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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RealAlHazred" data-source="post: 6749774" data-attributes="member: 25818">Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:Point. However, the check's verbatim from Keith, and it's based on how they worked in 3.5 as well (except there, it was much harder to pull off the Use Magic Device check at lower levels), and by all accounts the game it was tested in worked really well. His didn't have a craft reserve limit, but it was a spell (and cost a slot as a result). The ability to use it in combat was something I was cautious about, since I've seen the infusion used to killer effect before. But I'd be open to moving the "Hit Die = 1 action casting" clause out of the magitechnician and into the main ability, and/or removing the slot cost in favor of a pure reserve cost, if I can come up with something better for the magitechnician. (Recall that this subclass emphasizes Spell Storing Item and would get the speed-up version of it at level 3, when SSI itself only shows up at 2.) I also think you're assuming that having every single spell available with only a round of prep time in battle is "useful". I'm viewing it as "every spell you've learned is basically a ritual". Though both perspectives can be solved by removing the spell slot cost - something I'm leaning more towards anyway, especially after considering what a warlock dip would do here. (Incidentally, the most useful dips so far are bard and rogue, because of Expertise on Arcana. Since those were the two classes with Use Magical Scrolls / Use Magic Device traditionally, I'm pleased with this. Warlocks had it too, but they're already killer as a dip.) If I'm not understanding you, please elaborate on why it's useless. Because I cribbed the text from the Unearthed Arcana article and made minimal adjustments. My instinct would be to remove the "10 minutes" bit and just assume you're spending the short rest writing a scroll. The reason they picked short rest? No idea. Probably to allow mid-dungeon crafting of any spell you know, which is sort of like the arty's Spell Storing Item, except entirely different. The idea of persisting the duration is interesting, and I'll play around with that tonight. I'm still leaning more towards just upping the duration to a flat one hour instead, and adjusting the craft reserve costs. However, "special abilities" would require me to write up a list of appropriate ones and balance them against each other, since there are no prepackaged ones in this edition. I figured a small - but significant (see Elemental Weapon, which is a 3rd level spell, and you're getting a good chunk of the effect at level 1) - selectable energy type would be an appropriate compromise. I did, however, scale it up at 9th. (Scaling it further is something I might add to a subclass when I finish them, probably the combat engineer.) It can also stack fully with Elemental Weapon, and the augments don't require concentration to maintain. I might try to come up with alternate augments to see how they'd fare, but I don't want the artificer to be everyone's superior at everything "if he's prepared" (and everyone's equal if he's forced to improvise), which is what happened in 3.5 because of the open-ended nature of Spell Storing Item and item creation, plus the use of buffstacks. Just as we can't pick up a Wizard and instantly assume to be God in 5e. Would changing the base duration to an hour do the trick? Likewise, I might lower the craft reserve cost. The idea here is to buff up as you need it, and have the buff last for the whole battle, not so much to "turn yourself into a walking Avatar of Death with a buffstack" bit, and I'm already concerned about buffstacks (since augments don't use concentration and can't be dispelled).That's the magitechnican's route. Incidentally, I think the arty would be better suited for crossbows anyway - simple weapons, Dexterity attacks (and the artificer's using Dexterity for handling traps), and capable of being augmented easily. Incidentally, the regular artificer gets all the good tool-based party buffs as infusions as well. It's not all spell storing items nor augments (except at level 1, where his gameplay is largely that of a rogue who can elementally charge his weapon or magically guide his tools instead of having sneak attack and stealth). ...This is kind of the opposite advice you're giving above. You want to make Spell Storing Item more useful, but here you want to pull it back. Putting the two together and you'd have a small number of spells that you can use that recharge every short rest - and that's the warlock. The spellbook's also limited, I should say - you start with fewer spells and gain only one each level up, and you flat-out can't scribe a spell you don't have slots for into the book. The concern I'd have is that you can fit any class' spells into this, including exclusive spells (like Hex, Hunter's Mark, and the like).  I've seen similar, though not that particular example. The issue with that is it conflicts with goal #3. The reason I included #3 was entirely because I've seen stuff like this before - while it's appropriate to be central to a steampunk game, if the artificer isn't front-and-center (and even in Eberron, it isn't!), you've produced twenty pages of rules for one aspect of one class. It's also a colossal amount of work to design and test this - working within the existing paradigm is simpler and makes use of the work the devs have already put in. That's why Salvage Essence simply requires you to have the item you want to learn how to make - it uses every aspect of the rules that you were already using to regulate magic items, and applies them to regulating the creation of magic items as well. The system's already there, so I don't need to reinvent a fully-functional wheel (even if it's a wheel with plenty of degrees of freedom already). I mean, yes, they're plot devices in some settings, including the default - but 1) that means that you're only crafting items appropriate to the plot, and 2) only if the plot allows that item to be salvaged, using 3) the existing rules you were already using to fit the items to the plot. It's interesting to note that there are some parallels, though, even though I haven't seen it. The craft reserve system I'm using is actually modelled slightly more on Incarnum (from 3.5), while the Unearthed Arcana artificer uses Arcane Recovery as a similar resource - and both of these are apparently similar to Tephra.</blockquote>

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