The infusion of spellwrought tattoos by D&D 5e Artificers is game wrecking to the extent of permitting easy access for everyone to a familiar and a potentially unlimited number of castings of 1st level spells including reaction buffs. And it all started so well: It was back in 2019 that we first heard the news that, "In the world of Eberron, arcane magic has been harnessed as a form of science and deployed throughout society", and that, "Artificers reflect this development." We further learned of a new Artificer, "Infuse Item" ability with the effect that, "At 2nd level, you gain the ability to imbue mundane items with certain magical infusions". Specifically, an artificer at 2nd level gains both the knowledge to infuse for the creation of 4 types of prototype magic item and the ability to have 2 such items infused at one time. The infused items function just as well as permanently magical versions of the items except that the magic is impermanent in that it will lose power when the artificer reapplies the used power of infusion into another item. The range of potential prototype magic items includes armour +1, weapon +1, arcane focus +1, repeating shot +1 (arrow or such like), a homunculus (something like a mechanical familiar) or any of a variety of things via the "Replicate Magic Item" option. The rules for this last case specifies that by, "Using this infusion, you replicate a particular magic item" and that, as from Artificer level 2, "... you can choose the magic item from among the common magic items in the game, not including potions or scrolls." It was one real-world year later when we then learned that this kind of artificer became the first listed ingredient in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. But, 'Double double toil and trouble,' toward the end of the ingredients list a wide range of tattoo options that failed to mention artificers in reference to their spellwrought varieties also splashed in. Whereas artificers had previously been banned from infusing potions and scrolls, there suddenly seemed to be options regarding their infusion of consumables.
It's a major change with, I think we will see, potentially far-reaching consequences. Why, for instance, would anyone (PC or NPC) want to start off going to university to learn to be a wizard when they could go to the local tech and scrub up on the arts of the artificer? The only major difficulty that might be immediately perceived in a character choosing to start as an artificer instead of as a wizard, would be a direct lack of a Find Familiar spell option. But, even here, logic might indicate that the artificer might simply be able to talk to a previous graduate of their tech to get inked with a spellwrought tattoo for long enough to achieve the single spell casting that way. The other main magical differences between the classes, at least at level 1, are that the wizard gets 1 extra cantrip and can swap out 1st level spells with those in their somewhat limited spellbook. On less magical topics though, artificers get proficiency in constitution based saving throws, all simple weapons, medium armour and shields and they can get scale mail in their starter kits. And that's from 1st level. At second level, they get abilities to infuse and swap out magic items. All they need to do is get to level 2 and then, for as long as they may like, they could take it easy. They'd just need to do 12 seconds of work a day and they'd be able to make two consumable items. Back in the traditionally developed world of D&D, it would take 10 days crafting time to make a potion of healing and this would only be able to be done on the basis of a 25 gp cost for materials. Scribing a 1st level spell scroll would require 20 days crafting time and 50 gp cost for materials. But now why bother? Tasha's suddenly lets an artificer provide a temporary equivalent in under 6 seconds at zero material cost. Locations like the Yawning Portal might rapidly become sites for tattoo parlours to spring up with artificers popping in to trade their lightning-fast inkworks. Perhaps, among the 4 infusions potentially known, our 2nd level artificer might learn how to infuse a spellwrought tattoo for Find Familiar. RAW (rules as written), it doesn't matter that FF isn't an artificer spell. By all means, feel free to homebrew away. But all that find in RAW is simply that artificers "... can choose the magic item from among the common magic items in the game". Other potential options for the 4 infusions that an artificer could know include spellwrought tattoo options that may individually enable casting the likes of: Absorb Elements, Animal Friendship, Armor of Agythys, Bless, Charm Person, Command, Compelled Duel (someone might especially like to pay for a companion to take this one), Comprehend Languages, Cure Wounds, Detect Magic, Detect Poison and Disease, Disguise Self, Distort Value, Divine Favor, Ensnaring (or other) Strike, Entangle, Expeditious Retreat and Faerie Fire, Feather Fall, all in the alphabet before Find Familiar. Find Familiar is widely regarded as being one of the most valuable 1st level spells in the game. For some people, getting this one spell might even have provided a major motivation for choosing to become a wizard. But this all changes when a casting of, perhaps a more aptly named, Find ever-so-Familiar can be enabled via a six-second infusion of a spellwrought tattoo by a 2nd level artificer. This is not the first time that non-wizards have widely been able to attain familiars. It's just that the previously considered way involved the use of Ring of Spell Storing, a rare magical item, and for this valuable item to be attuned by each person that wants to cast any spell stored within. Attunement would take an hour which would be followed by an hour casting time of Find Familiar and, for the ring owner, the whole thing becomes a lengthy as well as a potentially risky process. (Now that this has been mentioned, I may as well drop in some of the details. I add some extracts from the descriptions of the spell and the item aimed to help enable your interpretation. Find Familiar: ... You can't have more than one familiar at a time. If you cast this spell while you already have a familiar, you instead cause it to adopt a new form. Ring of Spell Storing: ... Any creature can cast a spell of 1st through 5th level into the ring by touching the ring as the spell is cast. The spell has no effect, other than to be stored in the ring. ... The spell uses the slot level, spell save DC, spell attack bonus, and spellcasting ability of the original caster, but is otherwise treated as if you cast the spell.) If allowed, it would still be a time consuming and potentially risky business for a Ring of Spell Storing to be used to share around castings of Find Familiar. RAW, second-level artificers can provide tattoos for the spell, with no personal risk, in under six seconds. The logical effect of all this would be that every D&D boss could become an identikit Bond villain. You can imagine the dialogue. "Good evening Mr Bond, I've been expecting you!" "But how did you know I was coming?" "Because of the cheap familiars among my henchfolk." Logically, just about everyone and everything that could (including the Candlekeep janitor), would get a familiar. A new risk would rise in D&D, that a wide variety of encounters would gain a monotonously repetition. But what about the player's side of adventuring? Any party that could get to an artificer tattoo parlour that was within a day's travel of potential encounters (perhaps even via teleportation type transport) could greatly gain by getting, potentially, any number of tattoos. I mean any number. According to Jeremy Crawford tattoos can overlap and, according to Tasha's, spellwrought tattoos don't require attunement. Given the chance, each party member might each get 6-600 tattoos of spells including shield among many other options. Little money might potentially need to be paid because there's no component cost. The party could then just zip off from their inkings to their encounters and then benefit from a continual supply +5 to AC or absorb elements and a range of other buffs that they had previously been enabled to apply. But all this time the artificer would see brave adventurers heading off bravely adventuring. At some point, the day might at some time come when the artificer might say something like, "No Dad! I've spent my time following a sensible career to become a tattooist! Now I'm off to become a great wizard! But don't worry. By this time I've got some great armour (at least half plate), I got my familiar long ago and I still know my own infusions. On any less busy day I can infuse a tattoo to let me cast, say, goodberry and on any day when things look like they might get busy I can infuse so that my good, old, faithful familiar can receive tattoos to enable it to cast spells such as bless or fog cloud. And you don't even need to worry about little Snuffles. Snuffles can remain safely in a pocket owned by me, the safest member of the party. Yes! Don't worry! I'll be as safe as I can possibly be. I'm going with adventurers who know those old clients of mine who each left firm instruction, 'take care of my artificer!'". The ability of artificers to infuse spellwrought tattoos would make great changes to the classes that might naturally be taken and achieved within the worlds of D&D. I'd imagine that many of the people that survived to become wizards of high level would have started with at least two levels in artificer. I also doubt that people in other classes would find much great advantage in taking any shallow multiclass dip into any spellcasting class. Why should they? As far as spell casting is concerned, these needs could be at least temporarily filled via some appropriate tattooist contacts.
Homebrew as you like. I recommend banning spellwrought tattoos from among potential infusions. Either that or you place some limit of their use with Find Familiar, require spellwrought tattoo attunement and say that spellwrought tattoos can't overlap. Without limits, I think artificers being able to infuse 1st level spell consumables in less than six seconds at no material cost makes a mockery of the game.
Don't get me started on Tasha's rules that allow custom lineage goblins or halflings to advance to strength 20 with the same ease as goliaths or half-orcs. Whilst being similarly ridiculous, that's a different topic!
Did you know that Druids get the ability to conjure free familiars too, as of Tasha's?
Did you also know that you are still limited to the number of infusions that you can know and use for spellwrought tattoo. If you learn one spell to use as a tattoo, that counts against your known infusions and if you actually use it to make the needle in order to give someone that tattoo, that counts against your used infusions.
Without limits, I think artificers being able to infuse 1st level spell consumables in less than six seconds at no material cost makes a mockery of the game.
I mean, they can already create +1 armor in 6 seconds, which is a rare magic item that is more powerful and costly than a single use scroll. Its not like they are making a stockpile of tattoos. Spellwrought tattoos on their own really aren't any issue. Its a once/day 1st level spell in exchange for an infusion slot - that's well within scope of other infusions.
The Find Familiar combo, in particular, is the only aspect that is open to abuse, since the familiar is permanent and can be stockpiled, to an extent. You can gift one familiar per day to someone, at the cost of one of your infusion slots. I don't think the 'infinite familiar chain' of giving your familiar another familiar works. So you're really just looking at two scenarios - giving your whole party familiars, and spending downtime to doll out familiars to a bunch of npcs. The issue of a villain having an army of familiars is completely moot, because villains already aren't held back by PC rules.
I don't really see the concern but I might be missing something.
"INFUSING AN ITEM Whenever you finish a long rest, you can touch a nonmagical object and imbue it with one of your artificer infusions, turning it into a magic item. An infusion works on only certain kinds of objects, as specified in the infusion's description. If the item requires attunement, you can attune yourself to it the instant you infuse the item."
"SPELLWROUGHT TATTOO Wondrous item (tattoo), rarity varies. Produced by a special needle, this magic tattoo contains a single spell of up to 5th level, wrought on your skin by a magic needle. To use the tattoo, you must hold the needle against your skin and speak the command word. The needle turns into ink that becomes the tattoo, which appears on the skin in whatever design you like. Once the tattoo is there, you can cast its spell, requiring no material components. The tattoo glows faintly while you cast the spell and for the spell's duration. Once the spell ends, the tattoo vanishes from your skin."
Once per long rest the artificer could infuse a spellwrought tattoo needle. Someone could then use it to transfer the tattoo to their skin transforming the needle into a tattoo. The infusions magic would disappear when the creature cast the spell. So, yes an artificer could outfit the party with familiars but unless I am missing something it would only be 1 character/day.
I don't see any ability to do this once every six seconds - just once/day - which really doesn't seem very much of a concern to me. Familiars are a part of the game and I have never really found them to be particularly difficult to deal with or overpowered - so having an artificer use one of their daily infusions to allow a character to cast an extra 1st level spell isn't a big deal.
Hi Wolf, No, I did not know that about Druid's getting that ability though there though I think it's cool that they get it in sacrifice of one of their slots in wildshape. That at least, like some other examples of classes being able to get familiars, seems fairly balanced.
Yes, I mentioned that level two artificers can have two infusions running at a time and that they can replace them every long rest. My example was of an artificer that knew infusions for spellwought tattoos for Find Familiar, Goodberry, Bless and Fog Cloud and per 4 infusions known at level 2. If this artificer had one long rest per day and used all infusions to give people spellwrought tattoos for Find Familiar, that would be 730 familiars potentially produced in one earth year. A wizard, without a ring of spell storing, can only produce one. It doesn't matter what happens to the needle. Used needles in D&D don't have magic in them and, in any case, after a long rest, the artificer can just infuse a new one.
I don't know how you play d&d, but certainly most of the replicable magic items are way more useful than a bunch of familiars for NPCs that aren't going to participate meaningfully in the adventure. Heck, even more than 1 familiar in a party is a bit overkill.
But that being said, you can only make 1 per day, and it needs to be used that day in order to make the next day's. And each person can only have one familiar.
It isn't nearly as gamebreaking as some of the actual permanent magic items that you're literally allowed to replicate. Wands of detect magic, sending stones, even an alchemy jug could be more gamebreaking. Just imagine how much mayonnaise you can make in a year.
It doesn't matter what happens to the needle. Used needles in D&D don't have magic in them and, in any case, after a long rest, the artificer can just infuse a new one.
While this wouldn't be a huge obstacle, the artificer does need to find a new needle for each tattoo. The needle is consumed each time a tattoo is used, and infusions don't create magic items out of thin air - you must touch one nonmagical item that is appropriate to the magic item. In this case, a needle.
It would be a really great source of downtime income and a logical progression of a world that included this would be that it would become full of familiars.
I'd also argue that, adventurers at many levels, if they were shortly to be off to an encounter, might pay good money for spellwrought tattoos for the likes of shield, absorb elements, bless and others.
While this wouldn't be a huge obstacle, the artificer does need to find a new needle for each tattoo. The needle is consumed each time a tattoo is used, and infusions don't create magic items out of thin air - you must touch one nonmagical item that is appropriate to the magic item. In this case, a needle.
Yep. The Mayor pays you to provide familiars for themself and for their spouse while you pay for a couple of needles. Artificers would be quids in.
It would be a really great source of downtime income and a logical progression of a world that included this would be that it would become full of familiars.
I'd also argue that, adventurers at many levels, if they were shortly to be off to an encounter, might pay good money for spellwrought tattoos for the likes of shield, absorb elements, bless and others.
Considering that the tattoo vanishes once you use the spell, I don't think you can really classify it as permanent or any more useful than a spell scroll.
Considering that the tattoo vanishes once you use the spell, I don't think you can really classify it as permanent or any more useful than a spell scroll.
I'd define it as exactly as useful as a spell scroll. A spell scroll is read and produces the effect associated with the spell. Spellwrought tattoo would work in the same way as spell scrolls. The only problem is that Artificers are barred from infusing Spellworught tattoos in the same way as they're banned from producing scrolls. I'm just advising homebrew for what I think was an oversight.
Considering that the tattoo vanishes once you use the spell, I don't think you can really classify it as permanent or any more useful than a spell scroll.
I'd define it as exactly as useful as a spell scroll. A spell scroll is read and produces the effect associated with the spell. Spellwrought tattoo would work in the same way as spell scrolls. The only problem is that Artificers are barred from infusing Spellworught tattoos in the same way as they're banned from producing scrolls. I'm just advising homebrew for what I think was an oversight.
But Spell Scrolls of Find Familiar haven't broken the world (of D&D) so I really don't see how Spellwrought Tattoos are doing it.
The Familiars themselves are permanent as long as they can survive, so i think that is what the OP is getting at. But the tattoos are limited to the restrictions of infusions and the spellwrought tattoo description. You can use each tattoo once, and as long as you haven’t used it, that artificer isn’t infusing another item. Or maybe they are… and you’re just out the gold or have to go find the artificer.
Considering that the tattoo vanishes once you use the spell, I don't think you can really classify it as permanent or any more useful than a spell scroll.
I'd define it as exactly as useful as a spell scroll. A spell scroll is read and produces the effect associated with the spell. Spellwrought tattoo would work in the same way as spell scrolls. The only problem is that Artificers are barred from infusing Spellworught tattoos in the same way as they're banned from producing scrolls. I'm just advising homebrew for what I think was an oversight.
But Spell Scrolls of Find Familiar haven't broken the world (of D&D) so I really don't see how Spellwrought Tattoos are doing it.
Spell Scroll
Scroll, varies
A spell scroll bears the words of a single spell, written in a mystical cipher. If the spell is on your class’s spell list, you can read the scroll and cast its spell without providing any material Components. Otherwise, the scroll is unintelligible.
A spell scroll of Find Familiar can only be used by Wizards.
It would be a really great source of downtime income and a logical progression of a world that included this would be that it would become full of familiars.
I'd also argue that, adventurers at many levels, if they were shortly to be off to an encounter, might pay good money for spellwrought tattoos for the likes of shield, absorb elements, bless and others.
However, most of those spells are not used immediately. As soon as an Artificer infuses another one, the existing one disappears so the technique only works on spells that could be used immediately like Find Familiar or Goodberry. Shield, bless or absorb elements are only useful if you still have the tattoo - which is the ink from the transformed needle and is essentially still the infused object until it is used. So, I honestly don't see much of a market except for familiars. However, familiars die easily - only 1 hit point and the artificer can only make 1/day.
In addition, an Artificer at level 2 only has 2 infused items/day - which they would be far more likely to expend on something they can use themselves since I doubt they could get folks to pay very much for what amounts to a special pet you can communicate with and see through its senses.
Edit: However, since the infusion ability explicitly excludes potions and scrolls - a DM could also choose to exclude spellwrought tattoos which are essentially just a different type of scroll (one etched on your skin and thus easier to carry around).
The Familiars themselves are permanent as long as they can survive, so i think that is what the OP is getting at. But the tattoos are limited to the restrictions of infusions and the spellwrought tattoo description. You can use each tattoo once, and as long as you haven’t used it, that artificer isn’t infusing another item. Or maybe they are… and you’re just out the gold or have to go find the artificer.
Every long rest the artificer could infuse two more tattoos of, say, Find Familiar and everyday those two spells would be enabled to be cast. Then the next day the artificer can in infuse for two more tattoos and yet the previous days spell castings would have already happened.
Given the chance, each party member might each get 6-600 tattoos of spells including shield among many other options.
This would be staggeringly expensive - you'd need to convince artificers to permanently allocate their infusions to you, since they don't dare re-infuse for fear of your tat evaporating, and they have no way to know when you use the tat that they can re-infuse. In fact, as a PC Artificer, almost no amount of money would be enough for that - even for a staggering sum, I would demand some time limit on the infusion so I could resume my life even if I didn't hear from you.
If you think a Find Familiar tattoo is "game-breaking" then, like, don't allow it. There are two completely viable arguments for saying no to the attempt:
- you can't create consumables with Replicate Magic Item (no potions or scrolls). Spellwrought Tattoos are just another consumable.
- nothing in the Replicate Magic Item or Spellwrought Tattoo descriptions explicitly allows, or even suggests, an artificer could create one to store a spell that isn't on the artificer spell list. Meanwhile, their 11th-level feature (Spell-Storing Item) expressly forbids doing it. It's a logical enough ruling to restrict artificer tattoos to artificer spells, which rules out Find Familiar (and a lot of the other spells you seem worried about). If you port in the 'casting time of 1 action' restriction from Spell-Storing Item on top of that (because why would a 2nd-level feature be better/more flexible than an 11th-level feature?), you're down to catapult, cure wounds, detect magic, disguise self, faerie fire, false life, grease, jump, longstrider, purify food and drink or tasha's caustic brew -- some useful stuff in there to be sure, but hardly game-breaking. Even if you don't, a feather fall or expeditious retreat tattoo doesn't seem like that big a deal, just handy in a pinch.
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Given the chance, each party member might each get 6-600 tattoos of spells including shield among many other options.
This would be staggeringly expensive - you'd need to convince artificers to permanently allocate their infusions to you, since they don't dare re-infuse for fear of your tat evaporating, and they have no way to know when you use the tat that they can re-infuse. In fact, as a PC Artificer, almost no amount of money would be enough for that - even for a staggering sum, I would demand some time limit on the infusion so I could resume my life even if I didn't hear from you.
Conditions of any purchase for anything will typically be made either by the seller setting the conditions or by negotiation between the seller and the buyer. I guess the seller might agree different prices depending on the buyers plan on when they want to use the infused item. I was thinking infusions being sold on the understanding that they would need to be used within a certain time limit. It would then be up to the buyer to decide how many infusions they wanted to purchase. But yes, if the buyer wanted to make an agreement that the artificer would hold on for an extended period of time before they again infused items, this would get more expensive. The Artificer might still get vastly more than the RAW rate of earnings for crafting of standard items such as potions of healing (2.5 gp per day). How much money do you think they could or would charge for infusion of impermanent consumables? I was thinking that they might, say offer, 2 impermanent tattoos for cure light wounds for say the value of one potion of healing. But buyer beware. Their options would be to accept an offer, try to renegotiate, or leave it.
I'd imagine one of the few instances where game world creature might pay for infusions for an extended period of time (much more than one day) would be if they wanted infusions like shield to cover specific issues of defense. Otherwise a "use it or lose it" rule might more typically apply.
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The infusion of spellwrought tattoos by D&D 5e Artificers is game wrecking to the extent of permitting easy access for everyone to a familiar and a potentially unlimited number of castings of 1st level spells including reaction buffs.
And it all started so well:
It was back in 2019 that we first heard the news that, "In the world of Eberron, arcane magic has been harnessed as a form of science and deployed throughout society", and that, "Artificers reflect this development." We further learned of a new Artificer, "Infuse Item" ability with the effect that, "At 2nd level, you gain the ability to imbue mundane items with certain magical infusions".
Specifically, an artificer at 2nd level gains both the knowledge to infuse for the creation of 4 types of prototype magic item and the ability to have 2 such items infused at one time. The infused items function just as well as permanently magical versions of the items except that the magic is impermanent in that it will lose power when the artificer reapplies the used power of infusion into another item.
The range of potential prototype magic items includes armour +1, weapon +1, arcane focus +1, repeating shot +1 (arrow or such like), a homunculus (something like a mechanical familiar) or any of a variety of things via the "Replicate Magic Item" option. The rules for this last case specifies that by, "Using this infusion, you replicate a particular magic item" and that, as from Artificer level 2, "... you can choose the magic item from among the common magic items in the game, not including potions or scrolls."
It was one real-world year later when we then learned that this kind of artificer became the first listed ingredient in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. But, 'Double double toil and trouble,' toward the end of the ingredients list a wide range of tattoo options that failed to mention artificers in reference to their spellwrought varieties also splashed in. Whereas artificers had previously been banned from infusing potions and scrolls, there suddenly seemed to be options regarding their infusion of consumables.
It's a major change with, I think we will see, potentially far-reaching consequences.
Why, for instance, would anyone (PC or NPC) want to start off going to university to learn to be a wizard when they could go to the local tech and scrub up on the arts of the artificer?
The only major difficulty that might be immediately perceived in a character choosing to start as an artificer instead of as a wizard, would be a direct lack of a Find Familiar spell option. But, even here, logic might indicate that the artificer might simply be able to talk to a previous graduate of their tech to get inked with a spellwrought tattoo for long enough to achieve the single spell casting that way.
The other main magical differences between the classes, at least at level 1, are that the wizard gets 1 extra cantrip and can swap out 1st level spells with those in their somewhat limited spellbook. On less magical topics though, artificers get proficiency in constitution based saving throws, all simple weapons, medium armour and shields and they can get scale mail in their starter kits. And that's from 1st level. At second level, they get abilities to infuse and swap out magic items.
All they need to do is get to level 2 and then, for as long as they may like, they could take it easy. They'd just need to do 12 seconds of work a day and they'd be able to make two consumable items.
Back in the traditionally developed world of D&D, it would take 10 days crafting time to make a potion of healing and this would only be able to be done on the basis of a 25 gp cost for materials. Scribing a 1st level spell scroll would require 20 days crafting time and 50 gp cost for materials. But now why bother? Tasha's suddenly lets an artificer provide a temporary equivalent in under 6 seconds at zero material cost.
Locations like the Yawning Portal might rapidly become sites for tattoo parlours to spring up with artificers popping in to trade their lightning-fast inkworks.
Perhaps, among the 4 infusions potentially known, our 2nd level artificer might learn how to infuse a spellwrought tattoo for Find Familiar. RAW (rules as written), it doesn't matter that FF isn't an artificer spell. By all means, feel free to homebrew away. But all that find in RAW is simply that artificers "... can choose the magic item from among the common magic items in the game". Other potential options for the 4 infusions that an artificer could know include spellwrought tattoo options that may individually enable casting the likes of: Absorb Elements, Animal Friendship, Armor of Agythys, Bless, Charm Person, Command, Compelled Duel (someone might especially like to pay for a companion to take this one), Comprehend Languages, Cure Wounds, Detect Magic, Detect Poison and Disease, Disguise Self, Distort Value, Divine Favor, Ensnaring (or other) Strike, Entangle, Expeditious Retreat and Faerie Fire, Feather Fall, all in the alphabet before Find Familiar.
Find Familiar is widely regarded as being one of the most valuable 1st level spells in the game. For some people, getting this one spell might even have provided a major motivation for choosing to become a wizard. But this all changes when a casting of, perhaps a more aptly named, Find ever-so-Familiar can be enabled via a six-second infusion of a spellwrought tattoo by a 2nd level artificer.
This is not the first time that non-wizards have widely been able to attain familiars. It's just that the previously considered way involved the use of Ring of Spell Storing, a rare magical item, and for this valuable item to be attuned by each person that wants to cast any spell stored within. Attunement would take an hour which would be followed by an hour casting time of Find Familiar and, for the ring owner, the whole thing becomes a lengthy as well as a potentially risky process.
(Now that this has been mentioned, I may as well drop in some of the details. I add some extracts from the descriptions of the spell and the item aimed to help enable your interpretation.
Find Familiar: ... You can't have more than one familiar at a time. If you cast this spell while you already have a familiar, you instead cause it to adopt a new form.
Ring of Spell Storing: ... Any creature can cast a spell of 1st through 5th level into the ring by touching the ring as the spell is cast. The spell has no effect, other than to be stored in the ring. ... The spell uses the slot level, spell save DC, spell attack bonus, and spellcasting ability of the original caster, but is otherwise treated as if you cast the spell.)
If allowed, it would still be a time consuming and potentially risky business for a Ring of Spell Storing to be used to share around castings of Find Familiar.
RAW, second-level artificers can provide tattoos for the spell, with no personal risk, in under six seconds.
The logical effect of all this would be that every D&D boss could become an identikit Bond villain. You can imagine the dialogue. "Good evening Mr Bond, I've been expecting you!" "But how did you know I was coming?" "Because of the cheap familiars among my henchfolk."
Logically, just about everyone and everything that could (including the Candlekeep janitor), would get a familiar.
A new risk would rise in D&D, that a wide variety of encounters would gain a monotonously repetition.
But what about the player's side of adventuring? Any party that could get to an artificer tattoo parlour that was within a day's travel of potential encounters (perhaps even via teleportation type transport) could greatly gain by getting, potentially, any number of tattoos. I mean any number. According to Jeremy Crawford tattoos can overlap and, according to Tasha's, spellwrought tattoos don't require attunement. Given the chance, each party member might each get 6-600 tattoos of spells including shield among many other options. Little money might potentially need to be paid because there's no component cost. The party could then just zip off from their inkings to their encounters and then benefit from a continual supply +5 to AC or absorb elements and a range of other buffs that they had previously been enabled to apply.
But all this time the artificer would see brave adventurers heading off bravely adventuring. At some point, the day might at some time come when the artificer might say something like, "No Dad! I've spent my time following a sensible career to become a tattooist! Now I'm off to become a great wizard! But don't worry. By this time I've got some great armour (at least half plate), I got my familiar long ago and I still know my own infusions. On any less busy day I can infuse a tattoo to let me cast, say, goodberry and on any day when things look like they might get busy I can infuse so that my good, old, faithful familiar can receive tattoos to enable it to cast spells such as bless or fog cloud. And you don't even need to worry about little Snuffles. Snuffles can remain safely in a pocket owned by me, the safest member of the party. Yes! Don't worry! I'll be as safe as I can possibly be. I'm going with adventurers who know those old clients of mine who each left firm instruction, 'take care of my artificer!'".
The ability of artificers to infuse spellwrought tattoos would make great changes to the classes that might naturally be taken and achieved within the worlds of D&D. I'd imagine that many of the people that survived to become wizards of high level would have started with at least two levels in artificer. I also doubt that people in other classes would find much great advantage in taking any shallow multiclass dip into any spellcasting class. Why should they? As far as spell casting is concerned, these needs could be at least temporarily filled via some appropriate tattooist contacts.
Homebrew as you like. I recommend banning spellwrought tattoos from among potential infusions. Either that or you place some limit of their use with Find Familiar, require spellwrought tattoo attunement and say that spellwrought tattoos can't overlap.
Without limits, I think artificers being able to infuse 1st level spell consumables in less than six seconds at no material cost makes a mockery of the game.
Don't get me started on Tasha's rules that allow custom lineage goblins or halflings to advance to strength 20 with the same ease as goliaths or half-orcs. Whilst being similarly ridiculous, that's a different topic!
Did you know that Druids get the ability to conjure free familiars too, as of Tasha's?
Did you also know that you are still limited to the number of infusions that you can know and use for spellwrought tattoo. If you learn one spell to use as a tattoo, that counts against your known infusions and if you actually use it to make the needle in order to give someone that tattoo, that counts against your used infusions.
I mean, they can already create +1 armor in 6 seconds, which is a rare magic item that is more powerful and costly than a single use scroll. Its not like they are making a stockpile of tattoos. Spellwrought tattoos on their own really aren't any issue. Its a once/day 1st level spell in exchange for an infusion slot - that's well within scope of other infusions.
The Find Familiar combo, in particular, is the only aspect that is open to abuse, since the familiar is permanent and can be stockpiled, to an extent. You can gift one familiar per day to someone, at the cost of one of your infusion slots. I don't think the 'infinite familiar chain' of giving your familiar another familiar works. So you're really just looking at two scenarios - giving your whole party familiars, and spending downtime to doll out familiars to a bunch of npcs. The issue of a villain having an army of familiars is completely moot, because villains already aren't held back by PC rules.
I don't really see the concern but I might be missing something.
"INFUSING AN ITEM
Whenever you finish a long rest, you can touch a nonmagical object and imbue it with one of your artificer infusions, turning it into a magic item. An infusion works on only certain kinds of objects, as specified in the infusion's description. If the item requires attunement, you can attune yourself to it the instant you infuse the item."
"SPELLWROUGHT TATTOO
Wondrous item (tattoo), rarity varies. Produced by a special needle, this magic tattoo contains a single spell of up to 5th level, wrought on your skin by a magic needle. To use the tattoo, you must hold the needle against your skin and speak the command word. The needle turns into ink that becomes the tattoo, which appears on the skin in whatever design you like. Once the tattoo is there, you can cast its spell, requiring no material components. The tattoo glows faintly while you cast the spell and for the spell's duration. Once the spell ends, the tattoo vanishes from your skin."
Once per long rest the artificer could infuse a spellwrought tattoo needle. Someone could then use it to transfer the tattoo to their skin transforming the needle into a tattoo. The infusions magic would disappear when the creature cast the spell. So, yes an artificer could outfit the party with familiars but unless I am missing something it would only be 1 character/day.
I don't see any ability to do this once every six seconds - just once/day - which really doesn't seem very much of a concern to me. Familiars are a part of the game and I have never really found them to be particularly difficult to deal with or overpowered - so having an artificer use one of their daily infusions to allow a character to cast an extra 1st level spell isn't a big deal.
Hi Wolf,
No, I did not know that about Druid's getting that ability though there though I think it's cool that they get it in sacrifice of one of their slots in wildshape. That at least, like some other examples of classes being able to get familiars, seems fairly balanced.
Yes, I mentioned that level two artificers can have two infusions running at a time and that they can replace them every long rest. My example was of an artificer that knew infusions for spellwought tattoos for Find Familiar, Goodberry, Bless and Fog Cloud and per 4 infusions known at level 2. If this artificer had one long rest per day and used all infusions to give people spellwrought tattoos for Find Familiar, that would be 730 familiars potentially produced in one earth year. A wizard, without a ring of spell storing, can only produce one.
It doesn't matter what happens to the needle. Used needles in D&D don't have magic in them and, in any case, after a long rest, the artificer can just infuse a new one.
I don't know how you play d&d, but certainly most of the replicable magic items are way more useful than a bunch of familiars for NPCs that aren't going to participate meaningfully in the adventure. Heck, even more than 1 familiar in a party is a bit overkill.
But that being said, you can only make 1 per day, and it needs to be used that day in order to make the next day's. And each person can only have one familiar.
It isn't nearly as gamebreaking as some of the actual permanent magic items that you're literally allowed to replicate. Wands of detect magic, sending stones, even an alchemy jug could be more gamebreaking. Just imagine how much mayonnaise you can make in a year.
While this wouldn't be a huge obstacle, the artificer does need to find a new needle for each tattoo. The needle is consumed each time a tattoo is used, and infusions don't create magic items out of thin air - you must touch one nonmagical item that is appropriate to the magic item. In this case, a needle.
It would be a really great source of downtime income and a logical progression of a world that included this would be that it would become full of familiars.
I'd also argue that, adventurers at many levels, if they were shortly to be off to an encounter, might pay good money for spellwrought tattoos for the likes of shield, absorb elements, bless and others.
Yep.
The Mayor pays you to provide familiars for themself and for their spouse while you pay for a couple of needles. Artificers would be quids in.
Considering that the tattoo vanishes once you use the spell, I don't think you can really classify it as permanent or any more useful than a spell scroll.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I'd define it as exactly as useful as a spell scroll.
A spell scroll is read and produces the effect associated with the spell.
Spellwrought tattoo would work in the same way as spell scrolls.
The only problem is that Artificers are barred from infusing Spellworught tattoos in the same way as they're banned from producing scrolls.
I'm just advising homebrew for what I think was an oversight.
But Spell Scrolls of Find Familiar haven't broken the world (of D&D) so I really don't see how Spellwrought Tattoos are doing it.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
The Familiars themselves are permanent as long as they can survive, so i think that is what the OP is getting at. But the tattoos are limited to the restrictions of infusions and the spellwrought tattoo description. You can use each tattoo once, and as long as you haven’t used it, that artificer isn’t infusing another item. Or maybe they are… and you’re just out the gold or have to go find the artificer.
Spell Scroll
Scroll, varies
A spell scroll bears the words of a single spell, written in a mystical cipher. If the spell is on your class’s spell list, you can read the scroll and cast its spell without providing any material Components. Otherwise, the scroll is unintelligible.
A spell scroll of Find Familiar can only be used by Wizards.
However, most of those spells are not used immediately. As soon as an Artificer infuses another one, the existing one disappears so the technique only works on spells that could be used immediately like Find Familiar or Goodberry. Shield, bless or absorb elements are only useful if you still have the tattoo - which is the ink from the transformed needle and is essentially still the infused object until it is used. So, I honestly don't see much of a market except for familiars. However, familiars die easily - only 1 hit point and the artificer can only make 1/day.
In addition, an Artificer at level 2 only has 2 infused items/day - which they would be far more likely to expend on something they can use themselves since I doubt they could get folks to pay very much for what amounts to a special pet you can communicate with and see through its senses.
Edit: However, since the infusion ability explicitly excludes potions and scrolls - a DM could also choose to exclude spellwrought tattoos which are essentially just a different type of scroll (one etched on your skin and thus easier to carry around).
Every long rest the artificer could infuse two more tattoos of, say, Find Familiar and everyday those two spells would be enabled to be cast.
Then the next day the artificer can in infuse for two more tattoos and yet the previous days spell castings would have already happened.
This would be staggeringly expensive - you'd need to convince artificers to permanently allocate their infusions to you, since they don't dare re-infuse for fear of your tat evaporating, and they have no way to know when you use the tat that they can re-infuse. In fact, as a PC Artificer, almost no amount of money would be enough for that - even for a staggering sum, I would demand some time limit on the infusion so I could resume my life even if I didn't hear from you.
If you think a Find Familiar tattoo is "game-breaking" then, like, don't allow it. There are two completely viable arguments for saying no to the attempt:
- you can't create consumables with Replicate Magic Item (no potions or scrolls). Spellwrought Tattoos are just another consumable.
- nothing in the Replicate Magic Item or Spellwrought Tattoo descriptions explicitly allows, or even suggests, an artificer could create one to store a spell that isn't on the artificer spell list. Meanwhile, their 11th-level feature (Spell-Storing Item) expressly forbids doing it. It's a logical enough ruling to restrict artificer tattoos to artificer spells, which rules out Find Familiar (and a lot of the other spells you seem worried about). If you port in the 'casting time of 1 action' restriction from Spell-Storing Item on top of that (because why would a 2nd-level feature be better/more flexible than an 11th-level feature?), you're down to catapult, cure wounds, detect magic, disguise self, faerie fire, false life, grease, jump, longstrider, purify food and drink or tasha's caustic brew -- some useful stuff in there to be sure, but hardly game-breaking. Even if you don't, a feather fall or expeditious retreat tattoo doesn't seem like that big a deal, just handy in a pinch.
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)
Conditions of any purchase for anything will typically be made either by the seller setting the conditions or by negotiation between the seller and the buyer.
I guess the seller might agree different prices depending on the buyers plan on when they want to use the infused item.
I was thinking infusions being sold on the understanding that they would need to be used within a certain time limit.
It would then be up to the buyer to decide how many infusions they wanted to purchase.
But yes, if the buyer wanted to make an agreement that the artificer would hold on for an extended period of time before they again infused items, this would get more expensive.
The Artificer might still get vastly more than the RAW rate of earnings for crafting of standard items such as potions of healing (2.5 gp per day).
How much money do you think they could or would charge for infusion of impermanent consumables?
I was thinking that they might, say offer, 2 impermanent tattoos for cure light wounds for say the value of one potion of healing.
But buyer beware. Their options would be to accept an offer, try to renegotiate, or leave it.
I'd imagine one of the few instances where game world creature might pay for infusions for an extended period of time (much more than one day) would be if they wanted infusions like shield to cover specific issues of defense. Otherwise a "use it or lose it" rule might more typically apply.