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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RealAlHazred" data-source="post: 6749890" data-attributes="member: 25818">Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:3e had this issue due to, in a large part, the ability of the players to tap into established game world resources (specifically research time and magic item shops) to expand their capability, in addition to having the capacity of expanding their capability. 4e, interestingly, kept the former in play (through tomes, which were similar to the 3e "runestaff" concept) but clamped down on the latter (tomes didn't change the number of powers you could use, but allowed you to employ a larger array of powers within that limitation than you normally could). They were only really balanced out by their expense, just like in 3.5 (except 4e was much more rigorous on WBL than 3.5 was). So it did have the same issue, but it attempted to regulate it through wealth management - and we all know that can't possibly fail. (The last time I helped a player learn 3.5 after being trained on 4e, they presented their 7th level wizard specializing in fire spells as a model of what they wanted in 3.5. That wizard, like virtually all such wizards (accounting for build) knew a fixed number of powers (the base numbers were 2/3/2/2 (AEDU notation), but build and racial options and a Spellbook feat added more, and wizards technically knew more than this in their book that they could swap out, but the number they could bring to the fore in combat was about that amount). Then I looked at their equipment and saw thirteen extra spells available through tomes, of which seven were available at once. What was that about 4e preventing players from doubling their versatility again?) 5e inverted that - they allowed the expanded capability, but seriously clamped down on the game world resources used to do that expanding. Research cannot provide spells, there are no scroll shops, and scrolls are less common as loot. You have the ability to expand your spellbook, but not the tools to do so. (This allows you to, for instance, have an NPC wizard hire the PCs with the offer of a rare spell he knows, or to have the PCs approach said NPC and accept a quest to prove their worth before trading spells.) Multiple PC wizards at once introduce the largest possible expansion of spell lists in the game, through trading spells.... but they do pay an opportunity cost for this. It's the cost of playing a party with two (squishy!) wizards in a system where the wizards aren't curbstomping everyone and they really do need to be protected and supported. At the player level, characters are best if they specialize, but at the party level, you want your party to be diverse but synergistic. Having multiple characters of the same class (with, ultimately, the same spells known under this assumption!) goes against that goal. OR, it's more like having a guy cry "wolf". The guy before him cried "wolf" when there was a wolf, so we take the new guy seriously - but for his cry to be valid, we need to find out if there's actually a wolf. And it looks like the environment around town isn't one that can support wolves. A lone wolf might slip through, but we aren't justified living in constant predatory fear. The call is for vigilance, not paranoia. Aye, shapeshifting is one of the areas that I think will cause problems for the artificer. The question is, does it cause more problems for the artificer than it does for existing spellcasters? Because if the answer's "no", then the problem isn't with the artificer, and the problem exists in standard 5e already, and it requires a patch on the spells themselves to fix.... which will also likely solve any problems the artificer would produce with them. In either case, the answer isn't to do the designer's equivalent of the DM's banhammer. It's to start with what seems like a good or natural idea, and then expose it to rigorous testing to see if it breaks. Or, if you prefer, asking people to rip me a new one. (That's why I'm quite glad for your feedback, by the way - the more brutal it is, the tougher the test will be.) My goal wasn't to fix 5e. It was to introduce another component to 5e. I'm still testing out things like multiclassing to see if it breaks once it starts interacting with things, entirely because I want it to feel like it's a natural part of the game. Ideally, you design rules to automatically adjust to whatever parameters the DM is already using to tune his game. That's why I went the way I did with Salvage Essence and item creation - yes, it leaves a lot up to the DM, but very little is needed beyond what the DM is already doing to regulate magic items in the game, and it will automatically adjust to whatever standards the DM deemed appropriate in his game. For example, in Dark Sun, a Decanter of Endless Water would break the game, but the DM knew this in advance, and simply never places one in the game world. He did this before he knew a player wanted to play an artificer, and boom, the artificer still can't create the disruptive item. Meanwhile, in Eberron, +1 swords are not as uncommon as they are in 5e standard: not everyone has them, but they're common enough to be manufactured - so the DM decided in advance they'd be available for sale at price X, if you go through the proper channels. Then he finds out a player is playing an artificer, and he can produce +1 swords... if he sacrifices one of them and then pays (in gold and time) to build replacements, which ultimately just wind up with items that you can already buy because the DM considered them appropriate for the game. (This also leaves it open for another potential hook if you want, since it's possible that you view Cannith as aggressively protecting its procedures....). I'm still not sure if the same degree of adjustment is true for the book of schema. That's one of the reasons why I defaulted to making it about half the size of a wizard's spellbook. You have a wider possible array of spells to select from, but only half as much space to carry them by default, so presumably the amount of work you'd need to do just to reach standard wizard levels will vary in 5e standard compared to Eberron. And guessing what form that Eberron's item economy will take is pure speculation at this point. (My guesses are that they'll either change item rarities and make common items available for purchase (possibly with a licensing or black-market system to provide a DM some check on this; Star Wars: Saga Edition did this in a really simple way that made getting certain things very difficult, and changed the dynamic for shopping between civilization and the fringes, which'd work in any setting with bureaucracy, including Eberron; Rodney Thomson was a Saga designer), or they'll introduce a tag on items that marks if they're being manufactured and available for sale at their original rarity.) When I know what form a magic item economy (and by extension, scroll availability) will be in 5e, I'll revisit this. In the meantime, I'll be testing it "by the book". Any DM that varies from the book is already expecting repercussions, and by using a similar system to the wizard, any repercussions from the artificer will at least be predictable. I'm actually leaning the other way, making arcane devices only usable by the artificer themself. This also solves the problem and it prevents the spell use side of the equation from blowing up. (I'm more concerned about spell use than I am spell diversity, which is why there's so many more checks on prototypes and limits on arcane devices than there is on the spellbook.) But leaving things as they are allows the artificer to improve his warrior companions (through Weapon/Armor Augmentation and other buffs) and his mage companions (who fight using cantrips and often avoid getting hit altogether instead of enduring it, so they won't benefit from the same augmentations, but they can make use of spell scrolls and thus arcane devices). Giving everyone access to the arcane devices adds another exception to the rules, and further favors the warriors, and allows the artificer to go nova in a way that no other class has ever been able to do in 5e (for instance, an 8th level party would be able to toss out four full-strength Fireballs in one round regardless of the party's composition. You'd burn through the artificer's reserve in one round with this, but that's 32-(112)-192 damage (four separate DC 15 Dex saves to reduce it by 4-(14)-24 per successful save), which is enough to basically destroy (or at least cripple) any tough encounter at this level unless it's fire-immune. (That's the point of a nova.) Previously, this was only possible in a party of four wizards, and you've already yelled at length about how the game dies if there's more than one wizard on the team. And this is with only the most banal, obvious, and uncreative spell out there. The artificer is already a force multiplier. (Not a bad thing - that's exactly what he's designed to do.) I don't want him becoming the force with which the party fights, which is what he'd be if he's giving everyone free use of scrolls. At least not early on - again, high level alchemists have spell flasks, which do exactly what you want them to do (they act like spell scrolls that anyone can use, with a small number of limitations - and an unwritten one as well. The alchemist is unusually hungry for craft reserve, since it fuels their signature bombs, and spell flasks aren't any cheaper than normal. You could hypothetically prepare three 7th level spell flasks and pass them around at 20th level, but you'd only have 4 reserve left to spend on bombs, other potions, arcane devices, or other uses like Magecraft. The bombs and magecraft are on a short-rest recharge, but the spell flasks, arcane devices, and potions aren't.). And the 5e system is much more regulated on both of these.1) Magic item crafting takes a formula, which is only introduced by Salvage Essence or DM fiat, and even that only gives you a roadmap. The crafting system follows the same tuning knobs the DM is already using to control magic items in the game, and provides him with every possible opportunity to control what little is left.2) Universal spell access is gone, being reduced to a (SMALL) spellbook; the system itself also prevents that from easily being expanded because the scrolls simply aren't available and the research won't work. EDIT: Revisions made:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I've moved all of my designer notes and commentary to the second post, not the first. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">For consistency with Tempest and War clerics and Valor bards, the Spellforgers' Guild now gives proficiency with martial weapons instead of one martial weapon. (I feel better about doing this after removing heavy armor from them above, but misreading the more magical Valor bard as having only light armor, when it gets medium armor as well. (The artificer gets Extra Attack one level sooner and thanks to Augmentation Savant often has one or two resistances (from a small list, bypassed by magic weapons), a small amount of bonus damage, and the ability to retool his weapons to match vulnerabilities or avoid resistances/immunities given one action, while the Valor bard has more spells, higher level spells and a bonus-action Combat Inspiration.))</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">While I was looking at the Spellforgers' Guild, I renamed the somewhat lame and potentially ambiguous Augmented Infusion into the more evocative Tools of War.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Armor Augmentation now ends if you remove your armor or shield during its duration. (I had this text in Weapon Augmentation but for some reason left it out of Armor Augmentation.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Stone Construction is renamed to Hardened Construction. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Total Repair and Disable Construct have a slight tweak, changing references to disease (which constructs are generally immune to) to curses (which they aren't). Disable Construct also deals Force damage, just like Inflict Damage does.</li> </ul>I'm also considering removing the renames on Shield of Faith and Crusader's Mantle. The crunch is unchanged (apart from the general need for an object as a material component), so why should the names be changed? I'm ramping up to present the spells using the standard format, and that'll be a bit more of a space-saver. (In the meantime, there are fluff notes added.) NOTE: The only big thing that is currently being tested is the impact of switching Precision Reflexes and Infuse Bomb for alchemists - Precision Reflexes is basically a bonus-action attack if you've got an alchemical item available, and bombs are more central to the idea of the alchemist than Precision Reflexes is. However, this will enable more multiclassing options - notably, a three-level artificer dip would give you 3+Int reserve to (slowly) make bombs with, which recovers on a short rest, along with the usual other artificer goodies. I can see arcane tricksters in particular going nuts over this.</blockquote>

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