D&D 5E (2024) Do Artificers Break The Game at 10th Level?

Zardnaar said:

So most online artificer guides aren't so great. They focus on the level 11 spell item and often miss some of the better items at lvl 2 eg glamour full or half plate.

At level 10 all artificers can pick uncommon items. +1 shield or weapon, few other bits and pieces. Elemental gems are an uncommon item. You can summon a CR5 elemental. No concentration required. For one hour

It seems you can summon all 4 at once. Only for an hour. If youre not abusing it its still an elemental every hour.

Seems good.

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I fail to see how this "breaks" the game - care to explain?

dave2008 said:

I fail to see how this "breaks" the game - care to explain?

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1-4 CR 5 monsters 100+hp on some concentration free.

Each one earth elemental)has 4d8+10 damage potential per round. Concentration free.

BigMac75 said:

Seems easy enough for a DM to make the required gem really expensive for that magic item

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For crafting, sure, but since 2024 Replications simply manifest the item rather than applying an effect to an extant item, the DM could not do that by RAW (short of DM fiat RAW, which the players would likely treat as adversarial to themselves, and thus a red flag).

Ferrousbones said:

For crafting, sure, but since 2024 Replications simply manifest the item rather than applying an effect to an extant item, the DM could not do that by RAW (short of DM fiat RAW, which the players would likely treat as adversarial to themselves, and thus a red flag).

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Ah, ok good point...

BigMac75 said:

Ah, ok good point...

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Yeah they go from 400gp ask the DM to you get this for free.

If you nova them its +8 to hit 16d8+40 approx (varies by elemental) damage potential every round.

For an hour concentration free. On top of your class damage. Irvhalf that for 2 hours or 4d8+10 for 4 hours.

Zardnaar said:

1-4 CR 5 monsters 100+hp on some concentration free.

Each one earth elemental)has 4d8+10 damage potential per round. Concentration free.

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I'm still waiting to see how that breaks the game.

dave2008 said:

I'm still waiting to see how that breaks the game.

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Compare it to every other classes damage. Fighters and paladins get a spike level 11.

PC accuracy is +9 at best level 9 (plus magic items).

You also get 400 hp worth of meat shields.

+1 weapon is uncommon. 4 of them or pet elemental.

If you cant see how good 4 of these are (or 1 X4) i dont think i can convince you otherwise.

Fid you play BG3?

Zardnaar said:

Compare it to every other classes damage. Fighters and paladins get a spike level 11.

PC accuracy is +9 at best level 9 (plus magic items).

You also get 400 hp worth of meat shields.

+1 weapon is uncommon. 4 of them or pet elemental.

If you cant see how good 4 of these are (or 1 X4) i dont think i can convince you otherwise.

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I am not saying it isn't good, I am just saying it doesn't break the game.

Zardnaar said:

Fid you play BG3?

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No, I don't really play video games

dave2008 said:

I am not saying it isn't good, I am just saying it doesn't break the game.

No, I don't really play video games

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BG3 each character could gave a pet elemental. Via scroll. In effect this is same thing except you can gave to 4 all at once.

Compare to paladin and fighter upgrades at 11th level.

dave2008 said:

I fail to see how this "breaks" the game - care to explain?

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It depends what you mean by broken. The magic item rarity classifications have been broken since 2014 at least, in that it doesn't correspond to the actual power of the magic item. Which didn't matter so long as it wasn't tied to class abilities and the DM wasn't trying to allocate loot 3rd edition style.

But clearly, single use items are rated as less rare than permanent items, and the rules for artificers fail to call this out when the item in question is not a potion or scroll. Back in Tashas you could bend the rules using the one shot tattoos that worked like scrolls in the same book for example.

In this particular example, if it's not a computer game, having a large number of summons in play is clearly antisocial, slowing the game to a crawl, which is why spells like Conjure Animals were changed. So I can't see any DM allowing this instance of rules-bending. So the game is broken in the sense that it's going to leave the player who tries it butt-hurt.