As of the Tasha's Cauldron rewrite, Intelligence also serves as the basis for the Steel Defender's and Homunculus's attack rolls, which are given as "Your spell attack modifier to hit". And since Intelligence drives your spell attack modifier...
Yeah. Intelligence is important for artificers, no matter how much some folks like to say the 13-int Artificer is perfectly fine. No it isn't.
Yurei those numbers don't have to be maxed out to be effective. 13 int is perhaps a bit low but can be made to work. That being said, 20 is not necessary to make them completely functional and effective either. There is a middle ground where everything works perfectly fine.
I would never ever suggest to a player to do a 13 INT artificer.
It's just not going to be a good experience for them.
PAM feels like the gold standard feat for a controller-ish tank, which the battlesmith does really well with the steel defender. Layer it later with sentinel and you have an extremely effective 2-creature front line.
PAM feels like the gold standard feat for a controller-ish tank, which the battlesmith does really well with the steel defender. Layer it later with sentinel and you have an extremely effective 2-creature front line.
PAM and sentinel are a broken combo, that I would not allow in my games. And add in crusher and it's super broken.
PAM feels like the gold standard feat for a controller-ish tank, which the battlesmith does really well with the steel defender. Layer it later with sentinel and you have an extremely effective 2-creature front line.
PAM and sentinel are a broken combo, that I would not allow in my games. And add in crusher and it's super broken.
I am super tempted to make a Boomerang-chucking crusher build ;)
As of the Tasha's Cauldron rewrite, Intelligence also serves as the basis for the Steel Defender's and Homunculus's attack rolls, which are given as "Your spell attack modifier to hit". And since Intelligence drives your spell attack modifier...
Yeah. Intelligence is important for artificers, no matter how much some folks like to say the 13-int Artificer is perfectly fine. No it isn't.
Yurei those numbers don't have to be maxed out to be effective. 13 int is perhaps a bit low but can be made to work. That being said, 20 is not necessary to make them completely functional and effective either. There is a middle ground where everything works perfectly fine.
I would never ever suggest to a player to do a 13 INT artificer.
It's just not going to be a good experience for them.
I usually advocate for at least a 14 but accept there is a style to things that can make something like a 13 work. Preferably a 16 and is a really easy number to hit for even a base level character considering that 15 is automatic in standard array and easily bought in point buy So only dice rolling really risks not being able to hit that mark. But I don't insist that Int and Only Int is your only option for things like ASI's until it's 20 Int on your sheet. 16 is a good middle ground and can get them through the first several levels at the very least without too much trouble or a significant downgrade in capability. 18 is really nice and it can carry you through the second tier of play and into the third tier of play. In 3rd Tier You may want to bump up to 20 or get magic items to help certain numbers out and increase them. it's only 4th tier where a 20 really becomes fully necessary and may still need some magical help but 4th tier is also the least balanced and the least focused on and even fairly high stats can fail you.
PAM feels like the gold standard feat for a controller-ish tank, which the battlesmith does really well with the steel defender. Layer it later with sentinel and you have an extremely effective 2-creature front line.
PAM and sentinel are a broken combo, that I would not allow in my games. And add in crusher and it's super broken.
I am super tempted to make a Boomerang-chucking crusher build ;)
PAM and Sentinel together are super strong and very tanky. But PAM itself doesn't really offer anything particularly tankish in nature. PAM is actually just as effective in the hands of a Melee DPS as it is in the hands of a Tank since on it's own it's more about ways to deal damage than it is stopping enemies and it pairs very easily with things like GWM.
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I would never ever suggest to a player to do a 13 INT artificer.
It's just not going to be a good experience for them.
PAM feels like the gold standard feat for a controller-ish tank, which the battlesmith does really well with the steel defender. Layer it later with sentinel and you have an extremely effective 2-creature front line.
PAM and sentinel are a broken combo, that I would not allow in my games. And add in crusher and it's super broken.
I am super tempted to make a Boomerang-chucking crusher build ;)
I usually advocate for at least a 14 but accept there is a style to things that can make something like a 13 work. Preferably a 16 and is a really easy number to hit for even a base level character considering that 15 is automatic in standard array and easily bought in point buy So only dice rolling really risks not being able to hit that mark. But I don't insist that Int and Only Int is your only option for things like ASI's until it's 20 Int on your sheet. 16 is a good middle ground and can get them through the first several levels at the very least without too much trouble or a significant downgrade in capability. 18 is really nice and it can carry you through the second tier of play and into the third tier of play. In 3rd Tier You may want to bump up to 20 or get magic items to help certain numbers out and increase them. it's only 4th tier where a 20 really becomes fully necessary and may still need some magical help but 4th tier is also the least balanced and the least focused on and even fairly high stats can fail you.
PAM and Sentinel together are super strong and very tanky. But PAM itself doesn't really offer anything particularly tankish in nature. PAM is actually just as effective in the hands of a Melee DPS as it is in the hands of a Tank since on it's own it's more about ways to deal damage than it is stopping enemies and it pairs very easily with things like GWM.