It is a topic for another thread and a topic that we have seen before, but IF you try to apply magic and time to D&D and try to work out the impact it would have and the progress that would be made, the worlds of D&D would be very different than how they are written. We only have to look at the world around us to see how humans exploit technology in our time, it would be completely unreasonable to expect that magic would be treated differently. Hundreds of years of study of a arcane lore and craft would have a huge impact on every aspect of life. A lot of us don't really want to play in a super magitek world though so we don't. We ignore the "realities" of magic to allow us to play in the sword and sorcery settings we enjoy.
This is not an argument against Artificers because the same blind eye we turn to magic and the real impact it would have can be turned to them as well. But I do understand that for some people, their suspension of disbelief has different lines that can't be crossed than I do.
An artificer has unparalleled utility. That's my honest opinion - not even bards or wizards can do all the stuff an artificer can do.
What can an artificer do that Wizards can't?
Wizards don't get the guidance cantrip. Wizards don't get aid, create food and water, cure wounds, lesser restoration, or revivify. Wizards can't infuse magic items the way artificers can (and certainly not as early in the game as artificers can), nor do they get thieves' tools proficiency.
The items artificers can make are also kind of basic compared to the wide breadth of magical items out in the world. You can still have your legendary magical craftsman who made super cool things without an artificer making a bag of holding threatening that prestige. Just as the existance of a fighter or wizard in the party doesn't mean you can't have the legendary hero knight and super wizard in your setting's backstory who did feats beyond what the PCs can, especially while they're low level.
Even magic item adept is only speeding up common/uncommon item production. Your artificer PC isn't going to be dispensing high end magic items like a vending machine.
What can a druid do that a cleric can't? What can a rogue do that a fighter can't?
You ask that question enough times and what you end up with are two classes - Weapons Guy and Magic Guy, neither of which have any unique abilities or cool flavor because they're so generic and universally applicable as to be devoid of point. What do artificers do that wizards can't? Be artificers, that's what.
What can a druid do that a cleric can't? What can a rogue do that a fighter can't?
You ask that question enough times and what you end up with are two classes - Weapons Guy and Magic Guy, neither of which have any unique abilities or cool flavor because they're so generic and universally applicable as to be devoid of point. What do artificers do that wizards can't? Be artificers, that's what.
Context. He made an argument that Artificers have "unparalleled utility," arguing they can do more than even Wizards. Personally I think it's insane to claim Artificers provide more utility than Wizards. Or even Bards, but especially Wizards.
It is a topic for another thread and a topic that we have seen before, but IF you try to apply magic and time to D&D and try to work out the impact it would have and the progress that would be made, the worlds of D&D would be very different than how they are written. We only have to look at the world around us to see how humans exploit technology in our time, it would be completely unreasonable to expect that magic would be treated differently. Hundreds of years of study of a arcane lore and craft would have a huge impact on every aspect of life. A lot of us don't really want to play in a super magitek world though so we don't. We ignore the "realities" of magic to allow us to play in the sword and sorcery settings we enjoy.
This is not an argument against Artificers because the same blind eye we turn to magic and the real impact it would have can be turned to them as well. But I do understand that for some people, their suspension of disbelief has different lines that can't be crossed than I do.
This is why I love Eberron as a setting. It's worldbuilding takes magic existing into account, and what that would mean in the way the world develops.
Rather than what most settings do of taking a slice of medieval europe and dropping wizards into it, then going all shocked pikachu when the existence of magic rapidly pokes holes in the setting.
It is a topic for another thread and a topic that we have seen before, but IF you try to apply magic and time to D&D and try to work out the impact it would have and the progress that would be made, the worlds of D&D would be very different than how they are written. We only have to look at the world around us to see how humans exploit technology in our time, it would be completely unreasonable to expect that magic would be treated differently. Hundreds of years of study of a arcane lore and craft would have a huge impact on every aspect of life. A lot of us don't really want to play in a super magitek world though so we don't. We ignore the "realities" of magic to allow us to play in the sword and sorcery settings we enjoy.
This is not an argument against Artificers because the same blind eye we turn to magic and the real impact it would have can be turned to them as well. But I do understand that for some people, their suspension of disbelief has different lines that can't be crossed than I do.
This is why I love Eberron as a setting. It's worldbuilding takes magic existing into account, and what that would mean in the way the world develops.
Rather than what most settings do of taking a slice of medieval europe and dropping wizards into it, then going all shocked pikachu when the existence of magic rapidly pokes holes in the setting.
I have several reasons why I vastly prefer Eberron from a setting design point of view to the Forgotten Realms, with that being one of them.
Eberron is a setting where time exists. Societies progress, knowledge increases. There are Fallen Ages, sure, but the people don't take that to mean they should never do anything but grow potatoes and get eaten by owlbears ever again. They fight to reclaim that lost knowledge, and to create new knowledge of their own. It's dramatically more compelling than a typical Eurofantasy Time Standing Still world, at least for a significant enough percentage of the D&D playerbase for Eberron to've been the first non-Faerun setting with its own entire sourcebook.
In my setting I have a thing called the Tapestry which is basically the Internet with sending stones. But it’s largely restricted to the upper classes (though this is starting to change) and is thus not as ubiquitous as the Internet is in our society.
Seriously. I belive it says somewhere in the Eberron book that most packets of cereal come with little magical items for kids to play with. Like, in a side bar or something.
That has literally nothing to do with artificers, and everything to do with Eberron being a world where magic is industrialized. That sidebar would still exist even if artificers didn't
Um .. there is no such sidebar. I was 'being funny' (tm).
So, this debate is clearly a viper's nest of rather fiercer opinion on the topic that I am capable of myself. Yurei said something about hating the class - and I don't, in Eberron, where popping magic items into existance is a common as farting. But anywhere else I find them to be ... just a bad fit.
Mind you, when I GM, buying magic items isn't a thing. Again, were I to GM Eberron, it would be. I prefer every magic item to be unique. So, while Excalibur isn't the only magic sword in existance, you need never worry about finding another like it. Try and convince me it's better to be able to pick from a list: 'So, what enchantments do you want? I could make you a fire/frost/sonic/axiomatic/holy avenger orc double axe!'
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
To me, teleportation circle and sending are both spells that present an opportunity to revolutionize the world.
Sure a wizard can cast both spells without much trouble, but they keep that knowledge largely to themselves. Where I see an artificer come in is to find that knowledge, research ways to make it so that you don't have to be a high-level wizard with more gold than a noble to construct permanent circles, and make it more ubiquitous.
The artificer's goal could be to turn the sending spell into a nationwide communications network, the teleportation circle spell into literal mass transit, and the clairvoyance or scrying spell into Big Brother.
In a setting where magic is rare (an Arthurian setting, for example), artificers would need to be rare too, just like wizards. But that doesn’t mean they can’t exist. The archetype of the Smith or the Crafter is a common one in many cultures.
An artificer has unparalleled utility. That's my honest opinion - not even bards or wizards can do all the stuff an artificer can do.
What can an artificer do that Wizards can't?
Wizards don't get the guidance cantrip. Wizards don't get aid, create food and water, cure wounds, lesser restoration, or revivify. Wizards can't infuse magic items the way artificers can (and certainly not as early in the game as artificers can), nor do they get thieves' tools proficiency.
That's a poor argument that (in totality) Artificers offer better utility. While the one area Wizards are lacking is healing, they have access to the largest list of spells in the game. Most of the utility spells are rituals, and Wizards don't even have to prepare them to cast them as rituals. What I normally do is add just enough non-ritual spells to my book to match the number I can prepare, then choose as many rituals as I can.
All classes can do some things or access some spells that others can't. Wizards are not only the top tier in terms of being able to choose a vast array of utility spells, they can essentially access all of them at any point, so long as they have 10 minutes to spare.
Artificers are unquestionably better with tools, and they can act as healers where as Wizards can't. And really healing is its own category, e.g. (damager/blaster, healer, buffer, de-buffer, tank, battle field control, and utility).
Um .. there is no such sidebar. I was 'being funny' (tm).
So, this debate is clearly a viper's nest of rather fiercer opinion on the topic that I am capable of myself. Yurei said something about hating the class - and I don't, in Eberron, where popping magic items into existance is a common as farting. But anywhere else I find them to be ... just a bad fit.
Mind you, when I GM, buying magic items isn't a thing. Again, were I to GM Eberron, it would be. I prefer every magic item to be unique. So, while Excalibur isn't the only magic sword in existance, you need never worry about finding another like it. Try and convince me it's better to be able to pick from a list: 'So, what enchantments do you want? I could make you a fire/frost/sonic/axiomatic/holy avenger orc double axe!'
Let's clear something up here.
"In Eberron", magic items are not free. They do not pop out of cereal boxes. A rural farm family might have one or two Common magic items - might - that the family has had for generations and treats as prized family heirlooms. This is because the difference between "magical crafting" and 'regular crafting" in Eberron doesn't really exist - magical techniques are incorporated into the highest levels of 'mundane' craftsmanship. A smith doesn't need to suddenly learn to also be a wizard, completely separate from their smithing skills, to smith magical weapons and armor. They need to learn magical smithing techniques, which are extremely exacting, demanding, and precise, and also extremely expensive to learn because the creation of such items requires a not insignificant amount of a rare and costly resource - namely, dragonshards or dragonshard dust. An expert tailor with very expensive training can create clothes of mending, but it costs enough GP worth of dragonshards/dragonshard dust that by the typical economy (i.e. a typical unskilled laborer can earn the buying equivalent of one gold piece for a day's honest, productive labor), it'd cost most folks several months' worth of pay to buy that suit of self-mending clothes.
In Eberron, magic is acknowledged and understood, in much the same way electricity is in our modern era. It is incorporated into the world. It is not free. It is not trivial. The world id described as 'wide magic, not high magic', because in Eberron the pinnacles of magical power and achievement are, if anything, harder to reach than in other worlds. You can make a good living just by being a low-level spellcaster producing low-level magic a few times a day, or by being a well-trained artisan using cantrip-level magic as a skilled laborer, without the incredible expense, strenuous effort, and very real danger involved in being a high-level spellcaster. Just like how most everyone in the modern world can use electronic devices, recognize electronics at work, and not perceive our digital wizardry as anything out of the ordinary all without having the faintest, foggiest clue how any of it works, people in Eberron can perceive and understand magic as being a force that exists in their everyday life without magic being free, trivial, and pointless.
So let's stop holding up Eberron as an example of how awful it is that some settings just fart magic out of the walls and nothing is cool or rare or worth having anymore when magic isn't an alien force nobody understands except for maybe a dozen people in the whole wide world. If you don't understand the setting at all - and clearly you don't - stop giving it so much shit, if you would.
They should. Because artificers can - literally - do that for absolutely free. Just create at zero cost a number of pointless little toy thingies a day. And that's the point.
Obviously there aren't cereal box toys in Eberron. But there should be. Because it makes sense. Because if you have even a single level of artificer, you can be a wealthy man doing nothing else: Tinker a few toys each day, sell them, spend the rest of your time lazing by the pool sipping drinks from an evercold cocktail glass.
And that's why you cannot have artificers and real magic in the same setting: Artificers literally equal magic being as common as battery powered toys. Literally.
So if you want a setting to be true to it's own roots, to make sense within it's own worldbuilding - you can have one, or the other, but never both.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Sure a wizard can cast both spells without much trouble
"Without much trouble". These discussions always make me giggle. teleportation circle is 5th level, which means you need to be at least a 9th-level wizard to cast it
How many of those do you think are running around in whatever world it is you're talking about, exactly? Much less how many would have the time and/or inclination to rent themselves out to make a circle permanent for someone else
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
They should. Because artificers can - literally - do that for absolutely free. Just create at zero cost a number of pointless little toy thingies a day. And that's the point.
Obviously there aren't cereal box toys in Eberron. But there should be. Because it makes sense. Because if you have even a single level of artificer, you can be a wealthy man doing nothing else: Tinker a few toys each day, sell them, spend the rest of your time lazing by the pool sipping drinks from an evercold cocktail glass.
And that's why you cannot have artificers and real magic in the same setting: Artificers literally equal magic being as common as battery powered toys. Literally.
So if you want a setting to be true to it's own roots, to make sense within it's own worldbuilding - you can have one, or the other, but never both.
And this is what you get for not reading the class. Because Magical Tinkering does not create 'permament' magic items, it creates 'indefinite' magic items. An artificer, via the "Magical Tinkering" class feature, can have a number of Tinkered items active/created equal to their Intelligence modifier. Should they create a new one, the oldest tinkered item immediately loses its magic. The feature is generally intended to allow artificer players to have cool little character moments, or to fluff their character with a few specific details. It cannot be used to create an infinite supply of magical trinkets, and it never could be.
Read the class, Acromos. or stop kvetching about out-and-out falsehoods.
Because artificers can - literally - do that for absolutely free. Just create at zero cost a number of pointless little toy thingies a day. And that's the point.
That's just not true.
An artificer can, basically, minorly enchant up to five little objects (via Magical Tinkering), and majorly enchant some number of Infusions. They can't go over their limits --- if they try, the oldest one stops working. They can't meaningfully sell an infusion; it's a thing they essentially must maintain, for however long it must exist.
Sure a wizard can cast both spells without much trouble
"Without much trouble". These discussions always make me giggle. teleportation circle is 5th level, which means you need to be at least a 9th-level wizard to cast it
How many of those do you think are running around in whatever world it is you're talking about, exactly? Much less how many would have the time and/or inclination to rent themselves out to make a circle permanent for someone else
I don't know. I see a lot of instances of the mage stat block in official adventures, and that's a 9th level wizard. So for the Forgotten Realms, I'd hazard to say quite a few of them. For Eberron, they'd probably be a lot rarer to find, but one particular dragonmarked house (Orien) does get access to the spell as long as they have 5th level slots, and transportation is their business. As for the time, did you just ignore that whole paragraph I wrote about an artificer possibly making it their mission to make the permanent circles more practical to set up?
To put it another way, when I was writing that whole thing, I was basing it on how technology advances in our own world. We have a technology that's so rare and so complex, that it's massively expensive, almost no-one knows how it works, and it's reserved only for a select few. But then, as time goes by, people find ways to make the resources easier to come by, the techniques more refined to the point where more and more people can replicate them, and the knowledge more widespread through education. All that ultimately results in a technology that becomes commonplace, and potentially anyone can use it. And this can be the objective of an artificer character over the course of a campaign, because artificers are problem solvers. That is what I was trying to get at with my imaginary scenario, but instead of acknowledging that and commenting on it, you nitpicked on one detail that isn't even universal across settings.
It is a topic for another thread and a topic that we have seen before, but IF you try to apply magic and time to D&D and try to work out the impact it would have and the progress that would be made, the worlds of D&D would be very different than how they are written. We only have to look at the world around us to see how humans exploit technology in our time, it would be completely unreasonable to expect that magic would be treated differently. Hundreds of years of study of a arcane lore and craft would have a huge impact on every aspect of life. A lot of us don't really want to play in a super magitek world though so we don't. We ignore the "realities" of magic to allow us to play in the sword and sorcery settings we enjoy.
This is not an argument against Artificers because the same blind eye we turn to magic and the real impact it would have can be turned to them as well. But I do understand that for some people, their suspension of disbelief has different lines that can't be crossed than I do.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
What can an artificer do that Wizards can't?
Wizards don't get the guidance cantrip. Wizards don't get aid, create food and water, cure wounds, lesser restoration, or revivify. Wizards can't infuse magic items the way artificers can (and certainly not as early in the game as artificers can), nor do they get thieves' tools proficiency.
The items artificers can make are also kind of basic compared to the wide breadth of magical items out in the world. You can still have your legendary magical craftsman who made super cool things without an artificer making a bag of holding threatening that prestige. Just as the existance of a fighter or wizard in the party doesn't mean you can't have the legendary hero knight and super wizard in your setting's backstory who did feats beyond what the PCs can, especially while they're low level.
Even magic item adept is only speeding up common/uncommon item production. Your artificer PC isn't going to be dispensing high end magic items like a vending machine.
What can a druid do that a cleric can't?
What can a rogue do that a fighter can't?
You ask that question enough times and what you end up with are two classes - Weapons Guy and Magic Guy, neither of which have any unique abilities or cool flavor because they're so generic and universally applicable as to be devoid of point. What do artificers do that wizards can't? Be artificers, that's what.
Please do not contact or message me.
Context. He made an argument that Artificers have "unparalleled utility," arguing they can do more than even Wizards. Personally I think it's insane to claim Artificers provide more utility than Wizards. Or even Bards, but especially Wizards.
This is why I love Eberron as a setting. It's worldbuilding takes magic existing into account, and what that would mean in the way the world develops.
Rather than what most settings do of taking a slice of medieval europe and dropping wizards into it, then going all shocked pikachu when the existence of magic rapidly pokes holes in the setting.
I have several reasons why I vastly prefer Eberron from a setting design point of view to the Forgotten Realms, with that being one of them.
Eberron is a setting where time exists. Societies progress, knowledge increases. There are Fallen Ages, sure, but the people don't take that to mean they should never do anything but grow potatoes and get eaten by owlbears ever again. They fight to reclaim that lost knowledge, and to create new knowledge of their own. It's dramatically more compelling than a typical Eurofantasy Time Standing Still world, at least for a significant enough percentage of the D&D playerbase for Eberron to've been the first non-Faerun setting with its own entire sourcebook.
Please do not contact or message me.
In my setting I have a thing called the Tapestry which is basically the Internet with sending stones. But it’s largely restricted to the upper classes (though this is starting to change) and is thus not as ubiquitous as the Internet is in our society.
Nopes.
Um .. there is no such sidebar. I was 'being funny' (tm).
So, this debate is clearly a viper's nest of rather fiercer opinion on the topic that I am capable of myself. Yurei said something about hating the class - and I don't, in Eberron, where popping magic items into existance is a common as farting. But anywhere else I find them to be ... just a bad fit.
Mind you, when I GM, buying magic items isn't a thing. Again, were I to GM Eberron, it would be. I prefer every magic item to be unique. So, while Excalibur isn't the only magic sword in existance, you need never worry about finding another like it. Try and convince me it's better to be able to pick from a list: 'So, what enchantments do you want? I could make you a fire/frost/sonic/axiomatic/holy avenger orc double axe!'
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
To me, teleportation circle and sending are both spells that present an opportunity to revolutionize the world.
Sure a wizard can cast both spells without much trouble, but they keep that knowledge largely to themselves. Where I see an artificer come in is to find that knowledge, research ways to make it so that you don't have to be a high-level wizard with more gold than a noble to construct permanent circles, and make it more ubiquitous.
The artificer's goal could be to turn the sending spell into a nationwide communications network, the teleportation circle spell into literal mass transit, and the clairvoyance or scrying spell into Big Brother.
In a setting where magic is rare (an Arthurian setting, for example), artificers would need to be rare too, just like wizards. But that doesn’t mean they can’t exist. The archetype of the Smith or the Crafter is a common one in many cultures.
That's a poor argument that (in totality) Artificers offer better utility. While the one area Wizards are lacking is healing, they have access to the largest list of spells in the game. Most of the utility spells are rituals, and Wizards don't even have to prepare them to cast them as rituals. What I normally do is add just enough non-ritual spells to my book to match the number I can prepare, then choose as many rituals as I can.
All classes can do some things or access some spells that others can't. Wizards are not only the top tier in terms of being able to choose a vast array of utility spells, they can essentially access all of them at any point, so long as they have 10 minutes to spare.
Artificers are unquestionably better with tools, and they can act as healers where as Wizards can't. And really healing is its own category, e.g. (damager/blaster, healer, buffer, de-buffer, tank, battle field control, and utility).
Let's clear something up here.
"In Eberron", magic items are not free. They do not pop out of cereal boxes. A rural farm family might have one or two Common magic items - might - that the family has had for generations and treats as prized family heirlooms. This is because the difference between "magical crafting" and 'regular crafting" in Eberron doesn't really exist - magical techniques are incorporated into the highest levels of 'mundane' craftsmanship. A smith doesn't need to suddenly learn to also be a wizard, completely separate from their smithing skills, to smith magical weapons and armor. They need to learn magical smithing techniques, which are extremely exacting, demanding, and precise, and also extremely expensive to learn because the creation of such items requires a not insignificant amount of a rare and costly resource - namely, dragonshards or dragonshard dust. An expert tailor with very expensive training can create clothes of mending, but it costs enough GP worth of dragonshards/dragonshard dust that by the typical economy (i.e. a typical unskilled laborer can earn the buying equivalent of one gold piece for a day's honest, productive labor), it'd cost most folks several months' worth of pay to buy that suit of self-mending clothes.
In Eberron, magic is acknowledged and understood, in much the same way electricity is in our modern era. It is incorporated into the world. It is not free. It is not trivial. The world id described as 'wide magic, not high magic', because in Eberron the pinnacles of magical power and achievement are, if anything, harder to reach than in other worlds. You can make a good living just by being a low-level spellcaster producing low-level magic a few times a day, or by being a well-trained artisan using cantrip-level magic as a skilled laborer, without the incredible expense, strenuous effort, and very real danger involved in being a high-level spellcaster. Just like how most everyone in the modern world can use electronic devices, recognize electronics at work, and not perceive our digital wizardry as anything out of the ordinary all without having the faintest, foggiest clue how any of it works, people in Eberron can perceive and understand magic as being a force that exists in their everyday life without magic being free, trivial, and pointless.
So let's stop holding up Eberron as an example of how awful it is that some settings just fart magic out of the walls and nothing is cool or rare or worth having anymore when magic isn't an alien force nobody understands except for maybe a dozen people in the whole wide world. If you don't understand the setting at all - and clearly you don't - stop giving it so much shit, if you would.
Please do not contact or message me.
They should. Because artificers can - literally - do that for absolutely free. Just create at zero cost a number of pointless little toy thingies a day. And that's the point.
Obviously there aren't cereal box toys in Eberron. But there should be. Because it makes sense. Because if you have even a single level of artificer, you can be a wealthy man doing nothing else: Tinker a few toys each day, sell them, spend the rest of your time lazing by the pool sipping drinks from an evercold cocktail glass.
And that's why you cannot have artificers and real magic in the same setting: Artificers literally equal magic being as common as battery powered toys. Literally.
So if you want a setting to be true to it's own roots, to make sense within it's own worldbuilding - you can have one, or the other, but never both.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
"Without much trouble". These discussions always make me giggle. teleportation circle is 5th level, which means you need to be at least a 9th-level wizard to cast it
How many of those do you think are running around in whatever world it is you're talking about, exactly? Much less how many would have the time and/or inclination to rent themselves out to make a circle permanent for someone else
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
And this is what you get for not reading the class. Because Magical Tinkering does not create 'permament' magic items, it creates 'indefinite' magic items. An artificer, via the "Magical Tinkering" class feature, can have a number of Tinkered items active/created equal to their Intelligence modifier. Should they create a new one, the oldest tinkered item immediately loses its magic. The feature is generally intended to allow artificer players to have cool little character moments, or to fluff their character with a few specific details. It cannot be used to create an infinite supply of magical trinkets, and it never could be.
Read the class, Acromos. or stop kvetching about out-and-out falsehoods.
Please do not contact or message me.
That's just not true.
An artificer can, basically, minorly enchant up to five little objects (via Magical Tinkering), and majorly enchant some number of Infusions. They can't go over their limits --- if they try, the oldest one stops working. They can't meaningfully sell an infusion; it's a thing they essentially must maintain, for however long it must exist.
I don't know. I see a lot of instances of the mage stat block in official adventures, and that's a 9th level wizard. So for the Forgotten Realms, I'd hazard to say quite a few of them. For Eberron, they'd probably be a lot rarer to find, but one particular dragonmarked house (Orien) does get access to the spell as long as they have 5th level slots, and transportation is their business. As for the time, did you just ignore that whole paragraph I wrote about an artificer possibly making it their mission to make the permanent circles more practical to set up?
To put it another way, when I was writing that whole thing, I was basing it on how technology advances in our own world. We have a technology that's so rare and so complex, that it's massively expensive, almost no-one knows how it works, and it's reserved only for a select few. But then, as time goes by, people find ways to make the resources easier to come by, the techniques more refined to the point where more and more people can replicate them, and the knowledge more widespread through education. All that ultimately results in a technology that becomes commonplace, and potentially anyone can use it. And this can be the objective of an artificer character over the course of a campaign, because artificers are problem solvers. That is what I was trying to get at with my imaginary scenario, but instead of acknowledging that and commenting on it, you nitpicked on one detail that isn't even universal across settings.