Traveling Merchant

Unlike other merchants, who settle down in one place to build a business, the traveling merchant must rely on their wits, and take their act on the road in order to survive and thrive. These merchants often travel with a party of adventurers that keep them safe, as well as supplying them with a steady stream of gold AND new merchandise they can add to their stock. In exchange, they can offer the benefit of acting as magical support on the battlefield, as well as providing a portable shop that the party can buy items from (often at a discounted rate if they like the party), without the hassle of having to go all the way to a town, and haggle with a new shopkeeper in order to resupply. They can protect and buff their cohorts on the battlefield, and re-equip the party in a pinch to keep the adventure rolling.

Tool Proficiency

3rd-level Traveling Merchant feature

You gain proficiency with tinker's tools. If you already have this proficiency, you gain proficiency with one other type of artisan’s tools of your choice.

Merchant Spells

3rd-level Traveling Merchant feature

You always have certain spells prepared after you reach particular levels in this class, as shown in the Traveling Merchant Spells table. These spells count as artificer spells for you, but they don’t count against the number of artificer spells you prepare.

Traveling Merchant Spells

Artificer Level	Spell
3rd	Alarm, Identify
5th	Arcane Lock, Magic Mouth
9th	Create Food and Water, Glyph of Warding
13th	Fabricate, Private Sanctum
17th	Animate Objects, Creation

Portable Shop

3rd-level Traveling Merchant feature

At 3rd level, you gain the ability to create a Portable Shop. You can use any portable, sealable container to create your portable shop. This magic item always weighs 10lbs, and functions similarly to a bag of holding or the handy haversack; it contains an extra dimensional space that you can magically store items inside of. You can use an action to reach into the container, think about the item you need, and it will magically appear in your grip for you to remove it. The size of an item that can be stored in or retrieved from the container is limited by the size of the container's opening.

When you place an item inside the portable shop, it is automatically added to the shop's inventory, making it "in stock". The item can be freely removed from and replaced into the container, but it must be returned before the following dawn, or the shop will forget the item. If you replace the item with an amount of gold equal to 90 percent of the item's average market value before the portable shop forgets it, your shop will magically transform the gold into an exact copy of the item at the end of your next long rest (you and the DM will determine ahead of time what metric will be used to determine the market values, based on rarity). If you use an action, you can command the portable shop to irreversibly transform the item back into the same amount of gold you put in to replicate it, removing it from your shop's inventory, and giving you the gold instead. Once you have done this, you cannot transform the gold back into the item, as it will have been removed from the shop's stock memory, so you will have to replace it with an identical item if you wish to have it in stock again in the future.

Your storefront levels up with you. As your Artificer level increases, so does your shop's budget, allowing you to stock more items, or more expensive items.
Level 3: Up to 100gp worth of common items.
Level 6: Up to 5,000gp worth of items up to rare.
Level 15: Up to 10,000gp worth of items up to very rare.

At 5th Level, you can expand upon the enchantment of your portable shop, so you can trigger a magical expansion that folds-out the container into a 5ft by 5ft storefront, with a countertop and a display rack on either side of the counter. The display racks can hold two items each, and can be magically shuffled at your command to display any in-stock items you wish to show off. Triggering the expansion of the container into the Storefront requires 1 action, and takes 1 minute to complete after triggering it. It lasts until you dismiss the Storefront using another action, and it collapses instantaneously. You can use this feature a number of times a day equal to your Intelligence Modifier.

Spell Swap

5th-level Traveling Merchant feature

You've learned how to commoditize your spellcasting! Any spell slot you have available can now be transferred to another caster, in exchange for a spell slot or slots of equal value. For example; you can one 3rd level spell slot for three 1st level spell slots, or vice-versa. You could also trade one 3rd level spell slot for a 2nd level spell slot and a 1st level spell slot, or vice-versa.

Extradimensional Expansion

9th-level Traveling Merchant feature

In addition to being able to unfold a storefront from your container, you can alternatively expand your container into a 5ft by 5ft doorway that can be stepped through, leading to a pocket reality inhabited by the interior of a shop of your design. The interior space is a 20ft by 20ft cube, and works similarly to the magnificent mansion spell, in that you can decorate it in any manner you choose, and you have a single spiritual servant who acts as a shop clerk, and can perform basic tasks on your command. In addition to the main area of the shop, you also have a 20ft by 20ft back room that you can restrict access to. This back room contains any tool with which you are proficient, as well as an arcane locked safe that will only open at your command.

You can use this feature once per long rest, and you can use a spell slot to gain an additional use of it.

Backstock

15th-level Traveling Merchant feature

The interior of your extradimensional shop now gains a magical "backstock box", which is a replica of your portable shop container. Once per day, you can reach into this box to try to pull out any item you have ever had in stock in your shop, by rolling a d20. If you roll equal to or below your current Artificer level, you produce the item you are looking for. If you roll above your current Artificer level, you instead produce a fancy hat worth 5gp. A natural 20 produces 2 of the item you desired, and a natural 1 results in you finding nothing.