I've been looking for an artificer subclass that focuses around a heavy gun/cannon. I've seen some that are close to what I'm looking for, but they tend to be either roughly put together or more complicated than they need to be (lacking cohesion, missing explanations, disconnected ideas, etc.). So I decided to take inspiration from some I've seen and make my own, the Arcane Cannoneer. However, I'm struggling a bit to figure out a good power level for their main feature, which would be their cannon. This is the two relevant features I have right now:
3rd level:
Arcane Cannon
At 3rd level, you forge a deadly firearm using a combination of arcane magic and engineering. This firearm is called an Arcane Cannon. It is a ferocious weapon that fires leaden bullets that can punch through armor with ease. You are proficient with the Arcane Cannon. It is a two-handed ranged weapon that deals 2d6 piercing damage at a normal range of 150 feet and a maximum range of 500 feet. The Arcane Cannon is a two-handed ranged weapon and is considered magical for the purposes of overcoming resistances to nonmagical attacks.
If you lose your Arcane Cannon, you can create a new one over the course of three days of work (eight hours each day) by expending 100 gp worth of metal and other raw materials.
5th level you get multi-attack and this:
Refined Cannon
Through careful and continuous work, you have begun to optimize your Arcane Cannon. Your Arcane Cannon gains +1 to attack and damage rolls. When you reach 9th level in this class, the bonus becomes +2 and the damage dice become 2d8. When you reach 15th level in this class, the bonus becomes +3 and the damage dice become 2d10.
Since this subclass is all about the cannon, with essentially no utility features or anything like that, I do want the cannon to have high damage that scales as you level. However, I don't want it to be completely broken. Currently, I'm thinking of changing it to a single stronger attack each round. I was thinking something like a number of dice (probably d8s) equal to your proficiency modifier. That would ensure the cannon grows with you and could lean more heavily towards the theme of a cannon (being a single, powerful shot).
Arcane Cannoneer is a great name for a subclass. 👍👍
You can significantly clean up the language for your features, I’ll demonstrate in the spoiler below.
3 days to replace the cannon is too long considering this subclass provides little else by your own admission. I would make it along rest to replace the cannon.
Having a magic weapon @ 3rd level is a li’l early, I would reserve having it count as a magical weapon until 5th level as a booster to the base feature, again I’ll demonstrate below. (However, if you really want it to be magical right out the gate that isn’t the worst thing in the world.)
I would personally go with more damage over extra attacks simply because I think it more fitting to a “cannon.” Again, see below.
I would heavily recommend against having the damage dice scale based on PB or else I can see people taking just three levels of your subclass and then abusing the heck out of it with MC shenanigans. Either scale the size of the dice, or the number of dice, but not both, and definitely not by PB. Any feature that scales by PB should be locked behind a feature of 6th level (or higher) to prevent those aforementioned MC shenanigans. I would personally suggest scaling the number of damage dice, again I’ll demonstrate below.
Arcane Cannon
3rd-level Arcane Cannoneer feature
You forge a deadly firearm using a combination of arcane magic and engineering. This firearm is called an Arcane Cannon, a ferocious weapon that fires leaden bullets that can punch through armor with ease. Whenever you finish a long rest you can use tinker's tools to create your arcane cannon. It counts as a martial ranged weapon with which you are proficient. It has the ammunition, heavy, loading and two-handed properties, a range of 150/500 feet, and it does 2d6 piercing damage on a hit. The number of damage dice for your arcane cannon increases by 1d6 when you reach higher levels in this class: 5th (3d6), 9th (4d6), and 15th level (5d6).
Refined Cannon
5th-level Arcane Cannoneer feature
Through careful and continuous work, you have begun to optimize your arcane cannon. Your arcane cannon now counts as magical for the purposes of overcoming damage resistance and immunity, and you have a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls made with it. This magic bonus increases by +1 when you reach higher levels in this class: 9th (+2), and 15th level (+3).
Exploding Shells
9th-level Arcane Cannoneer feature
Whenever you make an attack with your arcane cannon, hit or miss, each creature within 5 feet of the target must succeed at a Dexterity saving throw against your artificer spell save DC or suffer 1d6 fire damage. This damage increases to 2d6 when you reach 15th level in this class.
Blasta Blasta
15th-level Arcane Cannoneer feature
Whenever you take the Attack on your turn to make an attack with your arcane cannon, you can choose to make a second attack with it as a bonus action. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and regain all uses of it whenever you finish a long rest.
That’s👆how I would approach it anyway. Something like that.
Thanks, that's a lot of great feedback! I am planning to convert the cannon into a singular, powerful shot, so your notes about the PB scaling are good to keep in mind.
I've been looking for an artificer subclass that focuses around a heavy gun/cannon. I've seen some that are close to what I'm looking for, but they tend to be either roughly put together or more complicated than they need to be (lacking cohesion, missing explanations, disconnected ideas, etc.). So I decided to take inspiration from some I've seen and make my own, the Arcane Cannoneer. However, I'm struggling a bit to figure out a good power level for their main feature, which would be their cannon. This is the two relevant features I have right now:
3rd level:
5th level you get multi-attack and this:
Since this subclass is all about the cannon, with essentially no utility features or anything like that, I do want the cannon to have high damage that scales as you level. However, I don't want it to be completely broken. Currently, I'm thinking of changing it to a single stronger attack each round. I was thinking something like a number of dice (probably d8s) equal to your proficiency modifier. That would ensure the cannon grows with you and could lean more heavily towards the theme of a cannon (being a single, powerful shot).
I would really appreciate some feedback.
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A few points:
That’s👆how I would approach it anyway. Something like that.
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Thanks, that's a lot of great feedback! I am planning to convert the cannon into a singular, powerful shot, so your notes about the PB scaling are good to keep in mind.
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