D&D 5E (2014) Does the Artificer Suck?

[Zardnaar]

I go with the assumption you will find some magic items but no guarantee you get what you want.

Magical bows and crossbows are in short supply in WotC adventures. Artificer might also be really good in Rime of the Frost Maiden.

 

[Argyle King]

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I tend to use my infusions for relatively minor items.

Most players are going to seek out the weapons/armor they want. I find that being able to give them shoes which can give them a minor-15-ft action teleport (and similar small powers) is more useful for tactical approaches to combat. That is, if they're already focusing on damage, I believe it's best to focus on giving them more opportunities to apply what their capabilities already are rather than offering the same things they can already do.

 

[Zardnaar]

My alchemist did fine at level 3. He could burn a 1st level spell slot to cast a limited version of fly that did not require concentration. It's good for obstacle challenges and a defensive move in some combat encounters, and something other casters need to give up concentrating on another spell to accomplish.

My alchemist could use flying elixirs with faerie fire and a crossbow at that level. Granting advantage early from a safe distance (when the conditions were applicable) wasn't exactly a weak choice to support the party. That spell was just effective for my character as it would have been for the typical bard or druid.

The only issue with alchemists is the extra versatility the elixirs offer burns resources faster than other subclass options.

A person doesn't make a strong argument by pointing at what another class has while ignoring what that class also lacks in comparison. Paladins and rangers might have a combat style but artificers have cantrips, ritual casting, and infusions that paladins and rangers do not. It's not like paladins and rangers can hand out mind sharpener or spell-refueling ring infusions.

Most classes use d8 as the standard, and the difference the die makes is small until the higher levels you are choosing to dismiss. ;-)

Artificers are strong in skill checks because of tool expertise, flash of genius, and various infusions that can help with checks. Infusions can be changed daily like prepped spells. Replicating useful infusions like cap of water breathing or goggles of night vision at 2nd level is granting permanent abilities that it would take a full caster until 3rd level for darkvision or 5th level for waterbreathing let alone the ranger comparison who needs to be 5th level for darkvision and 9th level for waterbreathing.

Magic items can replicate spell effects without costing spell slots. Infusions can grant these spell effects earlier than the spell casters can even cast the spells. There's a lot of utility there, and it starts as early as 2nd level.

Other classes also have utility. Artificer meet twilight cleric. Or clerics in general.

There's better support classes and better combat classes than the artificer that's their main problem.

An artificer giving away their infusions just makes themselves even weaker. There's a couple of narrow cases I would consider it eg level 9 armorer, a magic hand crossbow or other ranged weapon.

 

[Argyle King]

Other classes also have utility. Artificer meet twilight cleric. Or clerics in general.

There's better support classes and better combat classes than the artificer that's their main problem.

An artificer giving away their infusions just makes themselves even weaker. There's a couple of narrow cases I would consider it eg level 9 armorer, a magic hand crossbow or other ranged weapon.

The strength of the artificer is in having the flexibility to do both. Having a homunculus which can make use of items you create (at the cost of using a minor action to give them orders) can give the party extra options without needing to take any of the action economy from party members. Being able to have a link to them while anywhere on the same plane is also useful.

 

[Zardnaar]

The strength of the artificer is in having the flexibility to do both. Having a homunculus which can make use of items you create (at the cost of using a minor action to give them orders) can give the party extra options without needing to take any of the action economy from party members. Being able to have a link to them while anywhere on the same plane is also useful.

What can you create that's really gonna matter if you stick it on a homunculus?

 

[tetrasodium]

Let us refresh your understanding of that conversation:


So: We are talking about the situation where the rest of the party have all acquired better weapons than the infusions that you have available.
This does not just mean that the other players have exactly the right weapons for their builds, due to either DM favour or being in the lucky few tenths of a percent of parties. By the time a party has hit level 10, it will have probably found only two or three magic weapons. That might be one for each weapon-user, with no guarantees that it will be as good as an infusion weapon.


No, I'm not seeing that. Cost and availability are two different factors. Just because the DM is given the option of allowing magic items for trade, it doesn't mean that they are expected to, whereas the mundane items listed in the player's handbook have a higher expectation of being available.
DMs are expected to lace their adventures with magic items, or at least roll for them when the players find a hoard of loot. However, that is not the same as DM's allowing completely free choice of items available to buy. Even if you assume that the party can only afford to buy the same number of items that they would otherwise have found randomly, the sheer fact that they get to choose exactly what they want makes them much better.
A party that has distributed randomly-found items on the basis of "fair share" or "best fit" is generally going to be nowhere near as powerful as one which got to pick the exact thing that they want.


Even at max tier when legendary items may become a factor, bags of holding, goggles of night etc are still useful. The Artificer has those and the legendary item, can use anything they want, and has more that need attunement than the rest of the group.



Do you believe that
"runs a module as written, awards loot as written, does not allow players to purchase magic items, & chooses not to follow the XgE advice to be "generous"
has the same meaning as
"does not allow players to purchase magic items"?

There are very few artificer infusions that rise to the level you are making them out to be, it's not all that hard to beat a +1 weapon and you could refresh your own memory of the thread. "In my games PCs get whatever magic items are in the adventure (which is usually not many) or random items. Usually in a balanced party these are relevant but rarely ideal." is literally something said earlier & deserves to be laughed at rather than have class design catering to it, especially a class like artificer given the game wotc has made.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

No the AL stuff only on that dmg page for inclusiveness, the dmg & xge costs/sidebar against PHB armor prices are more than enough to make "but players need to find stuff" arguments ring hollow. For all of the talk wotc makes about magic items being optional & not needed they go to great lengths making sure there is a very low burden to obtaining them & GMs are strongly encouraged to be "generous" with them. It's also a bit disingenuous for people to compare the infusions artificers actually have listed to gear towards the legendary end of the spectrum

I think you're making magic item more common than intended by the text, while this choice is shown as the DM's choice by the book, not the expected standard campaign. 13th level characters in the campaign I currently run all have a magic weapon, but nothing more than +1. They don't suck and can handle the challenges quite well. Nothing breaks. I felt I was running it as intended... and to be honest I don't think my group deserves to be laughed at for playing this way. Especially since it's supported by the rules.


The DMG does says, as you mention, that "a character doesn't typically find rare items before around level 5", but it doesn't mean that they typically find a +1 armor at level 5. Saying that one typically doesn't become president of his country before age 40 doesn't mean people typically becomes president at 40. After level 5, it's possible to find them, but it could still be a noticeworthy event.

To support this position, I'll quote another part of the same section : "most magic items are so rare that they aren't available for purchase [...] common items, such as potions of healing, can be procured [...] Doing so is rarely as simple as walking into a shop and selecting an item from the shelf. The seller might ask for a service rather than coin". While I could understand your reading of "typically" finding items taken in isolation, I get from the remainder of the text than magic shops are inexistant (barring of course DM intervention) even for lowly healing potions and other common items. I agree that most players would be nonplussed if the famed relic they found in the tomb of a holy man was a common potion of healing, but I think there is support for a default game were magic items are quite extraordinary. In these worlds, even the so-so list of artificers infusions can shine.

Of course, you could have more magic-rich world but, to keep quoting the DMG "Magic items might be for sale in bazars or auction house in fantastical locations such as the city of Brass, the planar metropolis of Sigil or even in more ordinary cities". Basically, if you need to get to the elemental plane of fire to trade rare item like a +2 sword or a +1 armor, having the infusions is worth it. Having them available in large cities is a deviation from the intended play, and I wonder why it is supposed to be bad faith to mention that they represent a good setting for artificers to thrive.

Let's look at the actual expected distribution, since we get hard and fast rules for those and not just general DMing advice.

According to the treasure finding rule, adventuring groups can find +1 weapons on table F, +2 weapons on table G, +1 armor on table G, +3 weapons and best +1 armor on table H and a few +2 armor and +3 armor on table I. Over a full campaign, the make :

7 rolls on the 0-4 CR table, with 12% chance of making 1d4 roll on the F table and 3% chance on the G table.

At this point, they have 32% chance of not even having rolled on the relevant table. Rolling does give you 15% chance of weapon +1 and 11% of a +2 weapon on the G table and another 10% of +1 equivalent weapons. So that's on average 0.31 +1 weapon from the first table and 0.052 from the G table and 0.057 +2 weapon. Put it another way, you could find a +2 weapon before level 5, which would make artificers pale, but the odd of it are a little under 2%. The odd of having no magic weapon at all are 68%.

18 rolls on the 5-10 table, with 11% chance of making 1d4 rolls on the F table, 4% on the G table and 2% on the H table

After the middle of their adventuring life provided they don't end their campaign here, the odd of having no magics weapon are much lower, but still 17.8%. On average, they would get a little over one magic weapon at this point (for the whole group), when the artificer can assuredly provide a +2 weapon. It is its apex, though, as he won't be able to get +3 weapons through infusions. However, the remaining odds on the :

12 rolls on the 11-16 table
8 rolls on the CR17+ table

Will just guarantee that everyone gets a +1 weapon, not a +2 one. So I definitely think that the playstyle where everyone gets his own +1 weapon around level 5, at the tier barrier, isn't the "default" playstayle against which the game is balanced.

You mention Xanatar's advice to be "generous" with magic item. It's true it is written in XGtE, though the quote is a little longer "Magic items can go from nice to necessary in the rare group that has no spellcasters, no monk, and non NPCs capable of casting Magic Weapon. Having no magic makes it extremely difficult for a party to overcome monster with resistances or immunity to nonmagical damage. In such a game, you'll want to be generous with magic weapons or else avoid using such monsters." I don't read this sentence as an incentive to be generous in all case, only in the extremely narrow case described just above. I have, in my experience, never met a group without magic users. I won't say they don't exist and maybe are even common, but I feel they are a deviation from the "intended average" against which the magic item rules are balanced.

The rules Xanathar provide for given items, but over the 1-10 levels of play, a group is only supposed to acquire 7 uncommon major items and 1 rare major item. If you respect the roughly 15% distribution of magic weapons among major items, that's a 1 or 2 +1 weapon among the whole group and maybea +1 armour... that are the staples of the artificer's infusions. In the extreme case of a party without spellcaster, where the DM is incited to be generous with magic weapons (but not advised to change the overall number of magic item), the 20 major items the party will find over its adventuring carreer wil be just enough to equip them all with +2 weapons and armors.

 

[Ashrym]

Like going from talking about people playing up being able to choose a particular weapon rather than whatever the module happens to have to some absurd monty haul extreme even though some have tried to make it out as such.

No the AL stuff only on that dmg page for inclusiveness, the dmg & xge costs/sidebar against PHB armor prices are more than enough to make "but players need to find stuff" arguments ring hollow. For all of the talk wotc makes about magic items being optional & not needed they go to great lengths making sure there is a very low burden to obtaining them & GMs are strongly encouraged to be "generous" with them. It's also a bit disingenuous for people to compare the infusions artificers actually have listed to gear towards the legendary end of the spectrum

If a player wants to play an artificer in a campaign where the GM runs a module as written, awards loot as written, does not allow players to purchase magic items, & chooses not to follow the XgE advice to be "generous" that gm should say "no artificer". The solution is not to design the artificer for a spherical cow that does not match the game design & advice wotc has published involving magic items.

I'll add a few citations here to discuss.

Are Magic Items Necessary in a Campaign?

The D&D game is built on the assumption that magic items appear sporadically and that they are always a boon, unless an item bears a curse. Characters and monsters are built to face each other without the help of magic items, which means that having a magic item always makes a character more powerful or versatile than a generic character of the same level. As DM, you never have to worry about awarding magic items just so the characters can keep up with the campaign's threats. Magic items are truly prizes. Are they useful? Absolutely. Are they necessary? No.

Magic items can go from nice to necessary in the rare group that has no spellcasters, no monk, and no NPCs capable of casting magic weapon. Having no magic makes it extremely difficult for a party to overcome monsters that have resistance or immunity to nonmagical damage. In such a game, you'll want to be generous with magic weapons or else avoid using such monsters.

Magic items can be a way of balancing a party against monsters where the expectation is the party has weapons to face such monsters, but the monsters themselves aren't necessary to have in the first place either.

The default assumption in game design is magic items are not required because there's an assumption someone will cast spells.

Behind the Design: Magic Item Distribution

The Dungeon Master's Guide assumes a certain amount of treasure will be found over the course of a campaign. Over Twenty levels of typical play, the game expects forty-five rolls on the Treasure Hoard tables, distributed as follows:

• Seven rolls on the Challenge 0-4 table
• Eighteen rolls on the Challenge 5-10 table
• Twelve rolls on the Challenge 11-16 table
• Eight rolls on the Challenge 17+ table

Because many of the table results call for more than one magic item, those forty-five roll will result in the characters obtaining roughly one hundred items. The optional system described here yields the same number of items, distributed properly throughout the spectrum of rarity, while enabling you to control exactly which items the characters have a chance of acquiring.

The default assumption also exists that magic items will be found following the treasure table rolls. This assumption does not mean the items are necessary, or that the items are applicable, or that the items are "good"; only that magic items do fall into the hands of the party.

The optional magic item awards system is there for DM's who want more structure and less random in that assignment. They don't change the default assumptions.

This is also a demonstration on math with the artificers. There are more than 100 possible infusions because of the magic item replication options. Not all of those are applicable (or even desirable to spend the resource on) but they do demonstrate that unless the a party of 5 character has even one quarter of the infusion options or better (not all of which are available in the magic items) then the party has a lot more magic items than the tables would give.

There needs to be a massive excess of magic items beyond the system probability for infusions to become marginalized.

Crafting a Magic Item

Magic items are the DM's purview, so you decide how they fall into the party's possession. As an option, you can allow player characters to craft magic items.

Those charts and prices you gave earlier help a DM in determining what might be appropriate or inappropriate at certain levels, but there is never a point where players determine what they do or do not have for magic items outside of AL rules, which are there to help streamline between different DM's for the same characters. AL rules are not the default assumption. They are the "house rules" for a specific gaming environment.

This also applies to artificers. The benefit for crafting items is only there if the DM allows it, but the default is that NPC's are the crafters. It's a ribbon ability, not an expectation. The infusions are the guarantee.

Crafting Magic Items

Creating a magic item requires more than just time, effort, and materials. It is a long-term process that involves one or more adventures to track down rare materials and the lore needed to create the item.

...

To start with, a character needs a formula for a magic item in order to create it. The formula is like a recipe. it lists the materials needed and steps required to make the item.

An item invariably requires an exotic material to complete it. This material can range from the skin of a yeti to a vial of water take from a whirlpool on the Elemental Plane of Water. Finding that material should take place as part of an adventure...

The process goes on to picking appropriate locations and monsters, and adds guidelines for CR's based on rarity of the items. This is still optional additional work to expand on the DMG and default that magic items are meant to be challenging to acquire.

Buying and Selling

Unless you decide your campaign works otherwise, most magic items are so rare that they aren't available for purchase. Common items, such as a potion of healing, can be procured from an alchemist, herbalist, or spellcaster. Doing so is rarely as simple as walking into a shop and selecting an item from a shelf. The seller might ask for a service, rather than coin.

In a large city with an academy of magic, or a major temple, buying and selling magic items might be possible, at your discretion. If your world includes a large number of adventurers engaged in retrieving ancient magic items, trade in these items might be more common. Even so, it's likely to remain similar to the market for fine art in the real world, with invitation-only auctions and a tendency to attract thieves.
Selling magic items is difficult in most D&D worlds primarily because of the challenge in finding a buyer. Plenty of people might like to have a magic sword, but few of them can afford it. Those who can afford such an item usually have more practical things to spend on. See chapter 6, "Between Adventures," for one way to handle selling magic items.

In your campaign, magic items might be prevalent enough that adventurers can buy and sell them with some efforts. magi items might be for sale in bazaars or auction houses in fantastical locations, such as the City of Brass, the planar metropolis of Sigil, or even in more ordinary cities. Sale of magic items might be highly regulated, accompanied by a thriving black market. Artificers might craft items for use by military forces or adventurers, as they do in the world of Eberron. you might also allow characters to craft their own magic items, as discussed in chapter 6.

You have it backwards. The default assumption is magic items are rare, random, and hard to acquire outside of finding those items. A DM giving out the items is the exception, not the rule. It's a fairly common exception as part of the reward system but those rewards are not numerous enough to negatively impact artificer infusions.

It's not that a DM needs to accommodate the campaign for artificers; it's the DM is over-accommodating other PC's beyond the default assumptions if an issue does occur where artificers struggle in this department.

The only way for magic items to be excessive is if the DM goes against the default assumptions to make them more available.

 

[Ashrym]

Other classes also have utility. Artificer meet twilight cleric. Or clerics in general.

There's better support classes and better combat classes than the artificer that's their main problem.

An artificer giving away their infusions just makes themselves even weaker. There's a couple of narrow cases I would consider it eg level 9 armorer, a magic hand crossbow or other ranged weapon.

How is that applicable when comparing artificers to rangers and paladins?

We aren't comparing artificers to a class with the damage of a paladin and utility of a cleric. It's one or the other, not both.

Twilight clerics also don't have infusions, or expertise in tools, or flash of genius. They have domain abilities that can be replicated by infusions and twilight sanctuary. If we're comparing subclasses then artillerist canons grant more diversity in options over twilight sanctuary and can be created more often using spell slots over channel divinity.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

There are very few artificer infusions that rise to the level you are making them out to be, it's not all that hard to beat a +1 weapon

OK. So since you're saying "+1 weapon", you're talking about an artificer under level 6, where infusions become better than +1 weapons due to their additional effects.
And since you're talking about "beating" +1 weapons, which are uncommon, we're talking about rare items. Rare Major magic items since its weapons.
So according to the tables in XGE, that you're using as a guide: Levels 1-4 a party has no chance of finding a Rare major magic item. We've established that you're referring to under level 6, so level 5 is the only period for a party to discover a Rare magic weapon that meets your criteria.
By the time a party hits level 10, they should have found one Rare major item. The closer the party gets to level 10, the more likely that that is the level at which they get it. So there is probably a 10% chance of it occurring at level 5, if that. Maybe 30% chance that this Rare major item happens to be a weapon. A one in three chance that your character is the one who gets the weapon rather than someone else in the party.
Note that this is "a weapon". No guarantee its one you can use, let alone the optimal choice.

So it would appear that when you claim "its not all that hard", you were referring to a 1% chance.
Now a DM can always choose to be more generous to the party by giving them more magic items, or allowing them to choose whatever they want as opposed to the standard rolls. Does that tend to happen a lot in your group?

and you could refresh your own memory of the thread. "In my games PCs get whatever magic items are in the adventure (which is usually not many) or random items. Usually in a balanced party these are relevant but rarely ideal." is literally something said earlier & deserves to be laughed at rather than have class design catering to it, especially a class like artificer given the game wotc has made.

So, that depicts what seems to be a more standard and common way of playing D&D.

Could you perhaps explain why that style deserves to be laughed at rather than accepting that it is just as valid as your own where the DM appears to be considerably more generous to you?