Hello all,

     I'm currently playing in a campaign as an artificer, and while I love the class, the most frustrating thing for me is the lack of class-specific spells for the Artificer. I know I'm probably not the only one with this issue. But I would love to propose a quorum of creating Artificer exclusive spells to share, edit, and review. I think that the artificer has the potential to have some really interesting combat and utility spells that could be used in a variety of ways. I'll start this off by submitting my first attempt at a spell and would love any feedback and constructive criticism.   Fluid Forge

We currently can't see what you put, go ahead and copy/paste what you have here. DO NOT make it public until you are done editing it.

Oh! My bad!! Here you go!

Fluid Forge 

4th Level Transmutation

Casting Time: 1 action

Duration: 10 min (Concentration)

Range/Area: Touch

Components: V, S, M* (Flask of mercury, which is consumed; artisans tools)

Touch a mundane item (nonmagical medium size or smaller). For the duration of the spell. You can transmute the item into another form of your wish. This item is treated as magical and cannot change in size by more than one size categories. If transmuting the item into a weapon. It is considered a +2 simple or martial weapon.

Item sizes per Basic Rules(Ch.15)
Tiny (bottle, lock)
Small (chest, lute, *most weapons)
Medium (barrel, chandelier)
Large (cart, 10-ft.-by-10-ft window)

The idea is to do a mix somewhere between a creation spell and a magic weapon spell, with some flavor of the Rod of Lordly Might. So that it can be used in combat as well as OoC utility. 

*edited to add clarifying text

Apologies for being the person who bumps his own thread. I would love any feedback on the spell posted above. Specifically for balance as I wanted to get some community input before presenting it to my DM. Thanks in advance! 

okay here's a few point's that come to mind at first reading it.

• The wording of the overall spell seems a bit weird to me, but I think its because you have it broken up into a bunch of smaller sentences. Instead of, "Touch a mundane item (nonmagical medium size or smaller). For the duration of the spell. You can transmute the item into another form of your wish." you could word it something like, "You touch a nonmagical item no longer than medium. For duration of the spell, the item transmutes into another form of your choosing."
• Personally, I don't think that this spell needs the +2 bonus for weapons because of how versatility this spell gives the player.
• The material components is also worded weird, I'd recommend something like "Artisan's Tools, and consumes a flask of mercury" I would have worded it as artisan's tool and flask of mercury, which the spell consumes," but I don't want the player to mistake that consumption being tied to the tools too.
• Finally, this should also be able to be learned by wizards. This is right up the alley of transmutation wizards.

Thanks! I'll definitely re-word it, as far as making it available for transmutation wizards, I definitely understand, but part of the reason I've been experimenting with homebrewing spells is that I feel that Artificers don't have enough class defining spells. I may make a second version for both wizards and artificers for anyone who wants to use it.  I did have a few additional questions to anyone who may like to give input.

-I do want to give a combat option of some sort as most players will look for that since it is such a big part of the game. How would you implement a small combat oriented feature? Or would that be doing too much?

-Should the spell be lowered to 3rd level and put a component cost to make it accessible to most levels of play (Tier II/III)?

Update:
I did some tinkering to the spell as I realized that in it's base form it was basically a weaker Fabricate, so with the suggestions in mind here's what I've got.

Fluid Forge
3rd Level Transmutation
Casting Time: 1 action
Duration: 1 hour (Concentration)
Range/ Area: Touch
Components: V, S, M (5 gp of mercury, which the spell consumes and Artisan's Tools)

Utilizing your artisan skills and magic, you touch a mundane nonmagical item no larger than medium size. For duration of the spell, the item transmutes into another form of your choosing. The item is treated as magical and cannot change in size by more than one size category. If transmuting a weapon, the weapon is considered either simple or martial and magical when considering resistances. On a hit the weapon will deal an additional 1d6 force damage. 

Item sizes per Basic Rules(Ch.15)
Tiny (bottle, lock)
Small (chest, lute, *most weapons)
Medium (barrel, chandelier)
Large (cart, 10-ft.-by-10-ft window)

Try this:

Touch a Small or smaller nonmagical item and for the duration of this spell,  as an action you can change the item into any other item up to one size larger or smaller than the original item. The item is treated as magical for the purpose of overcoming damage resistance. If you transform the item into a weapon, you are proficient with that weapon.

At Higher Levels. Whenever you cast this spell with a spell slot of 5th or higher, the spell can target an object up to one size category larger, and if you transform the item into a weapon, you have a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls for every two spell levels above 3rd.

I like the upcast option, however the +1 would be the top out because of artificers being half-casters. Actually, now that I'm thinking of it the added proficiency would overcome the attack roll issue. I'll test it around a bit!

Yes, an Artificer would be topped out at a Medium object and a +1 bonus, but a Bard with Magical Secrets could take it all the way to 9th-level for a Huge object and a +3 bonus.

Pass #3
Spoke with a friend who DM's a bunch, and adjusted accordingly. They had concerns in the proficiency bonus of the weapons options and suggested either half proficiency or limiting the types of weapons as it could be broken in their opinion. I'm still debating on that one. Appreciative of you all!

Utilizing your artisan skills and magic, touch a Small or smaller nonmagical item and for the duration of this spell,  as an action you can change the item into any other item up to one size larger or smaller than the original item. The item is treated as magical for the purpose of overcoming damage resistance. If you transform the item into a weapon, you are proficient with that weapon. On a hit the weapon will deal an additional 1d6 damage. 

At Higher Levels. Whenever you cast this spell with a spell slot of 4th or higher, the spell can target an object up to one size category larger, and if you transform the item into a weapon, you have a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls for every two spell levels above 3rd.

Quote from SpectrTheron >>

Pass #3
Spoke with a friend who DM's a bunch, and adjusted accordingly. They had concerns in the proficiency bonus of the weapons options and suggested either half proficiency or limiting the types of weapons as it could be broken in their opinion. I'm still debating on that one. Appreciative of you all!

Utilizing your artisan skills and magic, touch a Small or smaller nonmagical item and for the duration of this spell,  as an action you can change the item into any other item up to one size larger or smaller than the original item. The item is treated as magical for the purpose of overcoming damage resistance. If you transform the item into a weapon, you are proficient with that weapon. On a hit the weapon will deal an additional 1d6 damage. 

At Higher Levels. Whenever you cast this spell with a spell slot of 4th or higher, the spell can target an object up to one size category larger, and if you transform the item into a weapon, you have a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls for every two spell levels above 3rd.

As a DM: That’s the overpowered part. Get rid of that part and the proficiency is no longer a problem.

One other thing to note, as a rule, all Artificers have to use their Artisan’s tools anyway, or an infused item. So you only need to list the Mercury.

And if your DM is still insistent on limiting the weapons, restrict it to melee weapons, darts, and blowguns.