, but Variant Human does allow having both feats in place by level 4.
I'll stand by the statement that both Magical Initiate together War Caster are excellent for Battle Smiths and Armorers, giving them outstanding levels of combat control.
It's not a "slightly better AO attack" at level five it's 1d8+3 verses 4d8+3, and furthermore it scales as the character levels up.
A GWM attack will do 2D6 or 1D12 (depending on weapon) +10 +Int modifier (at least +3) that's about 20 points of damage. With your build you wouldn't even be able to do it before level 8 so again, that's a very heavy investment for something you probably won't be able to use that often.
This isn't a thread for a most optimal build, but Variant Human does allow having both feats in place by level 4.
I'll stand by the statement that both Magical Initiate together War Caster are excellent for Battle Smiths and Armorers, giving them outstanding levels of combat control.
And now you're moving the goalpost. The point that still stands is that War Caster on it's own is not a very useful feat for Artificers and the fact that you need a very specialized and resource-demanding build that has a very situational use for the War Caster feat proves that point.
I'm not really sure what you're talking about. From the very first I stated that Magical Initiate (Wizard) was a must take for the two cantrips. War Caster makes them better, and I guess I am failing to understand why you think it is situational. Do monsters in your games not try to ignore the tanks and go after the squishy casters in the back line who have them ranged?
I'm not really sure what you're talking about. From the very first I stated that Magical Initiate (Wizard) was a must take for the two cantrips. War Caster makes them better, and I guess I am failing to understand why you think it is situational. Do monsters in your games not try to ignore the tanks and go after the squishy casters in the back line who have them ranged?
We've already gone through this, yes? War Caster, in and of itself, is not a very useful feat for Artificers. Your suggestion for making it better is to spend another four levels (or severly limit your race options) to gain access to another feat to even make it viable in highly situational circumstances. AoO is not a mainstay of the game, not even combat is, which means that you have to invest a lot of resources for something that doesn't get used that much. And can be completely negated by the simple "Disengage" action. It's like saying "yeah, this computer is really, really good but you have to buy another computer to run it since the OS of the first computer isn't really that good".
I'm not really sure what you're talking about. From the very first I stated that Magical Initiate (Wizard) was a must take for the two cantrips. War Caster makes them better, and I guess I am failing to understand why you think it is situational. Do monsters in your games not try to ignore the tanks and go after the squishy casters in the back line who have them ranged?
We've already gone through this, yes? War Caster, in and of itself, is not a very useful feat for Artificers. Your suggestion for making it better is to spend another four levels (or severly limit your race options) to gain access to another feat to even make it viable in highly situational circumstances. AoO is not a mainstay of the game, not even combat is, which means that you have to invest a lot of resources for something that doesn't get used that much. And can be completely negated by the simple "Disengage" action. It's like saying "yeah, this computer is really, really good but you have to buy another computer to run it since the OS of the first computer isn't really that good".
I guess we're playing different games then, as there is rarely a combat in either of the games, with different DMs, I play in each week where a monster doesn't provoke an AoO. A monster who disengages isn't attacking and that is entirely the point. Are you seriously saying that combat is not a mainstay of D&D? The whole point of the thread is to point out good feats, which is itself something that is crunchy and combat centric. Who is moving goal posts?
I'm not really sure what you're talking about. From the very first I stated that Magical Initiate (Wizard) was a must take for the two cantrips. War Caster makes them better, and I guess I am failing to understand why you think it is situational. Do monsters in your games not try to ignore the tanks and go after the squishy casters in the back line who have them ranged?
We've already gone through this, yes? War Caster, in and of itself, is not a very useful feat for Artificers. Your suggestion for making it better is to spend another four levels (or severly limit your race options) to gain access to another feat to even make it viable in highly situational circumstances. AoO is not a mainstay of the game, not even combat is, which means that you have to invest a lot of resources for something that doesn't get used that much. And can be completely negated by the simple "Disengage" action. It's like saying "yeah, this computer is really, really good but you have to buy another computer to run it since the OS of the first computer isn't really that good".
I guess we're playing different games then, as there is rarely a combat in either of the games, with different DMs, I play in each week where a monster doesn't provoke an AoO. A monster who disengages isn't attacking and that is entirely the point. Are you seriously saying that combat is not a mainstay of D&D? The whole point of the thread is to point out good feats, which is itself something that is crunchy and combat centric. Who is moving goal posts?
OK, I can see you are upset that I pointed out the flaws in your argument I'll just answer your questions and leave it at that.
Yes, you are the one moving the goalposts. The point of this thread is to advice on the "best" (which, admittedly, is subjective) feats for the Artificer class. You suggested the War Caster feat which, in and of itself, is not a very good feat for Artificers for the aleady mentioned reasons. If you play a game where your DM indulges you by letting you use it often, fantastic. But taht doesn't mean that, objectively, the feat is a good one. Your main argument for it being a good feat was that you could deal a lot of damage on an AoO. The fact that you can negate literally all of this damage by simply using the disengage action is a point against War Caster being a good feat.
And yes, it is perfectly doable to play D&D without any combat what so ever. You are also factually wrong when you say that feats (or at least "good feats") are "crunchy and combat centric". Many feats have nothing at all to do with combat. Many feats, especially the ones listed in this thread as good for the Artificer has very little or nothing at all to do with combat. Granted, some feats gives you a bonus that can be used in combat even if the main intention of the feat is not combat oriented (like the actor feat giving you a bonus to Charisma which could affect your saving throw) but over all, feats are not exclusively (or, one could easily argue, even primarily) used for combat.
Now that that has been said, I do hope you can move on. D&D is meant to be fun after all. Take care and have a lovely afternoon.
War Caster's spell-on-AoO is plenty valid for tables where AoOs happen a lot. Especially as the artificer is not limited to strictly Booming Blade, but can employ any of their spells that fit the requirement. The thread is intended to be a repository of ideas from many points of view and table situations. An artificer that wants to lean into the 'Battle' part of Battlesmith could do worse than take War Caster, while an artificer that doesn't care for weapon combat or the rigors of the front line has little need to deal with the feat.
Assumptions are meant to be challenged. I was challenged when I cited Skilled, informed that "you can just train for skills in downtime!" and that's why the feat was bad. This is true - were my specific game, and I imagine many others, often very hard-pressed for downtime training. If your table allows for frequent lengthy downtime, then Skilled is indeed mostly a waste, but in the games I play you're usually very lucky to get a single week between excursions. Similarly, in some games attacks of opportunity almost never occur, while in others they're an every-fight thing. Some players will avoid provoking attacks of opportunity at almost any cost, and many DMs play their monsters - especially less intelligent beasts or monstrosities - as attacking the nearest thing that is hurting or threatening them without constantly attempting to maneuver. This doesn't mean the feat(s) are worthless, merely that the situation at your table doesn't merit them as much as other tables do.
There's an argument to be made that Magic Initiate is still a better choice for artificers than Artificer Initiate, as MI gives you two cantrips. if you back-hack the "you can cast the spell with any other slots you have" language into Magic Initiate (which seems eminently fair), then MI is two cantrips and a first-level with a much broader selection range for both lists versus a cantrip and first-level from a selection you already have access to, as well as one bonus tool proficiency. That's still quite good, but unless you're using Artificer Initiate to get up to shenanigans with the Alchemist (i.e. using the feat's ability to extend your tools-as-a-focus 'Alchemical Savant' power to any Intelligence spell), you generally have enough tool proficiencies to do your core job.
Eldritch Adept is universally awesome for literally everybody, I can't think of many builds that wouldn't benefit from picking up one of the valid Invocations from that list. I'm honestly figuring it won't see print specifically because it's so broadly super-useful. I hope not though, there's a lot of cool story tricks you can get up to with Eldritch Adept. And Metamagic Adept is a gimme for many spellcasters, yeah. Also easier to justify on an artificer, who can easily claim they're tweaking the item they're casting their spell with on the fly.
Eh, that is yet to be seen. I agree that Artificer Initiate will likely have some version printed in an official book, and that it would be a value just on the cantrip side of things. The Eldritch Adept might also be decent enough to make it in. I think the most useful invocations any Artificer will want to pick with the feat are Devil’s Sight and Eldritch Sight. Maybe Eyes of the Rune Keeper, but the other two are just straight upgrades to the character’s options. Metamagic Adept is the real wildcard, as it may be too good to make it into a book. Even then, the Artificer might not benefit from the feat nearly as much as other spellcasters. It would benefit the Alchemist the most, which is actually funny.
As for the War Caster debate, the most useful part in my estimation is the advantage on concentration saves to maintain a spell. This has utility outside of combat simply due to the possibility of setting off a trap or falling into a pit. Just because there is a hefty amount of exploration, it doesn’t mean that a mistake could cause damage. The versatility of the feat depends upon the spells chosen. If the Artificer wants to focus on spells with flat durations only, War Caster has little use in that regard. But the Artificer who values the concentration spells will get more from the feat.
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Beyond the gimmie best feats like Lucky and Tough the subclass is going to determine which feats work best.
Alchemists: Elemental Adept, Spell Sniper, and Tavern Brawler. Elemental Adept and Spell Sniper keep you relevant in combat later in a campaign. Tavern Brawler is not only flavorful but lets you toss vials of acid and alchemist fire much more accurately.
Artillerist: Elemental Adept, Spell Sniper, and Alert. Elemental Adept might get taken more than once and Spell Sniper is needed to be able to blast and stay out of the range of huge area effect spells later on. Being surprised sucks and getting to go first when your big spells can end a combat before it begins is a huge deal, thus I love Alert. If Helm of Awareness survives playtest then Alert will become redundant.
Battle Smith: Magic Initiate (Wizard), War Caster, and Shield Master. Magic Initiate (Wizard) should be taken by every Battle Smith in order to get access to Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade, it's a no brainer. Once you have access to those two cantrips then War Caster lets you gish your way into annoying the heck out of your DM. Shield Master shores up the downside to being a gish, you're gonna have to get breathed upon by the dragons, and this makes it survivable.
Armorer: Magic Initiate (Wizard), War Caster, Shield Master for Guardians. Sharpshooter, Mobile, or Prodigy. Guardians use their feats the same way as Battle Smiths do, but the impact is more pronounced. Be sure to take Thunderwave as your first level spell with Magic Initiate so you can do superhero landings. Once a Guardian with Booming Blade and War Caster gets access to Improved Invisibility and Winged Boots, they turn into an absolute nightmare of combat control (Your DM will hate you). Infiltrator has fewer raw benefits from feats, since you don't want to gish and want to stay at range. Sharpshooter is pretty much a gimmie, but the rest depend a lot on the playstyle you are going for with Lucky being the best generic feat to take.
Warcaster is actually not that good for an Artificer since more or less half of the abilities are wasted once you start infusing items.
War Caster is amazing simply because of the OA using Booming Blade. It's all about combat control, and dictating where the bad guys are and who they are going to attack. The concentration effect is useful for both subclasses so as to not lose have whatever concentration buff they have going and still preserve their reaction. Granted the somatic components section is weak for Artificers, and useless to the Guardian Armorer, but that isn't why you take the feat.
Too bad the Artificers doesn't have Booming Blade in their spell list...
Thankfully, Wizard does have it on their spell list which is why Battle Smiths and Armorers should take Magic Initiate (Wizard).
It's a lot of wasted feats just do be able to make a slightly better AO attack every once in a while which means that Warcaster in and of itself is a pretty useless feat for Artificers. If you take GWM you can wack an opponent for pretty similar damage but you don't have to spend 8 levels to be able to do it and you can actually use the feat on every turn of combat.
Be a high elf, get your booming blade as a racial. Be battle smith. Snag warcaster, greatweapon master, and elven accuracy. Booming blade opportunity attacks, ability to keep your concentration from being hit in the face, when you do gain advantage kill things with +10 more damage and 3 rolls per attack. Warcaster might be the level 12 feat as at that level you may be getting hit so hard advantage will still keep some of those saves feasible.
It's not a "slightly better AO attack" at level five it's 1d8+3 verses 4d8+3, and furthermore it scales as the character levels up.
That's a much better way of doing it.
A GWM attack will do 2D6 or 1D12 (depending on weapon) +10 +Int modifier (at least +3) that's about 20 points of damage. With your build you wouldn't even be able to do it before level 8 so again, that's a very heavy investment for something you probably won't be able to use that often.
This isn't a thread for a most optimal build, but Variant Human does allow having both feats in place by level 4.
I'll stand by the statement that both Magical Initiate together War Caster are excellent for Battle Smiths and Armorers, giving them outstanding levels of combat control.
And now you're moving the goalpost. The point that still stands is that War Caster on it's own is not a very useful feat for Artificers and the fact that you need a very specialized and resource-demanding build that has a very situational use for the War Caster feat proves that point.
I'm not really sure what you're talking about. From the very first I stated that Magical Initiate (Wizard) was a must take for the two cantrips. War Caster makes them better, and I guess I am failing to understand why you think it is situational. Do monsters in your games not try to ignore the tanks and go after the squishy casters in the back line who have them ranged?
We've already gone through this, yes? War Caster, in and of itself, is not a very useful feat for Artificers. Your suggestion for making it better is to spend another four levels (or severly limit your race options) to gain access to another feat to even make it viable in highly situational circumstances. AoO is not a mainstay of the game, not even combat is, which means that you have to invest a lot of resources for something that doesn't get used that much. And can be completely negated by the simple "Disengage" action. It's like saying "yeah, this computer is really, really good but you have to buy another computer to run it since the OS of the first computer isn't really that good".
I guess we're playing different games then, as there is rarely a combat in either of the games, with different DMs, I play in each week where a monster doesn't provoke an AoO. A monster who disengages isn't attacking and that is entirely the point. Are you seriously saying that combat is not a mainstay of D&D? The whole point of the thread is to point out good feats, which is itself something that is crunchy and combat centric. Who is moving goal posts?
OK, I can see you are upset that I pointed out the flaws in your argument I'll just answer your questions and leave it at that.
Yes, you are the one moving the goalposts. The point of this thread is to advice on the "best" (which, admittedly, is subjective) feats for the Artificer class. You suggested the War Caster feat which, in and of itself, is not a very good feat for Artificers for the aleady mentioned reasons. If you play a game where your DM indulges you by letting you use it often, fantastic. But taht doesn't mean that, objectively, the feat is a good one. Your main argument for it being a good feat was that you could deal a lot of damage on an AoO. The fact that you can negate literally all of this damage by simply using the disengage action is a point against War Caster being a good feat.
And yes, it is perfectly doable to play D&D without any combat what so ever. You are also factually wrong when you say that feats (or at least "good feats") are "crunchy and combat centric". Many feats have nothing at all to do with combat. Many feats, especially the ones listed in this thread as good for the Artificer has very little or nothing at all to do with combat. Granted, some feats gives you a bonus that can be used in combat even if the main intention of the feat is not combat oriented (like the actor feat giving you a bonus to Charisma which could affect your saving throw) but over all, feats are not exclusively (or, one could easily argue, even primarily) used for combat.
Now that that has been said, I do hope you can move on. D&D is meant to be fun after all. Take care and have a lovely afternoon.
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War Caster's spell-on-AoO is plenty valid for tables where AoOs happen a lot. Especially as the artificer is not limited to strictly Booming Blade, but can employ any of their spells that fit the requirement. The thread is intended to be a repository of ideas from many points of view and table situations. An artificer that wants to lean into the 'Battle' part of Battlesmith could do worse than take War Caster, while an artificer that doesn't care for weapon combat or the rigors of the front line has little need to deal with the feat.
Assumptions are meant to be challenged. I was challenged when I cited Skilled, informed that "you can just train for skills in downtime!" and that's why the feat was bad. This is true - were my specific game, and I imagine many others, often very hard-pressed for downtime training. If your table allows for frequent lengthy downtime, then Skilled is indeed mostly a waste, but in the games I play you're usually very lucky to get a single week between excursions. Similarly, in some games attacks of opportunity almost never occur, while in others they're an every-fight thing. Some players will avoid provoking attacks of opportunity at almost any cost, and many DMs play their monsters - especially less intelligent beasts or monstrosities - as attacking the nearest thing that is hurting or threatening them without constantly attempting to maneuver. This doesn't mean the feat(s) are worthless, merely that the situation at your table doesn't merit them as much as other tables do.
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It’s all a moot point now anyway. The best feat for an Artificer to take nowadays is Artificer Initiate, followed closely by the two new Adept feats.
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Maybe.
There's an argument to be made that Magic Initiate is still a better choice for artificers than Artificer Initiate, as MI gives you two cantrips. if you back-hack the "you can cast the spell with any other slots you have" language into Magic Initiate (which seems eminently fair), then MI is two cantrips and a first-level with a much broader selection range for both lists versus a cantrip and first-level from a selection you already have access to, as well as one bonus tool proficiency. That's still quite good, but unless you're using Artificer Initiate to get up to shenanigans with the Alchemist (i.e. using the feat's ability to extend your tools-as-a-focus 'Alchemical Savant' power to any Intelligence spell), you generally have enough tool proficiencies to do your core job.
Eldritch Adept is universally awesome for literally everybody, I can't think of many builds that wouldn't benefit from picking up one of the valid Invocations from that list. I'm honestly figuring it won't see print specifically because it's so broadly super-useful. I hope not though, there's a lot of cool story tricks you can get up to with Eldritch Adept. And Metamagic Adept is a gimme for many spellcasters, yeah. Also easier to justify on an artificer, who can easily claim they're tweaking the item they're casting their spell with on the fly.
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I haven't heard/can't find anything about this. Is this a new UA?
Eh, that is yet to be seen. I agree that Artificer Initiate will likely have some version printed in an official book, and that it would be a value just on the cantrip side of things. The Eldritch Adept might also be decent enough to make it in. I think the most useful invocations any Artificer will want to pick with the feat are Devil’s Sight and Eldritch Sight. Maybe Eyes of the Rune Keeper, but the other two are just straight upgrades to the character’s options. Metamagic Adept is the real wildcard, as it may be too good to make it into a book. Even then, the Artificer might not benefit from the feat nearly as much as other spellcasters. It would benefit the Alchemist the most, which is actually funny.
As for the War Caster debate, the most useful part in my estimation is the advantage on concentration saves to maintain a spell. This has utility outside of combat simply due to the possibility of setting off a trap or falling into a pit. Just because there is a hefty amount of exploration, it doesn’t mean that a mistake could cause damage. The versatility of the feat depends upon the spells chosen. If the Artificer wants to focus on spells with flat durations only, War Caster has little use in that regard. But the Artificer who values the concentration spells will get more from the feat.