D&D 5E Running Eberron in 5E

[RealAlHazred]

If we go by the 3.5E ECS book, the key elements of the Artificer are:

They can use just about any spell from a wand or scroll, empower ordinary items with temporary magical power, repair damaged constructs (including warforged), alter the function of existing magic items, and craft magic items, constructs, and dragonshard items. They have a limited list of their own spell-like infusions that they can apply to objects, and they can also work with any of the spells on other classes’ spell lists.

So, going by that list:

• Use Any Wand or Scroll: This could be handled by some ability similar to the Thief Rogue's Use Magic Device ability (5E PHB page 97).
• Empower Ordinary Items: Making temporary items could be handled by some ability that lets the artificer imbue his spell slots into items, much as the Infusion ability in Kamikaze Midget's build or the Expert Infusion ability in Hellcow's build.
• Repair Damaged Constructs: For this, all we need to do is make sure mending is an artificer cantrip and maybe make a repair damage spell, modeled on cure wounds. I've built one already, in my Dragonmarks blog post.
• Alter Magic Item Functions: This is a cool one. I like Kamikaze Midget's idea Metamagic Item ability.
• Craft Magic Items/Constructs/etc.: No problem in the new rules, since you no longer need to spend feats to do it. I would expect artificers to be able to craft 10gp of items per day (double normal) since it's a class focus.
• Limited List of Infusions: Again, a limited list is no issue, especially since this edition doesn't have over a thousand spells in the PHB -- everybody has a limited list now.

If Artificer is a class, we can look at the 3.5E prestige classes and 4E builds for inspiration on subclasses.
3.5E Artificer-Based Prestige Classes with a Strong Artificer Tie:

• Alchemist Savant: (Magic of Eberron page 53) Experts at crafting potions and making the most of them. Universal Potion is a useful ability, although spellvials look like they might fit interestingly with 5E.
• Cannith Wand Adept: (Sharn: City of Towers page 162) Admittedly also a dragonmark prestige class, these guys become experts at wielding wands. This one looks like an easy conversion to 5E; I especially like the Siphon Charge ability for letting artificers use 1d6 wand charges to give themselves advantage.
• Cyre Scout: (Dragonmarked page 101) Kind of specific to Eberron, these guys are explorers and magical dabblers. Strongly tied to a dragonmark.
• Renegade Mastermaker: (Magic of Eberron page 81) Gradually become half-artificers/half-golems. I was never too fond of the class, but I guess it's a way to get a combat-focused subclass.
• Unbound Scroll: (Dragonmarked page 127) Interesting scroll experts. Strongly tied to a dragonmark, but this still might make a good template for a scroll-based subclass. Ghost Writing is a great ability, basically expending resources to get another use out of a scroll.
• Windwright Captain: (Explorer's Handbook page 70) Basically an expert at flying and repairing an elemental-bound airship; also strongly tied to a dragonmark.

4E Artificer Builds:

• Battlesmith Artificer: (Eberron Players' Guide page 46) Enhance the abilities of magic weapons and armor.
• Tinkerer Artificer: (Eberron Players' Guide page 46) Imbue specific new abilities into weapons and armor, and even create temporary automatons.
• Warrior Forge Artificer: (Dragon magazine #381 page 55) Focuses on ranged implements and infusions.

Hmmm... Really the fluff for all of the 4E artificer builds reads like variations on exactly the same thing.

 

[Remathilis]

I'd imagine the spell list would look quite different. I don't imagine artificers being charmers and tricksters and such as strongly as bards are.

No, I'm just considering it for a chassis. You'd need a new (and appropriate) spell list, a few swaps (though the inspiration mechanic could work well as a "infuse a magical bonus to an item" mechanic) of abilities for artifice, etc.

I think my issue with that breakdown is twofold.

First, I imagine EVERY artificer able to do ALL of those things. You could still do this (a la wizard subclasses - non-diviners can still cast divinations), but there's no reason that an artificer should really have to choose between making a homunculus and making a potion (for instance). It feels like an artificial distinction. Why (in setting-logic) can't I do both?

Like a wizard, you can. Some people just specialize at building certain types of items.

A golem maker is specialized in making and repairing golems. His golems are stronger, tougher, or more intelligent. An alchemist can has studied secrets to making potions the golem maker can't (because HE specialized in making tougher golems).

Second, and this is perhaps the more foundational issue: there's no strong narrative distinction between these characters, or between these characters and others. They're all folks who make magic things. Which is also what wizards and clerics and druids do anyway. The difference between the priest who makes potions and golems in Eberron and the artificer who makes potions and golems in Eberron isn't clearly drawn. There's also not a clear difference in the world between the artificer who makes wands and the one who makes potions. Which is part of why it's hard for me to see artificers as a distinct class at the moment. "Wizard with a dash of rogue who makes things" is something you can do in like 5 different ways in the core books at the moment. If the artificer just brings more of that, why does it want a whole new class to do that? Why not just be a wizard with a specific arcane tradition that maybe ups your durability and proficiencies and says that your "prepared spells" are actually some collection of potions, wands, and trinkets that you use to generate your effects, with your "spellbook" being the formula for making them, and your "component pouch" being the necessary tools and resources?

Redaction logic always ends up in a bad place. Your argument could be reasonablly applied to a dozen PHB classes (do we need a wizard and a sorcerer? A fighter and a barbarian? You see where this is going?) The idea of "magical item maker" in a world where magic IS technology is pretty distinct. They aren't just wizards; they don't throw fireballs, raise zombies, or charm people. Wizard (as D&D puts it) is a poor fit.

Yeah, still the same fundamental issues as I had with Remathilis's breakdown. Why can't any artificer do all of that? And, more critically, how are the stories of those artificers different?

A golem maker could be a Frankenstein-like mad scientist, obsessed with creating life. Or interested in building his own loyal army. An alchemist could be interested in medicine, or gunpowder, or finding the elixir of life. A weapon maker could slave over improving weapons, or be bonded to a weapon and strive to become a master of it.

Yeah, the bard is a good framework in terms of proficiences and such. The problem is that bards are spontaneous casters. I think the Artificer's main poower, which is being able to learn and emulate any spell, is a better fit for the wizard. If there's any class which shouldn't have to pick a limited list of spells known, it's the artificer!

That leaves wizard or cleric from the base list.

I think 5E has lots of design space to create a new class or new subclass that captures the feel of an artificer. In 3E the class structure was so inflexible it really had to be a unique class. Here I'm not so sure.

Yeah, didn't think of that. The nice thing is that since spell slots are the same, switching out a bard's spontaneous casting for a wizards (with a suitably narrow spell selection) is probably doable.

Again, I don't know what class emulates artificer. Wizard is melee feeble and has good attack spells. Cleric seems odd (due to religious connotations) even if its a better mechanical fit. It really needs its own class; if you were starting from scratch I'd go with a wizard tradition but to emulate 3e/4e, you need its own class.

Hmmm... Really the fluff for all of the 4E artificer builds reads like variations on exactly the same thing.

Must...resist...4e...swipe...here...

Ok, better. I forgot about the half-golem idea and that would also work for a build. It might be possible to make some of the Dragonmarked PrCs more generic as well.

 

[gribble]

If we go by the 3.5E ECS book, the key elements of the Artificer are:
...
Really the fluff for all of the 4E artificer builds reads like variations on exactly the same thing.

The lists you posted incline me to agree with previous posters. Similar to wizard subclasses (which are organised around schools of magic), I could see Artificer subclasses organised around types of magic items - the potion specialist, the scroll specialist, the armor specialist, the weapon specialist, the wand specialist, etc. Even the construct/automaton specialist (aka. the "manual of golems" specialist) and magewright (aka. the misc. magic items specialist) somewhat fit into this model .

 

[Parmandur]

I've always seen Artificers as being like the characters I Full Metal Alchemist.

Spontaneous casting, with a Ritual class feature seems about right. A limited number of on-the-fly spells, but a whole world of things are possible with deep preparation and materials.

 

[I'm A Banana]

If we go by the 3.5E ECS book, the key elements of the Artificer are:
So, going by that list:

• Use Any Wand or Scroll: This could be handled by some ability similar to the Thief Rogue's Use Magic Device ability (5E PHB page 97).
• Empower Ordinary Items: Making temporary items could be handled by some ability that lets the artificer imbue his spell slots into items, much as the Infusion ability in Kamikaze Midget's build or the Expert Infusion ability in Hellcow's build.
• Repair Damaged Constructs: For this, all we need to do is make sure mending is an artificer cantrip and maybe make a repair damage spell, modeled on cure wounds. I've built one already, in my Dragonmarks blog post.
• Alter Magic Item Functions: This is a cool one. I like Kamikaze Midget's idea Metamagic Item ability.
• Craft Magic Items/Constructs/etc.: No problem in the new rules, since you no longer need to spend feats to do it. I would expect artificers to be able to craft 10gp of items per day (double normal) since it's a class focus.
• Limited List of Infusions: Again, a limited list is no issue, especially since this edition doesn't have over a thousand spells in the PHB -- everybody has a limited list now.

If Artificer is a class, we can look at the 3.5E prestige classes and 4E builds for inspiration on subclasses.
3.5E Artificer-Based Prestige Classes with a Strong Artificer Tie:

• Alchemist Savant: (Magic of Eberron page 53) Experts at crafting potions and making the most of them. Universal Potion is a useful ability, although spellvials look like they might fit interestingly with 5E.
• Cannith Wand Adept: (Sharn: City of Towers page 162) Admittedly also a dragonmark prestige class, these guys become experts at wielding wands. This one looks like an easy conversion to 5E; I especially like the Siphon Charge ability for letting artificers use 1d6 wand charges to give themselves advantage.
• Cyre Scout: (Dragonmarked page 101) Kind of specific to Eberron, these guys are explorers and magical dabblers. Strongly tied to a dragonmark.
• Renegade Mastermaker: (Magic of Eberron page 81) Gradually become half-artificers/half-golems. I was never too fond of the class, but I guess it's a way to get a combat-focused subclass.
• Unbound Scroll: (Dragonmarked page 127) Interesting scroll experts. Strongly tied to a dragonmark, but this still might make a good template for a scroll-based subclass. Ghost Writing is a great ability, basically expending resources to get another use out of a scroll.
• Windwright Captain: (Explorer's Handbook page 70) Basically an expert at flying and repairing an elemental-bound airship; also strongly tied to a dragonmark.

4E Artificer Builds:

• Battlesmith Artificer: (Eberron Players' Guide page 46) Enhance the abilities of magic weapons and armor.
• Tinkerer Artificer: (Eberron Players' Guide page 46) Imbue specific new abilities into weapons and armor, and even create temporary automatons.
• Warrior Forge Artificer: (Dragon magazine #381 page 55) Focuses on ranged implements and infusions.

Hmmm... Really the fluff for all of the 4E artificer builds reads like variations on exactly the same thing.

This is an immensely great breakdown. The prestige classes really appeal to me as sources of in-fiction distinctions between artificers that don't seem crazy arbitrary. I can see how a person who makes themselves into a construct and a person who makes magical vehicles and a person who is tied to a specific dragonmarked house of one sort or another would be distinct character types in the world, and not just "I get +1 to wands, that guy gets +1 to scrolls, that other guy gets +1 to potions."

The only thing then missing is a strong central mechanic to provide a unique basis for that flavor that doesn't dip deeply into other classes. I don't think this is impossible, but it would be novel to 5e if they did it this way, since the 3e artificer wasn't very mechanically distinct (it basically used spell slots), and neither wasy the 4e artificer (it was one variation on The 4e Monoclass) -- all of their abilities are "small" enough to fit in subclasses and don't need a whole new structure to facilitate. A new structure could be invented....but what might that look like?

Bring back item slots a la 3e and have them fill it with perma-buffs (reminds me a bit of Incarnum)? Or develop an independent item invention system that artificers can use? I dunno. There's room to innovate there.

 

[Fralex]

Check out Keith's Baker (the creator of Eberron) blog. He has made versions of the warforge and the Artificer and maybe more. http://keith-baker.com/extra-life-hacking-the-artificer/

I had fun building on that makeshift artificer and seeing where it went. It looks like this so far. For me, the key thing about the artificer class is inventiveness. For a regular spellcaster, everything their magic can do has been planned in advance, in the sense that their spells are mainly focused on providing end results. Every spell is a specific magical procedure that produces a discrete effect. Artificer spells are more like tools for building new effects on your own. It's like the difference between a doctor and a medical researcher, or a soldier and a weapon engineer. But I think the most fun interpretation of the concept is to make it more like a weapon engineer who takes half-finished prototypes into battle, or a doctor who invents new surgical procedures in the middle of an operation. To me, an artificer should be a source of insane spontaneous inventions that either solve a problem in an interesting way or make it a more interesting problem. Like, OK, this is an extreme example, but a friend of mine once told me a story of how he managed to turn an entire continent into a flying dreadnought that his party used to conquer the world (the DM had just admitted he had completely lost whatever plot he had prepared). It had this crazy setup where they'd launch a portable hole at the enemy, and the archer, with the help of some bracers that greatly enhanced his accuracy, would shoot a bag of holding at the portable hole as it approached the target. Bag and hole collide, and everything around them gets banished to another plane. The party just flew to each region and said they could either join them or be obliterated. The flying continent warship and the government they established was made into a part of the setting in the following campaign.

Like I said, that's a really extreme example, but an artificer should make it possible to tell that kind of story. They should have open-ended abilities that allow for unplanned possibilities. They should give the party gifts that make things fun for everybody. That's why my favorite thing from that artificer attempt of mine is probably the cantrip that just gives an item one of the minor properties and quirks magic items can have with those tables in the DMG. There's a bunch of ways you can use the properties you give to things, and every time you do you also give them some sort of random flaw. I should mention I haven't gotten a chance to test any of this yet, though, so it could turn out I'm doing it all wrong. But thinking of what I could do with the class makes me excited. A class should do that when you read about it.

 

[fuindordm]

I never really understood the need to give Artificers "Infusions" rather than a restricted spell list. And I never understood the need to set them apart from the arcane/divine split. I mean, I do get that they're supposed to have a deeper insight into the universal nature of magic, but their approach screams "Arcane" to me. They study and manipulate magic by its own rules, whereas a divine caster just gets their spells gift-wrapped from higher powers.

So here's what I would do, given that the artificer is built as a unique class:
1. Make them arcane and Int-based.
2. Give them a spellbook (or schema book) to record spells that they learn. Unlike a wizard, they can learn spells just by studying them in action, and they can learn spells from any class. But they cannot prepare spells in their book unless they are on the artificer list.
3. The artificer list is small but contains some unique spells such as "Spell Storing Item". With a 1st-level slot, this would create a one-charge wand of any first-level spell in their book. To store a higher-level spell you need a higher-level slot. Any spell created in this way is an arcane spell when it comes out. This gives them something to do with the higher-level slots--they don't need to have a spell on their list at every slot level.

Combat ability is a non-issue, since it's based essentially on which ability score you want to put a high stat in. My wizard can be good in melee if I give him a 16 Str and a big club. For example, give the artificer proficiency in medium armor and simple weapons, but not shields.

Now, for the juicy bits of the class we replace the wizard special abilities (about one every other level) with extras. I like the subclasses suggested by Liane--4 special abilities should be enough to support each archetype.

For the general artificer abilities, I would make the first one Use Magic Device, and design other abilities that help crafting items more quickly and reliably than anyone else. For example, give them one "discovery" every level which is a magic item or construct formula. From levels 1-5, this can be an uncommon item or a construct with CR<1. From levels 6-10, this can be a rare item or a construct with CR<3. And so on... Then they can use their downtime to build things using these formulas. At the highest level they ought to have a chance of creating a legendary item. I think the "Craft Reserve" concept could also work in this edition (although it just replaces gold and/or time).

As a mid level ability, I would give them a way to sustain an extra concentration spell cast on an ally.

As a very high level ability, I would give them an extra attunement slot.

 

[DammitVictor]

Don't know if the dragonmark discussion is still going, but here's my two cents:

Instead of granting a free feat to everyone at 1st level, grant everyone a free ASI that can be only be traded in for a Dragonmark; you get one or the other, but you don't step on the Variant Human's toes.

 

[Beleriphon]

As a mid level ability, I would give them a way to sustain an extra concentration spell cast on an ally.

As a very high level ability, I would give them an extra attunement slot.

An item master with an extra attunement slot might be nice as a cap stone ability, especially if they ability before it lets your character do extra wonky stuff with magic items.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I never really understood the need to give Artificers "Infusions" rather than a restricted spell list. And I never understood the need to set them apart from the arcane/divine split. I mean, I do get that they're supposed to have a deeper insight into the universal nature of magic, but their approach screams "Arcane" to me. They study and manipulate magic by its own rules, whereas a divine caster just gets their spells gift-wrapped from higher powers.

So here's what I would do, given that the artificer is built as a unique class:
1. Make them arcane and Int-based.
2. Give them a spellbook (or schema book) to record spells that they learn. Unlike a wizard, they can learn spells just by studying them in action, and they can learn spells from any class. But they cannot prepare spells in their book unless they are on the artificer list.
3. The artificer list is small but contains some unique spells such as "Spell Storing Item". With a 1st-level slot, this would create a one-charge wand of any first-level spell in their book. To store a higher-level spell you need a higher-level slot. Any spell created in this way is an arcane spell when it comes out. This gives them something to do with the higher-level slots--they don't need to have a spell on their list at every slot level.

Combat ability is a non-issue, since it's based essentially on which ability score you want to put a high stat in. My wizard can be good in melee if I give him a 16 Str and a big club. For example, give the artificer proficiency in medium armor and simple weapons, but not shields.

Now, for the juicy bits of the class we replace the wizard special abilities (about one every other level) with extras. I like the subclasses suggested by Liane--4 special abilities should be enough to support each archetype.

For the general artificer abilities, I would make the first one Use Magic Device, and design other abilities that help crafting items more quickly and reliably than anyone else. For example, give them one "discovery" every level which is a magic item or construct formula. From levels 1-5, this can be an uncommon item or a construct with CR<1. From levels 6-10, this can be a rare item or a construct with CR<3. And so on... Then they can use their downtime to build things using these formulas. At the highest level they ought to have a chance of creating a legendary item. I think the "Craft Reserve" concept could also work in this edition (although it just replaces gold and/or time).

As a mid level ability, I would give them a way to sustain an extra concentration spell cast on an ally.

As a very high level ability, I would give them an extra attunement slot.

All of that just points to it being a Wizard archetpe to me. The differences (such as the alternate spell list, learning non-wizard spells, medium armor, skill proficiencies, etc.) can be taken care of with alternate Wizard features. For it to be a full-fledged class, I'd want more than "a wizard with a different spell/skill/equipment list."

See, for instance, Sorcery Points, or Warlock Invocations, or Channel Divinity.

What would be the Artificer's big mechanical hook? A different list of things isn't enough. Infusion mechanics have potential, but there's not much distinguishing them from "casting a spell into an item, and then using that item to cast the spell" right now. Arguably, there shouldn't be, since that's kind of what it's always been like. But if there's one area that there's room for improvement on, it's how both 3e and 4e treated item creation, so there's certainly room to do something awesome there.