Level Up (A5E) Artificer Balancing

[ascian0]

Hi! I'm Andrew Engelbrite who wrote the A5E artificer and I'll do my best to answer your questions here.
To start with it seems like you're focused on raw DPR and if that's your only goal then I'm not surprised that you're finding the artificer lacking. From the inception the artificer in both 5e and now my version in A5E was designed as a utility and party buff class first, damage dealer 2nd. It would tip the game balance if the class with deep creative utility options also matched the straight damage casters.
Onto the more specific issues, the Machinist's custom vehicle can definitely be outfitted as a utility mount, but it can also be a fantastic combat machine. Once you reach the 5th level feature pinpoint manuevering, your mech suit/motorcycle/buggy can zip around even tight hallways while providing you with cover and delivering damaging artificer spells from the safety of your cockpit.
As for the stitcher's minion, I'm not sure what you mean with "it explicitly can't ever attack"? The minion essentially uses your bonus actions to make attacks or other actions, and has numerous features and options for increasing its damage output.
Finally, I designed the class before the errata on the stop action, but for the enhanced brakes modification that references it, I would revise the feature to instead read "When your custom vehicle performs the brake action, it immediately comes to a stop and loses momentum instead of moving forward half of its speed as normal."

Hope that helps!

Hi Andrew, I have a friend playing an Artificer in our Level up campaign, can Artificer spells like magic Weapon or Blur be targeted on the Vehicle? If the device is attached, what about spells like levitate?

Thank you!

 

[Selganor]

I'm not Andrew but here's my take:

Magic Weapon affects "one nonmagical weapon", so if you Modify your Vehicle (I'm guessing we are talking about the vehicle of a Machinist Artificer) with Buzzsaws or Grabbing Claws those could be made "magical".

Blur affects the Artificer only (Target: Self), so at best (if your vehicle is a "Power Armor" like Iron Man) it might carry over to the worn vehicle otherwise there probably just would be a blurred Artificer inside the vehicle.

Spell Inventions by itself aren't working items yet, they need the special touch of the Artificer to activate the magic contained therein (similar to spell scrolls or potions, but possibly useable more often until they Fizzle)

As for Levitate on a vehicle, if it is small (or light) enough to be under the 500 lbs. you might levitate it.

 

[ascian0]

I'm not Andrew but here's my take:

Magic Weapon affects "one nonmagical weapon", so if you Modify your Vehicle (I'm guessing we are talking about the vehicle of a Machinist Artificer) with Buzzsaws or Grabbing Claws those could be made "magical".

Blur affects the Artificer only (Target: Self), so at best (if your vehicle is a "Power Armor" like Iron Man) it might carry over to the worn vehicle otherwise there probably just would be a blurred Artificer inside the vehicle.

Spell Inventions by itself aren't working items yet, they need the special touch of the Artificer to activate the magic contained therein (similar to spell scrolls or potions, but possibly useable more often until they Fizzle)

As for Levitate on a vehicle, if it is small (or light) enough to be under the 500 lbs. you might levitate it.

Thank you! I appreciate it.