Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:
rampant wrote:As for the augments as infusions I'll need to see a draft befoe I can comment. I like the concept, but there's always something a bit different between concept and draft.
This is what I meant.
Weapon Augmentation
1st level transmutation
Casting time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Components: S, M (a bit of powdered metal, artisan's tools, and the weapon itself)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute or until the weapon is no longer wielded
You infuse a melee weapon with elemental energy. Alternatively, you can infuse a quiver, and any ammunition present when you do gains the benefit instead. Choose acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage. The weapon now deals damage of that type in place of one of its normal damage types.
At higher levels: For every spell level higher than 1st, this infusion can affect a second weapon (which becomes another component of the infusion).
Armor Augmentation
1st level transmutation
Casting time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Components: S, M (a bit of powdered metal, artisan's tools, and the armor or shield itself)
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
The touched armor or shield is magically transmuted to protect its bearer. The touched item grants its wearer resistance to one damage type. If you use this infusion on a suit of armor, choose bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage; this resistance applies against magic weapons. If you use this infusion on a shield, choose acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage.
At higher levels: For every spell level higher than 1st, this infusion can affect a second armor or shield (which becomes another component of this infusion).
Prototype
1st level transmutation
Casting time: 1 minute
Range: Touch
Components: S, M (artisan's tools, any material components of the chosen spell, a schema for that spell, and the touched object itself)
Duration: 1 hour or until used.
You infuse a small object with magic, following the 1st-level spell schema used as a component. In effect, the item becomes a wand with 1 charge that only you can use. At any point during the duration, you can use the item to cast the schema's spell (the item takes the place of any components); the item loses its magic after afterwards. Using an item takes your action, or the chosen spell's casting time, whichever is longer.
Using the item carries a risk of failure. When you use the item, you must succeed on an Intelligence (Arcana) check (DC 10 + slot level * 2) for the spell to occur. If you fail the check, a mishap occurs instead of the spell's normal effect (by default, this is 2d6 force damage to you, but the DM might have an alternative mishap in mind).
At higher levels: If you cast this infusion from a higher-level spell slot, the schema can be of any spell up to that level. Treat the spell as if it were cast in a slot of that level.
Level 1 artificer now grants Spellcrafting, Imbue Scrolls, and
Inventor.
Inventor: You learn the Prototype infusion, even though you can't use infusions yet. You can spend 1 point of craft reserve instead of a spell slot to cast Prototype at its lowest level. When you have spell slots, you can spend more craft reserve to cast Prototype at a level equal to the points you spend, but you cannot spend more points this way than your highest level spell slot. Craft reserve spent this way recovers once the prototype is used and you finish a short rest.
You can spend a Hit Die when casting Prototype to cast it as an action. If you roll a natural 20 on the Intelligence (Arcana) check and succeed when you activate a prototype, the charge isn't consumed.
(If you want something reliable, especially at this level, you take the time to make a scroll. In fact, I'm going to change Imbue Scroll so that it uses tinker's tools and produces a device instead, but otherwise works exactly the same way, just to reinforce this idea. Prototype just lets you make such a device on the fly, and as an artificer, with slightly more stamina since you're able to use it from reserve. The cost for doing this relative to the "scoll" device is the risk of failure. The cost of doing it as a "scroll" device relative to Prototype is that it takes a long time to do (someone has to test it to make sure there's no defects!). At later levels, Prototype will also be usable more frequently and on a short-rest restoration, while "scroll" devices remain perfectly reliable even if they contain a high-level spell, but you can't churn them out as quickly.)
Level 2 artificer now grants Infusions, Imbue Potions, and
Personal Weapon Augmentation
Personal Weapon Augmentation: While fighting with a weapon you've augmented, you may use your Intelligence modifier on attack and damage rolls. The weapon also deals bonus damage of the chosen type at 5th (+1d4), 11th (+2d4), and 17th (+3d4) level.
Infusions: As before, except "You learn Weapon Augmentation and two other artificer infusions....". The table of infusions known will be adjusted to account for this (it'll be increased by two; one of these is Prototype, the other is Weapon Augmentation.)
Level 3 guild ability for the Spellforgers' Guild is now
Augmentation Adept
Augmentation Adept: You can spend craft reserve instead of a spell slot when you cast Weapon Augmentation or Armor Augmentation. Each point of craft reserve counts as one spell level, and you can't spend more craft reserve this way than your highest level spell slot. Craft reserve spent this way recovers after a short rest.
(This ability might also say "You learn the Armor Augmentation infusion if you don't already know it. This counts against your infusions known as usual." This is functionally the same as saying "You have to learn Armor Augmentation at or before this level if you don't already know it"; the infusion is central to their concept.)
Level 5 artificer now grants Salvage Essence (Uncommon) and
Prolonged Augmentation
Prolonged Augmentation: The Weapon Augmentation and Armor Augmentation infusions now last for up to 1 hour while you maintain concentration.
Level 9 artificer now grants:
Sustained Augmentation
Sustained Augmentation: The Weapon Augmentation and Armor Augmentation infusions no longer require concentration.
(Compare this to Sustained Infusion in the Spellforgers' Guild, which will probably come online at level 11.)
Note: with a bit of tweaking to the components, this approach might be worth dropping the "infusion" distinction and just make them plain ol' spells. I've been leery about this for obvious reasons (heya, bard!), but at the moment, if they could pick them up, they'd be most useful to those dipping artificer anyway. (Also, the classes most adept at multiclassing with artificers are probably bards (for inspiration or Arcana expertise), rogues (more Expertise), wizards (Int-casting with extra slots, spellbook - if you find an obscure spell, make a schema first, then create a scroll and copy that into your spellbook), and warlocks (pact magic slots can fuel even more inventions per-encounter, augmented Blade pact weapons; the slots will be low level without lots of levels in warlock though). These, incidentally, are the four classes that thematically would become artificers (bards as creative improvisers, rogues as gadgeteers, wizards as researchers and innovators, and warlocks imbuing objects with their own dark magic - it helps that three of these four were also Use Magic Device classes, and warlocks in particular were
really good at that.))
EDIT: The increase in demand on infusions by moving these to the infusions known list will either require me adjusting the entire progression (I don't mind doing this), or making a slight tweak for spells I expected them to pick up anyway (like Identify). This might take the form of something like the totem barbarian, with Detect Magic (which returns no information about magic
not on an object, such as a charmed human) and Identify being useable as rituals, and removing them from the infusion list. (I'd also drop the ritual tag from "object reading" (legend lore) and create an altered Remove Curse that only worked on objects while I'm at it, which simplifies the infusion rules by two long sentences..)
Um that's not breaking the action economy, that's manipulating it certainly but not breaking it. If we were getitng more actions out of this some how that would be breaking the action economy, but I don't see how this breaks the action economy.
A party that could throw two spells per turn can now throw five spells per turn, simply by having you on the team. Since they all tap into your spell slots, it's as if you get one action per party member.
I don't have a problem with this with some limitations, but I don't think this is the role of a signature low-level ability. You might notice my alchemists' guild spell flasks do pretty much what you want, but they show up at a higher level (either 11 or 17). That said, I did have to clarify how that ability worked with concentration spells or certain short-range area spells.
The artificer's signature versatility is what made it such a monster in 3e. My system still allows for versatility but it's not going to be as versatile at the 3e one because the 3e artificer was game breakingly versatile. If you can't be versatile with 20-40 spells selected form accross every class list, on top of a personalized list of spells (infusions), then I'm not sure we're using the word correctly anymore.
You're thinking my system is more versatile than yours, when yours gives out almost twice as many spells as mine does? You don't include a prepared-spell limitation either, so the versatility is actually higher - but it can't be expanded with research the way a wizard (or artificer!) could. I would be
postively shocked if an artificer could aquire enough schema to make up the difference between this approach - and, if they come close, the overwhelming number of those new schema would be lower level than yours (i.e. if you kept my spell slot progression but learned two of the highest-level schema you could at every level, and never swapped them up, you'd have six spells from levels 1-6 and 2 7th level spells your fingertips. With mine, you have 6 1st level, three from levels 2-6, and one level 7 (i.e. half as many of all the higher level spells); any extra scrolls you find will be
overwhelmingly likely to come from the lower levels rather than the higher levels).
So, in terms of power, you've proposed a dramatic
increase. But let's overlook that for a moment and simply look at the
number of effects you can find in the two systems, and how well that fits the design goals (particularly Goal 2).
In this case, the key distinction is whether you want a potentially-expandable (or losable!) book of schematics (which has 3+level spells in it (i.e. max 23) unless the DM hands out more - recall that spell scrolls by default aren't for sale, and in Eberron they're almost certainly regulated, and in both cases are strongly biased towards lower level effects), or a fixed set of memorized ideas (which is double your level, i.e. max 40ish). I think the former better reflects the artificer and, because of the
lack of a magic item economy (even in Eberron, which will certainly have some low-level scrolls available but won't have all of them, nor higher level scrolls), isn't
anywhere near as powerful as you think it is.
(And, in terms of player psychology, it also strongly keeps the infusions and your schema different - if you "know" your schema, a player might ask, why can't you cast them? But if you track your infusions known and your schema separately, and your schema are simply blueprints in a book (and the SSI is you following those blueprints, with some improvisation on your part), it becomes clearer. This is also why I adopted the term "schema" to refer to stuff in your book, instead of "spell" - it's
not a spell, it's more like the formula to make a spell.)
A compromise - which I haven't seen any evidence of being needed, but I'll present it anyway - is to borrow a spellcaster's preparations. Instead of casting using the book as a component, you can prepare (2/3 your level) + Int schema, and those are the only ones you can use. You can change them out freely over a short rest; this is themed as reconfiguring whatever components act as your craft reserve. Currently, neither of our systems imposes a throttle like this (and mine has a good thematic reason not to - you need to reference the schema while making SSIs, so there's no reason to distinguish between what you've prepared and what's in the book).
If you insist on this being broken, please,
present evidence. An impassioned argument only makes sense if there's an obvious hole (such as pointing out that having others use your SSIs also gives you multiple Concentration slots). Show me a broken spell combination that my artificer can do (and, ideally, that yours can't). Show me a way, in the assumed 5e setting, to know more spells than yours without fiat. Hell, I'm even willing to go through the tables and Monte Carlo a simulation to get a range of how many
spell scrolls a typical party will find, to predict how big a spellbook will actually get (note that the tables appear sync'd with wizards in mind, and artificers get a slower spell level progression!).
The artificer expands the party's options, sometime it's a buff, sometimes it's handing them a grenade. My proposed SSI is a reliable method by which you can produce magical gadgets ahead of a fight and have yourself and you rallies prepped for the situation. Yes it lacks the ... randomness of your model, but it allows the artificer to maintain a core function.
Except I view SSIs as requiring advanced knowledge to use, since they're assembled out of duct tape and genius rather than a well-refined magical principle. If you want grenades, my artificer can already do this - look at the alchemist. (Bombs and, eventually, spell flasks do exactly this.)
The artificer still does have a core function, except that function isn't building a bajillion devices to turn the entire party into spellcasters (something which it couldn't do in either previous edition, I should note, unless you were crafting permanent magic items, which 5th generally avoids). It's inventing devices that solve the problems you face outside of combat, and supplying magical enhancements to your weapons and tools in combat (with a side focus of being particularly proficient in enhancing or fighting against constructs, since they're similar to magical objects). You
can use SSI in combat if you get all heroic (which is why its speed-up clause has always existed but been limited), but in order to prevent you from being "I can cast any spell we want,
ever!" ubermage while still keeping the versatility of the invention aspect, there's a risk attached. This is an increased
risk (probability) cost, instead of an increased
resource (i.e. locking up spell slots) cost, but it's still a cost, and, I think, an effective one, given how risk-averse players are when it comes to failure. And yet, it's not without optimization potential, particularly on the common (1st-4th) level effects. Seriously, look at the success rates in Post #16, and tell me why that's a problem. (They're far enough from 100% to not be vestigial, but high enough - especially on the lower level effects - to make them appealing. Also, the percentages there don't include advantage (if you have Inspiration, say, you are
much more likely to succeed at a high-level invention) nor disadvantage (which reduces the odds of success quite a bit, even when it says "100%" up there), nor other buffs (outside of combat, you can easily use Guidance in advance, for instance).
As for your question in regards to the difference between spells and class features. The answer is how much of your design space is it taking up. 3e SSI was a single first level infusion That I saw most if not all the artificers I ever played, or played alongside, happily ignore. They could do that because they had other stuff they could do, it wasn't a core feature of the class that took up space on it's chart and was there in place of things like the ability to craft real items, or make deadly attacks, or get bonus feats. If you want SSI to be just like it was in the 'good old days' then treat it like it was treated in the 'good old days' move it to the infusion list and come up with a different class feature to replace it on the chart. A class's core features need to be useful and defining, your SSI is just making you an over-complicated wizard with a too huge spell list.
I maintain that the artificers you played were like playing a warlock without eldritch blast, or a druid without entangle or summons. And, curiously, you complain about SSI being an easily-forgettable infusion while saying that Weapon Augmentation is a front-and-center part of the class, when the Weapon Augmentation chain was
also just a set of infusions in 3e.
That said, I present an infusion version above (which, in the line of changing "Suppress Requirement" into "Synchronize", changes "Spell Storing Item" into "Prototype".). This also makes it possible to create other classes with access to these infusions (and the possibility to open them up to anybody - noting that the components make them difficult or impossible to cast unless you can secure a book of schema or similar (EDIT: Damn, that'll only work if schema have an explicit price. Bloody spellcasting foci. Oh well, the wording should still catch it.) ), while artificers still get better use out of these three (largely through craft reserve interaction).
art of the reason I keep picking at the SSI for party members is because the scrolls allow it for some party members but then makes the artificer dependent on having caster allies and dramatically limits his options with non caster allies which is unacceptable in a support class especially in Eberron where the idea is that minor magic items are part of everyday life whether you're a mage or not.
