Personally, I think it's always bogus to nerf a class feature because you didn't account for it as a DM...
The artificers entire kit is built around finding solutions to problems. Learning this infusion would not account for "knowing how gunpowder works" It would still have to be discovered for larger scale applications. Honestly, the infusion just creates a metal ball that gets launched by magic, you could say it infuses the barrel with some form of the catapult spell + a generator for metal balls.
Personally, I think it's always bogus to nerf a class feature because you didn't account for it as a DM...
Yes .. I guess. so what let's say the DM has "accounted for it". When he gave them the rifle, he informed them it was damaged and had a 5% chance to break on use but there was a quest he can go on to repair the thing to remove that restriction. Now they can infuse with repeating shot everyone happy right?
No the gun breaks, and the guy dissembles it and uses mending on every part and puts it back together. why you nerfing mending bro? it's already such a niche mechanic? you should allow them to.... ect.
In the end whatever restriction or fun mechanic you try and attach to the item you wind up in this same spot. Yes, the better you flavor it the better you present it the better it goes over with your players and the more likely they bite on the story hook and everyone has fun. As a DM that effort should be made and as one becomes a better DM with more experience that flavor gets better and better.
But at some point it is a game and you have to agree to do quests in order to play the game. You don't like that quest / hook you can skip it. Do a different one. Work with the DM to make exciting content you both enjoy. But there got to be some content you don't' just skip because you out smarted the DM and your "DM failed to account for it".
Item: A simple or martial weapon with the ammunition property (requires attunement)
This magic weapon grants a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it when it’s used to make a ranged attack, and it ignores the loading property if it has it.
Could the DM be interpreting this as either the artificer did not make the weapon and thus its not available as a reloadable magic weapon for him or its simply not a magic weapon at all.
Does an artificer make ANY crossbow he picks up a repeating crossbow(thus making it magic) or does he have to create the crossbow from scratch like he does with other magic items.
Well, yes, if the artificer has this infusion, they can apply it to any ranged weapon in inventory (with caveats mentioned in this thread), but I didn't have to make a crossbow from scratch. So I started with a light crossbow, when I got to level 2, I can choose 2 infusions to create and apply, and applied one to that crossbow, then when I acquired a heavy, I removed and applied to the heavy, and when I got the hunting rifle, I removed and applied to the rifle.
Thanks all for delving. Since whatever vindication I might have is nice, but still doesn't change that it's the DM's world/rules that I need to live in to have a game, I really appreciate that the discussion gave me some things to bring back to him to get some recompense. A lot of it just reminds me that there are a lot of things that the party/DM gloss over, that digging in my heels on this might be more trouble than it's worth.
I will say, the quest for gunpowder doesn't really end even if DM "allowed" the infusion to work this way. It's also a personal quest to vindicate my character, who (backstory) is on the run after an experiment killed his friend.
Doesn’t using a firearm require the firearm proficiency? So it doesn’t fall under the simple or martial weapon requirements for the infusion?
We don’t use firearms so I could be wrong but I thought it was it’s own category. Otherwise anyone could use them if they had simple or martial proficiency and makes the proficiency bullet point of gunner feat unnecessary
Doesn’t using a firearm require the firearm proficiency? So it doesn’t fall under the simple or martial weapon requirements for the infusion?
We don’t use firearms so I could be wrong but I thought it was it’s own category. Otherwise anyone could use them if they had simple or martial proficiency and makes the proficiency bullet point of gunner feat unnecessary
Firearms do require a separate proficiency (and permission from the DM for them to even exist), but all firearms listed in the DMG are categorized as "Martial Ranged Weapons".
Well, I guess I just wanted to be sure that my argument was sound. It is the DM's world, and his plans, so I can only ask.
I'd rather he had just said, you know, this really messes with the flow, not claim that I was reading incorrectly.
The DM could also have said that the weapon had some sort of enchantment already on it that fortified its reliability and was thus ineligible for the infusion. That would achieve the same effect, but would add a bit of lore to the world that could lead to new adventures later. I think that would have been much more interesting than adding a new restriction to one of the players' class features.
That would make it a magic item then, no? It's pretty understandable why the DM doesn't want a player to have an absurdly strong ranged weapon - stronger than any melee weapon, mind you - on hand at all times with no real cost, that also cuts through the very common nonmagical physical resistance.
Yes and no, it would make it a magic item, but for the purpose of, in this case, having a viable excuse for the artificer's infusion attempt to fail, the infusion ability states that an item you infuse must be a nonmagical item, if the gun were already to have some sort of magical property, in the idea stated its a sturdying property, like the unbreakable enchantment in minecraft i suppose, thus making the weapon magical, not breaking the game in any way, and giving the artificer a valid reason for the infusion not to work. I personally see both sides of the argument, the DM likelyt wanted to keep the tension alive by not allowing the infusion on the weapon, because the weapon and quest were already woven together to an extent, but the player is also correct in that their ability should have worked, I believe the situation was just handled poorly by the DM, and in turn the player. Giving the weapon some mundane magical property to eliminate the ability for infusions on it would both add story and accomplish the DM's goal without confusing the player or changing the rules of an already complex class.
So, just to address a point that doesn’t seem to have come up yet, keep in mind the hunting rifle is objectively overpowered compared to standard ranged options. It’s got double the damage dice of a heavy crossbow and five shots before reload, which itself only takes a bonus action. Disallowing infinite ammo is a reasonable balance point for allowing the item in the campaign, even if that overwrites a RAW feature. Particularly when the feature can be applied elsewhere or swapped out for another option.
So, just to address a point that doesn’t seem to have come up yet, keep in mind the hunting rifle is objectively overpowered compared to standard ranged options. It’s got double the damage dice of a heavy crossbow and five shots before reload, which itself only takes a bonus action. Disallowing infinite ammo is a reasonable balance point for allowing the item in the campaign, even if that overwrites a RAW feature. Particularly when the feature can be applied elsewhere or swapped out for another option.
This is illogical in the extreme. Yes it is more powerful, that does not make infinite ammo a reasonable balance point. He was obviously going to make more. The problem was allowing the item in the first place and letting him research more ammo. If you want to allow a set number of powerful shots, then give them grenades, not a gun with bullets.
It’s entirely logical; a modern firearm is already at least the equivalent to a +2 weapon in terms of performance enhancement in any case, and the fact that the DM was eventually going to allow for crafting of ammunition doesn’t invalidate the value of an early level power limiter. It’s arguably similar to the kind of throttling you get from magic weapons that gradually increase in power.
Look, as a DM myself, I agree with the DM entirely, he wanted his players to have a cool weapon which was pretty strong, and as a limiting factor used ammunition. Now sure, the Artificer has a feature which should bypass this, but that would completely invalidate the cool quest he had planned out, and that also adds an extra incentive and an extra reward for the quest. Pausing the feature for a bit is actually a great move I think.
(Worth noting it probably doesn’t feel super good short term as the artificer, but long term I think it’s actually better)
Also, quests are cool. Once you have the formula for gunpowder, you can make a replica of the first rifle for a friend. You are an artificer after all. What I want to know is if an artificer builds a pistol kind of like a small rail gun that uses propulsion similar to the catapult spell, but with a rifled barrel so that he rolls instead of the opponent rolling a DEX save and it magically creates energy "bullets" from whatever arcane essence powers his infusions, does it necessarily need to be loud like a musket? It seems that it should only make a crack if the bullet fires at a supersonic speed.
Also, quests are cool. Once you have the formula for gunpowder, you can make a replica of the first rifle for a friend. You are an artificer after all. What I want to know is if an artificer builds a pistol kind of like a small rail gun that uses propulsion similar to the catapult spell, but with a rifled barrel so that he rolls instead of the opponent rolling a DEX save and it magically creates energy "bullets" from whatever arcane essence powers his infusions, does it necessarily need to be loud like a musket? It seems that it should only make a crack if the bullet fires at a supersonic speed.
Considering that’s entirely homebrew, it makes however much noise the DM says it does.
Also, quests are cool. Once you have the formula for gunpowder, you can make a replica of the first rifle for a friend. You are an artificer after all. What I want to know is if an artificer builds a pistol kind of like a small rail gun that uses propulsion similar to the catapult spell, but with a rifled barrel so that he rolls instead of the opponent rolling a DEX save and it magically creates energy "bullets" from whatever arcane essence powers his infusions, does it necessarily need to be loud like a musket? It seems that it should only make a crack if the bullet fires at a supersonic speed.
One of the things that's weird about the DMG renaissance firearms is that even though there are items listed for gunpowder, powder horn and gunpowder, keg, you're never told anywhere that you actually need them or that they're part of the ammunition for the weapon.
But these types of weapons absolutely do need some kind of gunpowder to launch the projectile, but that's not ammunition in the traditional sense (even though later on they were packaged together as cartridges, and later still became bullets with their own powder built in), so what does the artificer infusion actually provide there?
I think in RAW because you're not told you need powder you don't need powder, but that feels a lot like an oversight; like you should at least have access to a powder horn to be able to reload at all when doing it normally. But if you rule that's the case, then does the infusion also provide the powder, or just the bullet? Because it ignores the loading property (not the ammunition property, you still need ammunition, the infusion just happens to provide it if you don't have anyway) you can argue it either way depending upon how you rule powder as being essential to the loading or the firing (or if you choose to ignore it).
Regardless of how you rule on that, we have no reason to assume there is anything special about the ammunition or the weapon other than the ammo being magically provided; for all intents and purposes it's identical to having loaded it yourself. So for that bullet to fire there's still going to be a miniature (and very loud) explosion launching it, regardless of how you rule on the need to provide powder. So that musket or pistol is still going to be loud.
In short the DMG firearms rules are a bit of a mess, it's why I added my own clarifications for my Gunslinger/Gunsmith sub-class, but then I also wanted to make clear that there were disadvantages to overcome even when your firearms are hitting harder at longer ranges, to make clear the purpose of the magical Runes of Dampening upgrade.
You can come up with whatever explanation suits your game, but this is what it boils down to, unless your weapon makes a specific exception to the general rule.
In my opinion the DM should have allowed the infusion. I feel like this is ruled because the DM wants you to pursue this plot line. I'm not the biggest fan of changing rules on the fly.
Completing the quest to learn the misteries of gunpowder could still make sense. Imagine finding some +1 or +2 ammo which you could load into the gun but without the gunpowder you wouldn't be able to fire it regardless of the infusion. With this approach both parties would probably be happy.
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Personally, I think it's always bogus to nerf a class feature because you didn't account for it as a DM...
The artificers entire kit is built around finding solutions to problems. Learning this infusion would not account for "knowing how gunpowder works" It would still have to be discovered for larger scale applications. Honestly, the infusion just creates a metal ball that gets launched by magic, you could say it infuses the barrel with some form of the catapult spell + a generator for metal balls.
Yes .. I guess. so what let's say the DM has "accounted for it". When he gave them the rifle, he informed them it was damaged and had a 5% chance to break on use but there was a quest he can go on to repair the thing to remove that restriction. Now they can infuse with repeating shot everyone happy right?
No the gun breaks, and the guy dissembles it and uses mending on every part and puts it back together. why you nerfing mending bro? it's already such a niche mechanic? you should allow them to.... ect.
In the end whatever restriction or fun mechanic you try and attach to the item you wind up in this same spot. Yes, the better you flavor it the better you present it the better it goes over with your players and the more likely they bite on the story hook and everyone has fun. As a DM that effort should be made and as one becomes a better DM with more experience that flavor gets better and better.
But at some point it is a game and you have to agree to do quests in order to play the game. You don't like that quest / hook you can skip it. Do a different one. Work with the DM to make exciting content you both enjoy. But there got to be some content you don't' just skip because you out smarted the DM and your "DM failed to account for it".
Well, yes, if the artificer has this infusion, they can apply it to any ranged weapon in inventory (with caveats mentioned in this thread), but I didn't have to make a crossbow from scratch. So I started with a light crossbow, when I got to level 2, I can choose 2 infusions to create and apply, and applied one to that crossbow, then when I acquired a heavy, I removed and applied to the heavy, and when I got the hunting rifle, I removed and applied to the rifle.
Thanks all for delving. Since whatever vindication I might have is nice, but still doesn't change that it's the DM's world/rules that I need to live in to have a game, I really appreciate that the discussion gave me some things to bring back to him to get some recompense. A lot of it just reminds me that there are a lot of things that the party/DM gloss over, that digging in my heels on this might be more trouble than it's worth.
I will say, the quest for gunpowder doesn't really end even if DM "allowed" the infusion to work this way. It's also a personal quest to vindicate my character, who (backstory) is on the run after an experiment killed his friend.
Perfectly good ruling, but not the point of the post.
Doesn’t using a firearm require the firearm proficiency? So it doesn’t fall under the simple or martial weapon requirements for the infusion?
We don’t use firearms so I could be wrong but I thought it was it’s own category. Otherwise anyone could use them if they had simple or martial proficiency and makes the proficiency bullet point of gunner feat unnecessary
Firearms do require a separate proficiency (and permission from the DM for them to even exist), but all firearms listed in the DMG are categorized as "Martial Ranged Weapons".
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Just to clarify, the firearm wasn't broken in any way in my campaign.
rewritten
Yes and no, it would make it a magic item, but for the purpose of, in this case, having a viable excuse for the artificer's infusion attempt to fail, the infusion ability states that an item you infuse must be a nonmagical item, if the gun were already to have some sort of magical property, in the idea stated its a sturdying property, like the unbreakable enchantment in minecraft i suppose, thus making the weapon magical, not breaking the game in any way, and giving the artificer a valid reason for the infusion not to work. I personally see both sides of the argument, the DM likelyt wanted to keep the tension alive by not allowing the infusion on the weapon, because the weapon and quest were already woven together to an extent, but the player is also correct in that their ability should have worked, I believe the situation was just handled poorly by the DM, and in turn the player. Giving the weapon some mundane magical property to eliminate the ability for infusions on it would both add story and accomplish the DM's goal without confusing the player or changing the rules of an already complex class.
Your GM is house ruling.
They do that.
Players have to live with it, no matter how unfair.
He wants you to have to create the formula, so that is what you have to do.
So, just to address a point that doesn’t seem to have come up yet, keep in mind the hunting rifle is objectively overpowered compared to standard ranged options. It’s got double the damage dice of a heavy crossbow and five shots before reload, which itself only takes a bonus action. Disallowing infinite ammo is a reasonable balance point for allowing the item in the campaign, even if that overwrites a RAW feature. Particularly when the feature can be applied elsewhere or swapped out for another option.
This is illogical in the extreme. Yes it is more powerful, that does not make infinite ammo a reasonable balance point. He was obviously going to make more. The problem was allowing the item in the first place and letting him research more ammo. If you want to allow a set number of powerful shots, then give them grenades, not a gun with bullets.
It’s entirely logical; a modern firearm is already at least the equivalent to a +2 weapon in terms of performance enhancement in any case, and the fact that the DM was eventually going to allow for crafting of ammunition doesn’t invalidate the value of an early level power limiter. It’s arguably similar to the kind of throttling you get from magic weapons that gradually increase in power.
Look, as a DM myself, I agree with the DM entirely, he wanted his players to have a cool weapon which was pretty strong, and as a limiting factor used ammunition.
Now sure, the Artificer has a feature which should bypass this, but that would completely invalidate the cool quest he had planned out, and that also adds an extra incentive and an extra reward for the quest.
Pausing the feature for a bit is actually a great move I think.
(Worth noting it probably doesn’t feel super good short term as the artificer, but long term I think it’s actually better)
Also, quests are cool. Once you have the formula for gunpowder, you can make a replica of the first rifle for a friend. You are an artificer after all. What I want to know is if an artificer builds a pistol kind of like a small rail gun that uses propulsion similar to the catapult spell, but with a rifled barrel so that he rolls instead of the opponent rolling a DEX save and it magically creates energy "bullets" from whatever arcane essence powers his infusions, does it necessarily need to be loud like a musket? It seems that it should only make a crack if the bullet fires at a supersonic speed.
Considering that’s entirely homebrew, it makes however much noise the DM says it does.
One of the things that's weird about the DMG renaissance firearms is that even though there are items listed for gunpowder, powder horn and gunpowder, keg, you're never told anywhere that you actually need them or that they're part of the ammunition for the weapon.
But these types of weapons absolutely do need some kind of gunpowder to launch the projectile, but that's not ammunition in the traditional sense (even though later on they were packaged together as cartridges, and later still became bullets with their own powder built in), so what does the artificer infusion actually provide there?
I think in RAW because you're not told you need powder you don't need powder, but that feels a lot like an oversight; like you should at least have access to a powder horn to be able to reload at all when doing it normally. But if you rule that's the case, then does the infusion also provide the powder, or just the bullet? Because it ignores the loading property (not the ammunition property, you still need ammunition, the infusion just happens to provide it if you don't have anyway) you can argue it either way depending upon how you rule powder as being essential to the loading or the firing (or if you choose to ignore it).
Regardless of how you rule on that, we have no reason to assume there is anything special about the ammunition or the weapon other than the ammo being magically provided; for all intents and purposes it's identical to having loaded it yourself. So for that bullet to fire there's still going to be a miniature (and very loud) explosion launching it, regardless of how you rule on the need to provide powder. So that musket or pistol is still going to be loud.
In short the DMG firearms rules are a bit of a mess, it's why I added my own clarifications for my Gunslinger/Gunsmith sub-class, but then I also wanted to make clear that there were disadvantages to overcome even when your firearms are hitting harder at longer ranges, to make clear the purpose of the magical Runes of Dampening upgrade.
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You can come up with whatever explanation suits your game, but this is what it boils down to, unless your weapon makes a specific exception to the general rule.
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In my opinion the DM should have allowed the infusion. I feel like this is ruled because the DM wants you to pursue this plot line. I'm not the biggest fan of changing rules on the fly.
Completing the quest to learn the misteries of gunpowder could still make sense. Imagine finding some +1 or +2 ammo which you could load into the gun but without the gunpowder you wouldn't be able to fire it regardless of the infusion. With this approach both parties would probably be happy.