As for their damage, forget "late tier 3" and consider the following at level 5: Wand of the War Mage +1, Homunculus 1d6+2, Boldness Elixir +1d4 to hit for both, all without concentration. Concentration + Bonus action on 2nd-level Flaming Sphere, 2d6+Int, and Action either Firebolt (2d10+Int) or Poison Spray (2d12+Int.) For the cost of a single 2nd-level spell slot they can do 2d12+Int+2d6+Int+1d6+2, every single round for the whole combat. That seems pretty decent to me, and they have their other spells slots free for multiple other uses.
Not quite.
A level 2 homunculus has AC 13 and 15 hp. Average lifespan is probably on the order of two combats.
Boldness Elixir is a bonus action to use, which may conflict with the bonus actions required for flaming sphere.
Casting flaming sphere is an action, so you aren't using fire bolt round 1.
Alchemical Savant only applies to one roll of a spell. Thus, it only applies once (presumably for round 1).
What this gives for a typical 3 round combat, assuming Int 18, which is reasonable at level 5, is
Round 1: flaming sphere 2d6+4, Homunculus 1d6+2, total 3d6+6 (16)
Round 2: fire bolt 2d10+4, flaming sphere 2d6, homunculus 1d6+2, total 2d10+3d6+6 (27)
Round 3: same as round 2.
Total over 3 rounds: 70, or 23 dpr. Which is about what a martial manages with no resource expenditure at all.
Well, off the cuff I’m not sure getting at more core magic items is a good trade for losing unique infusions. Having access to items that can’t just be purchased was a definite selling point.
I agree, I always thought of artificer infusions like warlock invocations. Unique to the class.
While the new system "future proofs" the class for later additions of new magic items, it lacks flavor and opens up a host of other issues, not the least of which is Enspelled Weapons and Armor, which combined can effectively give an Artificer 12 total extra 1st level spell slots at level 6.
Alchemists Elixirs consumed as a bonus action and more of them. Choose when you spend a spell slot. Higher dice in the healing option.
Artillerists Eldritch Cannon versatility, exploding cannon now a reaction instead of an action, increased exploding cannon damage
Armorers new armor model, Dreadnaught. Essentially a giant mech with a wrecking ball.
Removal of reduced cost to craft magic items, this was easily abusable for profit.
Alchemist getting Tasha’s Bubbling Cauldron and stronger damage boost at level 15.
Drain Magic Item you created to recover a spell slot.
Arcane Vigor, Circle of Power and True Strike added to the spell list.
Vitriolic Sphere replacing Blight in Alchemist spell list.
Things I don’t like:
No longer use an infusion as a spell casting focus. This absolutely hamstrings the Battle Smith the most as they have to put their weapons away and hold tools to cast spells in combat now.
No proficiency in Firearms.
Increasing the max spell level from 2 to 3 on the spell storing item feature, way too strong. 10 fireballs for the Artillerist or 10 haste for your melee buddy at level 11?! Doesn't feel well balance compared to the Wizard's capstone Signature Spells which let them cast two 3rd level spells once each.
Removal of tool expertise. They removed all tool expertise from 5.5e, but another big loss for class identity and flavor.
Removal of level 14 ignore magic item class, race and use restrictions. Not making a golem until level 17 is dumb when a warlock can do it at level 9 with a Manual of Golems
Removal of Armorer’s Armor Modifications at level 9.
New Magical Tinker is still crap. Now it makes a list of common objects you probably already carry in your bag of holding.
Less total known infusions (reduced from 12 to 8 by level 20)
Things that are a mixed bag:
Expanded Replicate Magic Item replacing Infusions. Over all this is generally more versatile and future proofs the list, but due to the inconsistency of power level for each rarity, makes for some really bizarre scenarios of what’s available when. Enspelled Weapons and Armor seems too strong. Big loss of class identity and flavor.
Making Homunculus Servant a spell. I generally like this, frees up an infusion slot and lets you upcast the spell to get stronger servants as your level up. 1 Mile telepathy is great. You can’t upcast a ritual however and it’s not available until level 5.
Changes to capstone Soul of Artifice. +6 to all saves is way better than +1d6 to all skill checks. The Cheat Death improvements are good however.
Making flash of genius usable only when someone fails a check, stops you from wasting it, but prevents it from being used on initiative.
Making each subclass specialize in crafting specific types of magic items.
Replacing alter self option from Alchemist Elixirs with option to choose one of the other. Slightly less random I guess.
Things I would like to see:
They should give all Artificers the mending cantrip like Arcane Tricksters get mage hand and not let you swap it out when you level. 2 cantrips until level 10 is restrictive when one of them almost has to be mending.
Expanded the spell list to include Tenser's Floating Disk, Locate Object, Find Traps, Knock, Nystul's Magic Aura, Stinking Cloud, and Teleportation Circle.
Add a feature that allows detect magic and identify to be cast as a ritual even if you don't have them prepared and only if you have tinkers tools in hand.
All artificers should get Arcana proficiency since it is required to craft magic items now.
Battle smith should get the Eldritch knight and Valor Bard treatment to replace one of their extra attacks with a cantrip and allow them to use a magic weapon as spell casting focus.
Ability to expend a spell slot to restore charges to a magic item
Eldritch Cannon force field should give a flat +2 to AC and Dex saves instead of half cover. Stupid that sharpshooter and similar feats can ignore a protective force field, it's not like people are hiding behind the cannon, especially when it can be handheld.
Battle smith should get the Eldritch knight and Valor Bard treatment to replace one of their extra attacks with a cantrip and allow them to use a magic weapon as spell casting focus.
I was thinking that the Eldritch Knight / Valour Bard feature to allow one attack to be replaced with a cantrip would help the Armourer’s damage output catch up with the Battle Smith, Paladin and Ranger. Letting the Battle Smith use their replicated weapon as a spellcasting focus would be good though.
The Armourer’s weapons should be eligible for Magic Weapon, but that’s at the cost of a 2nd or higher level slot for a relatively modest bump in damage output.
For the “no firearms proficiency” complaints, note that firearms are now lumped in with martial weapons on the PHB table and only Battle Smiths- who get martial profs- are particularly incentivized to use outside weapons over subclass features and/or cantrips.
A level 2 homunculus has AC 13 and 15 hp. Average lifespan is probably on the order of two combats.
It's a ranged pet that can fly and has Evasion 🤨 Obviously if your DM likes to target those and tends to use monsters that can even do so then you shouldn't use it, but that's not exactly common.
Boldness Elixir is a bonus action to use, which may conflict with the bonus actions required for flaming sphere.
I already covered this in my post; you drink it on the round you cast flaming sphere, when you won't be using your BA anyway. Drinking an elixir is not a leveled spell so you can do both in the same round. Once you drink it, it lasts the entire combat, so your BA is free at that point; there is no conflict.
Casting flaming sphere is an action, so you aren't using fire bolt round 1.
Covered this as well (did you read my post?) Nearly ANY combat spell you cast is going to use your first action so that's moot, unless you plan to do nothing but cantrips the entire time, which is a DPR loss compared to spending a single slot.
Alchemical Savant only applies to one roll of a spell. Thus, it only applies once (presumably for round 1).
What this gives for a typical 3 round combat, assuming Int 18, which is reasonable at level 5, is
Round 1: flaming sphere 2d6+4, Homunculus 1d6+2, total 3d6+6 (16)
Round 2: fire bolt 2d10+4, flaming sphere 2d6, homunculus 1d6+2, total 2d10+3d6+6 (27)
Round 3: same as round 2.
Total over 3 rounds: 70, or 23 dpr. Which is about what a martial manages with no resource expenditure at all.
Flaming Sphere is a fire spell, so it gets the bonus too. It's not 1/round. Your math is wrong.
Round 2 is therefore 2d10+4, 2d6+4, and 1d6+2, total 31. Same for round 3. So the total over 3 rounds is 78, or 26 DPR. And if the combat goes to 4 rounds, you get another 31. All for a single spell slot.
I already covered this in my post; you drink it on the round you cast flaming sphere, when you won't be using your BA anyway. Drinking an elixir is not a leveled spell so you can do both in the same round. Once you drink it, it lasts the entire combat, so your BA is free at that point; there is no conflict.
Flaming sphere requires a BA to make an attack, even on the first round.
Honestly, my biggest irritation with this new artificer is that there is no attempt at integrating it with the item creation rules, apart from some reduced time and cost for certain products. In truth, I feel that an artificer should possess more benefits for the process of crafting permanent items, but that may just be me.
What exactly would you add? They can already temporarily create something from nothing and if you check the subclasses they get time reductions on certain types of magic items. Cost reduction on magic items is probably out because that opens up too much encouragement for players to attempt cash exploits and also overcomes a more significant throttle on magic item acquisitions. The need for a “component” has been dropped from magic item crafting, and they also seem to have made the mistake of not codifying the need for a schematic to cover DM fiat against exploit combos. Barring bringing back tool expertise- which had to be fairly niche and had no impact on crafting- what exactly can be added to crafting?
I think at least Battle Smith needs weapon masteries, paladin and ranger still get weapon masteries as half casters. Though their base classes are more geared towards being gish/martial+spells, compared to artificer's lean towards utility. Battle Smith fills that martial/gish role.
Since swords bard and bladesinger are both still full casters i can see why they don't have weapon masteries but i feel like since battle smith is more martial and is also a half-caster it should get them the same way as paladin and ranger do.
Flaming sphere gets the bonus... but it only gets the bonus once. 'One roll' does not mean 'one roll per turn'.
You ARE only rolling damage once. That damage roll is what gets applied to a target every time they fail their save against the sphere on subsequent rounds.
Mmm, that part does seem a bit fuzzy. Pretty sure each instance of damage is considered a separate roll, rather than your initial value being “locked in”.
You ARE only rolling damage once. That damage roll is what gets applied to a target every time they fail their save against the sphere on subsequent rounds.
You ARE only rolling damage once. That damage roll is what gets applied to a target every time they fail their save against the sphere on subsequent rounds.
You roll the dice every time it does damage.
The creature ending their turn happens within the first round (a round consists of a series of turns). And I flat out disagree with your second reading.
Tell you what, if you want to continue the discussion on how Flaming Sphere works, make a separate thread so we stop derailing this one.
Ultimately I think the question is just how much benefit the expanded magic item options bring to the table, especially with enspelled weapons and armor. In terms of raw dpr they’re going to be lackluster, and honestly that’s not an absolute dealbreaker. They’re going to be within a few points of straight weapon attack rolls, but unlike Paladins or Rangers they don’t have to go MAD to account for their spellcasting and other features. But with the new future proofed design for creating magic items, it’s hard to gauge offhand what the extra range of capabilities will be.
Where do I see the options to use the new unearthed arcana artificer within the character creator? I'd love to test these out in dndb and the new Maps tool.
Where do I see the options to use the new unearthed arcana artificer within the character creator? I'd love to test these out in dndb and the new Maps tool.
D&D Beyond's character builder no longer has support for UA content. As I recall, they stopped doing it because it meant putting a lot of work into supporting things that kept changing rapidly and might never actually be released.
A point I've been noticing about the new spell-storing item: it's not all that strong if it's the artificer using it -- but you can hand it off to a homunculus, familiar, or similar (which is better, 1d+2 or fireball), and because it doesn't use a spell slot, it can be activated multiple times per turn if you have an appropriate ability (thief rogue fast hands, anyone?).
Tempted to suggest the artificer should just get fast hands as a class feature, and make the spell-storing item level 2 (upgrades to level 3 at 17 or 20, that's a respectable capstone).
I don't mind Spell Storing going up to 3rd-level spells, but 2x INT is way too many uses of it. And Enspelled Staff / Enspelled Armor / Enspelled Weapon) being on the list for Replicate is also too much. Between the two you can pile on two dozen or more bonus spell slots per day. Not to mention, the latter can poach from unpoachable spell lists too, like Paladin or Ranger - Find Steed anyone?
And even if you take the charged/consumable items out, Replicate making the item out of thin air is still potentially a problem. Adamantine Armor is uncommon, so this Artificer can make a suit of Adamantine Full Plate for free as early as level 6 - many groups can't even afford mundane full plate at that level, never mind a magical crit-immune variant, and even if they could afford it it would cost a considerable chunk of their wealth rather than being completely free.
Where do I see the options to use the new unearthed arcana artificer within the character creator? I'd love to test these out in dndb and the new Maps tool.
D&D Beyond's character builder no longer has support for UA content. As I recall, they stopped doing it because it meant putting a lot of work into supporting things that kept changing rapidly and might never actually be released.
^ what they said. I'll add an edit to my first post.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Your Friendly Neighborhood Community Manager (she/her) You can call me LT. :)
CM Hat On| CM Hat Off Generally active from 9am - 6pm CDT [GMT-5]. Thank you for your patience if you message me outside of those hours!
Not quite.
A level 2 homunculus has AC 13 and 15 hp. Average lifespan is probably on the order of two combats.
Boldness Elixir is a bonus action to use, which may conflict with the bonus actions required for flaming sphere.
Casting flaming sphere is an action, so you aren't using fire bolt round 1.
Alchemical Savant only applies to one roll of a spell. Thus, it only applies once (presumably for round 1).
What this gives for a typical 3 round combat, assuming Int 18, which is reasonable at level 5, is
Total over 3 rounds: 70, or 23 dpr. Which is about what a martial manages with no resource expenditure at all.
I agree, I always thought of artificer infusions like warlock invocations. Unique to the class.
While the new system "future proofs" the class for later additions of new magic items, it lacks flavor and opens up a host of other issues, not the least of which is Enspelled Weapons and Armor, which combined can effectively give an Artificer 12 total extra 1st level spell slots at level 6.
Things I like:
Things I don’t like:
Things that are a mixed bag:
Things I would like to see:
I was thinking that the Eldritch Knight / Valour Bard feature to allow one attack to be replaced with a cantrip would help the Armourer’s damage output catch up with the Battle Smith, Paladin and Ranger. Letting the Battle Smith use their replicated weapon as a spellcasting focus would be good though.
The Armourer’s weapons should be eligible for Magic Weapon, but that’s at the cost of a 2nd or higher level slot for a relatively modest bump in damage output.
For the “no firearms proficiency” complaints, note that firearms are now lumped in with martial weapons on the PHB table and only Battle Smiths- who get martial profs- are particularly incentivized to use outside weapons over subclass features and/or cantrips.
It's a ranged pet that can fly and has Evasion 🤨 Obviously if your DM likes to target those and tends to use monsters that can even do so then you shouldn't use it, but that's not exactly common.
I already covered this in my post; you drink it on the round you cast flaming sphere, when you won't be using your BA anyway. Drinking an elixir is not a leveled spell so you can do both in the same round. Once you drink it, it lasts the entire combat, so your BA is free at that point; there is no conflict.
Covered this as well (did you read my post?) Nearly ANY combat spell you cast is going to use your first action so that's moot, unless you plan to do nothing but cantrips the entire time, which is a DPR loss compared to spending a single slot.
Flaming Sphere is a fire spell, so it gets the bonus too. It's not 1/round. Your math is wrong.
Round 2 is therefore 2d10+4, 2d6+4, and 1d6+2, total 31. Same for round 3. So the total over 3 rounds is 78, or 26 DPR. And if the combat goes to 4 rounds, you get another 31. All for a single spell slot.
Flaming sphere requires a BA to make an attack, even on the first round.
Flaming sphere gets the bonus... but it only gets the bonus once. 'One roll' does not mean 'one roll per turn'.
What exactly would you add? They can already temporarily create something from nothing and if you check the subclasses they get time reductions on certain types of magic items. Cost reduction on magic items is probably out because that opens up too much encouragement for players to attempt cash exploits and also overcomes a more significant throttle on magic item acquisitions. The need for a “component” has been dropped from magic item crafting, and they also seem to have made the mistake of not codifying the need for a schematic to cover DM fiat against exploit combos. Barring bringing back tool expertise- which had to be fairly niche and had no impact on crafting- what exactly can be added to crafting?
I think at least Battle Smith needs weapon masteries, paladin and ranger still get weapon masteries as half casters. Though their base classes are more geared towards being gish/martial+spells, compared to artificer's lean towards utility. Battle Smith fills that martial/gish role.
Since swords bard and bladesinger are both still full casters i can see why they don't have weapon masteries but i feel like since battle smith is more martial and is also a half-caster it should get them the same way as paladin and ranger do.
On the first round you create it within 5 feet of them, no BA needed. The ramming only has to occur on subsequent rounds.
You ARE only rolling damage once. That damage roll is what gets applied to a target every time they fail their save against the sphere on subsequent rounds.
Is there a way to use this version in the character creator?
Mmm, that part does seem a bit fuzzy. Pretty sure each instance of damage is considered a separate roll, rather than your initial value being “locked in”.
flaming sphere has only two conditions under which it does damage
There is no automatic first round damage.
You roll the dice every time it does damage.
The creature ending their turn happens within the first round (a round consists of a series of turns). And I flat out disagree with your second reading.
Tell you what, if you want to continue the discussion on how Flaming Sphere works, make a separate thread so we stop derailing this one.
Ultimately I think the question is just how much benefit the expanded magic item options bring to the table, especially with enspelled weapons and armor. In terms of raw dpr they’re going to be lackluster, and honestly that’s not an absolute dealbreaker. They’re going to be within a few points of straight weapon attack rolls, but unlike Paladins or Rangers they don’t have to go MAD to account for their spellcasting and other features. But with the new future proofed design for creating magic items, it’s hard to gauge offhand what the extra range of capabilities will be.
Where do I see the options to use the new unearthed arcana artificer within the character creator? I'd love to test these out in dndb and the new Maps tool.
D&D Beyond's character builder no longer has support for UA content. As I recall, they stopped doing it because it meant putting a lot of work into supporting things that kept changing rapidly and might never actually be released.
pronouns: he/she/they
A point I've been noticing about the new spell-storing item: it's not all that strong if it's the artificer using it -- but you can hand it off to a homunculus, familiar, or similar (which is better, 1d+2 or fireball), and because it doesn't use a spell slot, it can be activated multiple times per turn if you have an appropriate ability (thief rogue fast hands, anyone?).
Tempted to suggest the artificer should just get fast hands as a class feature, and make the spell-storing item level 2 (upgrades to level 3 at 17 or 20, that's a respectable capstone).
I don't mind Spell Storing going up to 3rd-level spells, but 2x INT is way too many uses of it. And Enspelled Staff / Enspelled Armor / Enspelled Weapon) being on the list for Replicate is also too much. Between the two you can pile on two dozen or more bonus spell slots per day. Not to mention, the latter can poach from unpoachable spell lists too, like Paladin or Ranger - Find Steed anyone?
And even if you take the charged/consumable items out, Replicate making the item out of thin air is still potentially a problem. Adamantine Armor is uncommon, so this Artificer can make a suit of Adamantine Full Plate for free as early as level 6 - many groups can't even afford mundane full plate at that level, never mind a magical crit-immune variant, and even if they could afford it it would cost a considerable chunk of their wealth rather than being completely free.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
D&D Staff^ what they said. I'll add an edit to my first post.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Community Manager (she/her)
You can call me LT. :)
CM Hat On | CM Hat Off
Generally active from 9am - 6pm CDT [GMT-5].
Thank you for your patience if you message me outside of those hours!
Useful Links: Site Rules & Guidelines | D&D Educator Resources | Change Your Nickname | Submit a Support Ticket
