D&D 5E Does the Artificer Suck?

[Zardnaar]

What?

Misty step uses one of his 2 x 2nd level slots (taking away a smite). He only has 2 x 2nds for those 6 encounters (and 4 x 1sts).

Im struggling to see how he outshines the Artificer over 6 encounters, barring you not keeping a close eye on his resource expenditure as DM.



What was casting Chain Lighting vs 6th level PCs?

It deals (on average) 45 damage to every single PC (barring a successful Dex save, which is unlikely for many PCs of that level vs the likely save DC of 15 or so) likely resulting in a TPK.

CR 8 or 9 invoker.

They also had another encounter with a spellcaster.

Alot of them have absorb elements.

 

[Flamestrike]

CR 8 or 9 invoker.

They also had another encounter with a spellcaster.

Ouch. Fair enough CR wise (Hard fight) as long as he was on his own, but the potential for a TPK is strong (particularly if he had time to buff in advance with Stoneskin and Mirror image, and you swapped out Burning hands for shield).

Even with absorb elements, it does like 23 or so damage on a failed save (and none of those PCs are proficient in Dex saves) which is a lot at 6th level for that party. The Cleric and Paladin likely take 45 damage, and are dropped to 0 HP as a result.

Alot of them have absorb elements.

Burns a reaction and a 1st level slot.

Question for you: As DM, do you track their resource use during the game (either keeping rough tabs on it, or accurately, by recording it yourself?)

Also, the Paladin and Cleric dont have it, and likely dumped Dex for heavy armor.

Next time have the spellcasters mooks run around provoking AoO. (readying an action to just before the enemy casters turn if necessary) Then hit them with an energy spell from the caster.

Watch their faces when you remind them that they cant cast absorb elements as they've already used their reactions for AoO's.

 

[Stoutstien]

Xanathars has both downtime and item crafting rules in it.

What does crafting have to do with the attunement cap? Artificer gets a bonus slot at lv 10/14/18 for a total of 6 or 7 with wand sheath.

 

[Flamestrike]

What does crafting have to do with the attunement cap?

Because you can craft things to fill those attunement slots?

 

[Stoutstien]

Because you can craft things to fill those attunement slots?

Only really a boon at lv 20 due to capstone. It's a top tier capstone but before then attunement slots are likely to stay empty unless your table tosses magic gear out like a 3.5 game

 

[Flamestrike]

Only really a boon at lv 20 due to capstone. It's a top tier capstone but before then attunement slots are likely to stay empty unless your table tosses magic gear out like a 3.5 game

We were literally just talking about the Artificer crafting his own magic items.

Not infusions. Item crafting.

In any event, at 14th level an Artificer has 5 items attuned and infused (out of 10 infusions known). Just from his own list this can be:

• A cloak of protection (+1 AC and Saves)
• Belt of Hill giant Strength (Str 21)
• Amulet of Health (Con 19)
• Boots of Flying (at will flight basically)
• Ring of Protection (another +1 to AC and Saves)

If he's actually found (or crafted) a better item, he can swap one of the above out for that item, and replace it with +2 Armor, a +1 repulsion Shield, a +2 Weapon or Wand etc.

Heck, at this level he should have an AC of around (+2 Half plate, +1 Repulsion shield, +1 ring, +1 cloak) 24 or so as a ball park (higher with racial and feat choices - integrated armor from a Warforged and Fighting Style defence pushes it to 26) before shield spells or finding better gear as he adventures (or simply making it himself) or whatever.

 

[tetrasodium]

Xanathars has both downtime and item crafting rules in it.

I literally cite the page number for that design outline waiting to be turned into a finished crafting system in the post you quoted. the xge123 downtime revisited has absolutely nothing to do with the lack of a downtime by level table in 5e. The mere presence of rules having anything to do with crafting or downtime is not the same as a specific rule & pointing at a rule about using downtime to cover up for 5e's lack of downtime by level guidance only highlights the glaring omission. You could be forgiven for not knowing what a wealth/downtime by level table is if you were new to d&d and similar ttrps though so here is a history lesson. In 3.5 you had this simple table in the dmg

Spoiler: character wealth

4e tried a lot of different things including magic items with levels and it had this.
To hear some of the defenders of artificer as is & people saying it's too powerful go on in this thread one of the big reasons why too many parts of the artificer feels like wotc was trying to keep every part from moving out of "almost good" into "yea that's good" is because of this 1th level ribbon

That line of thought is not unreasonable & could even be a good one, but the only guidance wotc has given GMs is

Spoiler: xge135

which conspicuously does not include the letters "gp", words "gold", "platinum", or "downtime". In short wotc has given artificer a ribbon that is the equivalent of a particular region changing the speed limit signs from the standard measurements of speed known as miles or km per hour to a measure of efficiency such as miles or km per gallon.

That chart on xge136 and the crafting design outline n xge126 are moved from being annoying omission that mostly affects every class to a similar degree into a position of serious need because the artificer has a class feature depending on both parts existing & being complete. You can't have a class making sacrifices balanced around an expected level of crafting currency/resource availability and not state the expected availability of those resources.

 

[Stoutstien]

We were literally just talking about the Artificer crafting his own magic items.

Not infusions. Item crafting.

In any event, at 14th level an Artificer has 5 items attuned and infused (out of 10 infusions known). Just from his own list this can be:

• A cloak of protection (+1 AC and Saves)
• Belt of Hill giant Strength (Str 21)
• Amulet of Health (Con 19)
• Boots of Flying (at will flight basically)
• Ring of Protection (another +1 to AC and Saves)

If he's actually found (or crafted) a better item, he can swap one of the above out for that item, and replace it with +2 Armor, a +1 repulsion Shield, a +2 Weapon or Wand etc.

Heck, at this level he should have an AC of around (+2 Half plate, +1 Repulsion shield, +1 ring, +1 cloak) 24 or so as a ball park (higher with racial and feat choices - integrated armor from a Warforged and Fighting Style defence pushes it to 26) before shield spells or finding better gear as he adventures (or simply making it himself) or whatever.

you can get mid 30s for AC with a selfish artificer without much effort. having super high avoidance based defense is a very strong suit for the class with both AC and saves. hence why they can handle extreme cercumstances like face tanking a dragon solo while the rest of the party is off dealing with the actual goal.

as far as crafting goes, i think focusing on what they could achive in short bursts is a better judgment point because downtime is subjective to each table but everyone takes S/L rests. Giving the party nearly bottomless level one spell slots is something that is often overlooked. the 2 hour per scroll lines up perfectly with the long rest limits and 12.5 gp is nothing for an extra slot. your can remove the downtime factor which is the big hangup for a lot of people when it come to a crafty focused class.

 

[Flamestrike]

you can get mid 30s for AC with a selfish artificer without much effort. having super high avoidance based defense is a very strong suit for the class with both AC and saves. hence why they can handle extreme cercumstances like face tanking a dragon solo while the rest of the party is off dealing with the actual goal.

My point was they can have a decent defence (including +2 to saves from a ring and cloak) pretty easy.

Im not dissing the Artificer here. I think its a solid 'multi-role' class, without being OP or underpowered in anyway.

 

[Flamestrike]

I literally cite the page number for that design outline waiting to be turned into a finished crafting system in the post you quoted. the xge123 downtime revisited has absolutely nothing to do with the lack of a downtime by level table in 5e.

There is no 'Downtime by level'. It's not level dependent (however the rarity of items you can create is, and gold is another factor).

Artificers can simply create a common item in a single day, costing them only 50gp to do so. An uncommon item takes 5 days and 250gp (going by the DMG). Halve that for a consumable.

They can pretty easily outfit the party with +1 weapons pretty early on (3rd level) for not much gold at all (4 PCs and 4 magic weapons = 1000gp)

Havent got XgtE here, but I presume (once they have a formula for an item) they can really churn those suckers out making a tidy profit.