I've never played older editions of the game, but I've done a lot of reading on crafting subsystems and examined the original crafting rules. The opinion is almost universal in that the base crafting system is pretty much designed to try and take crafting out of the game save for very basic things like rangers making their own arrows, or the occasional common healing potion. The 'official' 5e system is clunky, clumsy, kludgy, unnaturally prone to egregious failure, and occurs on a timescale unacceptable to any typical adventuring party. Note that the artificer subvariants can craft four times faster within their specializations, and that's considered okay. That's an admission by Wizards that crafting times can be cut to 25% of the regular stretch without breaking the game, even if it's hedged around.
It's why I resist the idea of anchoring all of the artificer's mechanics on the current crafting system. The existing 5e Standard Crafting System was specifically designed to discourage crafting as strongly as possible without making it outright illegal/"impossible". Any artificer who's going to be crafting things will thusly need to disregard those rules altogether and work with their DM to figure out what works best for their table, which is made harder rather than easier if the entire class is built around the appallingly terrible base crafting system.
If the class only has loose ties to the base crafting system? Then it's easy to cut those ties and simply let the artificer do with their time and their skill checks whatever the DM deems possible, instead of saying an artificer needs four hundred workweeks to craft a set of basic +1 gear.
The opinion is almost universal in that the base crafting system is pretty much designed to try and take crafting out of the game save for very basic things like rangers making their own arrows, or the occasional common healing potion. The 'official' 5e system is clunky, clumsy, kludgy, unnaturally prone to egregious failure, and occurs on a timescale unacceptable to any typical adventuring party. Note that the artificer subvariants can craft four times faster within their specializations, and that's considered okay. That's an admission by Wizards that crafting times can be cut to 25% of the regular stretch without breaking the game, even if it's hedged around.
It's why I resist the idea of anchoring all of the artificer's mechanics on the current crafting system. The existing 5e Standard Crafting System was specifically designed to discourage crafting as strongly as possible without making it outright illegal/"impossible". Any artificer who's going to be crafting things will thusly need to disregard those rules altogether and work with their DM to figure out what works best for their table, which is made harder rather than easier if the entire class is built around the appallingly terrible base crafting system.
If the class only has loose ties to the base crafting system? Then it's easy to cut those ties and simply let the artificer do with their time and their skill checks whatever the DM deems possible, instead of saying an artificer needs four hundred workweeks to craft a set of basic +1 gear.
This is what i have a problem with in the current "video game syndrome" you all have ! back in 3e where crafting actually matters, the only reason it was accepted as functionning, is that basically to heal you had to have downtimes, and thus players were forced into downtimes. now people just fear downtimes and just want to have something to do every single second of their adventuring lives. that's totally unreal and breaks the actual immersion of the game. nobody, not even you in real life, is doing something every single seconds of your lives. and adventures in a campaigns, cannot be expected to take a whole 24 hours for a single campaign of level 1 to 20. these kind of campaign should take years to accomplish.
your problem is that you hate downtime and think its unnecessary because you think they simply diminish the game. ask any blacksmiths, real blacksmiths... sporry but about a year to make a full plate is pretty real if the blacksmith is alone. and no, those who say blacksmiths can create stuff in a few days and be real, no, they are not... not alone. that is also supported by any historian who will tell you that blacksmiths of old were never alone. literally each person cuts the work in half. 1 blacksmith... 300 days for a full plate... 2 blacksmiths, thats only 150 days. 3 blacksmiths reduce that to 75 days. and so on and so on.
the way 5e works is much better then 3e as it doesn't have a speciic price tags and a specific system. it literally leaves it to the DM. which is to me the greatest boon they can do ! in 3e we could literally create our own magical items and literally break the game we were in. you really want that kind of gaming to happen again ? if anything, you didn't expect ironman to create his first armor in a mere 24 hours, he worked weeks and weeks in that cave for it. not seeing it on cinema is what we call hand waved it. just do that instead, hand wave your downtimes but let them be.
things in D&D shouldn'T all be instantly hapenning. and even if it was 3 days of crafting, nobody would take those days. nobody in game want to take downtimes. heck even long rest are taken every 8 hours instead of 24 like it is supposed to be, why do you think that is ? and no... 5e has a great working crafting system, but apparently if its not super precise like the 3e system, people are not interested in it. i've been using the stock system and my players have been crafting stuff since the get go. they also look at merchants who tell them, come back in a few days or in a month and i'll have the thing. and yes it does go higher and longer the more work my players give onto the NPC.
hows that for realism and immersion ?!! overall, i hate people who just want things to be done instantly, this is not a vidseo game, nor should it be like one.
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If they want a game to be like video games and everyone at the table is all for it, more power to them!
Likewise, if another group wants a dark and gritty realistic game with healing taking weeks and a focus on crafting, and everyone is for it, then more power to them!
Hate is a powerful word to throw around for something that boils down to preferences.
Paladin, dude, wow. I miss the old days when players and DMs alike looked forward to downtime too. DMs needed to prep the next content. Players liked it because the Fighter and the Magic User got together and created a magic sword. It was a slower time when baseball was popular and you could actually buy more than 1 thing for a dollar.
Criticize the game all you want, that’s your right as a consumer. Debate the relative merits/flaws of rules or game mechanics, no problem. Be loud and opinionated, as far as I’m concerned that’s your right as a citizen of the planet. Heck, snark and jibe at me some more if you want to, I can take it.
But please stop attacking the players individually or the community as a whole. There are more than 7,500,000,000 people on this planet, some will inevitably be different than you. Personally attacking people who are “different” has historically only led to not good things.
Yurei, you’re making a lot of sense. I kind of figured that’s one of the few things that actually makes the Artificer relevant in 5e though. I personally thought that their unique ability to replicate Spell-like effects without the use of classical Spells, by putting together a machine that could do it in record time was their “Magic”.
Sort of like the MCU (or those paper thingies kids used to buy every month with the still pictures in them if you’re old enough, lol): Dr. Strange spent years studying the Arcane arts and unlocking secret knowledge, clearly a Wizard. Scarlet Witch was born with innate powers that she could hone with practice and dedication, clearly a Sorcerer. But Iron Man could just build anything he could imagine. He didn’t need no stinking powers, all he needed was a little time, some parts, and a place to work. It might have taken the rest of the team working together a whole month to build a toaster, but Tony built a toaster building machine and had three weeks left over to go party, or save the world or whatever.
I guess that’s what got me so frustrated about this version of the Artificer, they’re not a bad-assed inventor, they’re just... meh.
I’m not mad at you WotC, I’m disappointed. I expect better from you. You really let me down this time. (Remember when your parents used to say that? *shudders*)
Not to devolve this into a "Which classes are all the MCU characters", but Dr. Strange absolutely have levels in both Wizard and Artificer, probably Archivist, while Iron Man would be Artificer Battle Smith, maybe a splash of Fighter.
We finally figured out the basic misunderstanding that led to a rabbit hole of debates covering just about everything to do with Artificers except maybe underwear preference. I have absolutely no arguments mechanical, narrative, or otherwise against your concept of the role Artificers fulfill in a party, play them how you want. I never once said you were wrong in your opinion, I simply have a different one. Now that we figured all of that out, I would like to ask your honest opinions about two things:
1) If I want my Artificer to be like Tony Stark from Marvel, Q from James Bond (my man got out in the field back in the older movies), or MacGyver (yes he was a pacifist, but he blew shit up all the time and it was awesome, admit it) do you think I should be disallowed from playing them like that?
2) If your Artificer could magitech up the pseudo-medieval fantasy version of an Iron Man suit, or a pimped our Aston Martin with Fireball headlights and everything, or make a Delayed Blast Fireball out of trash, literally junk other adventurers had thrown away, are you honestly telling me you wouldn’t think that was cool?
@Iamsposta are you saying you want an Artificer class that can access literally any effect they can engineer their way to? I mean, I like the idea, but I'm not sure D&D is up to handling anything quite that freeform.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
A while back in days yonder on this thread, I threw out an idea I had for a "cantrip crafting table" that I thought might be a good spellcasting alternative for a crafting-based class. Mind you, the example I put out was rough, but I was thinking of using it for a homebrew of mine for fun, and maybe that concept could be expanded to a "simulated spell table" as well?
@Mergon Those are some pretty nifty ideas you have. Your level 10 ability gives me an idea for something similar using spell slots instead of magic items and their rarity to replenish charges, though on further reflection it occurs to me there could also be some potential for abuse there...
@Grizz: You are probably right, I was just covering “Primary Class” to make a point.
@Ophid: Maybe not one Character who could do everything, but that’s what Subclasses are for. Right? But I do think replicating most Spell effects up to lvl 5 (or maybe even 6?) should be possible among the various types of Artificers. As it stands, none of the Artificers can even replicate Burning Hands under the rules, even if every Artificer on the Prime Material worked together.
@Mezz: That’s kind of what I was hoping the Artificer would have been this whole time. ;)
@Mergon: I like your ideas. I have a question for you. Does the Crafter only use their Spell Slots the way you mentioned, or can they cast Spells using them as well?
Heh. See, the Tony Stark thing is why I was so excited about Tool Expertise earlier in the thread before getting shot down by errybuddy else.
The way I see it, Sposta, Artificers are the Tony Starks of D&D. Because Tony never bothered with rules - he just did what he wanted to do and either it worked or it blew up in his face. He didn't follow strictly laid out rules or predetermined timetables for his inventions - he grabs his tools, finds some materials, and frickin' builds shit. Tool Expertise is all an artificer needs to be Tony Stark - that and a creative player paired with a flexible DM. The downtime-intensive methods Paladin is so oddly fond of, the shitty base 5e crafting rules where your tool proficiencies don't matter and all you can really do is hope the DM doesn't roll a "you fail" result on his crafting tables over the five years it takes you to craft anything meaningful...those aren't how one goes about Tony Stark-ing.
You Tony Stark by saying to your DM "this is what I want to build. Here's the materials I'm using and the toolsets I'm employing to make it happen," ideally with sketches of your design showing how it works. Your DM decides if the design is feasible, how difficult it might be for you to assemble, and how long it might take, and you start making tool rolls. It's a skill challenge, not an automated process, with larger and more complex devices taking more rolls and quite probably needing to be built in stages/pieces rather than all at once. Crafting cool off-book shit should be a test of the artificer's skill and the player's ingenuity; crafting regular PHB adventuring gear should be fairly routine and simple, with rolls made to speed the process up because the artificer is an expert maker.
But nah. Instead I just get insulted every time I post because I believe taking a year off after every adventure is terrible for dramatic pacing and telling a thrilling and engaging story. Silly me. >_>
@Mergon: I like your ideas. I have a question for you. Does the Crafter only use their Spell Slots the way you mentioned, or can they cast Spells using them as well?
For my playtest, when I am ready to run one, it'll be both. When I do a playtest, I have a very accommodating DM, I'll be trying different things to see how they feel. The Artificer gets so few spell slots compared to a full caster that I'll probably allow them to do both.
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@Ophid: Maybe not one Character who could do everything, but that’s what Subclasses are for. Right? But I do think replicating most Spell effects up to lvl 5 (or maybe even 6?) should be possible among the various types of Artificers. As it stands, none of the Artificers can even replicate Burning Hands under the rules, even if every Artificer on the Prime Material worked together.
But why don't you take your double proficiency in Tinker's Tools or Blacksmith's Tools and just build a flamethrower? I mean, you'll be stretching your DM's skills, but really only a little bit. Does everything have to be a spell?
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
You don't build a class around a particular character concept (unless you are homebrewing), you try to build a character concept to fit within existing rules and classes.
I recent discovered Tulok the Barbarian on YouTube. His videos are all about building well know characters around existing materials (including Unearthed Arcana)
He has an interesting Iron Man build and many others. I only recently subscribed to his channel and haven't had a chance to look at the majority of them. I have been impresses with the majority of those I have views though.
@Yurei: We got what each other was saying, we just individually thought up different mechanics for it if I remember.
@Mergon: Cool, please keep us posted on how it goes.
@Ophid: Personally I would have done away with the “Spells” entirely if I could have. Since we are working with the Artificer we have, not the Artificer we deserve I am trying to keep within the framework provided be WotC. Haven’t you ever had a DM that was married to the RAW? How many DMs like that do you think their are out there? How many players do you think are in all of those games then have a DM who is unable to stretch that far? Given the current rules, could those Artificers make things that simulate Spells not on the Artificer list? Think of the children man!
@Ophid: Personally I would have done away with the “Spells” entirely if I could have. Since we are working with the Artificer we have, not the Artificer we deserve I am trying to keep within the framework provided be WotC. Haven’t you ever had a DM that was married to the RAW? How many DMs like that do you think their are out there? How many players do you think are in all of those games then have a DM who is unable to stretch that far? Given the current rules, could those Artificers make things that simulate Spells not on the Artificer list? Think of the children man!
I dunno, I think making non-magical contraptions is less of a stretch than allowing unfettered access to everyone's spell list, but I also don't think expanding the Artificer spell list is a difficult houserule, either.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Heh. Not quite what I meant, Mergon. I understand the confusion, though. For me, tool expertise is an excellent feature because it's as simple and clear-cut as a rule can get - "you are really damn good at using your tools". What any given artificer player decides those tool expertises are good for? That's up to them. Every third artificer I see is another Tony Stark clone, and frankly that's okay. It's not what I want out of the class, but Tool Expertise is general enough that I can make it do what I want.
The more specific, downtime-focused options favored by other players, or even the options that eliminate the artificer's spellcasting in favor of gadgetry, all feel much more restrictive to me. Remember, artificers exist in a world where magic is real and ever-present and where people who can manipulate it with nothing but word, gesture, and a sack of odd potpourri are commonplace. It makes no sense that someone who studies "The Magic of Artifice" wouldn't have any talent at manipulating magic in similar ways - they just use their creations and artificery to make it easier and to accomplish things other folks find either impossible or much more difficult.
Artificers are magic-users as much as any wizard or sorcerer is. The difference is in their focus, not their raw capability. At least, that's how I saw the 2019 UA version. Heh, suppose we'll see who's right in November.
@Marine Can you explain to me how your two statements of an Artificer “crafting Gadgets on preparing a spell”, and “shouldn’t have access to direct damage spells” make sense together? How can someone make so many fantastical gadgets but never solve a simple flamethrower? (Burning Hands)
And if Artificer can craft a gadget that lets people Fly then surely he can craft something to simulate Lightning Bolt?
It is either realism in that he crafts both damage and support spells or arbitrary restraints in that he is a pacifist crafter? I mean almost the first thing Ironman realises is his Flight propulsion tech makes a good gun, Firebolt cantrip.
Who says that those two statements have to make sense? Nothing about the Artificer class makes sense to begin with. The class is supposed to be about crafting, but 90% of the class is spellcasting and imbuing magical properties into non-magical items, 7.5% is about melee combat and 2.5% is about crafting. By that account the Artificer is no long a crafter but in instead a spellcaster.
From your post it looks like you completely overlooked the part where I didn't have an issue with direct damaging spell for the subclasses (as long as they make sense).
Besides, who says that the Artificer has to create and use gadgets, salves, or potions in order to cast their spells. What if a Dwarf is was in training to become a Wizard decided to leave school and instead focus on the Dwarven heritage of crafting. And during his time forging and crafting he figured out how to imbue arcane properties into the items he created? I'm not talking about building a flamethrower to simulate burning hands or a stun gun that simulates shocking grasp or witch bolt. I am actually talking about crafting magic items as found in DMG and XGtE, or even a homebrew magic item.
I said before and I'll say it again.... If you want the base class to have access to direct damaging spells, you are better off playing a Wizard and selecting a background (or modifying one) to give you proficiency with a tool set and then select the Skilled feat and select 3 more tool sets. That will give you access to a plethora of direct damaging spells (even beyond 5th level). Then you can create a Sunburst grenade, a Magic Missile missile launcher, or a Prismatic Spray ray gun.
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Sposta:
I've never played older editions of the game, but I've done a lot of reading on crafting subsystems and examined the original crafting rules. The opinion is almost universal in that the base crafting system is pretty much designed to try and take crafting out of the game save for very basic things like rangers making their own arrows, or the occasional common healing potion. The 'official' 5e system is clunky, clumsy, kludgy, unnaturally prone to egregious failure, and occurs on a timescale unacceptable to any typical adventuring party. Note that the artificer subvariants can craft four times faster within their specializations, and that's considered okay. That's an admission by Wizards that crafting times can be cut to 25% of the regular stretch without breaking the game, even if it's hedged around.
It's why I resist the idea of anchoring all of the artificer's mechanics on the current crafting system. The existing 5e Standard Crafting System was specifically designed to discourage crafting as strongly as possible without making it outright illegal/"impossible". Any artificer who's going to be crafting things will thusly need to disregard those rules altogether and work with their DM to figure out what works best for their table, which is made harder rather than easier if the entire class is built around the appallingly terrible base crafting system.
If the class only has loose ties to the base crafting system? Then it's easy to cut those ties and simply let the artificer do with their time and their skill checks whatever the DM deems possible, instead of saying an artificer needs four hundred workweeks to craft a set of basic +1 gear.
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This is what i have a problem with in the current "video game syndrome" you all have !
back in 3e where crafting actually matters, the only reason it was accepted as functionning, is that basically to heal you had to have downtimes, and thus players were forced into downtimes. now people just fear downtimes and just want to have something to do every single second of their adventuring lives. that's totally unreal and breaks the actual immersion of the game. nobody, not even you in real life, is doing something every single seconds of your lives. and adventures in a campaigns, cannot be expected to take a whole 24 hours for a single campaign of level 1 to 20. these kind of campaign should take years to accomplish.
your problem is that you hate downtime and think its unnecessary because you think they simply diminish the game.
ask any blacksmiths, real blacksmiths... sporry but about a year to make a full plate is pretty real if the blacksmith is alone.
and no, those who say blacksmiths can create stuff in a few days and be real, no, they are not... not alone. that is also supported by any historian who will tell you that blacksmiths of old were never alone. literally each person cuts the work in half. 1 blacksmith... 300 days for a full plate... 2 blacksmiths, thats only 150 days. 3 blacksmiths reduce that to 75 days. and so on and so on.
the way 5e works is much better then 3e as it doesn't have a speciic price tags and a specific system. it literally leaves it to the DM. which is to me the greatest boon they can do ! in 3e we could literally create our own magical items and literally break the game we were in. you really want that kind of gaming to happen again ? if anything, you didn't expect ironman to create his first armor in a mere 24 hours, he worked weeks and weeks in that cave for it. not seeing it on cinema is what we call hand waved it. just do that instead, hand wave your downtimes but let them be.
things in D&D shouldn'T all be instantly hapenning. and even if it was 3 days of crafting, nobody would take those days. nobody in game want to take downtimes. heck even long rest are taken every 8 hours instead of 24 like it is supposed to be, why do you think that is ? and no... 5e has a great working crafting system, but apparently if its not super precise like the 3e system, people are not interested in it. i've been using the stock system and my players have been crafting stuff since the get go. they also look at merchants who tell them, come back in a few days or in a month and i'll have the thing. and yes it does go higher and longer the more work my players give onto the NPC.
hows that for realism and immersion ?!!
overall, i hate people who just want things to be done instantly, this is not a vidseo game, nor should it be like one.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
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Let players play how they enjoy it.
If they want a game to be like video games and everyone at the table is all for it, more power to them!
Likewise, if another group wants a dark and gritty realistic game with healing taking weeks and a focus on crafting, and everyone is for it, then more power to them!
Hate is a powerful word to throw around for something that boils down to preferences.
Paladin, dude, wow. I miss the old days when players and DMs alike looked forward to downtime too. DMs needed to prep the next content. Players liked it because the Fighter and the Magic User got together and created a magic sword. It was a slower time when baseball was popular and you could actually buy more than 1 thing for a dollar.
Criticize the game all you want, that’s your right as a consumer. Debate the relative merits/flaws of rules or game mechanics, no problem. Be loud and opinionated, as far as I’m concerned that’s your right as a citizen of the planet. Heck, snark and jibe at me some more if you want to, I can take it.
But please stop attacking the players individually or the community as a whole. There are more than 7,500,000,000 people on this planet, some will inevitably be different than you. Personally attacking people who are “different” has historically only led to not good things.
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Yurei, you’re making a lot of sense. I kind of figured that’s one of the few things that actually makes the Artificer relevant in 5e though. I personally thought that their unique ability to replicate Spell-like effects without the use of classical Spells, by putting together a machine that could do it in record time was their “Magic”.
Sort of like the MCU (or those paper thingies kids used to buy every month with the still pictures in them if you’re old enough, lol): Dr. Strange spent years studying the Arcane arts and unlocking secret knowledge, clearly a Wizard. Scarlet Witch was born with innate powers that she could hone with practice and dedication, clearly a Sorcerer. But Iron Man could just build anything he could imagine. He didn’t need no stinking powers, all he needed was a little time, some parts, and a place to work. It might have taken the rest of the team working together a whole month to build a toaster, but Tony built a toaster building machine and had three weeks left over to go party, or save the world or whatever.
I guess that’s what got me so frustrated about this version of the Artificer, they’re not a bad-assed inventor, they’re just... meh.
I’m not mad at you WotC, I’m disappointed. I expect better from you. You really let me down this time. (Remember when your parents used to say that? *shudders*)
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Not to devolve this into a "Which classes are all the MCU characters", but Dr. Strange absolutely have levels in both Wizard and Artificer, probably Archivist, while Iron Man would be Artificer Battle Smith, maybe a splash of Fighter.
Marine,
We finally figured out the basic misunderstanding that led to a rabbit hole of debates covering just about everything to do with Artificers except maybe underwear preference. I have absolutely no arguments mechanical, narrative, or otherwise against your concept of the role Artificers fulfill in a party, play them how you want. I never once said you were wrong in your opinion, I simply have a different one. Now that we figured all of that out, I would like to ask your honest opinions about two things:
1) If I want my Artificer to be like Tony Stark from Marvel, Q from James Bond (my man got out in the field back in the older movies), or MacGyver (yes he was a pacifist, but he blew shit up all the time and it was awesome, admit it) do you think I should be disallowed from playing them like that?
2) If your Artificer could magitech up the pseudo-medieval fantasy version of an Iron Man suit, or a pimped our Aston Martin with Fireball headlights and everything, or make a Delayed Blast Fireball out of trash, literally junk other adventurers had thrown away, are you honestly telling me you wouldn’t think that was cool?
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@Iamsposta are you saying you want an Artificer class that can access literally any effect they can engineer their way to? I mean, I like the idea, but I'm not sure D&D is up to handling anything quite that freeform.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
A while back in days yonder on this thread, I threw out an idea I had for a "cantrip crafting table" that I thought might be a good spellcasting alternative for a crafting-based class. Mind you, the example I put out was rough, but I was thinking of using it for a homebrew of mine for fun, and maybe that concept could be expanded to a "simulated spell table" as well?
@Mergon Those are some pretty nifty ideas you have. Your level 10 ability gives me an idea for something similar using spell slots instead of magic items and their rarity to replenish charges, though on further reflection it occurs to me there could also be some potential for abuse there...
@Grizz: You are probably right, I was just covering “Primary Class” to make a point.
@Ophid: Maybe not one Character who could do everything, but that’s what Subclasses are for. Right? But I do think replicating most Spell effects up to lvl 5 (or maybe even 6?) should be possible among the various types of Artificers. As it stands, none of the Artificers can even replicate Burning Hands under the rules, even if every Artificer on the Prime Material worked together.
@Mezz: That’s kind of what I was hoping the Artificer would have been this whole time. ;)
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@Mergon: I like your ideas. I have a question for you. Does the Crafter only use their Spell Slots the way you mentioned, or can they cast Spells using them as well?
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Heh. See, the Tony Stark thing is why I was so excited about Tool Expertise earlier in the thread before getting shot down by errybuddy else.
The way I see it, Sposta, Artificers are the Tony Starks of D&D. Because Tony never bothered with rules - he just did what he wanted to do and either it worked or it blew up in his face. He didn't follow strictly laid out rules or predetermined timetables for his inventions - he grabs his tools, finds some materials, and frickin' builds shit. Tool Expertise is all an artificer needs to be Tony Stark - that and a creative player paired with a flexible DM. The downtime-intensive methods Paladin is so oddly fond of, the shitty base 5e crafting rules where your tool proficiencies don't matter and all you can really do is hope the DM doesn't roll a "you fail" result on his crafting tables over the five years it takes you to craft anything meaningful...those aren't how one goes about Tony Stark-ing.
You Tony Stark by saying to your DM "this is what I want to build. Here's the materials I'm using and the toolsets I'm employing to make it happen," ideally with sketches of your design showing how it works. Your DM decides if the design is feasible, how difficult it might be for you to assemble, and how long it might take, and you start making tool rolls. It's a skill challenge, not an automated process, with larger and more complex devices taking more rolls and quite probably needing to be built in stages/pieces rather than all at once. Crafting cool off-book shit should be a test of the artificer's skill and the player's ingenuity; crafting regular PHB adventuring gear should be fairly routine and simple, with rolls made to speed the process up because the artificer is an expert maker.
But nah. Instead I just get insulted every time I post because I believe taking a year off after every adventure is terrible for dramatic pacing and telling a thrilling and engaging story. Silly me. >_>
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For my playtest, when I am ready to run one, it'll be both. When I do a playtest, I have a very accommodating DM, I'll be trying different things to see how they feel. The Artificer gets so few spell slots compared to a full caster that I'll probably allow them to do both.
Watch your back, conserve your ammo,
and NEVER cut a deal with a dragon!
But why don't you take your double proficiency in Tinker's Tools or Blacksmith's Tools and just build a flamethrower? I mean, you'll be stretching your DM's skills, but really only a little bit. Does everything have to be a spell?
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
@Yurei1453,
You don't build a class around a particular character concept (unless you are homebrewing), you try to build a character concept to fit within existing rules and classes.
I recent discovered Tulok the Barbarian on YouTube. His videos are all about building well know characters around existing materials (including Unearthed Arcana)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5EfKWar21WkaYUSOwPWakg/videos
He has an interesting Iron Man build and many others. I only recently subscribed to his channel and haven't had a chance to look at the majority of them. I have been impresses with the majority of those I have views though.
Watch your back, conserve your ammo,
and NEVER cut a deal with a dragon!
@Yurei: We got what each other was saying, we just individually thought up different mechanics for it if I remember.
@Mergon: Cool, please keep us posted on how it goes.
@Ophid: Personally I would have done away with the “Spells” entirely if I could have. Since we are working with the Artificer we have, not the Artificer we deserve I am trying to keep within the framework provided be WotC. Haven’t you ever had a DM that was married to the RAW? How many DMs like that do you think their are out there? How many players do you think are in all of those games then have a DM who is unable to stretch that far? Given the current rules, could those Artificers make things that simulate Spells not on the Artificer list? Think of the children man!
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I dunno, I think making non-magical contraptions is less of a stretch than allowing unfettered access to everyone's spell list, but I also don't think expanding the Artificer spell list is a difficult houserule, either.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Heh. Not quite what I meant, Mergon. I understand the confusion, though. For me, tool expertise is an excellent feature because it's as simple and clear-cut as a rule can get - "you are really damn good at using your tools". What any given artificer player decides those tool expertises are good for? That's up to them. Every third artificer I see is another Tony Stark clone, and frankly that's okay. It's not what I want out of the class, but Tool Expertise is general enough that I can make it do what I want.
The more specific, downtime-focused options favored by other players, or even the options that eliminate the artificer's spellcasting in favor of gadgetry, all feel much more restrictive to me. Remember, artificers exist in a world where magic is real and ever-present and where people who can manipulate it with nothing but word, gesture, and a sack of odd potpourri are commonplace. It makes no sense that someone who studies "The Magic of Artifice" wouldn't have any talent at manipulating magic in similar ways - they just use their creations and artificery to make it easier and to accomplish things other folks find either impossible or much more difficult.
Artificers are magic-users as much as any wizard or sorcerer is. The difference is in their focus, not their raw capability. At least, that's how I saw the 2019 UA version. Heh, suppose we'll see who's right in November.
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Who says that those two statements have to make sense? Nothing about the Artificer class makes sense to begin with. The class is supposed to be about crafting, but 90% of the class is spellcasting and imbuing magical properties into non-magical items, 7.5% is about melee combat and 2.5% is about crafting. By that account the Artificer is no long a crafter but in instead a spellcaster.
From your post it looks like you completely overlooked the part where I didn't have an issue with direct damaging spell for the subclasses (as long as they make sense).
Besides, who says that the Artificer has to create and use gadgets, salves, or potions in order to cast their spells. What if a Dwarf is was in training to become a Wizard decided to leave school and instead focus on the Dwarven heritage of crafting. And during his time forging and crafting he figured out how to imbue arcane properties into the items he created? I'm not talking about building a flamethrower to simulate burning hands or a stun gun that simulates shocking grasp or witch bolt. I am actually talking about crafting magic items as found in DMG and XGtE, or even a homebrew magic item.
I said before and I'll say it again.... If you want the base class to have access to direct damaging spells, you are better off playing a Wizard and selecting a background (or modifying one) to give you proficiency with a tool set and then select the Skilled feat and select 3 more tool sets. That will give you access to a plethora of direct damaging spells (even beyond 5th level). Then you can create a Sunburst grenade, a Magic Missile missile launcher, or a Prismatic Spray ray gun.