I do still have a problem about the "indefinite" nature though. If I were writing the rules, I would have put some sort of time limit (like X day/level). Allowing a 2nd level character to create was is in essence a Permanent Magical Item (eg. like the Bag of Holding) is abusive and unbalancing to the game.
That would add a fair bit of bookkeeping having to track the durations of each individual infusion. With Artificers currently the only thing about infusions to keep track of is which infusions you have active and the order you infused them in. Having to update a counter on each infusion every adventuring day sounds rather tedious especially if I'm not switching my infusions around very often.
Keep in mind though that part of the power budget Artificers give up to have infusions is being a half caster. An artificer will never cast 6th level spells or above outside of magic items (or a single exception for the Alchemist). Infusions are an Artificer's class features that just happen to be magic items not extra magic items on top of an already fully featured class.
As for their permanence the actual maximum length of time an item can remain infused is from the moment the item is infused until the moment of the Artificer's death + INT modifier days. So yes, in respect to an adventure's time frame it's effictively permanent but no more permanent than the Artificer themself.
At level 5, you know 4 infusions, but you can only have two infused items at any given time. If you infuse two new ones the next day, those first two go away.
This is what I was thinking they meant, but they never actually say this in the rules and managed to write it in an ambiguous way where the maximum number of infusion at any given time is never mentioned.
Good DMs and story writers, bad lawyers and technical rules writers.
It is said in an unambiguous way right here:
You can infuse more than one nonmagical object at the end of a long rest; the maximum number of objects appears in the Infused Items column of the Artificer table. You must touch each of the objects, and each of your infusions can be in only one object at a time. If you try to exceed your maximum number of infusions, the oldest infusion immediately ends, and then the new infusion applies.
Emphasis mine.
I still think that's very poorly written. It implies that the table of "infused items" is a limit on how many items you can infuse at the end of any one long rest, rather than being a strict limit on the infused items at any one time. Furthermore "if you try to exceed your maximum number of infusions" could easily mean number of infusions known (8 at level 20). Given that you can't have any single type of infusion on more than one item, that would be a hard limit regardless.
I understand that, RAI, you can only have the "infused items" number of objects active at any one time, but I could easily see the rules being misread as being you can have the "infusions known" number of objects active, but can only create "infused items" per long rest.
"Implies" nothing, that's exactly what it explicitly says.
As I understood it, there is defined number of infused items—an artificer can only have one infused object per infusion known (only one weapon can have repeating shot, only one item can be replicated, etc). So if an artificer can create 3 infused items per long rest, they would still have a maximum of however many they know because each one can only be used on one item at a time.
As I understood it, there is defined number of infused items—an artificer can only have one infused object per infusion known (only one weapon can have repeating shot, only one item can be replicated, etc). So if an artificer can create 3 infused items per long rest, they would still have a maximum of however many they know because each one can only be used on one item at a time.
That’s not quite correct on 2 main points:
Whenever an artificer creates an infusion at the end of a long rest, one of their previously infused items looses its infusion. So, if a particular artificer can only create 3 infused items at the end of any given long rest, that means the maximum total number of active infusions that particular artificer can have at any given time is 3 items.
An artificer can have more than 1 replicated item if they wish, they just cannot have more than 1 of any given replicated item, and they must learn how to replicate each item separately as individual infusions.
That would add a fair bit of bookkeeping having to track the durations of each individual infusion. With Artificers currently the only thing about infusions to keep track of is which infusions you have active and the order you infused them in. Having to update a counter on each infusion every adventuring day sounds rather tedious especially if I'm not switching my infusions around very often.
Keep in mind though that part of the power budget Artificers give up to have infusions is being a half caster. An artificer will never cast 6th level spells or above outside of magic items (or a single exception for the Alchemist). Infusions are an Artificer's class features that just happen to be magic items not extra magic items on top of an already fully featured class.
As for their permanence the actual maximum length of time an item can remain infused is from the moment the item is infused until the moment of the Artificer's death + INT modifier days. So yes, in respect to an adventure's time frame it's effictively permanent but no more permanent than the Artificer themself.
"Implies" nothing, that's exactly what it explicitly says.
As I understood it, there is defined number of infused items—an artificer can only have one infused object per infusion known (only one weapon can have repeating shot, only one item can be replicated, etc). So if an artificer can create 3 infused items per long rest, they would still have a maximum of however many they know because each one can only be used on one item at a time.
That’s not quite correct on 2 main points:
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