Returning to D&D after a long time. Im learning about artificers but have some questions. By itself, the artificer can only max out to earn a 5th level spell slot. But what if you are a 20th level wizard / 17th lvl Artificer- Can you make items using your spells from the wizard side? or does the artificer cap at 5th level magic no mater what? what can you do to over come this?
2nd question is can you create magic tools that will allow you to build bigger better magic items? Lets say I have a hammer that causes lightning damage. If I use that hammer to make a sword, will the sword gain some portion of that?
3rd is how do you control which item you make requires attunement or not?
The level cap is 20th level and that is the sum of the levels of the classes you take so 20th level wizard/ 17th level artificer is not possible. 17/3 combo would work. And for multiclassing there is the section that describes how you gain spell slots. Multiclassing rules here edit: in your example of wizard/artificer your “level” for determining spell slots would be wizard level + half your artificer level (rounded up, all other classes round down) so 10 wizard/10 artificer would be a 15th level caster with appropriate slots for that level (see chart in link above) you can have slots that you do not have spells to cast with
you can only make the magic items allowed in the class description and the tools you use don’t impart additional features.
And attunement is based on the item. You don’t decide what does or does not have to be attuned to.
As far as making magic items not listed in the class description that would be up to the DM.
I hope I have that all correct, others will point out mistakes i May have made.
By itself, the artificer can only max out to earn a 5th level spell slot. But what if you are a 20th level wizard / 17th lvl Artificer- Can you make items using your spells from the wizard side?
RAW you cannot do this. The maximum character level is 20 - if you have 17 levels in Artificer, at most you can have 3 levels in Wizard. You can use the multiclassing spell table to calculate how many spell slots you should have.
or does the artificer cap at 5th level magic no mater what? what can you do to over come this?
You can increase your spell slots by MCing into a full caster class like Wizard, Sorcerer, etc. You'll never have as many as a full caster would at that same character level, but more than you would as a pure Artificer - at the cost of delayed Artificer abilities.
2nd question is can you create magic tools that will allow you to build bigger better magic items? Lets say I have a hammer that causes lightning damage. If I use that hammer to make a sword, will the sword gain some portion of that?
That's not how it works. You are using infusions to change a normal item into a magical item. The physical creation of the object is independent of your abilities as an Artificer (and the DM may skip it). You get a lost of possible infusions with the class in Tasha's.
3rd is how do you control which item you make requires attunement or not?
You can just pick them during a long rest (I believe) by holding them during that rest. Part of the rest is used to attune to the new item. If you're asking how to do it on DDB, someone else can help because I don't use it for character sheets.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Thanks all, I appreciate the answers. LVL question- understood.
Tool question- still wondering. I think the better way to ask is can I make a special tool that is used to craft with that will add magic to that item I'm trying to create? (think Rune Hammer from Ultima Online)
Attunement- Not trying to learn how to do it- it's how do I know if my item needs to be attuned? Do I have any control over weather an item needs to be attuned? is that something the DM would tell me or is there a dice roll?
Tool question- still wondering. I think the better way to ask is can I make a special tool that is used to craft with that will add magic to that item I'm trying to create? (think Rune Hammer from Ultima Online)
You can create anything the DM lets you, but no standard items let you do that and in general all components of magic items are consumable.
Attunement- Not trying to learn how to do it- it's how do I know if my item needs to be attuned? Do I have any control over weather an item needs to be attuned? is that something the DM would tell me or is there a dice roll?
An item needs to be attuned if its description (or the DM, for a custom item) says it needs attunement.
Thanks all, I appreciate the answers. LVL question- understood.
Tool question- still wondering. I think the better way to ask is can I make a special tool that is used to craft with that will add magic to that item I'm trying to create? (think Rune Hammer from Ultima Online)
Attunement- Not trying to learn how to do it- it's how do I know if my item needs to be attuned? Do I have any control over weather an item needs to be attuned? is that something the DM would tell me or is there a dice roll?
Thanks again
What items are you trying to add magic to? By the rules you cannot have a tool that adds magic to an item. You can however add an infusion to a mundane item, per the artificer class, that has magical effects. Or you can replicate a magic item listed under the Replicate Magic Item infusion if you meet the level requirements.
as was mentioned above the item description determines if it requires attunement or the DM for a custom item, if they allow you to make one.
Thank you that does explain it a little bit better.
I'm not trying to make anything in particular but want to know the limits of what I can do with the class both as a player and a DM.
In another game long ago Ultima online, you could make magical weapons and armor by using hammers made with runestones. One rune did this and another rune did that. So that when you have a rune hammer you make a piece of armor with the properties of that rune.
The idea was to test and see if a tool could be made with some magic ability that could also transfer to the item being made.
I can't remember her name off the top of my head at the moment but a YouTuber created an item list with properties of those items mostly herbs. She says they can be used as components in magical item crafting. This, I believe, has been long overdue for players to craft items.
In previous versions we were limited in what we could do especially without a set of items to create a recipe. And it also lends itself to down times in between campaigns as well as during.
If your party should stop for the night to camp maybe you can search nearby the camp or any of the items you may be looking for..
Thanks again to everybody for explaining this to me I was fairly confused!
It sounds like you are mixing a few things up . In DnD (5e especially) there are 2 ways to “make” magic items:
1) artificers add infusions to mundane items - in limited numbers and limited items. These are temporary magic items in some way linked to the artificer’s life force as they go away if the artificer dies.
2) a spellcaster creates/finds a formula for a magic item (which means the DM approves the formula) and they then gather the required ingredients, process them in the appropriate way and, after spending X amount of time and money, voila you get your magic item. The formula could include your runic hammers or not as the DM decides as well as any number of real or fantasy materials with (supposed) magical properties. That leads to the next confusion - magical properties of materials. Lots of stories as well as earlier editions of DnD had various rare materials with unusual or magical properties. I don’t recal any specifics and certainly no lists. In addition there is a long “real world” tradition of magical properties for various plants, gems, and materials. These include both older (mideveal and ancient) as well as modern (new age). There are lots of lists of these properties online and many have made it not the various editions of DnD in at least semi-official forms. I suspect the list you are remembering is one of those.
so, when I was a little gamer, our DM would make campaigns that included items we needed to craft the magical item. (we knew about displacer beasts and could boost our AC if we successfully killed and harvested what we needed) but it was pretty much made up from any information we had available at the time. and remember that this was back when there was no web pages and computers only had a hand full of games to play. So we had to get info from books and magazines. Hell just the research took close to a year!
But, as I said before, it was totally up to the DM as for what you could do and cant do.
With the Artificer class, we see now that there is a person (creature or non binary or whatever you like) that dedicates a significant amount of time to creating special items. There is a spreadsheet available that lists a bunch of plants and necessary info on where to get them. Having this obliges a player and DM alike to comb through and agree on a formula to make something. And again, in the before times, we didn't have such a source, not a concise source.
I think it would be cool, lets say, that a vessel containing holy water, inscribed with some ancient language or markings, could lend a buff to healing properties of the water. Use that water in a potion and the normal (2d4 + 2) becomes 3d4 + 0.
Now if that vessel was made by an artificer using magic and what not then the crafter now needs to gather materials, hound clerics and priest/priestess, work tirelessly to make that vessel, and all the while under the watchful eyes of an objective DM, then it is truly earned and not given. And, for its purpose of holding holy waters with some slight healing power, making a healing potion from it should deserve some small bonus.
Just like the rune hammer making a +1 sword or dagger. Cant use just any ol hammer laying around.
In the end, rules are rules and I will endeavor to abide by them as best I can.
There are plenty of homebrew crafting systems out there for 5e if your group wants one. I've tried it myself and I can say that I see why D&D has not made an official crafting module - it's an insane amount of work and it's messy and gets reeeeal tedious after a few sessions.
There are official rules for crafting magic items, but they simply lay out a cost in gp and the time required. I believe this is intentionally generic and vague so that no one feels that they need to include "runehammmer" flavor or whatever into their setting.
As with most complicated systems, D&D provides a reference point and then leaves it up to you and your DM to customize the experience however you want. Ultimately, questing for the ingredient to make a magic item is not really any different from questing for a magic item, so if you prefer the former, go for it.
It's worth noting that artificer is the "least official" of all the classes. It's the only official class that's not included in the PHB/basic rules, and many people ban it from their games because they don't like the steampunk vibe that they feel it gives off. I'm just mentioning this because it's probably a factor as to why there aren't more built-in mechanics for supporting what the class is supposed to be able to do.
Returning to D&D after a long time. Im learning about artificers but have some questions.
By itself, the artificer can only max out to earn a 5th level spell slot. But what if you are a 20th level wizard / 17th lvl Artificer- Can you make items using your spells from the wizard side? or does the artificer cap at 5th level magic no mater what? what can you do to over come this?
2nd question is can you create magic tools that will allow you to build bigger better magic items? Lets say I have a hammer that causes lightning damage. If I use that hammer to make a sword, will the sword gain some portion of that?
3rd is how do you control which item you make requires attunement or not?
Thanks
The level cap is 20th level and that is the sum of the levels of the classes you take so 20th level wizard/ 17th level artificer is not possible. 17/3 combo would work. And for multiclassing there is the section that describes how you gain spell slots. Multiclassing rules here edit: in your example of wizard/artificer your “level” for determining spell slots would be wizard level + half your artificer level (rounded up, all other classes round down) so 10 wizard/10 artificer would be a 15th level caster with appropriate slots for that level (see chart in link above) you can have slots that you do not have spells to cast with
you can only make the magic items allowed in the class description and the tools you use don’t impart additional features.
And attunement is based on the item. You don’t decide what does or does not have to be attuned to.
As far as making magic items not listed in the class description that would be up to the DM.
I hope I have that all correct, others will point out mistakes i May have made.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
RAW you cannot do this. The maximum character level is 20 - if you have 17 levels in Artificer, at most you can have 3 levels in Wizard. You can use the multiclassing spell table to calculate how many spell slots you should have.
You can increase your spell slots by MCing into a full caster class like Wizard, Sorcerer, etc. You'll never have as many as a full caster would at that same character level, but more than you would as a pure Artificer - at the cost of delayed Artificer abilities.
That's not how it works. You are using infusions to change a normal item into a magical item. The physical creation of the object is independent of your abilities as an Artificer (and the DM may skip it). You get a lost of possible infusions with the class in Tasha's.
You can just pick them during a long rest (I believe) by holding them during that rest. Part of the rest is used to attune to the new item. If you're asking how to do it on DDB, someone else can help because I don't use it for character sheets.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Thanks all, I appreciate the answers. LVL question- understood.
Tool question- still wondering. I think the better way to ask is can I make a special tool that is used to craft with that will add magic to that item I'm trying to create? (think Rune Hammer from Ultima Online)
Attunement- Not trying to learn how to do it- it's how do I know if my item needs to be attuned? Do I have any control over weather an item needs to be attuned? is that something the DM would tell me or is there a dice roll?
Thanks again
You can create anything the DM lets you, but no standard items let you do that and in general all components of magic items are consumable.
An item needs to be attuned if its description (or the DM, for a custom item) says it needs attunement.
What items are you trying to add magic to? By the rules you cannot have a tool that adds magic to an item. You can however add an infusion to a mundane item, per the artificer class, that has magical effects.
Or you can replicate a magic item listed under the Replicate Magic Item infusion if you meet the level requirements.
as was mentioned above the item description determines if it requires attunement or the DM for a custom item, if they allow you to make one.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Thank you that does explain it a little bit better.
I'm not trying to make anything in particular but want to know the limits of what I can do with the class both as a player and a DM.
In another game long ago Ultima online, you could make magical weapons and armor by using hammers made with runestones. One rune did this and another rune did that. So that when you have a rune hammer you make a piece of armor with the properties of that rune.
The idea was to test and see if a tool could be made with some magic ability that could also transfer to the item being made.
I can't remember her name off the top of my head at the moment but a YouTuber created an item list with properties of those items mostly herbs. She says they can be used as components in magical item crafting. This, I believe, has been long overdue for players to craft items.
In previous versions we were limited in what we could do especially without a set of items to create a recipe. And it also lends itself to down times in between campaigns as well as during.
If your party should stop for the night to camp maybe you can search nearby the camp or any of the items you may be looking for..
Thanks again to everybody for explaining this to me I was fairly confused!
It sounds like you are mixing a few things up . In DnD (5e especially) there are 2 ways to “make” magic items:
1) artificers add infusions to mundane items - in limited numbers and limited items. These are temporary magic items in some way linked to the artificer’s life force as they go away if the artificer dies.
2) a spellcaster creates/finds a formula for a magic item (which means the DM approves the formula) and they then gather the required ingredients, process them in the appropriate way and, after spending X amount of time and money, voila you get your magic item.
The formula could include your runic hammers or not as the DM decides as well as any number of real or fantasy materials with (supposed) magical properties.
That leads to the next confusion - magical properties of materials. Lots of stories as well as earlier editions of DnD had various rare materials with unusual or magical properties. I don’t recal any specifics and certainly no lists. In addition there is a long “real world” tradition of magical properties for various plants, gems, and materials. These include both older (mideveal and ancient) as well as modern (new age). There are lots of lists of these properties online and many have made it not the various editions of DnD in at least semi-official forms. I suspect the list you are remembering is one of those.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
so, when I was a little gamer, our DM would make campaigns that included items we needed to craft the magical item. (we knew about displacer beasts and could boost our AC if we successfully killed and harvested what we needed) but it was pretty much made up from any information we had available at the time. and remember that this was back when there was no web pages and computers only had a hand full of games to play. So we had to get info from books and magazines. Hell just the research took close to a year!
But, as I said before, it was totally up to the DM as for what you could do and cant do.
With the Artificer class, we see now that there is a person (creature or non binary or whatever you like) that dedicates a significant amount of time to creating special items. There is a spreadsheet available that lists a bunch of plants and necessary info on where to get them. Having this obliges a player and DM alike to comb through and agree on a formula to make something. And again, in the before times, we didn't have such a source, not a concise source.
I think it would be cool, lets say, that a vessel containing holy water, inscribed with some ancient language or markings, could lend a buff to healing properties of the water. Use that water in a potion and the normal (2d4 + 2) becomes 3d4 + 0.
Now if that vessel was made by an artificer using magic and what not then the crafter now needs to gather materials, hound clerics and priest/priestess, work tirelessly to make that vessel, and all the while under the watchful eyes of an objective DM, then it is truly earned and not given. And, for its purpose of holding holy waters with some slight healing power, making a healing potion from it should deserve some small bonus.
Just like the rune hammer making a +1 sword or dagger. Cant use just any ol hammer laying around.
In the end, rules are rules and I will endeavor to abide by them as best I can.
There are plenty of homebrew crafting systems out there for 5e if your group wants one. I've tried it myself and I can say that I see why D&D has not made an official crafting module - it's an insane amount of work and it's messy and gets reeeeal tedious after a few sessions.
There are official rules for crafting magic items, but they simply lay out a cost in gp and the time required. I believe this is intentionally generic and vague so that no one feels that they need to include "runehammmer" flavor or whatever into their setting.
As with most complicated systems, D&D provides a reference point and then leaves it up to you and your DM to customize the experience however you want. Ultimately, questing for the ingredient to make a magic item is not really any different from questing for a magic item, so if you prefer the former, go for it.
It's worth noting that artificer is the "least official" of all the classes. It's the only official class that's not included in the PHB/basic rules, and many people ban it from their games because they don't like the steampunk vibe that they feel it gives off. I'm just mentioning this because it's probably a factor as to why there aren't more built-in mechanics for supporting what the class is supposed to be able to do.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm