Level Up (A5E) Artificer Balancing

[Langy]

I'm about to start my first A5E campaign, and one of my players was planning to play a Machinist Artificer. After making our characters during Session 0, he began looking deeper into the Artificer mechanics and noticed that, unlike the O5E version of the Artificer, there doesn't seem to be anything that really balances that the Artificer is a half-caster. In O5E, each of the Archetypes provides some pretty powerful options to increase the combat capacity of the Artificer to make up for it being a half-caster, like the Artillerist's bonus action to fire the cannons or the Battle Smith's robot companion and Extra Attack, or the Armor Smith's armor and Extra Attack. Alchemist doesn't get as much, and is objectively the weakest of the O5E Artificer subclasses, but it at least gets +INT to Cantrip damage, which isn't nothing.

In A5E, the base Artificer and the Artificer archetypes don't seem to have that. The Bombardier can throw some half-decent bombs up to Proficiency Bonus times per short rest, which is OK. The Machinist gets literally nothing to help in combat outside of the vehicle, which is much more of a utility mount than it is a combat vehicle - it never increases the Machinist's DPR and only somewhat increases their defenses, and it's not going to be available in all combats. The Stitcher at least gets the minion, but the minion explicitly can't ever attack so the DPR increase is minor at best.

Am I missing something? What benefits does the A5E Artificer get that justifies it being a half-caster? Is there any way for an A5E Artificer to keep up with any other class in terms of combat output?

 

[xiphumor]

While we’re here, can we also ask what to make the Machinist artificer having a feature that references the Stop action, which was removed in the errata?

 

[TheAmishNerd]

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!

 

[WanderingMystic]

I'm about to start my first A5E campaign, and one of my players was planning to play a Machinist Artificer. After making our characters during Session 0, he began looking deeper into the Artificer mechanics and noticed that, unlike the O5E version of the Artificer, there doesn't seem to be anything that really balances that the Artificer is a half-caster. In O5E, each of the Archetypes provides some pretty powerful options to increase the combat capacity of the Artificer to make up for it being a half-caster, like the Artillerist's bonus action to fire the cannons or the Battle Smith's robot companion and Extra Attack, or the Armor Smith's armor and Extra Attack. Alchemist doesn't get as much, and is objectively the weakest of the O5E Artificer subclasses, but it at least gets +INT to Cantrip damage, which isn't nothing.

In A5E, the base Artificer and the Artificer archetypes don't seem to have that. The Bombardier can throw some half-decent bombs up to Proficiency Bonus times per short rest, which is OK. The Machinist gets literally nothing to help in combat outside of the vehicle, which is much more of a utility mount than it is a combat vehicle - it never increases the Machinist's DPR and only somewhat increases their defenses, and it's not going to be available in all combats. The Stitcher at least gets the minion, but the minion explicitly can't ever attack so the DPR increase is minor at best.

Am I missing something? What benefits does the A5E Artificer get that justifies it being a half-caster? Is there any way for an A5E Artificer to keep up with any other class in terms of combat output?

So first the machinist should always have their vehicle, it can be a wheel chair, or a mech suit, it is now always something like a car or bike, if you don't think that the vehicle can be used all the time I your game then you should tell them that the subclasses is not fitting for the game. (The vehicle is medium sized just like a person, you can use your infusions to gain a climb speed with makes it work in dungeons or caves) The machinist ac might be better than normal since they can use the vehicle ac which is based on their int. While controlling the machine cost a bonus action it is easy to build a great raming based vehicle to get extra damage.

In general the new subclasses have weak 5th level options, all o5e subclasses give a strong damage ability at 5th level while none of the options found in a5e have any damage bump at 5th level.

Lastly with the stitcher the artificer can use their bonus action to make the minion attack it is just that they can not attack on their own.

 

[Steampunkette]

Yeah, the Engineer should always be in their vehicle and probably pull the Shielded Cockpit or Enclosed Cockpit mod for half and three quarters cover, respectively... Ramming is probably the best low-level option since it makes you deal 4d6 through -movement- so long as you're willing to hurt your vehicle for 1d6 damage.

At level 3, the Engineer Artificer can run someone over for 4d6 damage, and then use their action to cast a spell or make an attack. (Plus you get the free 20ft of movement on initiative count 20 if you moved on the previous turn, thanks to momentum!)

And the Bombardier can use the Combustible grenade to deal 2d6 fire damage to a 15ft wide cube with 1d6 ongoing fire damage... at level 3. Twice. Basically as good as having two additional 2nd level spell slots on a short rest.

Meanwhile with the Stitcher: IT CAN ATTACK ON IT'S OWN. It will only do so as a response to being attacked. So position it in a doorway and it will fight to protect itself. And then on -your- turn you can spend a bonus action to give it another attack. And it can take opportunity attacks, too, as a reaction.

Add on the "I'm not dead yet" button and it becomes pretty cool, to me. Sure at level 3 it's only got 21hp, and it never quite becomes a walking tank... But let's not forget that if your pet bites someone it regains as many hit points as it dealt. And with 1d10+1+Prof it ain't nothin'.

Basically: If you're an Artificer who isn't a Bombardier, you should be putting your infusions into your Vehicle or Monstrosity.

 

[Langy]

Ahah, I missed that the vehicle was designed to ram things (and that the ramming rules allowed you to do that as part of the bonus action to pilot the vehicle). I knew we were missing something! That also gives me a guide as to how to add a built in weapon (we are running a modified Descent into Avernus campaign, so weaponized vehicles are kinda standard).

The Stitcher minion I had understood to not be able to attack even with your command; the wording about the minion "won't attack except in reaction to being attacked" didn't specify that this was "without using a Bonus Action command to order an attack". The "except in reaction to being attacked" part I took to mean the Reaction action type or the Shocking Coils or Explosive Bike infusions, both of which can damage the attacker. Now that I look at the infusion list further and see you can stick weapons on the zombie it becomes clearer that that reading is wrong.

When both me and my players looked at this, we couldn't find anything the Artificer couldn't really do in combat beyond casting a basic cantrip or using one of their spells. It's good to see that's not the design intent.

 

[Vildara]

Why does the artificer not get any maneuvers?

 

[Pedantic]

Honestly, we've been quite impressed with the artificer up through level 4 (though we'll see how that lines up at higher levels) in our current campaign. The spell recovery mechanic (and particularly the ability to defer to a malfunction on the vehicle) has led them to be pretty free with their spell usage, generally eeking out more spells/day than full casters, which has proven very useful.

 

[VenerableBede]

I will admit to not being excited by the artificer when I first read through it, but after trying to deep-dive so I could try my hand at a few archetypes, I really like it. The only thing I would change, if given the option, would be to naturally give the artificer new schematics (for rarer magic items) as it levels up, to help keep schematics/infusions from almost entirely being a "dependent on the GM, who is already possibly overwhelmed by the thousand other aspects of GMing" feature.
As most people have stated above, while there are some (perhaps unexpectedly) good options for damage, the artificer largely focuses on buffs and utility. I'll leave that there since it's been beaten to death in this thread.

 

[Selganor]

Speaking of achetypes for artificers...

Any ideas how to change the Alchemist's Experimental Elixir?

In O5E you can spend spell slots (1st or higher) to brew a specific Elixir in addition to the free one(s)

The other A5E archetypes seem to use infusions for their "additional" effects, so maybe here, too?

Or maybe use an infusion to get an elixir with a fizzle die?