I'm DMing a campaign, and one of my players is an Artificer (Gunsmith). It's a great class, but a lot of extra work for me. I've modified and homebrewed a great deal, and I'd love some feedback on balancing everything.
I feel that the rules are a little limited when it comes to crafting magical items, which I think is where the true fun in being an Artificer comes from. I'm currently basing the price of materials off of a percentile dice roll +40. I then use that percentage on the cost of a similar item (deciding whether it is Common, Uncommon, Rare, etc.) This is mostly because I think that there may be some amount of waste the first time crafting an object. Every subsequent time they build the item, the cost goes down 25% until the final cost is 50%. When crafting, I make him roll a tinkering check. If he rolls two under the DC, I let him craft the item, but give it some kind of flaw.
I'm also a little wary of the extra Thunder damage that his Thunder Cannon can do. He seems a little too powerful at times with his additional Xd6 every time he shoots, and I'm curious to see what other people are doing to balance that.
I have 2 gunsmiths in my campaign and I too know the struggle. I was very worried as well, but one of my gunsmiths has been very unlucky with his attack rolls. But I did give them the option to turn their thunder cannons into "lava Pistols" at level 4. They do 2d4+strength and have a decreased range of 25% plus it doesn't force them to get the war caster feat in order to use their spells. And no they are only allowed the one lava pistol, they can not have one in each hand.
I thought this would be a fair work around and make it fun for them to spice things up a bit for them and give a variety to the combat.
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The magical items being destroyed The pet not scaling with levels.
Last I remember, the class feature items can be destroyed and according to a Sage Advice(?) you can't replace them. Whether or not that's the case (I can't immediately find what I'm referencing) that's not how we run Artificer. You can only make one of the class feature items, but if its gone you can remake it or any from the respective lists. Nobody likes class features disappearing. As far as the pet goes, I personally haven't run into any problems. I usually have the pet take the stats of a Giant Eagle or Giant Spider and use it like a mount. Maybe all it needs is extra AC based on your Proficiency Bonus for the higher levels, but I haven't experienced that yet.
Gunsmith's thunder damage scales fine compared to other characters. The Thunder Cannon has an acceptable drawback in that it takes a bonus action to reload, so you're ever only going to get one solid shot off. Even if you had multiple ways to fire the Cannon, you're still limited by its reload which limits the damage output.
making the Magical options last longer would be helpful . they cant maintain more than their INT modifier any way . I would give the option to focus in longer for Example if you infuse your magic in an Item for 10 Minutes it would last 24 hours . If you Infuse it for 8 hours within a week with some gold cost maybe it would last for ever until expanded and wont count for your int limit . and then maybe add some rolls and difficulties if you want the forever Magical Item to continue have its magical effects . and adding an Extra Trigger for some magical infusing Like infusing a bullet with a fireball of something like that . that would be great too .
I wish the mechanical pet was removed from the main class and instead turned into a 3rd subclass built around constructs (Engineer).
That wouldn't be the worst thing ever, but it would mean I could no longer use a Giant Eagle to create my own personal AH-64 (Gunsmith) or B2 Bomber (Alchemist).
Then again, if Artificer is lacking anything its archetypes.
I started playing an Artificer (Alchemist) when it first came out and I wanted to do a slight variant with it where my character could do a bonus action to dip an arrow head into the alchemist fire and acid to do a little bit of extra damage when shooting arrows. What it did was give my an extra d4 of damage to the initial arrows damage. I thought this was a great idea and an interesting way to test the class but my DM did not think so. He thought it made me too powerful to early on. I would like to gauge peoples thoughts on this addition to the class.
I started playing an Artificer (Alchemist) when it first came out and I wanted to do a slight variant with it where my character could do a bonus action to dip an arrow head into the alchemist fire and acid to do a little bit of extra damage when shooting arrows. What it did was give my an extra d4 of damage to the initial arrows damage. I thought this was a great idea and an interesting way to test the class but my DM did not think so. He thought it made me too powerful to early on. I would like to gauge peoples thoughts on this addition to the class.
I would have allowed this. It shows the DM that you are really thinking about your class and how you can make it your own when you are playing it. All I would have required is that you take a proficiency in Poisoner's kits so you would know how to apply such things to arrows, and maybe tinker's tools because you would not be applying poisons. Then I would only ask you to tell me HOW your character came to learn how to do this, in turn that adds a roleplaying aspect.
Maybe even go a step further and multi-class into a ranger or rogue to give you better accuracy with the arrows/bolts. Plus you could even tell your DM that the arrows aren't for your use, but to sell in the side in towns as you and your group is travelling through them. But in my mind If you come up with an idea as a player that is unique to you and you want to have it in you group, as long as it makes sense and you have a great story of why/how this happened. then go for it.
I'm surprised that a lot of the feedback I'm seeing here agrees with my thoughts on the artificer.
1) Thundermonger isn't OP. If anything it is a little underwhelming compared to other classes. I only tend to get an actual shot off every 4th or so round of combat (vs a real enemy).
2) The construct thing is weird. At low levels, you don't have him. Then, at level 6, he outclasses several PCs, then he just fades away. I agree that he needs to be retooled, perhaps into something of an engineer class. One of the DM's mentioned that artificers are "harder" for DMs than other classes. IMO, this is one of those areas. Our group runs the construct more like a familiar than as a pet, ie on it's turn, it goes where I say and does what I tell it. I do all his rolls. I think this helps to save the DM's sanity. Otherwise NPC vs NPC round after round gets tiring.
3) I really do not like the idea of my class being dependent on items that I cannot re-create somehow.
4) Fire comes really late to the gunslinger. Imo, The gunslinger should learn another skill besides thundermonger at level 4-5. I would probably re-shuffle everything, make "explosive blast" thunder or force damage, make "piercing round" an upgrade to your standard ammo (around lvl 10?) and give the artificer a conical flame attack that does more damage than blast wave at lvl 5. This goes back to 1. As an gunslinger, 99% of my shots are Thunder monger. Rejiggering the other shots so that they have more situational utility, and giving me SOMETHING ELSE, ANYTHING ELSE before level 9 is really a good idea imo.
5) There are some spells missing from the spell book that seem like they should be gimmies. Locate object, for one. If I lose my folding boat, I want to at least try to get it back. Also, thematically, artificers are tinkerers who specialize in "found" and "reclaimed" materials. Given that, the ability to locate a bit of silver or wire as necessary would be very useful. I almost want to ask for it at level 1. Booming blade/green flameblade is another one that I would really like to see, as it is exactly the sort of thing that (this) type of artificer does. He (probably?) won't make much use of it himself, but empowering your friend's sword so that it can, on command, burst with green fire or sheath your enemy in a coffin of "booming energy" cough, cough (wonder who specialized in thunder magic?) Aside from that, any spell that duplicates the effects of one of the items that I can construct, seems reasonable...
6) Rules for using your construct as a mount. While I'm at it: rules for constructs. Can I heal my construct with cure wonds? Does my construct heal, at all, ever(DM ruled that it heals 100% with a long rest, but is this right)?
I started playing an Artificer (Alchemist) when it first came out and I wanted to do a slight variant with it where my character could do a bonus action to dip an arrow head into the alchemist fire and acid to do a little bit of extra damage when shooting arrows. What it did was give my an extra d4 of damage to the initial arrows damage. I thought this was a great idea and an interesting way to test the class but my DM did not think so. He thought it made me too powerful to early on. I would like to gauge peoples thoughts on this addition to the class.
I side with your DM here. I don't think it makes you "too powerful" early on, since arrows are a limited resource, but what about blades? Handaxes?... Anyway, as I was saying, not "too powerful," but to me it seems like an unjustified power that is open to abuse. If I were to allow it, I'd probably require a roll every time you did it. DC < 6, the fire or acid destroys the arrow (object) and you've already used your bonus action, so you can't reload this round. Given that rule, I might allow it...
And now you've got me going 'round the rabbit hole considering an artificer/barbarian build str/int/con melee dude with an alchemical fire great axe and I'm wondering.... OP? Not OP? ^_)^
I would give the option to focus in longer for Example if you infuse your magic in an Item for 10 Minutes it would last 24 hours . If you Infuse it for 8 hours within a week with some gold cost maybe it would last for ever until expanded and wont count for your int limit . and then maybe add some rolls and difficulties if you want the forever Magical Item to continue have its magical effects . and adding an Extra Trigger for some magical infusing Like infusing a bullet with a fireball of something like that . that would be great too .
I believe that the key here for consideration is spell slots, and whether we want a "blur" infusion to count against your artificer's spell slots. If we do, then this does not necessarily work, as it is possible to make a bunch of baubles, infuse them, rest, and repeat. We could also achieve much the same effect by declaring that the artificer ritual casts any spell as part of the infusion, since rituals don't take spell slots. You could then house-rule that the artificer can maintain up to INT number of artificer baubles, and that they can be used during every battle (since ultimately there is no practical difference between having 1 reusable bauble, vs 20-30 single use baubles onhand.)
I'm wary of this. It seems OP, and like an end-run around the entire casting system. As long as you don't multiclass, this is fine(everyone gets a blur token, or a fly token, or a token of alter self)... but, for instance a wizard with 4 into artificer class who could fire 6 "fireball infused bullets" per combat would probably be game-breaking.
EDIT: 5/5/2017
Another thing that has occurred to me is that artificers are 2x as effective with tools given to them by the artificer class, but not from other means. My artificer is a Guild artisan (Jeweler), but he is not a doubly effective jeweler. Since the use of tools is so poorly defined generally, it's a minor sticking point, but from an RP perspective, I think it's odd that my artificer decided to make a career out of literally his worst proficiency. I don't think it would be game breaking to expand "Tool Expertise" to all tools that you are proficient with.
EDIT: 8/10/2017
Another thing, I think wizards was sweating the power-gamer a little bit when they decided to give the artificer such a strong scaling long-range attack. As an artificer, you are proficient with the thunder cannon. It's also a ranged weapon, so you get a dex bonus, so at level 1, you get +4 and it scales from there. Thing is, MOST ranged characters also get +1 (magic weapon) +2 (archery fighting style) +2 (something else), presumably with the presumption that later in the game they'll pickup the sharpshooter trait and it will balance out(or they don't and they are just insanely accurate). Thing is, wizards was (I'm guessing) afraid that the thunder-cannon was already too strong, and they wanted to discourage people from picking up sharpshooter, so they left out those bonuses. Furthermore, with most ranged, Dex will be your number 1 stat, but with the artificer, it will inevitably be 2nd to intelligence). The reasoning makes sense, but in practice, this was a bad call. Part of the sharpshooter feat is the decision. I CAN sack 5 to hit for +10, if I CHOOSE to. However, sometimes you NEED that +5 to hit. Sometimes you are shooting at something with a high AC, or at something with cover, and you don't want to sack that +5 to hit because a 1/4 or 1/6 chance to hit is just not good enough.
First, I'd like to say that the class will be fine with the sharpshooter feat, if that's the way you want to spend your points. There are other classes that can do more with it... So give the gunslinger the same bonuses you give to long-bowmen for crying out loud... or better yet, do something interesting with it so that the artificer can spend his time improving what he has. Second, IMO the artificer needs a "spend a turn to gain advantage" mechanic similar to faerie fire (perhaps attached to his wis or int modifier) Because the Artificer gets only 1 attack per round, that attack has to be more accurate than +4. A rogue-like maneuver that could grant them advantage (if they can set it up) is pretty desperately needed.
1) Thundermonger isn't OP. If anything it is a little underwhelming compared to other classes. I only tend to get an actual shot off every 4th or so round of combat.
Thank you! Inspired by Critical Role, I gave my artificer a simple misfire score (Nat 1 leads to a jam that takes a short rest to fix + he takes the thunder damage, Nat 2 it takes his next action to clear the jam) and that helped a little. He still gets to use Thundermonger every turn, but it does help balance things in a fun way. My artificer is very open to me playing with the rules and changing things on him, so I've been lucky to be able to experiment. He rolls consistently pretty high in battle, and my normal fighter rolls consistently pretty low, so sometimes it is difficult for me to see if the class is comparatively OP, or if the player is.
Inspired by Critical Role, I gave my artificer a simple misfire score (Nat 1 leads to a jam that takes a short rest to fix + he takes the thunder damage, Nat 2 it takes his next action to clear the jam)
My only criticism of this rule is that it is one of those rules that exists for no other reason than to screw with someone who decided to do something different. I mean yeah, technically guns can jam. They don't and never have jammed nearly as often as 1:10 but hey, we only use D20s. It's a game. Question: does your archer's bow break when he rolls a nat 1? Does his string snap on a nat 2 so he has to re-string? What about your wizard? do his spells backfire and damage him on a nat 1? Prevent him from casting until he takes a short rest? I don't like rules that target players for doing something different, without good reason. This rule seems like one of those.
He rolls consistently pretty high in battle, and my normal fighter rolls consistently pretty low, so sometimes it is difficult for me to see if the class is comparatively OP, or if the player is.
Even rolling lower on average than the GS, the fighter should be doing more consistent damage, and the amount of damage they do overall is actually really comparable. 4d6 vs 2x1d12 at lvl 5 for example.
GS advantage: max damage. First, rolling more dice gives a slightly higher average than rolling fewer, bigger ones. Second, a single hit, is, in fact, equal or greater, on average than a fighter who hits every single attack in a single round of combat (ignoring criticals). This also means more WASTED damage, if you focus on trash, and more opportunity cost for taking those shots at the big bad cuz no partial damage.
Fighter advantages: More consistent damage; the ability to deal spread out damage among multiple enemies; the ability to, at will pump up his odds of doing decently high damage; criticals are easier to hit(15%vs 5%)(champion); better AC/more hitpoints; Extra feats/Ability points and you can re-roll 1s and 2s (10%).
I guess what I'm saying is that fighters aren't being shown up inside combat.
In my personal opinion the whole idea of the "Thunder Cannon" seems to be shoehorning the gunsmith class. After all isn't the Artificer supposed to be all about invention and ingenuity? My thought is that you should be able to designate the form of elemental damage which your weapon deals between acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, or thunder allowing some modicum of customization. Perhaps as you level up you can craft more weapons expanding your elemental repertoire, a table could even be made which suggests names for each type of magical damage.
You are entitled to your opinion, of course. I'm not quite sure what it is, though.
Do you mean to say that you don't believe that the GS should be an artificer subtype, and that WOTC is shoehorning it in? Perhaps it should be it's own thing ala matt mercer's gunslinger (which I haven't read)?
Or that WOTC is shoehorning the GS into a corner by essentially making it into a thunder-mage, especially pre lvl 9 when you literally have NO OTHER OPTIONS? I commented on this problem above, in my number 4) and The_Librarian actually did exactly what you suggest, and allowed his character to build lava pistols, which I thought was quite cleaver. Did you have any other thoughts on those 2 ideas? Honestly, magic type only plays a smallish part in 5e, and it's main purpose is to give DMs flexability in terms of encounters, so, I don't know that bringing a magical armory to bear at every opportunity would be good for the balance of the game. You would need some kind of balancing factor beyond 100GP and 3 days (like maybe your gun is only good for 10 shots, so that you are constantly building new toys to play with? Or, perhaps you can only have one gun, but you can "re-attune" it how you like over the course of a long rest?
Looking at how the gunsmith scales as levels go up, it looks like he starts to fall behind as you get to tier 3. All the other non-casters are attacking twice as often, and the shots with magical effects don't keep pace with the damage dealing of caster spells. So in terms of damage per turn the gunsmith starts to look weak. At low levels, he's not OP; compare him to the hunter at 2d level who is doing more damage using hunter's mark. At 3d level the gunsmith picks up a die, but the hunter can have colossus slayer. And at 5th, the gunsmith picks up another die for 4d6, but the hunter is now shooting twice, usually doing 2d8 and 1d6 on each shot. So the gunsmith's not OP.
Personally, I'd like to see the ability to have a double barreled gun at 6th level. Yeah, you can only reload one barrel on a bonus action, but it would allow a small 'alpha strike' at the beginning of combat, and if the gunsmith didn't shoot on one turn, he could reload the second barrel. Not as powerful as two shots a turn, but it would make up some for everybody else getting to attack more often at higher levels.
I'd also like to see the gunsmith figure out how to put a bayonet on the gun at 2d level, so he could use it as a spear if it came to close combat.
Commenting on the nat 1 idea above, I'm against punishing gunsmiths with it unless everybody suffers from a nat 1 roll (by dropping your weapon, etc). Otherwise it's not fair.
And i agree, there seem to be some spells missing that would make sense.
In my game, everyone does suffer when they roll a natural one. Sometimes they hit the person next to them, sometimes their weapon gets stuck in the ground. (On one particular game, my fighter rolled five natural ones in one combat and I had to start getting extra creative.) And like I said before, my gunslinger player really liked the idea and thought it was fair. If it becomes unfair to him, I'll change it.
I also believe that the true strength of the artificer should be in their magical crafting, so I want to reward mine for being creative and not using his thunder cannon every turn. If he asked to craft a double barreled gun, I would definitely allow him to have two attacks per turn using it. Alternatively, if he wanted a little hand pistol for each hand, I'd work with him to make those appropriately scaled.
IRL, my artificer is an engineer, so he has a lot of ideas on items and how they should work. The last thing I want to do is limit his creativity, but sometimes that means placing small caps on the mechanics. Because I know he can pull out another magical item he has crafted if his gun breaks, I don't feel as bad.
I encourage the PC Artificer in my game to be creative. I told her that the class, at least for Eberron, has a bit of MacGyver to it and improvise. My players know that I encourage creative and kind of crazy ideas and I think the intent of the class is creativity.
So, example time. The Artificer in my current Eberron campaign decided to create a "bomb" from Kyber crystals they recovered from a dormant volcano earlier in order to deal with a group of ogres. She made her several crafting checks to put this together but I warned her that it was unstable and volatile. The other half of their plan was to feed them bad food from the notoriously bad cook that is the Cleric of Vol in the group. (She does have aspirations at being a goo cook but can only manage via a Purify Food and Drink ritual.) So they trick the ogres into taking the food. The ogres fail horribly their saves and get rapid onset digestive problems. While the majority of the ogres are squatting over the edge of the cliff by their camp, the PCs carefully make their way to within range of launching their toy. The barbarian tosses it right in the middle of them while the Warlock blasts it detonating the eldritch explosive. Knocking the disadvantaged ogres over the cliff.
Now the rules don't have anything for this kind of improvisation but since they were using expensive and useful resources I ran with it. The way I figured it was that this effect would be similar to the Thunderwave spell at a 2nd level spell-slot, with the area changed to 20 ft radius.
Still discovering aspects of the class but I feel innovation needs to be the core theme of the Artificer. It's a theme of the class but it doesn't feel it's designed around it as the core.
I personally used the aspect of the mechanical servant to look like an adult human, and my character is a changeling so i constantly run around getting attacked second because they think the mechanical ervant is the real person. But he did get destroyed twice once beyond repair and the other just bad enough that i could repair him. And the thundergun is amazing!!!
Thought I would step into this. I do think the artificer is a great starting point, but it does need a lot of work for a couple of reasons.
1. The mechanical servant is a bit wonky for the reasons everyone has listed before. It is very strong at the start and gets horribly weak very quickly. Maybe make a subtype built around it.
2. Alchemist is good, but having all of its attack orientated stuff being essentially hit or miss seems like an oversight especially when it is built around a save and not a attack roll. This is a relatively quick fix. Also more options should be added.
4. More wondrous inventions. The lists are pretty limited, and in my opinion every one only really has a couple of actually good ones that people will actually pick.
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I'm DMing a campaign, and one of my players is an Artificer (Gunsmith). It's a great class, but a lot of extra work for me. I've modified and homebrewed a great deal, and I'd love some feedback on balancing everything.
I feel that the rules are a little limited when it comes to crafting magical items, which I think is where the true fun in being an Artificer comes from. I'm currently basing the price of materials off of a percentile dice roll +40. I then use that percentage on the cost of a similar item (deciding whether it is Common, Uncommon, Rare, etc.) This is mostly because I think that there may be some amount of waste the first time crafting an object. Every subsequent time they build the item, the cost goes down 25% until the final cost is 50%. When crafting, I make him roll a tinkering check. If he rolls two under the DC, I let him craft the item, but give it some kind of flaw.
I'm also a little wary of the extra Thunder damage that his Thunder Cannon can do. He seems a little too powerful at times with his additional Xd6 every time he shoots, and I'm curious to see what other people are doing to balance that.
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I have 2 gunsmiths in my campaign and I too know the struggle. I was very worried as well, but one of my gunsmiths has been very unlucky with his attack rolls. But I did give them the option to turn their thunder cannons into "lava Pistols" at level 4. They do 2d4+strength and have a decreased range of 25% plus it doesn't force them to get the war caster feat in order to use their spells. And no they are only allowed the one lava pistol, they can not have one in each hand.
I thought this would be a fair work around and make it fun for them to spice things up a bit for them and give a variety to the combat.
From the darkest dungeons, to the brightest mountaintops, there is always a little lore to learn along the way.
The biggest complaints I've seen involve:
The magical items being destroyed
The pet not scaling with levels.
Last I remember, the class feature items can be destroyed and according to a Sage Advice(?) you can't replace them. Whether or not that's the case (I can't immediately find what I'm referencing) that's not how we run Artificer. You can only make one of the class feature items, but if its gone you can remake it or any from the respective lists. Nobody likes class features disappearing. As far as the pet goes, I personally haven't run into any problems. I usually have the pet take the stats of a Giant Eagle or Giant Spider and use it like a mount. Maybe all it needs is extra AC based on your Proficiency Bonus for the higher levels, but I haven't experienced that yet.
Gunsmith's thunder damage scales fine compared to other characters. The Thunder Cannon has an acceptable drawback in that it takes a bonus action to reload, so you're ever only going to get one solid shot off. Even if you had multiple ways to fire the Cannon, you're still limited by its reload which limits the damage output.
making the Magical options last longer would be helpful . they cant maintain more than their INT modifier any way .
I would give the option to focus in longer for Example if you infuse your magic in an Item for 10 Minutes it would last 24 hours . If you Infuse it for 8 hours within a week with some gold cost maybe it would last for ever until expanded and wont count for your int limit .
and then maybe add some rolls and difficulties if you want the forever Magical Item to continue have its magical effects .
and adding an Extra Trigger for some magical infusing Like infusing a bullet with a fireball of something like that . that would be great too .
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I wish the mechanical pet was removed from the main class and instead turned into a 3rd subclass built around constructs (Engineer).
Then again, if Artificer is lacking anything its archetypes.
From the darkest dungeons, to the brightest mountaintops, there is always a little lore to learn along the way.
I started playing an Artificer (Alchemist) when it first came out and I wanted to do a slight variant with it where my character could do a bonus action to dip an arrow head into the alchemist fire and acid to do a little bit of extra damage when shooting arrows. What it did was give my an extra d4 of damage to the initial arrows damage. I thought this was a great idea and an interesting way to test the class but my DM did not think so. He thought it made me too powerful to early on. I would like to gauge peoples thoughts on this addition to the class.
From the darkest dungeons, to the brightest mountaintops, there is always a little lore to learn along the way.
I'm surprised that a lot of the feedback I'm seeing here agrees with my thoughts on the artificer.
1) Thundermonger isn't OP. If anything it is a little underwhelming compared to other classes. I only tend to get an actual shot off every 4th or so round of combat (vs a real enemy).
2) The construct thing is weird. At low levels, you don't have him. Then, at level 6, he outclasses several PCs, then he just fades away. I agree that he needs to be retooled, perhaps into something of an engineer class. One of the DM's mentioned that artificers are "harder" for DMs than other classes. IMO, this is one of those areas. Our group runs the construct more like a familiar than as a pet, ie on it's turn, it goes where I say and does what I tell it. I do all his rolls. I think this helps to save the DM's sanity. Otherwise NPC vs NPC round after round gets tiring.
3) I really do not like the idea of my class being dependent on items that I cannot re-create somehow.
4) Fire comes really late to the gunslinger. Imo, The gunslinger should learn another skill besides thundermonger at level 4-5. I would probably re-shuffle everything, make "explosive blast" thunder or force damage, make "piercing round" an upgrade to your standard ammo (around lvl 10?) and give the artificer a conical flame attack that does more damage than blast wave at lvl 5. This goes back to 1. As an gunslinger, 99% of my shots are Thunder monger. Rejiggering the other shots so that they have more situational utility, and giving me SOMETHING ELSE, ANYTHING ELSE before level 9 is really a good idea imo.
5) There are some spells missing from the spell book that seem like they should be gimmies. Locate object, for one. If I lose my folding boat, I want to at least try to get it back. Also, thematically, artificers are tinkerers who specialize in "found" and "reclaimed" materials. Given that, the ability to locate a bit of silver or wire as necessary would be very useful. I almost want to ask for it at level 1. Booming blade/green flameblade is another one that I would really like to see, as it is exactly the sort of thing that (this) type of artificer does. He (probably?) won't make much use of it himself, but empowering your friend's sword so that it can, on command, burst with green fire or sheath your enemy in a coffin of "booming energy" cough, cough (wonder who specialized in thunder magic?) Aside from that, any spell that duplicates the effects of one of the items that I can construct, seems reasonable...
6) Rules for using your construct as a mount. While I'm at it: rules for constructs. Can I heal my construct with cure wonds? Does my construct heal, at all, ever(DM ruled that it heals 100% with a long rest, but is this right)?
I side with your DM here. I don't think it makes you "too powerful" early on, since arrows are a limited resource, but what about blades? Handaxes?... Anyway, as I was saying, not "too powerful," but to me it seems like an unjustified power that is open to abuse. If I were to allow it, I'd probably require a roll every time you did it. DC < 6, the fire or acid destroys the arrow (object) and you've already used your bonus action, so you can't reload this round. Given that rule, I might allow it...
And now you've got me going 'round the rabbit hole considering an artificer/barbarian build str/int/con melee dude with an alchemical fire great axe and I'm wondering.... OP? Not OP? ^_)^
I believe that the key here for consideration is spell slots, and whether we want a "blur" infusion to count against your artificer's spell slots. If we do, then this does not necessarily work, as it is possible to make a bunch of baubles, infuse them, rest, and repeat. We could also achieve much the same effect by declaring that the artificer ritual casts any spell as part of the infusion, since rituals don't take spell slots. You could then house-rule that the artificer can maintain up to INT number of artificer baubles, and that they can be used during every battle (since ultimately there is no practical difference between having 1 reusable bauble, vs 20-30 single use baubles onhand.)
I'm wary of this. It seems OP, and like an end-run around the entire casting system. As long as you don't multiclass, this is fine(everyone gets a blur token, or a fly token, or a token of alter self)... but, for instance a wizard with 4 into artificer class who could fire 6 "fireball infused bullets" per combat would probably be game-breaking.
EDIT: 5/5/2017
Another thing that has occurred to me is that artificers are 2x as effective with tools given to them by the artificer class, but not from other means. My artificer is a Guild artisan (Jeweler), but he is not a doubly effective jeweler. Since the use of tools is so poorly defined generally, it's a minor sticking point, but from an RP perspective, I think it's odd that my artificer decided to make a career out of literally his worst proficiency. I don't think it would be game breaking to expand "Tool Expertise" to all tools that you are proficient with.
EDIT: 8/10/2017
Another thing, I think wizards was sweating the power-gamer a little bit when they decided to give the artificer such a strong scaling long-range attack. As an artificer, you are proficient with the thunder cannon. It's also a ranged weapon, so you get a dex bonus, so at level 1, you get +4 and it scales from there. Thing is, MOST ranged characters also get +1 (magic weapon) +2 (archery fighting style) +2 (something else), presumably with the presumption that later in the game they'll pickup the sharpshooter trait and it will balance out(or they don't and they are just insanely accurate). Thing is, wizards was (I'm guessing) afraid that the thunder-cannon was already too strong, and they wanted to discourage people from picking up sharpshooter, so they left out those bonuses. Furthermore, with most ranged, Dex will be your number 1 stat, but with the artificer, it will inevitably be 2nd to intelligence). The reasoning makes sense, but in practice, this was a bad call. Part of the sharpshooter feat is the decision. I CAN sack 5 to hit for +10, if I CHOOSE to. However, sometimes you NEED that +5 to hit. Sometimes you are shooting at something with a high AC, or at something with cover, and you don't want to sack that +5 to hit because a 1/4 or 1/6 chance to hit is just not good enough.
First, I'd like to say that the class will be fine with the sharpshooter feat, if that's the way you want to spend your points. There are other classes that can do more with it... So give the gunslinger the same bonuses you give to long-bowmen for crying out loud... or better yet, do something interesting with it so that the artificer can spend his time improving what he has. Second, IMO the artificer needs a "spend a turn to gain advantage" mechanic similar to faerie fire (perhaps attached to his wis or int modifier) Because the Artificer gets only 1 attack per round, that attack has to be more accurate than +4. A rogue-like maneuver that could grant them advantage (if they can set it up) is pretty desperately needed.
PBP: DM of Titans of Tomorrow
PBP: Lera Zahuv in Whispers of Dissent
PBP: Evaine Brae in Innistrad: Dark Ascension
PBP: Cor'avin in Tomb of Annihilation
The infuse magic ability is limited to artificer spells.
My only criticism of this rule is that it is one of those rules that exists for no other reason than to screw with someone who decided to do something different. I mean yeah, technically guns can jam. They don't and never have jammed nearly as often as 1:10 but hey, we only use D20s. It's a game. Question: does your archer's bow break when he rolls a nat 1? Does his string snap on a nat 2 so he has to re-string? What about your wizard? do his spells backfire and damage him on a nat 1? Prevent him from casting until he takes a short rest? I don't like rules that target players for doing something different, without good reason. This rule seems like one of those.
Even rolling lower on average than the GS, the fighter should be doing more consistent damage, and the amount of damage they do overall is actually really comparable. 4d6 vs 2x1d12 at lvl 5 for example.
GS advantage: max damage. First, rolling more dice gives a slightly higher average than rolling fewer, bigger ones. Second, a single hit, is, in fact, equal or greater, on average than a fighter who hits every single attack in a single round of combat (ignoring criticals). This also means more WASTED damage, if you focus on trash, and more opportunity cost for taking those shots at the big bad cuz no partial damage.
Fighter advantages: More consistent damage; the ability to deal spread out damage among multiple enemies; the ability to, at will pump up his odds of doing decently high damage; criticals are easier to hit(15%vs 5%)(champion); better AC/more hitpoints; Extra feats/Ability points and you can re-roll 1s and 2s (10%).
I guess what I'm saying is that fighters aren't being shown up inside combat.
In my personal opinion the whole idea of the "Thunder Cannon" seems to be shoehorning the gunsmith class. After all isn't the Artificer supposed to be all about invention and ingenuity? My thought is that you should be able to designate the form of elemental damage which your weapon deals between acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison, or thunder allowing some modicum of customization. Perhaps as you level up you can craft more weapons expanding your elemental repertoire, a table could even be made which suggests names for each type of magical damage.
You are entitled to your opinion, of course. I'm not quite sure what it is, though.
Do you mean to say that you don't believe that the GS should be an artificer subtype, and that WOTC is shoehorning it in? Perhaps it should be it's own thing ala matt mercer's gunslinger (which I haven't read)?
Or that WOTC is shoehorning the GS into a corner by essentially making it into a thunder-mage, especially pre lvl 9 when you literally have NO OTHER OPTIONS? I commented on this problem above, in my number 4) and The_Librarian actually did exactly what you suggest, and allowed his character to build lava pistols, which I thought was quite cleaver. Did you have any other thoughts on those 2 ideas? Honestly, magic type only plays a smallish part in 5e, and it's main purpose is to give DMs flexability in terms of encounters, so, I don't know that bringing a magical armory to bear at every opportunity would be good for the balance of the game. You would need some kind of balancing factor beyond 100GP and 3 days (like maybe your gun is only good for 10 shots, so that you are constantly building new toys to play with? Or, perhaps you can only have one gun, but you can "re-attune" it how you like over the course of a long rest?
Looking at how the gunsmith scales as levels go up, it looks like he starts to fall behind as you get to tier 3. All the other non-casters are attacking twice as often, and the shots with magical effects don't keep pace with the damage dealing of caster spells. So in terms of damage per turn the gunsmith starts to look weak. At low levels, he's not OP; compare him to the hunter at 2d level who is doing more damage using hunter's mark. At 3d level the gunsmith picks up a die, but the hunter can have colossus slayer. And at 5th, the gunsmith picks up another die for 4d6, but the hunter is now shooting twice, usually doing 2d8 and 1d6 on each shot. So the gunsmith's not OP.
Personally, I'd like to see the ability to have a double barreled gun at 6th level. Yeah, you can only reload one barrel on a bonus action, but it would allow a small 'alpha strike' at the beginning of combat, and if the gunsmith didn't shoot on one turn, he could reload the second barrel. Not as powerful as two shots a turn, but it would make up some for everybody else getting to attack more often at higher levels.
I'd also like to see the gunsmith figure out how to put a bayonet on the gun at 2d level, so he could use it as a spear if it came to close combat.
Commenting on the nat 1 idea above, I'm against punishing gunsmiths with it unless everybody suffers from a nat 1 roll (by dropping your weapon, etc). Otherwise it's not fair.
And i agree, there seem to be some spells missing that would make sense.
In my game, everyone does suffer when they roll a natural one. Sometimes they hit the person next to them, sometimes their weapon gets stuck in the ground. (On one particular game, my fighter rolled five natural ones in one combat and I had to start getting extra creative.) And like I said before, my gunslinger player really liked the idea and thought it was fair. If it becomes unfair to him, I'll change it.
I also believe that the true strength of the artificer should be in their magical crafting, so I want to reward mine for being creative and not using his thunder cannon every turn. If he asked to craft a double barreled gun, I would definitely allow him to have two attacks per turn using it. Alternatively, if he wanted a little hand pistol for each hand, I'd work with him to make those appropriately scaled.
IRL, my artificer is an engineer, so he has a lot of ideas on items and how they should work. The last thing I want to do is limit his creativity, but sometimes that means placing small caps on the mechanics. Because I know he can pull out another magical item he has crafted if his gun breaks, I don't feel as bad.
PBP: DM of Titans of Tomorrow
PBP: Lera Zahuv in Whispers of Dissent
PBP: Evaine Brae in Innistrad: Dark Ascension
PBP: Cor'avin in Tomb of Annihilation
I encourage the PC Artificer in my game to be creative. I told her that the class, at least for Eberron, has a bit of MacGyver to it and improvise. My players know that I encourage creative and kind of crazy ideas and I think the intent of the class is creativity.
So, example time. The Artificer in my current Eberron campaign decided to create a "bomb" from Kyber crystals they recovered from a dormant volcano earlier in order to deal with a group of ogres. She made her several crafting checks to put this together but I warned her that it was unstable and volatile. The other half of their plan was to feed them bad food from the notoriously bad cook that is the Cleric of Vol in the group. (She does have aspirations at being a goo cook but can only manage via a Purify Food and Drink ritual.) So they trick the ogres into taking the food. The ogres fail horribly their saves and get rapid onset digestive problems. While the majority of the ogres are squatting over the edge of the cliff by their camp, the PCs carefully make their way to within range of launching their toy. The barbarian tosses it right in the middle of them while the Warlock blasts it detonating the eldritch explosive. Knocking the disadvantaged ogres over the cliff.
Now the rules don't have anything for this kind of improvisation but since they were using expensive and useful resources I ran with it. The way I figured it was that this effect would be similar to the Thunderwave spell at a 2nd level spell-slot, with the area changed to 20 ft radius.
Still discovering aspects of the class but I feel innovation needs to be the core theme of the Artificer. It's a theme of the class but it doesn't feel it's designed around it as the core.
I personally used the aspect of the mechanical servant to look like an adult human, and my character is a changeling so i constantly run around getting attacked second because they think the mechanical ervant is the real person. But he did get destroyed twice once beyond repair and the other just bad enough that i could repair him. And the thundergun is amazing!!!
Thought I would step into this. I do think the artificer is a great starting point, but it does need a lot of work for a couple of reasons.
1. The mechanical servant is a bit wonky for the reasons everyone has listed before. It is very strong at the start and gets horribly weak very quickly. Maybe make a subtype built around it.
2. Alchemist is good, but having all of its attack orientated stuff being essentially hit or miss seems like an oversight especially when it is built around a save and not a attack roll. This is a relatively quick fix. Also more options should be added.
3. With how the special abilities for the gunslinger and alchemist are written it is impossible to use them more than once a round since they are not actual attacks, but instead special actions. There is a SA http://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/05/15/does-the-new-college-of-swords-blade-flourish-fall-under-an-attack-action/ where they talk about it for bard college of swords but it is also applicable here. This should also be changed.
4. More wondrous inventions. The lists are pretty limited, and in my opinion every one only really has a couple of actually good ones that people will actually pick.