As you know we artificers cast spells by quickly cooking up something chemical or by tinkering something on the fly. And then there’s the armorer’s awesome armor of course.
i love this but I would also love some inspiration.
How do you describe your ”spellcasting”? Your small mechanical toys and your infusions? 🤓
With my battle smith, it's all equipment. Mending is a paste, Detect Magic is a pair of contact lenses that dissolve into your eye, disguise self is a hat that drops a hologram, feather fall is a bubble dispenser that puts a low-density bubble around the targets, and Jump and Longstrider are both versions of a sort of knee brace exoskeleton that snaps on to enhance your muscles. The reason only he can activate this equipment is that they require magic energy to work, and are attuned to his energy.
For extra flavour, right now he has a Bag of Holding infusion and just uses that as a spellcasting focus. This explains how he always seems to have the right equipment for his spells.
But seriously, my Artificer considers himself a scribe first and foremost. He infuses things by writing a detailed description of what he wants them to do in several languages directly onto the object. He prepares spells by writing what are essentially scrolls (Calligraphy tools). He used to cast by reading from the scroll or occasionally simply pointing the rolled up scroll like a wand, but his hands have been more full lately (due to finding a fancy shield and being a battlesmith so having a weapon in the other hand). When using an infusion as a focus, various words and letters already written on them glow faintly to spell out the new effect.
Also, he frequently uses magical tinkering to make his kerchief smell like freshly baked blueberry muffins whenever he's homesick.
My battlesmith has more tool proficiencies than most (Skilled feat) and makes use of many of them for her casting. She's also a trained wizard (if only minimally, one single character level) and has been known to leverage that learning in her casting. She's a skilled automateer and limbsmith, and many of her spells end up as small critters. To be honest, I've written two or three ways Star can produce most of her core spells. Among the better ones from my list, with their corresponding tool proficiency:
Guidance (Alchemist's Supplies): A vial of smelling salts, partially dissolved in a mixture containing absinthe, menthol, formaldehyde, and less identifiable components. Drink it and you probably die; smell it and you probably end up with a brief nosebleed, but you also feel more wired than you ever have before. For a brief moment, anyways.
Mending (Alchemist/s Supplies): Strips of grey cloth, soaked in a carefully prepared alchemical solution which allows them to bond to anything. Once bound for a minute, the strips can be pulled off to reveal the mended item.
Faerie Fire (Tinker's Tools): A tiny windup mechanical pixie is pulled from a pouch, wound up, and let loose, flying over to an area before flitting madly about and scattering pixie dust everywhere. Once its energy is expended, the pixie breaks apart.
Catapult (Tinker's Tools): The same windup mechanical pixie is pulled free and sent beelining to the target item. The pixie proceeds to soccer-kick the item in whatever direction Star desires, then breaks apart from the force of its own kick.
Jump/Expeditious Retreat (Tinker's Tools): Small rocket spurs worn on Star's boot heels, incapable of full-on flight but which can augment her steps and/or leaps, depending on the spell cast.
Heroism (Alchemist's Supplies): A small vial of golden liquid that tastes like honey but burns like brandy, laced with something much more potent. Literal liquid couirage Heroism (Alternate, Tinker's Tools): The mechanical pixie flies out again, hovering near the recipient of the spell and chanting prerecorded encouragement and positivity to them. "Ganbatte, Hero-chan!"
...really, it's amazing how useful tiny mechanical pixies are to a spellcaster.
Reflavouring all the spells is the thing I love MOST about playing the artificer. All my spell and potion colourings are flavoured green and yellow. I'll only go into Hjalmar's most commonly cast spells. He's an alchemist, but first and foremost he's a medic and disease specialist, with a history with botany and a love of trinkets/wondrous items
Acid Splash is a boring old vial of acid thrown.
Firebolt is a copper coin that I have inscribed with the same runes as the spell that wizards use to learn the spell. It's then covered in a small amount amount of whale blubber and set alit by a wrist mounted bunsen burner. I then quickly fling it with a sling.
Message is done by a little ear ring I gave to each person that I have inscribed the same runes again. I've also got a few tiny mechanical bugs that fly to my target (if not a friendly).
Cure Wounds is a syringe (the first things I crafted playing the class).
Healing Word is a jolt of adrenaline through the same ear piece I use for Message.
Ray of Sickness is removing the lens on a containment canister of uranium, creating a concentrated column of radiation.
Blur is a bloom of harmless green gas or smoke that emanates from various valves all over my body.
Darkvision is just adjusting the lenses on my Plague Doctor's mask to the infrared spectrum.
Enhance Ability is a dense protein bar, scientifically mixed to perfection (so, brain food, lol) and just as I give it to the recipient, I drop a small drip of the cure wounds solution on to it containing a small mechanical organism that takes the solution directly to the part of the brain that uses needs the enhanced ability.
Flaming Sphere is a remote controlled brazier.
Invisibility is a series of hovering mirrors and sconces that recreate the environment around them.
Acid Arrow is a simple hose attached to the uranium canister.
See Invisibility is, again, clicking my Plague Doctor mask's lenses over to heat vision.
Dispel Magic is a little spell sink, much like the Ghostbuster ghost trap (my DM in the past has let me study the spell post 'capturing' with a DC attached).
Haste is a small dose of a white powder poured onto a little spoon from it's own vial ... heh heh
Revivify is two paddles zapping the chest, like a ye olde defibrillator.
Tiny Servant is my child hood toy, a stuffed owlbear, that was modified with a steel skeletal structure years ago and I accidentally captured the soul of my childhood dog in it. I don't know how I did it but I vowed never to dabble with those sorts of runes again. I couldn't bare to put 'my dog' down a second time, so instead I inscribed to the runes for the Sleep spell on it, so casting it is actually turning it off by twisting a rune and ruining its pattern. He get brought to life to hold my jeweller's hammer as my Spell Storing Item and he's pretty much constantly with us these days (you can see him here if you'd like).
Death Ward is a little spider-like clamp I affix to the recipient's chest that enacts when it detects no pulse.
That was fun! Thanks for the chance! I've got to voice some of those once or twice in my campaign.
Hjalmar Gunderson, Vuman Alchemist Plague Doctor in a HB Campaign, Post Netherese Invasion Cormyr (lvl20 retired) Godfrey, Autognome Butler in Ghosts of Saltmarsh into Spelljammer Grímr Skeggisson, Goliath Rune Knight in Rime of the Frostmaiden DM of two HB campaigns set in the same world.
I LOVE(!!!) the whole Tiny Servant story of you Spikepit! My Battle Smith is more "sniper-themded" so some of her spells are themed around her weapon (as of now a heavy crossbow, but will be a rifle someday):
Branding Smite is a bolt full of some glittery glowing stuff that sticks to the target - and can't go invisible.
Sield and Heroism: are litteral ray-shields that flicker for some seconds
Detect Magic: Is just her polishing the scope of her weapon that has some lenses in it. The refraction tells her the school of magic.
Feather Fall: Just some small parachutes that get deployed via little throwable clamps. She almost never needs one - she iis a Simic Hybrid with glide wings.
Well, my Thri-kreen artificer was mechanical by the end of our Champaign, and didn't use that many spells. A few he did use though?
Ray of Frost - His power source was magical, condensed ice that would slowly melt and release its magical energies throughout my character's body (He had to refuel this source every week). So he would channel it into his mouth and then spit it out like it was acid at targets.
Shocking grasp - He would channel the magical electricity of his arcane propulsion arms (his focus) and give his enemies a nasty shock.
Shield of Faith - Small mechanical device that would latch onto the chosen ally and create a Star Wars droid's force field around them.
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"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
My fflavour ideas is his "magic" is similar to how crystals are / were used in transmitters and recievers for RC controlled models. He builds devices and uses his natural ability to harmonize with these crystals to make them function. Most spells and abilities that are magic based are flavoured more towards function, science, physics and technology and this attunement to his devices via these crystals.
Goblin Artillerist: all about different kinds of guns, bombs/grenades and odd little gadgets.
Bugbear Alchemist: has a system of pressurized chemical concoctions incorporated into his armor with tubes and valves connected to spray nozzles on the gauntlets in order to quickly change out mixtures for different effects.
My Artificer is obsessed with insects and built a slew of little mechanical bugs to carry out most of his spells. I'm taking the Armorer subclass and altering his armor to look like chitin armor, adding antenna, pincers, and dragonfly wings. Homunculus servant will be a wasp with a crossbow on its' butt.
I've played two Artificers so far. For the first one, a Half-Elf who was centered around firearms, I tried to only take combat related spells, so most all of them were flavored as different firearms. The exceptions were buffs like Haste and Longstrider, that i described as basically injected drugs, and Mending, which was just quick access tools. My newest Artificer, a Battle Smith, casts almost all his spells through usage of a special substance he invented, called Dragoinfernium, which he made by igniting blue dragon blood. When it comes into contact with sparks, it is capable of creating pure lightning, therefore Shocking Grasp is reflavoured as a gauntlet with this liquid inside the fingertips, and it can also be used as a catalyst to ignite substances, so Fire Shield is him pouring this liquid all over his fireproof leather armour and striking a spark.
My main artificer, My half-elf alchemist. Most of her spells are potions so I'm not original lol. Though she does store them in pretty vintage perfume bottles so that's a thing. Grease speaks for itself. Fairie fire is a glitter bomb that hurts, Arcane locks are like glyphs/alchemy circles. Blurs are like smoke bombs/smoke screens (I'm surprised no one thought of that yet, or maybe they have I just haven't seen it lol.) She has a little witchy flair to her as well, so I made her fly spell a literal broomstick for her to fly around on lol.
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As you know we artificers cast spells by quickly cooking up something chemical or by tinkering something on the fly. And then there’s the armorer’s awesome armor of course.
i love this but I would also love some inspiration.
How do you describe your ”spellcasting”? Your small mechanical toys and your infusions? 🤓
With my battle smith, it's all equipment.
Mending is a paste, Detect Magic is a pair of contact lenses that dissolve into your eye, disguise self is a hat that drops a hologram, feather fall is a bubble dispenser that puts a low-density bubble around the targets, and Jump and Longstrider are both versions of a sort of knee brace exoskeleton that snaps on to enhance your muscles. The reason only he can activate this equipment is that they require magic energy to work, and are attuned to his energy.
For extra flavour, right now he has a Bag of Holding infusion and just uses that as a spellcasting focus. This explains how he always seems to have the right equipment for his spells.
How to add tooltips on dndbeyond
Blueberry muffin.
But seriously, my Artificer considers himself a scribe first and foremost. He infuses things by writing a detailed description of what he wants them to do in several languages directly onto the object. He prepares spells by writing what are essentially scrolls (Calligraphy tools). He used to cast by reading from the scroll or occasionally simply pointing the rolled up scroll like a wand, but his hands have been more full lately (due to finding a fancy shield and being a battlesmith so having a weapon in the other hand). When using an infusion as a focus, various words and letters already written on them glow faintly to spell out the new effect.
Also, he frequently uses magical tinkering to make his kerchief smell like freshly baked blueberry muffins whenever he's homesick.
Awesome stuff! Thanks for sharing 🤗
My battlesmith has more tool proficiencies than most (Skilled feat) and makes use of many of them for her casting. She's also a trained wizard (if only minimally, one single character level) and has been known to leverage that learning in her casting. She's a skilled automateer and limbsmith, and many of her spells end up as small critters. To be honest, I've written two or three ways Star can produce most of her core spells. Among the better ones from my list, with their corresponding tool proficiency:
Guidance (Alchemist's Supplies): A vial of smelling salts, partially dissolved in a mixture containing absinthe, menthol, formaldehyde, and less identifiable components. Drink it and you probably die; smell it and you probably end up with a brief nosebleed, but you also feel more wired than you ever have before. For a brief moment, anyways.
Mending (Alchemist/s Supplies): Strips of grey cloth, soaked in a carefully prepared alchemical solution which allows them to bond to anything. Once bound for a minute, the strips can be pulled off to reveal the mended item.
Faerie Fire (Tinker's Tools): A tiny windup mechanical pixie is pulled from a pouch, wound up, and let loose, flying over to an area before flitting madly about and scattering pixie dust everywhere. Once its energy is expended, the pixie breaks apart.
Catapult (Tinker's Tools): The same windup mechanical pixie is pulled free and sent beelining to the target item. The pixie proceeds to soccer-kick the item in whatever direction Star desires, then breaks apart from the force of its own kick.
Jump/Expeditious Retreat (Tinker's Tools): Small rocket spurs worn on Star's boot heels, incapable of full-on flight but which can augment her steps and/or leaps, depending on the spell cast.
Alarm (Tinker's Tools): A windup music box topped with a rotating mechanical eye that surveys the area, playing a warning when enemies approach.
Heroism (Alchemist's Supplies): A small vial of golden liquid that tastes like honey but burns like brandy, laced with something much more potent. Literal liquid couirage
Heroism (Alternate, Tinker's Tools): The mechanical pixie flies out again, hovering near the recipient of the spell and chanting prerecorded encouragement and positivity to them. "Ganbatte, Hero-chan!"
...really, it's amazing how useful tiny mechanical pixies are to a spellcaster.
Please do not contact or message me.
Reflavouring all the spells is the thing I love MOST about playing the artificer. All my spell and potion colourings are flavoured green and yellow. I'll only go into Hjalmar's most commonly cast spells. He's an alchemist, but first and foremost he's a medic and disease specialist, with a history with botany and a love of trinkets/wondrous items
Acid Splash is a boring old vial of acid thrown.
Firebolt is a copper coin that I have inscribed with the same runes as the spell that wizards use to learn the spell. It's then covered in a small amount amount of whale blubber and set alit by a wrist mounted bunsen burner. I then quickly fling it with a sling.
Message is done by a little ear ring I gave to each person that I have inscribed the same runes again. I've also got a few tiny mechanical bugs that fly to my target (if not a friendly).
Cure Wounds is a syringe (the first things I crafted playing the class).
Healing Word is a jolt of adrenaline through the same ear piece I use for Message.
Ray of Sickness is removing the lens on a containment canister of uranium, creating a concentrated column of radiation.
Blur is a bloom of harmless green gas or smoke that emanates from various valves all over my body.
Darkvision is just adjusting the lenses on my Plague Doctor's mask to the infrared spectrum.
Enhance Ability is a dense protein bar, scientifically mixed to perfection (so, brain food, lol) and just as I give it to the recipient, I drop a small drip of the cure wounds solution on to it containing a small mechanical organism that takes the solution directly to the part of the brain that uses needs the enhanced ability.
Flaming Sphere is a remote controlled brazier.
Invisibility is a series of hovering mirrors and sconces that recreate the environment around them.
Acid Arrow is a simple hose attached to the uranium canister.
See Invisibility is, again, clicking my Plague Doctor mask's lenses over to heat vision.
Dispel Magic is a little spell sink, much like the Ghostbuster ghost trap (my DM in the past has let me study the spell post 'capturing' with a DC attached).
Haste is a small dose of a white powder poured onto a little spoon from it's own vial ... heh heh
Revivify is two paddles zapping the chest, like a ye olde defibrillator.
Tiny Servant is my child hood toy, a stuffed owlbear, that was modified with a steel skeletal structure years ago and I accidentally captured the soul of my childhood dog in it. I don't know how I did it but I vowed never to dabble with those sorts of runes again. I couldn't bare to put 'my dog' down a second time, so instead I inscribed to the runes for the Sleep spell on it, so casting it is actually turning it off by twisting a rune and ruining its pattern. He get brought to life to hold my jeweller's hammer as my Spell Storing Item and he's pretty much constantly with us these days (you can see him here if you'd like).
Death Ward is a little spider-like clamp I affix to the recipient's chest that enacts when it detects no pulse.
That was fun! Thanks for the chance! I've got to voice some of those once or twice in my campaign.
Hjalmar Gunderson, Vuman Alchemist Plague Doctor in a HB Campaign, Post Netherese Invasion Cormyr (lvl20 retired)
Godfrey, Autognome Butler in Ghosts of Saltmarsh into Spelljammer
Grímr Skeggisson, Goliath Rune Knight in Rime of the Frostmaiden
DM of two HB campaigns set in the same world.
I LOVE(!!!) the whole Tiny Servant story of you Spikepit! My Battle Smith is more "sniper-themded" so some of her spells are themed around her weapon (as of now a heavy crossbow, but will be a rifle someday):
Branding Smite is a bolt full of some glittery glowing stuff that sticks to the target - and can't go invisible.
Sield and Heroism: are litteral ray-shields that flicker for some seconds
Detect Magic: Is just her polishing the scope of her weapon that has some lenses in it. The refraction tells her the school of magic.
Feather Fall: Just some small parachutes that get deployed via little throwable clamps. She almost never needs one - she iis a Simic Hybrid with glide wings.
Well, my Thri-kreen artificer was mechanical by the end of our Champaign, and didn't use that many spells. A few he did use though?
Ray of Frost - His power source was magical, condensed ice that would slowly melt and release its magical energies throughout my character's body (He had to refuel this source every week). So he would channel it into his mouth and then spit it out like it was acid at targets.
Shocking grasp - He would channel the magical electricity of his arcane propulsion arms (his focus) and give his enemies a nasty shock.
Shield of Faith - Small mechanical device that would latch onto the chosen ally and create a Star Wars droid's force field around them.
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Characters for Tenebris Sine Fine
RoughCoronet's Greater Wills
My fflavour ideas is his "magic" is similar to how crystals are / were used in transmitters and recievers for RC controlled models. He builds devices and uses his natural ability to harmonize with these crystals to make them function. Most spells and abilities that are magic based are flavoured more towards function, science, physics and technology and this attunement to his devices via these crystals.
Goblin Artillerist: all about different kinds of guns, bombs/grenades and odd little gadgets.
Bugbear Alchemist: has a system of pressurized chemical concoctions incorporated into his armor with tubes and valves connected to spray nozzles on the gauntlets in order to quickly change out mixtures for different effects.
My Artificer is obsessed with insects and built a slew of little mechanical bugs to carry out most of his spells. I'm taking the Armorer subclass and altering his armor to look like chitin armor, adding antenna, pincers, and dragonfly wings. Homunculus servant will be a wasp with a crossbow on its' butt.
I've played two Artificers so far. For the first one, a Half-Elf who was centered around firearms, I tried to only take combat related spells, so most all of them were flavored as different firearms. The exceptions were buffs like Haste and Longstrider, that i described as basically injected drugs, and Mending, which was just quick access tools. My newest Artificer, a Battle Smith, casts almost all his spells through usage of a special substance he invented, called Dragoinfernium, which he made by igniting blue dragon blood. When it comes into contact with sparks, it is capable of creating pure lightning, therefore Shocking Grasp is reflavoured as a gauntlet with this liquid inside the fingertips, and it can also be used as a catalyst to ignite substances, so Fire Shield is him pouring this liquid all over his fireproof leather armour and striking a spark.
My main artificer, My half-elf alchemist. Most of her spells are potions so I'm not original lol. Though she does store them in pretty vintage perfume bottles so that's a thing. Grease speaks for itself. Fairie fire is a glitter bomb that hurts, Arcane locks are like glyphs/alchemy circles. Blurs are like smoke bombs/smoke screens (I'm surprised no one thought of that yet, or maybe they have I just haven't seen it lol.) She has a little witchy flair to her as well, so I made her fly spell a literal broomstick for her to fly around on lol.