It's fairly similar to the Covid business, I'd rather been told even uncertain scientific facts by an expert in the domain than being lied to by a politician, that's all. At least the expert knows what he is talking about and invites me to think and do research for myself, whereas the politician has a hidden agenda and just wants to manipulate me and possibly send me on a crusade.
Did you seriously just compare Yurei and this thread to Trump spreading misinformation about Covid? I was going to spend the time responding to your whole post, but after reading that...nah.
I'm pretty sure Yurei has played a Artificer at least once.
This is the person who made the giant text that is the OP, that one terminator build (which I'm 100% going to steal that idea), the revised alchemist (which I sadly can't steal cause it got taken down), who is constantly on the Artificer forums, etc.
I mean- I'd be very surprised and impressed if Yurei has not once played a Artificer.
In addition, several people here have confirmed the OP who I would presume aren't Yurei and probably have also played Artificer.
Edit: yeah this post is really not that helpful, but in the words of another commenter,
Just posting to automatically sub to this thread, it's an interesting topic.
Yes I know the subscribe button exists, figured I might as well do something helpful (even if it's very small) if I'm going to subscribe and lurk.
I'm pretty sure Yurei has played a Artificer at least once.
This is the person who made the giant text that is the OP, that one terminator build (which I'm 100% going to steal that idea), the revised alchemist (which I sadly can't steal cause it got taken down), who is constantly on the Artificer forums, etc.
I mean- I'd be very surprised and impressed if Yurei has not once played a Artificer.
In addition, several people here have confirmed the OP who I would presume aren't Yurei and probably have also played Artificer.
I've read Yurei talking about the artificer they played who inspired their current character, who I've actually seen the sheet of. They've played at least two. I don't have that much experience, since my second is still at the beginning of a campaign, but I've felt the pressure to give away my infusions, even though I was a battle smith and several of the other characters were using all the magic armor and weapons the party got.
Yes, I play an artificer. She's currently my highest-level active character and my oldest still-active character, in a campaign that's been ongoing for about fourteen months now. I try not to gush about her as often as I used to, nothing is less interesting to other people than someone else's D&D character in a game they don't play, but I have played the class. Admittedly, I have never actively played a straight artificer; Star started at 5th level as a 4/1 Battlesmith/Wizard because I'm an absolute whore for cantrips, the spellbook is super useful for utility, and also because it made a lot of sense for Star in specific (her father is a very powerful, high-level battlemage, if a mostly retired one at this point).
For the most part, Star retains her infusions for her own use. This is because we get a lot of 'Warrior' loot that's super useful for the party's fighter and paladin, but relatively little 'Skirmisher' loot useful for a medium-armor midliner. Ergo, other people are in schway battle gear already and I need to see to my own needs. I have lent infused items to allies, and recently I stood down my Enhanced Defense for a few days because an NPC we were in the midst of rescuing had lost his shield arm. So, given that I'm an artificer who is specifically an automail engineer limbsmith that makes a side business creating artisan-grade artificial limbs for unfortunate rich people, I decided to step down my defense by a point to give this NPC back his shield arm long enough to get off Hell Island.
Doing so probably saved the NPC's life and made our escape much easier. As did keeping my own damn gun with its Repeating Shot infusion and thusly allowing me to assist in combat, and my Homunculus was directly responsible for saving the lives of at least two other NPCs through delivering long-range Cure Wounds for me across two different ridiculous battles.
If an artificer player wants to be nothing but a magic item dispensary for her team, with absolutely no role in combat save "hide somewhere and try not to die", that's absolutely her choice to make. I will not say her nay. I will not allow other people to say me nay when I decide that I am the best user for my own gear, nor will I allow other people to be said nay to when they decide the same thing. Again - get back to me when the wizard is required to rip pages out of their spellbook and hand them over to the other party members because "it's not fair you get to keep all your spellcasting to yourself! DX"
UGH. None of this vouching for Yurei or anyone else should be necessary at all. It's good that people are willing to stick up and speak out, but goodness is it sickening that it's even happening. I'm so tired of the poison.
Different circumstances, since I was playing a Wizard, but I'm well aware that your fellow players can have a skewed idea of splitting loot. The martial focused party all got decked out in free new armor and weapons through the plot, but I, as the sneaky wizard without armor or weapons got nothing. Later on, the DM hooked me up with some minor magic items to compensate, and some of my party complained I had more than them, completely ignoring that they had all been gifted thousands of gold worth of equipment at a time I had recieved nothing. My friends are intelligent people. Doesn't mean they didn't fall victim to not understanding how to quantify loot and how to split it up evenly.
I can only imagine what happens to an artificer on a regular basis. Intelligent people can still have a hard time grasping DnD concepts.
I'm glad this thread exists because I think it's useful to spread the message that Artificers aren't there for your benefit, but are in fact someone trying to enjoy their own DnD experience. Just like it's useful to talk about Clerics and the fact they don't exist for the express purpose of healing up people's booboos. People, especially in groups with newer players (regardless of their intelligence), will often feel these sorts of pressures when playing a "support" class and resources like this are good to be able to point to.
My personal opinion is that if the Artificer wants to give you their infusions they can.
They do not owe it to you to use their infusions on you the same way that a spell caster does not owe to you to buff you instead of spending spell slots on other things. If it ends up in a situation where the rest of the party is decked in new gear but the artificer is left with nothing, it's probably worth reevaluating the way the party divvies up loot.
In my experience playing an Artificer, I had one or two infusions saved for my Battle Smith and the rest I saved for stuff that benefitted the whole party.
I'm coming out of an Out of the Abyss campaign ending at level 14/15. My infusions were my own. If people wanted them, I'd happily craft the items for them and they could use 'em, but this meant carving out downtime in an inhospitable environment. Inbetween, I'd occasionally buff someone like the paladin with Boots of Elvenkind for a short period but always get them back asap because while they get smites, I get to run around silently today. Tomorrow I resist fireballs, and they smite.
Our DM didn't give me magic items at any point, I bought a javelin of lightning and that was all I had until he pulled out a deck of many things then quit the campaign. I feel like the "Share infusions with the party!" idiocy is just as stupid as "The wizard wastes all their gold on spells, let them be broke!"
Wisemax said that letting the wizard waste all their gold on spells on their own is stupid, meaning that yes he would chip in and help them.
Edit: They said that letting a wizard be broke is stupid, and something that is also stupid is forcing a Artificer to give their infusions out. That is all. They did not mean to connect either of those things (outside of them both being stupid) or imply that one is more important than the other.
At least their wording gives me that impression, I do not read minds yet- copying those divination spells down are expensive you know.
The question then becomes, Stoutstein: "What does the artificer do while everybody else is using the artificer's class features for them?"
You're arguing that all artificers should always use all their infusions to Buff The Party. Okay. Assume that happens. The Battlesmith is no longer capable of attacking with Intelligence or making much of any effective use of their Arcane Jolt feature, since they have no magic weapon to attack with. The Armorer no longer has any sort of cool magic power armor because all the infusions that would have been cool magic power armor are being used to make everyone else better at the expense of the Armorer. The Artillerist is uniquely still able to make use of its basic combat engine since it's physically incapable of giving its Arcane Firearm to anyone else, and the Alchemist never contributed in combat anyways.
Nevertheless. The artificer has given up all the magic items they can make and all the magic loot they might've gotten, as per your instructions. How are they helping in a fight? They have no Healing Word to spam. They can't deliver Cure Wounds remotely because you've forbidden them from using the Homunculus infusion. Are you expecting them to simply choose one low-value concentration buff to throw on somebody else, then hide behind a rock and hope nobody notices them? Because that feels like an incredibly shitty way to play D&D, at least to me.
What you're advocating is what dumb people tried to make the artificer into pre-release, which is a class that sits in town, makes stuff for the party, and then never actually goes on an adventure themselves because they have no meaningful way to contribute. When I play D&D I want to be an adventurer, not the NPC item merchant in town. Artificers being a "Support Class" does not mean they have to be timid, passive little item*****es with no reason to be in the field. It's common knowledge these days that only an idiot tries to demand their cleric be a timid passive heal***** who exists solely to apply healing spells from the safety of Behind That Rock, so why are people expecting the same not-really-playing behavior from their artificers?
The artificer in my group handed out about 1 or 2 infusions depending on the situation. The only one they ended up routinely handing out was a repeating crossbow to the ranger which worked out well. They mostly wanted to make disposable crafting items (tanglefoot bags and the like) that they could use once and be done in combat. They loved using stuff like that and I ended up encouraging it by making up some crafting rules (from scratch basically) and it worked out pretty well.
Ultimately I agree with Yurei that it should be your choice as an artificer and if you want to keep all of them that is perfectly fine.
Obviously a player using a class in a way that they enjoy is a very important factor but that must be weighed against the table as a whole.
First of, let me begin by saying I think you make some good points and that I also think you seem to be a reasonable person to play with.
And while I agree in the statement you just made, I actually think it's a very good one that I strive to consider myself when I play as well, I think this isn't an issue in a good group. And with that perspective it makes 100% sense.
BUT
To make some examples, If I play a college of swords bard it would make more sense for me to mostly use my bardic inspiration for my own swirling maneuvers.. This doesn't mean I couldn't use them to help someone else if the opportunity arose and to be honest it might be better at times. Still, it's a big part of the build to use them for your own maneuvers. That isn't the same thing as being greedy (not saying you in particular said that btw) or similar. People might expect me to use it to help them though, but there is also a difference betwen them wondering and asking why I don't inspire them, and them demanding that I use my BI on them or call me greedy for it. Now in this case, when people might have expectations from a class it might be good to start by saying, when introducing the character perhaps, that im a college of swords bard, this means I will mostly use my inspiration for myself since my special maneuvers comes from them. This gives everyone a fair idea of how gameplay will be.
In a similar situation I've actually made a Cleric with the War domain once and I started out by saying that I'll be playing a cleric but I will NOT be doing much healing, if any at all. Maybe after combat. Now this idea wouldn't have made sense in any campaign perhaps, but in this one it worked and I chose to be very upfront about it so no misunderstandings would arise. This was early on and had I done this build now I might have added the Healer feat just to be able to do some patching up afterwards anyways. In many groups it would be expected that I could at least cast some healing words as well, but I didn't. I did use bless and similar spells to provide bonuses for the party of course, but no healing. Now, I made myself useful, is it really fair to say I HAVE TO keep healing spells? It might be optimal play for sure, but if I'm upfront about the fact so no one is surprised later (I mean of course if everyone expects me to heal and mid battle someone dies and I'm like SURPRISE, NO HEALING!! then yeah, that would be pretty bad...) is it really fair then? (It's been a while, I might have had some barbarian levels as well, or maybe that's just how I played him).
Another idea could be perhaps a rogue, focused on "face" skills and knowledge or something. Maybe disguises and such. Now, thieves tools would probably fit this theme as well, but it could also be made without it. So, if the party is doing mostly dungeons, of course it would be a pretty weird build to bring and in this case I'd argue that the point you made is actually important, because it's not always about doing what YOU want. Still, if it's a party that mostly does NOT go through dungeons and they this one time actually do, it would be unfair and unreasonable to claim the rogue have to go first and look for traps because it's a rogue, when it doesn't have the tools and skills to do it.
I mean, back in 3rd editions, I played in a group for a few years where I had to play a rogue all the time because no one was up for it. Everyone picked first before and did casters and fighters without caring about the group (and we did dungeons back then) so basically if I didn't play rogue we would step on all the traps and die before we got through the first room basically. I mean I enjoy playing rogue, but there's a difference betwen playing something you want and having no choice. It really sucks and while I didn't mind the first few adventures, after some years of roguing I was tired of it and I just said (since we were starting a new group and adventure again) "I'm not playing a rogue now so someone else needs to be that for traps this time" and when no one seemed to rise to the occasion I simply said "It's fine if no one wants to do it, but just to be clear, I'm not going first into any room ever.. I've had that job for years."
But to get back on the topic really, I think it's important to consider what campaign you're in... It's a group activity to play, so some consideration is needed, but this doesn't mean you have the right to force someone else into playing something they don't want. This goes both ways. That said, it's a good idea to be upfront about some things. People might expect a bard to use their inspiration on the party, they might expect the cleric to heal them, they might expect the rogue to know how to disable a trap and so on. It's a good idea to explain your character to people, not just describe your appearance and so on, but explain why you're not going to heal, why you're not going to inspire them as much and so on... For the artificer it's the same way, it's a good idea to explain that while you CAN make some magic items, you can't make unlimited amounts and they are your class abilities, this means you don't get that much else from the class. Explain that you need this and that to actually work, explain that part of your class ability is extra attunement... Without any items you're not able to do as much. At the same time, sometimes it's probably better to give some items to your friends, just like sometimes it's better for the aarachocra wizard to cast fly on the rest of the party instead of themselves ;)
Just like no one expects the fighter to always stand next to the wizard and protect them from enemies, or to use actionsurges to only bring up downed friends... Sometimes it's the right thing to do, you just can't force them to do it or say they are bad for not doing it.
All characters have strengths and weaknesses, it's everyones job to make them work together.
Anyways I have a fever and probably ranted on way to long about this... So... Yea. Sorry for the long potatoe, here's a post.
The question then becomes, Stoutstein: "What does the artificer do while everybody else is using the artificer's class features for them?"
You're arguing that all artificers should always use all their infusions to Buff The Party. Okay. Assume that happens. The Battlesmith is no longer capable of attacking with Intelligence or making much of any effective use of their Arcane Jolt feature, since they have no magic weapon to attack with. The Armorer no longer has any sort of cool magic power armor because all the infusions that would have been cool magic power armor are being used to make everyone else better at the expense of the Armorer. The Artillerist is uniquely still able to make use of its basic combat engine since it's physically incapable of giving its Arcane Firearm to anyone else, and the Alchemist never contributed in combat anyways.
Nevertheless. The artificer has given up all the magic items they can make and all the magic loot they might've gotten, as per your instructions. How are they helping in a fight? They have no Healing Word to spam. They can't deliver Cure Wounds remotely because you've forbidden them from using the Homunculus infusion. Are you expecting them to simply choose one low-value concentration buff to throw on somebody else, then hide behind a rock and hope nobody notices them? Because that feels like an incredibly shitty way to play D&D, at least to me.
What you're advocating is what dumb people tried to make the artificer into pre-release, which is a class that sits in town, makes stuff for the party, and then never actually goes on an adventure themselves because they have no meaningful way to contribute. When I play D&D I want to be an adventurer, not the NPC item merchant in town. Artificers being a "Support Class" does not mean they have to be timid, passive little item*****es with no reason to be in the field. It's common knowledge these days that only an idiot tries to demand their cleric be a timid passive heal***** who exists solely to apply healing spells from the safety of Behind That Rock, so why are people expecting the same not-really-playing behavior from their artificers?
Not that I am stoutstein but my understanding of what they meant was more along the lines of you using homunculus to provide remote healing is actually MORE in line with being a good party member, compared to using everything for yourself.
I think sometimes it makes sense to give things to others, not always. I thought you had a pretty cool character concept for instance and in your case you can probably help out the party without lending things. It varies.
What I think is more of an issue would be as an example if a Divination wizard rolled a 20 with the special ability to change a roll into that and then kept it only for themselves because they wanted to be sure they would manage a barter roll later, and didn't use it in the fight against big bad monster thing that almost, or maybe even did kill someone in the party... When they had a rogue or paladin that could have gotten in a really great sneak attack or smite critical. Or something similar in that you only use your abilities for yourself it wouldn't be that great for the party. Note that I'm NOT saying that YOU are doing this, doesn't seem like it really.
Or if you had a healing word ready but you didn't use it on your teammate with 2 failed death saves, cause you had only 4 hp left yourself and you use that 1d4 on yourself. It probably would have been better spent on the dying character. It can all be very dependant on the situation of course, so not even these cases might be bad ones but sometimes it's just as important to use your abilities on the rest of the team. I'm really sure you already know and feel the same, just to be clear.
I think part of the argument has been that only using the reasoning "it's my ability so i'll use it on myself" CAN be kinda selfish or greedy, but I don't think that's the case in your situation.
PS. Also, you really SHOULD be doing magic items for the group, if it's allowed that is (and allowing artificers you should be allowed to make them as well)... At least after you become level 10 :) (Magic item adept: If you craft a magic item with a rarity of common or uncommon, it takes you a quarter of the normal time, and it costs you half as much of the usual gold.)
Ask a dozen tables about the meta of saving at least one spell slot for emergency healing word and I bet you will get at least six different answers with one getting viably upset becuase the mere act of asking is considered rude.
Actually that is rude. Obviously there is a sliding scale of rudeness, but just because someone asks nicely doesn't mean it isn't rude. Don't tell people how to play their character. End of story. It may seem innocent because the person is seemingly polite about it, or thinking about the good of the group, but the nature of the act is rude. The healing word player isn't giving out tips on who to swing a sword at, and if they did I guarantee the sword player would get annoyed. Don't ask them to do something with their spell slots. It puts unwanted pressure on a person to play their character a certain way when none of that should exist. And it also betrays a certain lack of trust that the healing word player doesn't know how to properly manage their resources.
I remember when I rolled up my Moon Druid and the rest of the party breathed a sigh of relief with a "nice, we'll have some healing at least". I just brushed them off and said "nah, I'm casting a sick concentration spell and turning into an octopus. None of you bothered to pick options with any sort of support, why is it suddenly my job" And guess what? The party was fine and we all had fun. But not everyone has the confidence to stand up for themselves like that. Especially new players struggling to understand how to approach the game. It's unhealthy and unfair to pressure people like that.
Obviously a player using a class in a way that they enjoy is a very important factor but that must be weighed against the table as a whole.
I coudn't disagree with this more. The ONLY thing that matters is that all of the players are enjoying their characters (and that the DM is enjoying themselves too of course, but this is a player issue topic). No one at the table owes anyone else anything in terms of game resources. No one has a responsibility to prop up the other players and no one should feel the pressure of filling a certain role. Someone with "support" options shouldn't be under the constant pressure of considering the whole table's resource needs. Just because they chose a class with support options doesn't mean they're obligated to play the class in a certain way.
This is why I hate the common practice of constucting the "balanced" party. It leads to unwittingly toxic ideologies like this one. Again, no one has a debt to fill when it comes to fulfilling a certain role for the party. The pressure that comes from thinking about being a "balanced" group leads to pressure in character creation and pressure in how people think about playing their character. None of that should exist. If the group enjoys approaching character creation like that, good for them. But frankly, I don't think it's healthy to have as a default way of approaching the game and should be an ideology saved for when you're in the midst of your group and know everyone is of a like mind.
Every player should be free to create and play their character how they want without any sort of influence from what the other players want or think the party needs.
Sure there are extreme examples that need to be considered more carefully because they can impinge on the other players' fun. Darkness + Devil's Sight spam. Poorly managed summon spells. But these are outliers and stuff like not saving spell slots for healing or keeping all of your infusions to yourself don't even scratch at the possibility of being like those play patterns.
My initial point was that by design, and the math supports this, in most cases the artificer spreading infusions out is more effective than solely using them to enhance their own abilities. The more a game style slides towards the war game mentality the more vital it is for parties to view resources and features as a collective whole rather than what's mine is mine.
Whether an artificer hands out their infused magic items or hordes them can vary from day-to-day and based on party composition. If your group has defaulted to reductive logic, such as the aforementioned "loot pool" of an MMO raid boss, then I feel sorry for your group.
In low-level play, they can't create anything too powerful. A bag of holding can be shared with the whole party; the person holding it doesn't matter all that much. If the artificer in question is a gnome and someone else is a halfling, then the goggles of night might be of more use on the latter than the former. And a pair of sending stones gets shared between two people when they remember they have them.
There are still limits to the number of magic items a party can attune to. No one, save the Artificer (and even then, only from 10th-level onward), can attune to more than 3 magic items. And the type of loot available to the party is going to influence how things are divvied up. I'm running Rime of the Frostmaiden every Tuesday. The party includes (but isn't limited to) an artificer, a bard, and a druid. They found a pearl of power and a +1 wand of the war mage. All could use the pearl, and 2/3 could use the wand; though the artificer needs an infusion to do so. The artificer got the pearl because they can prepare identify, and I ruled the wand was made of yew so it went to the druid. And the artificer already has infused some goggles of night so they can see in the dark.
There were six different ways the three of them could have distributed the loot, and I'm proud of them for being civil and not arguing over it. If that's how your group behaves, then I'm sorry. Find better people to play with who aren't jerks to one another.
So a wizard dropping fireballs on the party for lolz or the rogue stealing from the party is okay because we can't tell them to cut it out because its rude? See, the issue with absolutes with social interactions is they are impossible to maintain. Asking can't be deemed rude because that can only be decided by the actual people involved. Ask vs guess is something that should be covered pregame but making a taboo is probably the worst idea. You can't fix what can't be addressed.
You are also gatekeeping fun for tables who do build balanced parties for tuned up content. its not toxic if that is what the table is doing and there is a mutual agreement to said fact. you have to have some point of reference to approach the game because that just the nature of DnD. It's a flexible system that can handle beer and pretzels to full on war gaming. The value of team work is tied to where your game falls.
As for the math, to make it fair its best for some one to present a party to prevent myself or other from cherry picking.
Saying that wizards fireballing their parties for fun is the same as artificers keeping the infusions their class is useless without is a fallacy. It's closer to a wizard having to give away their spellbook to an eldritch knight.
Did you seriously just compare Yurei and this thread to Trump spreading misinformation about Covid? I was going to spend the time responding to your whole post, but after reading that...nah.
buh bye.
I'm pretty sure Yurei has played a Artificer at least once.
This is the person who made the giant text that is the OP, that one terminator build (which I'm 100% going to steal that idea), the revised alchemist (which I sadly can't steal cause it got taken down), who is constantly on the Artificer forums, etc.
I mean- I'd be very surprised and impressed if Yurei has not once played a Artificer.
In addition, several people here have confirmed the OP who I would presume aren't Yurei and probably have also played Artificer.
Edit: yeah this post is really not that helpful, but in the words of another commenter,
Yes I know the subscribe button exists, figured I might as well do something helpful (even if it's very small) if I'm going to subscribe and lurk.
if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.
I've read Yurei talking about the artificer they played who inspired their current character, who I've actually seen the sheet of. They've played at least two. I don't have that much experience, since my second is still at the beginning of a campaign, but I've felt the pressure to give away my infusions, even though I was a battle smith and several of the other characters were using all the magic armor and weapons the party got.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)
Yes, I play an artificer. She's currently my highest-level active character and my oldest still-active character, in a campaign that's been ongoing for about fourteen months now. I try not to gush about her as often as I used to, nothing is less interesting to other people than someone else's D&D character in a game they don't play, but I have played the class. Admittedly, I have never actively played a straight artificer; Star started at 5th level as a 4/1 Battlesmith/Wizard because I'm an absolute whore for cantrips, the spellbook is super useful for utility, and also because it made a lot of sense for Star in specific (her father is a very powerful, high-level battlemage, if a mostly retired one at this point).
For the most part, Star retains her infusions for her own use. This is because we get a lot of 'Warrior' loot that's super useful for the party's fighter and paladin, but relatively little 'Skirmisher' loot useful for a medium-armor midliner. Ergo, other people are in schway battle gear already and I need to see to my own needs. I have lent infused items to allies, and recently I stood down my Enhanced Defense for a few days because an NPC we were in the midst of rescuing had lost his shield arm. So, given that I'm an artificer who is specifically a
n automail engineerlimbsmith that makes a side business creating artisan-grade artificial limbs for unfortunate rich people, I decided to step down my defense by a point to give this NPC back his shield arm long enough to get off Hell Island.Doing so probably saved the NPC's life and made our escape much easier. As did keeping my own damn gun with its Repeating Shot infusion and thusly allowing me to assist in combat, and my Homunculus was directly responsible for saving the lives of at least two other NPCs through delivering long-range Cure Wounds for me across two different ridiculous battles.
If an artificer player wants to be nothing but a magic item dispensary for her team, with absolutely no role in combat save "hide somewhere and try not to die", that's absolutely her choice to make. I will not say her nay. I will not allow other people to say me nay when I decide that I am the best user for my own gear, nor will I allow other people to be said nay to when they decide the same thing. Again - get back to me when the wizard is required to rip pages out of their spellbook and hand them over to the other party members because "it's not fair you get to keep all your spellcasting to yourself! DX"
Please do not contact or message me.
UGH. None of this vouching for Yurei or anyone else should be necessary at all. It's good that people are willing to stick up and speak out, but goodness is it sickening that it's even happening. I'm so tired of the poison.
Different circumstances, since I was playing a Wizard, but I'm well aware that your fellow players can have a skewed idea of splitting loot. The martial focused party all got decked out in free new armor and weapons through the plot, but I, as the sneaky wizard without armor or weapons got nothing. Later on, the DM hooked me up with some minor magic items to compensate, and some of my party complained I had more than them, completely ignoring that they had all been gifted thousands of gold worth of equipment at a time I had recieved nothing. My friends are intelligent people. Doesn't mean they didn't fall victim to not understanding how to quantify loot and how to split it up evenly.
I can only imagine what happens to an artificer on a regular basis. Intelligent people can still have a hard time grasping DnD concepts.
I'm glad this thread exists because I think it's useful to spread the message that Artificers aren't there for your benefit, but are in fact someone trying to enjoy their own DnD experience. Just like it's useful to talk about Clerics and the fact they don't exist for the express purpose of healing up people's booboos. People, especially in groups with newer players (regardless of their intelligence), will often feel these sorts of pressures when playing a "support" class and resources like this are good to be able to point to.
My personal opinion is that if the Artificer wants to give you their infusions they can.
They do not owe it to you to use their infusions on you the same way that a spell caster does not owe to you to buff you instead of spending spell slots on other things. If it ends up in a situation where the rest of the party is decked in new gear but the artificer is left with nothing, it's probably worth reevaluating the way the party divvies up loot.
In my experience playing an Artificer, I had one or two infusions saved for my Battle Smith and the rest I saved for stuff that benefitted the whole party.
I agree with everything you've said.
I'm coming out of an Out of the Abyss campaign ending at level 14/15. My infusions were my own. If people wanted them, I'd happily craft the items for them and they could use 'em, but this meant carving out downtime in an inhospitable environment. Inbetween, I'd occasionally buff someone like the paladin with Boots of Elvenkind for a short period but always get them back asap because while they get smites, I get to run around silently today. Tomorrow I resist fireballs, and they smite.
Our DM didn't give me magic items at any point, I bought a javelin of lightning and that was all I had until he pulled out a deck of many things then quit the campaign. I feel like the "Share infusions with the party!" idiocy is just as stupid as "The wizard wastes all their gold on spells, let them be broke!"
Wisemax said that letting the wizard waste all their gold on spells on their own is stupid, meaning that yes he would chip in and help them.
Edit: They said that letting a wizard be broke is stupid, and something that is also stupid is forcing a Artificer to give their infusions out. That is all. They did not mean to connect either of those things (outside of them both being stupid) or imply that one is more important than the other.
At least their wording gives me that impression, I do not read minds yet- copying those divination spells down are expensive you know.
if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.
The question then becomes, Stoutstein: "What does the artificer do while everybody else is using the artificer's class features for them?"
You're arguing that all artificers should always use all their infusions to Buff The Party. Okay. Assume that happens. The Battlesmith is no longer capable of attacking with Intelligence or making much of any effective use of their Arcane Jolt feature, since they have no magic weapon to attack with. The Armorer no longer has any sort of cool magic power armor because all the infusions that would have been cool magic power armor are being used to make everyone else better at the expense of the Armorer. The Artillerist is uniquely still able to make use of its basic combat engine since it's physically incapable of giving its Arcane Firearm to anyone else, and the Alchemist never contributed in combat anyways.
Nevertheless. The artificer has given up all the magic items they can make and all the magic loot they might've gotten, as per your instructions. How are they helping in a fight? They have no Healing Word to spam. They can't deliver Cure Wounds remotely because you've forbidden them from using the Homunculus infusion. Are you expecting them to simply choose one low-value concentration buff to throw on somebody else, then hide behind a rock and hope nobody notices them? Because that feels like an incredibly shitty way to play D&D, at least to me.
What you're advocating is what dumb people tried to make the artificer into pre-release, which is a class that sits in town, makes stuff for the party, and then never actually goes on an adventure themselves because they have no meaningful way to contribute. When I play D&D I want to be an adventurer, not the NPC item merchant in town. Artificers being a "Support Class" does not mean they have to be timid, passive little item*****es with no reason to be in the field. It's common knowledge these days that only an idiot tries to demand their cleric be a timid passive heal***** who exists solely to apply healing spells from the safety of Behind That Rock, so why are people expecting the same not-really-playing behavior from their artificers?
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The artificer in my group handed out about 1 or 2 infusions depending on the situation. The only one they ended up routinely handing out was a repeating crossbow to the ranger which worked out well. They mostly wanted to make disposable crafting items (tanglefoot bags and the like) that they could use once and be done in combat. They loved using stuff like that and I ended up encouraging it by making up some crafting rules (from scratch basically) and it worked out pretty well.
Ultimately I agree with Yurei that it should be your choice as an artificer and if you want to keep all of them that is perfectly fine.
First of, let me begin by saying I think you make some good points and that I also think you seem to be a reasonable person to play with.
And while I agree in the statement you just made, I actually think it's a very good one that I strive to consider myself when I play as well, I think this isn't an issue in a good group. And with that perspective it makes 100% sense.
BUT
To make some examples,
If I play a college of swords bard it would make more sense for me to mostly use my bardic inspiration for my own swirling maneuvers.. This doesn't mean I couldn't use them to help someone else if the opportunity arose and to be honest it might be better at times. Still, it's a big part of the build to use them for your own maneuvers. That isn't the same thing as being greedy (not saying you in particular said that btw) or similar. People might expect me to use it to help them though, but there is also a difference betwen them wondering and asking why I don't inspire them, and them demanding that I use my BI on them or call me greedy for it. Now in this case, when people might have expectations from a class it might be good to start by saying, when introducing the character perhaps, that im a college of swords bard, this means I will mostly use my inspiration for myself since my special maneuvers comes from them. This gives everyone a fair idea of how gameplay will be.
In a similar situation I've actually made a Cleric with the War domain once and I started out by saying that I'll be playing a cleric but I will NOT be doing much healing, if any at all. Maybe after combat. Now this idea wouldn't have made sense in any campaign perhaps, but in this one it worked and I chose to be very upfront about it so no misunderstandings would arise. This was early on and had I done this build now I might have added the Healer feat just to be able to do some patching up afterwards anyways. In many groups it would be expected that I could at least cast some healing words as well, but I didn't. I did use bless and similar spells to provide bonuses for the party of course, but no healing. Now, I made myself useful, is it really fair to say I HAVE TO keep healing spells? It might be optimal play for sure, but if I'm upfront about the fact so no one is surprised later (I mean of course if everyone expects me to heal and mid battle someone dies and I'm like SURPRISE, NO HEALING!! then yeah, that would be pretty bad...) is it really fair then? (It's been a while, I might have had some barbarian levels as well, or maybe that's just how I played him).
Another idea could be perhaps a rogue, focused on "face" skills and knowledge or something. Maybe disguises and such. Now, thieves tools would probably fit this theme as well, but it could also be made without it. So, if the party is doing mostly dungeons, of course it would be a pretty weird build to bring and in this case I'd argue that the point you made is actually important, because it's not always about doing what YOU want. Still, if it's a party that mostly does NOT go through dungeons and they this one time actually do, it would be unfair and unreasonable to claim the rogue have to go first and look for traps because it's a rogue, when it doesn't have the tools and skills to do it.
I mean, back in 3rd editions, I played in a group for a few years where I had to play a rogue all the time because no one was up for it. Everyone picked first before and did casters and fighters without caring about the group (and we did dungeons back then) so basically if I didn't play rogue we would step on all the traps and die before we got through the first room basically. I mean I enjoy playing rogue, but there's a difference betwen playing something you want and having no choice. It really sucks and while I didn't mind the first few adventures, after some years of roguing I was tired of it and I just said (since we were starting a new group and adventure again) "I'm not playing a rogue now so someone else needs to be that for traps this time" and when no one seemed to rise to the occasion I simply said "It's fine if no one wants to do it, but just to be clear, I'm not going first into any room ever.. I've had that job for years."
But to get back on the topic really, I think it's important to consider what campaign you're in... It's a group activity to play, so some consideration is needed, but this doesn't mean you have the right to force someone else into playing something they don't want. This goes both ways. That said, it's a good idea to be upfront about some things. People might expect a bard to use their inspiration on the party, they might expect the cleric to heal them, they might expect the rogue to know how to disable a trap and so on. It's a good idea to explain your character to people, not just describe your appearance and so on, but explain why you're not going to heal, why you're not going to inspire them as much and so on... For the artificer it's the same way, it's a good idea to explain that while you CAN make some magic items, you can't make unlimited amounts and they are your class abilities, this means you don't get that much else from the class. Explain that you need this and that to actually work, explain that part of your class ability is extra attunement... Without any items you're not able to do as much. At the same time, sometimes it's probably better to give some items to your friends, just like sometimes it's better for the aarachocra wizard to cast fly on the rest of the party instead of themselves ;)
Just like no one expects the fighter to always stand next to the wizard and protect them from enemies, or to use actionsurges to only bring up downed friends... Sometimes it's the right thing to do, you just can't force them to do it or say they are bad for not doing it.
All characters have strengths and weaknesses, it's everyones job to make them work together.
Anyways I have a fever and probably ranted on way to long about this... So... Yea. Sorry for the long potatoe, here's a post.
Not that I am stoutstein but my understanding of what they meant was more along the lines of you using homunculus to provide remote healing is actually MORE in line with being a good party member, compared to using everything for yourself.
I think sometimes it makes sense to give things to others, not always. I thought you had a pretty cool character concept for instance and in your case you can probably help out the party without lending things. It varies.
What I think is more of an issue would be as an example if a Divination wizard rolled a 20 with the special ability to change a roll into that and then kept it only for themselves because they wanted to be sure they would manage a barter roll later, and didn't use it in the fight against big bad monster thing that almost, or maybe even did kill someone in the party... When they had a rogue or paladin that could have gotten in a really great sneak attack or smite critical. Or something similar in that you only use your abilities for yourself it wouldn't be that great for the party. Note that I'm NOT saying that YOU are doing this, doesn't seem like it really.
Or if you had a healing word ready but you didn't use it on your teammate with 2 failed death saves, cause you had only 4 hp left yourself and you use that 1d4 on yourself. It probably would have been better spent on the dying character. It can all be very dependant on the situation of course, so not even these cases might be bad ones but sometimes it's just as important to use your abilities on the rest of the team. I'm really sure you already know and feel the same, just to be clear.
I think part of the argument has been that only using the reasoning "it's my ability so i'll use it on myself" CAN be kinda selfish or greedy, but I don't think that's the case in your situation.
PS. Also, you really SHOULD be doing magic items for the group, if it's allowed that is (and allowing artificers you should be allowed to make them as well)... At least after you become level 10 :) (Magic item adept: If you craft a magic item with a rarity of common or uncommon, it takes you a quarter of the normal time, and it costs you half as much of the usual gold.)
;)
Actually that is rude. Obviously there is a sliding scale of rudeness, but just because someone asks nicely doesn't mean it isn't rude. Don't tell people how to play their character. End of story. It may seem innocent because the person is seemingly polite about it, or thinking about the good of the group, but the nature of the act is rude. The healing word player isn't giving out tips on who to swing a sword at, and if they did I guarantee the sword player would get annoyed. Don't ask them to do something with their spell slots. It puts unwanted pressure on a person to play their character a certain way when none of that should exist. And it also betrays a certain lack of trust that the healing word player doesn't know how to properly manage their resources.
I remember when I rolled up my Moon Druid and the rest of the party breathed a sigh of relief with a "nice, we'll have some healing at least". I just brushed them off and said "nah, I'm casting a sick concentration spell and turning into an octopus. None of you bothered to pick options with any sort of support, why is it suddenly my job" And guess what? The party was fine and we all had fun. But not everyone has the confidence to stand up for themselves like that. Especially new players struggling to understand how to approach the game. It's unhealthy and unfair to pressure people like that.
I coudn't disagree with this more. The ONLY thing that matters is that all of the players are enjoying their characters (and that the DM is enjoying themselves too of course, but this is a player issue topic). No one at the table owes anyone else anything in terms of game resources. No one has a responsibility to prop up the other players and no one should feel the pressure of filling a certain role. Someone with "support" options shouldn't be under the constant pressure of considering the whole table's resource needs. Just because they chose a class with support options doesn't mean they're obligated to play the class in a certain way.
This is why I hate the common practice of constucting the "balanced" party. It leads to unwittingly toxic ideologies like this one. Again, no one has a debt to fill when it comes to fulfilling a certain role for the party. The pressure that comes from thinking about being a "balanced" group leads to pressure in character creation and pressure in how people think about playing their character. None of that should exist. If the group enjoys approaching character creation like that, good for them. But frankly, I don't think it's healthy to have as a default way of approaching the game and should be an ideology saved for when you're in the midst of your group and know everyone is of a like mind.
Every player should be free to create and play their character how they want without any sort of influence from what the other players want or think the party needs.
Sure there are extreme examples that need to be considered more carefully because they can impinge on the other players' fun. Darkness + Devil's Sight spam. Poorly managed summon spells. But these are outliers and stuff like not saving spell slots for healing or keeping all of your infusions to yourself don't even scratch at the possibility of being like those play patterns.
What is the math that supports this?
Whether an artificer hands out their infused magic items or hordes them can vary from day-to-day and based on party composition. If your group has defaulted to reductive logic, such as the aforementioned "loot pool" of an MMO raid boss, then I feel sorry for your group.
In low-level play, they can't create anything too powerful. A bag of holding can be shared with the whole party; the person holding it doesn't matter all that much. If the artificer in question is a gnome and someone else is a halfling, then the goggles of night might be of more use on the latter than the former. And a pair of sending stones gets shared between two people when they remember they have them.
There are still limits to the number of magic items a party can attune to. No one, save the Artificer (and even then, only from 10th-level onward), can attune to more than 3 magic items. And the type of loot available to the party is going to influence how things are divvied up. I'm running Rime of the Frostmaiden every Tuesday. The party includes (but isn't limited to) an artificer, a bard, and a druid. They found a pearl of power and a +1 wand of the war mage. All could use the pearl, and 2/3 could use the wand; though the artificer needs an infusion to do so. The artificer got the pearl because they can prepare identify, and I ruled the wand was made of yew so it went to the druid. And the artificer already has infused some goggles of night so they can see in the dark.
There were six different ways the three of them could have distributed the loot, and I'm proud of them for being civil and not arguing over it. If that's how your group behaves, then I'm sorry. Find better people to play with who aren't jerks to one another.
Saying that wizards fireballing their parties for fun is the same as artificers keeping the infusions their class is useless without is a fallacy. It's closer to a wizard having to give away their spellbook to an eldritch knight.
I have a weird sense of humor.
I also make maps.(That's a link)