Having been toying with artificers for a while now, I mostly just wanted to squee about the thing a little bit because it’s probably my favorite thing to play now. Figured I’d share a few of my favorite uses for underappreciated features from the Artificer and see if anyone else had any clever tricks for things the Artificer could do other than item infusions. Don’t get me wrong, item infusions are awesome, but we’re all magical super-inventors here – let’s get inventive.
Cool Things You Can Do with Magical Tinkering:
-The Pen Light: enchant a wooden dowel with minor light Tinkering effect. Use tinker’s tools to create a small metal casing for the dowel with a thumb-actuated pivoting cap, allowing you to carry a negligible-weight point light source you can tuck behind an ear (or a horn) while doing things like picking locks in the dark or trying to read secret missives while on an infiltration job. So much more effective than candles – flick-on, flick-off, one-directional light absolutely perfect for burglary. Half my party were desperately jealous of my pen light.
-The Perfume: Enchant the broach on your cloak (or the decorative cap on your horn) to emit a pleasing scent like jasmine, cinnamon, or brimstone. Enjoy being surrounded by your favorite scent whenever you happen to be. Obvious, but still worth stating.
-The Anti-Perfume: offer to enchant the armor of the stupid fighter who charged into that hobgoblin troop dick-first and nearly got you killed yesterday with your Enhanced Defense infusion “just in case we get into hot water like that again today.” Succeed on a Deception check because your party is starting to grow wise to your shit. Instead, tinker the smell of month-old curdled milk into their armor and inform them that the next time they decide to think with their halberd instead of their brain, you’ll find a way to make it permanent. Spend the day 15 or more feet away from said fighter.
-The Decoy: enchant a throwaway object like a ball bearing (if you don’t carry a bag of ball bearings on every character you’re insane and I don’t wanna play with you) with your scent. Drop near your trail somewhere difficult to access, such as between the bricks of a nearby tavern, and buy time to get more of a lead on those damned guard hounds.
-The “Legendary Avenger”: Enchant a greatsword’s blade with minor light. Enchant the guard - which is a different part of the sword and thus qualifies as its own object, as any proper artificer knows – with the sound of a magical Power Thrum. Sell this clearly potent and magnificent weapon (it even registers as a magic item to Detect Magic spells/items!) to the smith at Podunk Road Trip Village #14 at a ‘disastrous discount’ because “its power burns my impure blood, I can’t bear to hold it any longer” and everybody’s giving you the stink-eye for being a tiefling anyways. One Deception check later, walk away with a hundred gold. And then maybe don’t go back to that village later unless you have a disguise spell…
-The Giggity: Wake up before the Lawful Prude paladin who keeps complaining about your unbecoming conduct does, put your stealth skills to work. Enchant his underoos with the scent of fresh sex, wait for the party to get up. Act all blissed-out and silly, do not stop smiling and making eyes at said paladin while he desperately tries to explain that he didn’t so much as look at you last night and he’d never sully himself with a common slattern like you. Get Insight’d by the entire party because they are definitely wise to your shit by now, consider dipping a Rogue level because Expertise in Deception is starting to look very attractive.
-The Mindscrew: Magically tinker faint, murky fiendish murmuring (no discernible words or distinct voices? Close enough to nonverbal, at least according to the DM I pulled this on) into the favorite earring of a snooty noblewoman. Enjoy watching her squirm as ‘demons’ murmur into her ear all day, offer to investigate when she grows distraught enough to be willing to hire people to find out why the noises won’t stop. Kick that damned paladin when he blabs and not only ruins your score but puts your Deception to the test trying to get out of explaining how you got close enough to the earring to enchant it in the first place.
-The Mindscrew, Pt. II: Magically tinker the phrase “Ohhhh yeah, HARDER! YES!” with a thick put-on accent into a bureaucrat’s pen. Convince the DM that writing necessarily involves tapping the pen repeatedly. Laugh as that ******* who stiffed you on payment for that owlbear bounty because ‘you didn’t fill out a bounty acceptance form first’ gets his office searched top to bottom because they keep hearing that crazy tiefling girl Having A Good Time in there.
Why You Should Make ‘Many-Handed Pouch’ One of Your Go-To Infusions
-The Dispensary: Being an alchemist like any right and proper artificer (who was made before Broke-Chivist and Better Beastmaster-Smith came out), inform the party that their many-handed pouch will always contain at least two doses of healing potion fresh-brewed by their friendly neighborhood devil girl (unless somebody’s used one), and that they can have one…if they put fifteen gold back in the pouch to cover your expenses and labor. Pocket the change, inform people who grumble about you charging them for healing that you’re perfectly willing to not ensure there’s a ready supply of life-saving healing elixir in those pouches if they would prefer not to help foot the bill.
-The Shell Game: Set up a table at the local fair with three of your many-handed pouches, challenge the locals to keep track of which pouch they put their gold coin into while you juggle them for five seconds. If they win they get two gold coins back; if they lose you keep the coin. Get the sorcerer to pull the coins from his own pouch somewhere out of sight because the paladin can’t be trusted to know a good gig if it came up and kicked him in the shin. Make sure to Insight the crowd frequently to make sure you’re not pushing your luck, and ham it up so they get a performance out of it as well and don’t feel too broken up about losing their gold. Walk away with about thirty gold of modest profit and a DM who’s audibly wondering what sort of monster he created allowing this class in his game.
-The Conveyor Belt: Use your pen light, your thieves’ tools, and your tiefling wiles to work your way into that noblewoman’s estate again. Get the sorcerer to keep a finger in his pouch so he knows when it starts filling up with stuff. Go find all the gold the magistrate made you cough up for haranguing the poor woman with that demonic-earring trick, stuff it a few coins at a time through the many-handed pouch back to the sorcerer. Plus a ten percent surcharge for the inconvenience of making you go get it back. Steal those damn earrings while you’re at it. Leave your bag of holding behind so even if you’re caught, they can’t find any stolen property on you and all they have you for is B&E (but try really hard not to get caught because the DM is turning red and you're not entirely certain execution is off the table if they catch you in here again). Then convince the party to be somewhere else for a while.
Things You Can Make with Alchemy and Herbalism Expertise Beyond Crap in the PHB
Characters in my game could benefit from one special herbal tea per long rest; the tea was prepared in packets that required ten minutes to steep, creating one cup. Ingredient ranged from 20 to 200 gold, doubled for a Strong tea, halved if I succeeded on a Survival check in the wilderness to find ingredients (DC dependent on which tea I was trying to brew). Drinking a tea required one minute, though both steeping and drinking could be done during a short rest, by different characters.
-Fortifying Tea: 1d4 temporary hit points to the character that drinks it. A Strong tea gives 2d4 instead. -Energizing Tea: Whoever drinks this one can ignore the effects of one level of exhaustion for the next five hours. A Strong tea allows the character to ignore the effects of two levels of exhaustion, but they then take a third level of exhaustion after the fifth hour so be friggin’ careful with it. -Revitalizing Tea: One first-level spell slot restored to a character that character that spends one minute drinking it. No Strong variation. Non-spellcasters who drink it get a headache and the runs, instead. And owe me two hundred friggin’ gold -Relaxing Tea: Drinker makes a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw or is considered under the effects of the Friends spell for ten minutes. Drinker is not aware of having been manipulated, unless you push hard enough to make them suspicious. Strong tea bumps the DC to 15, but also alerts the drinker that something is amiss after the ten minutes are up. -Purging Tea: halves the duration of any lingering poison effects. Strong tea offers a DC15 Con save to throw off the poison then and there. -‘Purging’ Tea: DC12 Con save to avoid a sudden, overwhelming case of the runs lasting for the next ten minutes. Because hell if I’m not going to keep the party out of my tea supplies one way or another, that Revitalizing stuff is expensive.
-Stink Bombs: 10’ radius, DC 12 Con save or suffer the effects of Stinking Cloud. Or Double Distill it for an extra eight hours and 200 gold to bump the DC to 15. Triple Distilled stink bombs are an offense against the gods and will invite divine judgment upon those who dare attempt the profane – DM final word on the subject. -“The Good Stuff”: A flask of alcohol enchanted with psychotropic aftereffects. Anyone who drinks it makes a DC 12 Constitution save, DC 15 if double distilled, or is totally blitzed out their gourd for the next few minutes. Taking more than one pull gives disadvantage on the save. Downing the whole flask is automatic failure.
. .. …that’s what I’ve got, so far at least. Heh, anyone else come up with novel and game-enhancing ways to use artifice beyond minmaxing item infusions?
I have been knocking around ideas for an Eberron/Artificer heavy setting for a campaign that tries to replicate certain aspects of cyberpunk and one of the ideas fits in with this.
Imagine a company staffed by hundreds/thousands of low level Artificers that use Magical Tinkering to churn out product advertising. Posters and billboards that display product names and logos complete with an audible jingle or perhaps an aroma (great for food products, taverns). Lit and animated signs that simulate neon signage, wagons or saddles could advertise hourly rates for rental.
Unscrupulous tavern owners could have all of their tankards emit the odor of a top quality mead while they actually serve swill, plates could emit the aroma of steak when they are actually serving a recently retired horse.
Talking street signs, umbrellas that light your way, the whole Bladerunner experience is possible I think.
Your hordes of low-level Artificers would have to be more of a burst service than a permanent thing, since any given Artificer can only maintain up to 5 Magical Tinkerings at any given time (at 20 INT, less for dumber Artificers). That said? Could absolutely hire them for a catering gig, or for short-duration hype advertising for an event. Either that or your world has ways of allowing artificers to sink more time/effort into a piece of Tinkering to make it permanent or semi-permanent. probably the latter honestly, if we're going for Blade Runner 1099 magical dystopia. Heh, after all, what nefarious magical megacorp is going to sell permanent objects when it can charge you a monthly fee to have an artificer come around and perform necessary upkeep-/maintenance on your Bronze-Tier Advert Package instead?
I mean, the artificer was originally built for, and considered an integral part of, the Eberron setting. So yeah, I imagine it would be perfect indeed.
One thing to remember is that Magical Tinkering only works on "Tiny, non-magical objects". Things like armor, sword blades, etc., may not fit into the Tiny category. Likely depends on DM, but I tried some of this before I saw this post and he disallowed most of anything I wanted to do on anything bigger than a rock.
A fair note. My DM was more concerned with making sure I didn't push too hard on what a given Magical Tinkering effect could be (and, later, more concerned with seeing what else I could come up with) than ensuring the object size fell in line. That said, a sufficiently creative artificer can always find a way. You may lose the 'Holy Avenger' with no glowing sword blade, but one can always Tinker a specific small piece of the idiot fighter's armor, a single pair of underwear counts as Tiny to any DM with a brain in his head, and the rest of my favorite Tinkerings involve palm-of-one-hand objects to start with. Good call on armor scaling though, I hadn't thought of that.
Having been toying with artificers for a while now, I mostly just wanted to squee about the thing a little bit because it’s probably my favorite thing to play now. Figured I’d share a few of my favorite uses for underappreciated features from the Artificer and see if anyone else had any clever tricks for things the Artificer could do other than item infusions. Don’t get me wrong, item infusions are awesome, but we’re all magical super-inventors here – let’s get inventive.
Cool Things You Can Do with Magical Tinkering:
-The Pen Light: enchant a wooden dowel with minor light Tinkering effect. Use tinker’s tools to create a small metal casing for the dowel with a thumb-actuated pivoting cap, allowing you to carry a negligible-weight point light source you can tuck behind an ear (or a horn) while doing things like picking locks in the dark or trying to read secret missives while on an infiltration job. So much more effective than candles – flick-on, flick-off, one-directional light absolutely perfect for burglary. Half my party were desperately jealous of my pen light.
-The Perfume: Enchant the broach on your cloak (or the decorative cap on your horn) to emit a pleasing scent like jasmine, cinnamon, or brimstone. Enjoy being surrounded by your favorite scent whenever you happen to be. Obvious, but still worth stating.
-The Anti-Perfume: offer to enchant the armor of the stupid fighter who charged into that hobgoblin troop dick-first and nearly got you killed yesterday with your Enhanced Defense infusion “just in case we get into hot water like that again today.” Succeed on a Deception check because your party is starting to grow wise to your shit. Instead, tinker the smell of month-old curdled milk into their armor and inform them that the next time they decide to think with their halberd instead of their brain, you’ll find a way to make it permanent. Spend the day 15 or more feet away from said fighter.
-The Decoy: enchant a throwaway object like a ball bearing (if you don’t carry a bag of ball bearings on every character you’re insane and I don’t wanna play with you) with your scent. Drop near your trail somewhere difficult to access, such as between the bricks of a nearby tavern, and buy time to get more of a lead on those damned guard hounds.
-The “Legendary Avenger”: Enchant a greatsword’s blade with minor light. Enchant the guard - which is a different part of the sword and thus qualifies as its own object, as any proper artificer knows – with the sound of a magical Power Thrum. Sell this clearly potent and magnificent weapon (it even registers as a magic item to Detect Magic spells/items!) to the smith at Podunk Road Trip Village #14 at a ‘disastrous discount’ because “its power burns my impure blood, I can’t bear to hold it any longer” and everybody’s giving you the stink-eye for being a tiefling anyways. One Deception check later, walk away with a hundred gold. And then maybe don’t go back to that village later unless you have a disguise spell…
-The Giggity: Wake up before the Lawful Prude paladin who keeps complaining about your unbecoming conduct does, put your stealth skills to work. Enchant his underoos with the scent of fresh sex, wait for the party to get up. Act all blissed-out and silly, do not stop smiling and making eyes at said paladin while he desperately tries to explain that he didn’t so much as look at you last night and he’d never sully himself with a common slattern like you. Get Insight’d by the entire party because they are definitely wise to your shit by now, consider dipping a Rogue level because Expertise in Deception is starting to look very attractive.
-The Mindscrew: Magically tinker faint, murky fiendish murmuring (no discernible words or distinct voices? Close enough to nonverbal, at least according to the DM I pulled this on) into the favorite earring of a snooty noblewoman. Enjoy watching her squirm as ‘demons’ murmur into her ear all day, offer to investigate when she grows distraught enough to be willing to hire people to find out why the noises won’t stop. Kick that damned paladin when he blabs and not only ruins your score but puts your Deception to the test trying to get out of explaining how you got close enough to the earring to enchant it in the first place.
-The Mindscrew, Pt. II: Magically tinker the phrase “Ohhhh yeah, HARDER! YES!” with a thick put-on accent into a bureaucrat’s pen. Convince the DM that writing necessarily involves tapping the pen repeatedly. Laugh as that ******* who stiffed you on payment for that owlbear bounty because ‘you didn’t fill out a bounty acceptance form first’ gets his office searched top to bottom because they keep hearing that crazy tiefling girl Having A Good Time in there.
Why You Should Make ‘Many-Handed Pouch’ One of Your Go-To Infusions
-The Dispensary: Being an alchemist like any right and proper artificer (who was made before Broke-Chivist and Better Beastmaster-Smith came out), inform the party that their many-handed pouch will always contain at least two doses of healing potion fresh-brewed by their friendly neighborhood devil girl (unless somebody’s used one), and that they can have one…if they put fifteen gold back in the pouch to cover your expenses and labor. Pocket the change, inform people who grumble about you charging them for healing that you’re perfectly willing to not ensure there’s a ready supply of life-saving healing elixir in those pouches if they would prefer not to help foot the bill.
-The Shell Game: Set up a table at the local fair with three of your many-handed pouches, challenge the locals to keep track of which pouch they put their gold coin into while you juggle them for five seconds. If they win they get two gold coins back; if they lose you keep the coin. Get the sorcerer to pull the coins from his own pouch somewhere out of sight because the paladin can’t be trusted to know a good gig if it came up and kicked him in the shin. Make sure to Insight the crowd frequently to make sure you’re not pushing your luck, and ham it up so they get a performance out of it as well and don’t feel too broken up about losing their gold. Walk away with about thirty gold of modest profit and a DM who’s audibly wondering what sort of monster he created allowing this class in his game.
-The Conveyor Belt: Use your pen light, your thieves’ tools, and your tiefling wiles to work your way into that noblewoman’s estate again. Get the sorcerer to keep a finger in his pouch so he knows when it starts filling up with stuff. Go find all the gold the magistrate made you cough up for haranguing the poor woman with that demonic-earring trick, stuff it a few coins at a time through the many-handed pouch back to the sorcerer. Plus a ten percent surcharge for the inconvenience of making you go get it back. Steal those damn earrings while you’re at it. Leave your bag of holding behind so even if you’re caught, they can’t find any stolen property on you and all they have you for is B&E (but try really hard not to get caught because the DM is turning red and you're not entirely certain execution is off the table if they catch you in here again). Then convince the party to be somewhere else for a while.
Things You Can Make with Alchemy and Herbalism Expertise Beyond Crap in the PHB
Characters in my game could benefit from one special herbal tea per long rest; the tea was prepared in packets that required ten minutes to steep, creating one cup. Ingredient ranged from 20 to 200 gold, doubled for a Strong tea, halved if I succeeded on a Survival check in the wilderness to find ingredients (DC dependent on which tea I was trying to brew). Drinking a tea required one minute, though both steeping and drinking could be done during a short rest, by different characters.
-Fortifying Tea: 1d4 temporary hit points to the character that drinks it. A Strong tea gives 2d4 instead.
-Energizing Tea: Whoever drinks this one can ignore the effects of one level of exhaustion for the next five hours. A Strong tea allows the character to ignore the effects of two levels of exhaustion, but they then take a third level of exhaustion after the fifth hour so be friggin’ careful with it.
-Revitalizing Tea: One first-level spell slot restored to a character that character that spends one minute drinking it. No Strong variation. Non-spellcasters who drink it get a headache and the runs, instead. And owe me two hundred friggin’ gold
-Relaxing Tea: Drinker makes a DC 12 Wisdom saving throw or is considered under the effects of the Friends spell for ten minutes. Drinker is not aware of having been manipulated, unless you push hard enough to make them suspicious. Strong tea bumps the DC to 15, but also alerts the drinker that something is amiss after the ten minutes are up.
-Purging Tea: halves the duration of any lingering poison effects. Strong tea offers a DC15 Con save to throw off the poison then and there.
-‘Purging’ Tea: DC12 Con save to avoid a sudden, overwhelming case of the runs lasting for the next ten minutes. Because hell if I’m not going to keep the party out of my tea supplies one way or another, that Revitalizing stuff is expensive.
-Stink Bombs: 10’ radius, DC 12 Con save or suffer the effects of Stinking Cloud. Or Double Distill it for an extra eight hours and 200 gold to bump the DC to 15. Triple Distilled stink bombs are an offense against the gods and will invite divine judgment upon those who dare attempt the profane – DM final word on the subject.
-“The Good Stuff”: A flask of alcohol enchanted with psychotropic aftereffects. Anyone who drinks it makes a DC 12 Constitution save, DC 15 if double distilled, or is totally blitzed out their gourd for the next few minutes. Taking more than one pull gives disadvantage on the save. Downing the whole flask is automatic failure.
.
..
…that’s what I’ve got, so far at least. Heh, anyone else come up with novel and game-enhancing ways to use artifice beyond minmaxing item infusions?
Please do not contact or message me.
I like where you are going here.
I have been knocking around ideas for an Eberron/Artificer heavy setting for a campaign that tries to replicate certain aspects of cyberpunk and one of the ideas fits in with this.
Imagine a company staffed by hundreds/thousands of low level Artificers that use Magical Tinkering to churn out product advertising. Posters and billboards that display product names and logos complete with an audible jingle or perhaps an aroma (great for food products, taverns). Lit and animated signs that simulate neon signage, wagons or saddles could advertise hourly rates for rental.
Unscrupulous tavern owners could have all of their tankards emit the odor of a top quality mead while they actually serve swill, plates could emit the aroma of steak when they are actually serving a recently retired horse.
Talking street signs, umbrellas that light your way, the whole Bladerunner experience is possible I think.
Your hordes of low-level Artificers would have to be more of a burst service than a permanent thing, since any given Artificer can only maintain up to 5 Magical Tinkerings at any given time (at 20 INT, less for dumber Artificers). That said? Could absolutely hire them for a catering gig, or for short-duration hype advertising for an event. Either that or your world has ways of allowing artificers to sink more time/effort into a piece of Tinkering to make it permanent or semi-permanent. probably the latter honestly, if we're going for Blade Runner 1099 magical dystopia. Heh, after all, what nefarious magical megacorp is going to sell permanent objects when it can charge you a monthly fee to have an artificer come around and perform necessary upkeep-/maintenance on your Bronze-Tier Advert Package instead?
Please do not contact or message me.
Now you are thinking. You don't own that magic. You are leasing it.
Eberron sounds like the perfect setting for this sort of thing. Magic as science? A magic based economy?
I mean, the artificer was originally built for, and considered an integral part of, the Eberron setting. So yeah, I imagine it would be perfect indeed.
Please do not contact or message me.
One thing to remember is that Magical Tinkering only works on "Tiny, non-magical objects". Things like armor, sword blades, etc., may not fit into the Tiny category. Likely depends on DM, but I tried some of this before I saw this post and he disallowed most of anything I wanted to do on anything bigger than a rock.
A fair note. My DM was more concerned with making sure I didn't push too hard on what a given Magical Tinkering effect could be (and, later, more concerned with seeing what else I could come up with) than ensuring the object size fell in line. That said, a sufficiently creative artificer can always find a way. You may lose the 'Holy Avenger' with no glowing sword blade, but one can always Tinker a specific small piece of the idiot fighter's armor, a single pair of underwear counts as Tiny to any DM with a brain in his head, and the rest of my favorite Tinkerings involve palm-of-one-hand objects to start with. Good call on armor scaling though, I hadn't thought of that.
Please do not contact or message me.
From what I can see, Tiny refers to something that can fit into a cube that is 2.5 feet on each side. A lot of things can fit in that box.
I was thinking about this recently, specifically using magical tinkering on an object in the possession of an enemy.