D&D 5E Does the Artificer Suck?

[Umbran]

Errata is a record of list of changes made to the official books as of the newest round of printing,

However, for D&D, those changes do not generally make it into the next printing.

As stated earlier - our discussions must allow for folks who work with the rules as originally printed, as well as for those who prefer to incorporate the errata. Working without the errata is totally legitimate, and if you intend to rhetorically beat someone over the head with errata to make them accept your point, or suggest that there's some moral superiority to using them, there's going to be problems.

So, can we not go into all shouting of bold text, please AND THANK YOU?

In the end, in a game that starts with "rulings, not rules" and a 40+ year long tradition of homebrewing and houseruling, you cannot lean on RAW as, "this is correct and everyone else can shut up." Proving what is RAW is less important than demonstrating what works better at the table and why.

 

[Stoutstien]

I guess a big part of better explanation and guidelines does make a rule more defined IMO.

For example, crafting of magic items is very "open", which is great if that is what you want, but one project I started working on was a magic-item "recipe" book (so to say), with the process for making all the magic items in the DMG--including costs, materials, DC checks, etc.

I do agree recipes and plans should have been added as magical items in their own right but more importantly there should be more support in informing the DM the implications of having them in the game. It doesn't help the rarity rating are inconsistent and some items are straight up force multiplers.

 

[auburn2]

I have an artificer in my game I run. It's a Battle Smith currently level 6. I've seen it played since level 1.

Anyway it's not really impressing me. It's a half caster that's a bit meh at dealing damage compared with Paladins and Rangers.

It looks like it may get better latter around level 10 or so but that's to late imho.

And the other subclasses look worse than the battlesmith.

Rangers copped a lot if flak for sucking but this class seems worse.

Thoughts?

I haven't played one but he can create magic items at the end of a short rest. How can that possibly suck?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I guess a big part of better explanation and guidelines does make a rule more defined IMO.

For example, crafting of magic items is very "open", which is great if that is what you want, but one project I started working on was a magic-item "recipe" book (so to say), with the process for making all the magic items in the DMG--including costs, materials, DC checks, etc.

The trouble with a player facing magic item recipe book is it (in a metaphorical sense) ceases to be magic and becomes technology.

When magic items are made by forgotten civilisations, bizarre accidents or divine relics, the are mysterious and exciting to discover - i.e. "magical".

 

[tetrasodium]

I don't think you need more defined rules to get what you want out 5e as much as better explanation and better guidelines to implement the rules. It's like everytime someone brings up the lack of DC tables for ability checks it sets off the debate of what DC should be set for each action. In reality, what really needed to be included in the DMG/ DM screens is a quick reference table to see what the chances of pass/fail for any giving value. Same could be applied to the whole magic items are not assumed in the base assumption of progress. Cool. But it would be nice to know roughly what does happen if half the party has +1 weapons or whatnot.

As far as realism goes 5e just isn't the system for it. No way to equally apply realistically limits on the classes equally so it end with a few full caster playing the game with tag a long lackies humping the gear.

I think that a lot of those read closer to the kind of "improvised to cater to specific complaints" thing @Helldritch mentioned back in #288 than looking at the forest sized problem & trying to address it as a whole rather than fixing the parasite problem with one specific tree in it. When "people complain that magic items are not assumed in the base assumption of progress" it's just not reasonable to ignore how that was done in prior editions. back in 2e it meant things like

Spoiler: this

That kind of thing from ad&d2e is trivially easy to add & doesn't require much to be assumed in character progression so probably not a big factor in what people are looking for. In some ways 4e even took things further than 3.5 with baking magic items into character progression but 4e wasn't my strong suit so I'll leave it there for 4e. In 3.5 players were pretty much expected to have +N items for everyone's primary attack related attribute & in some cases +N magic weapon/armor by the time that players were at or around certain levels. If players did not have those things they needed to get extremely lucky rolls just to hit/bypass saves or deal enough damage fast enough to kill things before succumbing to attrition themselves.

At the time there wasn't much debate about 3.5 being very bad about getting that information to the GM by pretty much leaving it unsaid. Perhaps you could call that omission a strength in the same bin where criticism of 5e omitting x & y is often met with people calling it a strength that allows the gm to decide for their table as we've seen repeatedly throughout this thread. An important difference with that cross edition strength by omission is that "wow my players are struggling, I should give them magic stuff" is an easier pill for players to swallow when they find cool toys than 5e's "wow I just broke the game's math by giving my players magic stuff" when the players find their cool toys broken or taken away. Taking away toys without frustrations is another strength of having magic gear baked into the assumptions of advancement as well since the churn caused by getting better gear allowed avenues for a player to swap out an item the gm regrets for one they need or to keep it but find themselves behind the curve elsewhere to help compensate.

In the light of how it was done in 3.5 & 4e monsters themselves would need to have ac/saves/hit points/hitrates/etc calculated based on a certain assumptions from the outset & a simple table can't really do that. To some degree they could have baked it all into monsters with something like pathfinder's slow/medium/fast advancementhttps://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/character-advancement where you might see a given ac/tohit/etc as x+LineQ or something, but I suspect even that would fall into the same quagmire as trying to do it with a table as a brass dragon wyrmling bugbear & evil mage as a quickling so it would likely be fantastically complicated to apply.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

If your baseline is a broken paladin everything else sucks.

Yeah, it's this. The class doesn't suck, and you don't have to wait until level 10+ for it to start getting good. Unlike most other classes, artificers are not overloaded at the beginning levels and not underloaded at later levels. They have a nice amount of good and worthwhile features at low levels (Infuse Items, Spellcasting with cantrips, Subclass Spell Lists, great subclass features, Flash of Genius, etc), but also get a ton of great features in later levels (10 free castings of cure wounds/flaming sphere? Yes please! Attunement to 6 items? That's amazing! +1 to all saving throws for each item you're attuned to? Even better!).

They're not super front-loaded. Paladins are. They get Lay on Hands, Spellcasting, Divine Smite, Channel Divinity, Oath Spells, a Fighting Style, Heavy Armor and Martial Weapons proficiency, Extra Attack, Aura of Protection, and so on all at fairly early levels. They get so much from the base class that the subclasses barely give them anything and they have to be MAD (STR/DEX, CON, and CHA) to balance them out.

Artificers are different. They only get up to Medium Armor and Shields with only Simple Weapons (and maybe firearms) for their proficiencies. They get Magical Tinkering, which is mostly a roleplay feature, Spellcasting with Cantrips, which is good but not super amazing, they get Right Tool for the Job, which is super useful in the right circumstance but nowhere as good as Channel Divinity, and they get Infuse Item, which is awesome and amazing, but very limited and restrictive. This allows for them to be very SAD without making them being OP.

Their lack of outright AMAZING main class features moves most of their defining aspects to their subclass. They get most of their subclass features earlier on than a Paladin does, and they get more features from their subclass in general than a paladin does. Just look at how many class features an Armorer or Battle Smith gets at just level 3. They have to get a lot of things from their subclass in order to not suck. (Battle Smiths get Int-based Hex Warrior, Martial Weapons, Extra Spells, Smith's Tools, and an animal companion better than the PHB's Beast Master. Armorers get Heavy Armor proficiency, buffs to any Armor they're wearing, two different combat modes for the armor that let them be a brawling tank or skirmishing sniper using their INT for everything, Extra Spells, and Smiths Tools.)

tl;dr: Artificers are SAD to balance themselves out and much less front-loaded in main class features than a paladin is, but much more front-loaded in subclass features than a Paladin. Paladins are MAD to make them not OP, have to expend their main resources to be the best Nova they can be (which is another balancing factor), and have to be a lot less versatile than an Artificer in order to now be OP.

@Zardnaar, The problem you have with the Artificer class isn't a problem with the Artificer class. The problem is you letting your Paladin be as SAD as the Artificer. Cha-based Shillelagh is something only attainable through multiclassing into a Tomepact Warlock, but you let them get it as a racial feature. Additionally, you haven't been super strict about keeping track of spell slots, which will definitely make the Artificer feel weaker than the Paladin.

 

[DND_Reborn]

The trouble with a player facing magic item recipe book is it (in a metaphorical sense) ceases to be magic and becomes technology.

When magic items are made by forgotten civilisations, bizarre accidents or divine relics, the are mysterious and exciting to discover - i.e. "magical".

Very true and I agree completely, which is one of the reasons I abandoned the project. I took it up because some people I was talking to had interest in it.

Here I simply used it as an example of a rule, which if you are going to include it, should be done in a more detailed fashion IMO.

Personally, as a DM and player, I would rather have a magic item which is needed be quested for but sometimes the process of creation is a nice adventure, in and of, itself. However, without some guidelines--it is completely up to the DM.

So, in short (sort of), I feel like a lot of 5E's rules, systems, and mechanics were half-assed. Either include it and go all out, or don't and let it completely up to the table/DM to figure out. That's my take, anyway.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The trouble with a player facing magic item recipe book is it (in a metaphorical sense) ceases to be magic and becomes technology.

When magic items are made by forgotten civilisations, bizarre accidents or divine relics, the are mysterious and exciting to discover - i.e. "magical".

Not really. When creating magic items, I always require my characters to obtain and expend magical substances and use spell slots to create it. Having a process doesn't make it a technology. I wouldn't allow a nonmagical barbarian character to create a magic item, but an artificer or wizard with the right tool proficiencies, supplies, and process could make it if they are high enough level and spend enough time making it and questing for knowledge how to make it.

 

[tetrasodium]

Very true and I agree completely, which is one of the reasons I abandoned the project. I took it up because some people I was talking to had interest in it.

Here I simply used it as an example of a rule, which if you are going to include it, should be done in a more detailed fashion IMO.

Personally, as a DM and player, I would rather have a magic item which is needed be quested for but sometimes the process of creation is a nice adventure, in and of, itself. However, without some guidelines--it is completely up to the DM.

So, in short (sort of), I feel like a lot of 5E's rules, systems, and mechanics were half-assed. Either include it and go all out, or don't and let it completely up to the table/DM to figure out. That's my take, anyway.

There is a pretty serious benefit of having it in a player facing form however. If I as a DM need to hold the hand of a player & step them through the initial sears catalogue flipping before they even know they want something they probably aren't going to do much in the way of bothering to plan for any sort of crafting without me & I might as well just skip the GM overhead by using an npc if I need to. I wish you luck & would probably check it out when you finish out of curiosity if nothing else but there isn't much room in 5e's magic item budget before things start collapsing

 

[DND_Reborn]

I wish you luck & would probably check it out when you finish out of curiosity if nothing else but there isn't much room in 5e's magic item budget before things start collapsing

Considering my design goal for a less "magical" game style--I doubt I'll finish it (after all, it isn't like I was getting paid or something! --that would be different!). If I even do, I'll probably just share it for people to see if they have interest. It'll be posted somewhere here if it ever happens.

EDIT: I mean magic is less common, but when it exists it is very impactful. Forget +1 swords, and give +3 only and crit on 19 sort of thing. I imagine a game where by level 20 each PC might have 1 minor and 1 major item...