D&D 5E Does the Artificer Suck?

[tetrasodium]

Only in the whiteroom in a 1 vs 1.
If you in a team of 5 can protect the other 4 who deal more damage, you win.
The argument you mention is true for the opponents too. If they can just wipe your damagedealers, you won't do damage.

Edit: even in a 1 vs 1, if my defense is so good, that I can negate 1 round of your attacks more on average, being theoretically down 1 round earlier is no problem at all. If I have 4 more AC than you, it is a good chance that I stand longer than you.

That bolded bit is another problem. 5e did two things relevant to that

• A: it drastically scaled back the ability of casters to use control & buff/debuff spells for that purpose with things like overuse of concentration & directly nerfing the spells themselves
• B: it tuned a lot of game elements to make it not that big of a deal. It's not a big deal if a caster saves a bit of incoming damage with control spells because recovery is trivialized & with yoyo healing endorsed by the system players aren't really at any more or less risk either way.

Edit... pre-spell storing item they don't really have the spell slots for this anyways

 

[FrogReaver]

• B: it tuned a lot of game elements to make it not that big of a deal. It's not a big deal if a caster saves a bit of incoming damage with control spells because recovery is trivialized & with yoyo healing endorsed by the system players aren't really at any more or less risk either way.

Edit... pre-spell storing item they don't really have the spell slots for this anyways

*Note that if B: is true then DPR isn't a big deal either for the same reasons.

 

[FrogReaver]

Only in the whiteroom in a 1 vs 1.
If you in a team of 5 can protect the other 4 who deal more damage, you win.
The argument you mention is true for the opponents too. If they can just wipe your damagedealers, you won't do damage.

Edit: even in a 1 vs 1, if my defense is so good, that I can negate 1 round of your attacks more on average, being theoretically down 1 round earlier is no problem at all. If I have 4 more AC than you, it is a good chance that I stand longer than you.

OA's also serve as a fantastic way to greatly increase DPR vs enemies that would otherwise be set on ignoring your high AC. So when it's not protecting you directly or allies indirectly (enemies using disengage actions to get to allies) it tends to significantly raise DPR.

Also important to note, Artificers don't require DPR feats so can easily take the sentinel feat.

 

[Stoutstien]

OA's also serve as a fantastic way to greatly increase DPR vs enemies that would otherwise be set on ignoring your high AC. So when it's not protecting you directly or allies indirectly (enemies using disengage actions to get to allies) it tends to significantly raise DPR.

Also important to note, Artificers don't require DPR feats so can easily take the sentinel feat.

Quite efficient on the battle Smith thanks to having 2 AOs coupled with the radiant infusion and having a high defensive ceiling. Not leaving a lot of options for them to choose from.

 

[FrogReaver]

A giidoffense always beats defense in every edition of D&D.

This is demonstrably not true for a wide variety of circumstances. Consider a 2 PC example with a melee character and a ranged character against a melee enemy. All have 30ft speed. The melee PC engages the enemy. The enemy has a choice:

1. Disengage and move up to the ranged PC. The ranged PC can disengage in response and the melee PC can move up and attack again the next round. If the enemy insists on disengaging to avoid the OA every turn then this option will lead to sure defeat.

2. Attack the melee PC. Melee PC stands and fights. Ranged PC shoots. Repeat. The question here is whether the melee PC would be better off with more defense or more offense in this scenario. Well, it's going to depend on the exact values of defense and offense and by what percent the parties damage increases from the melee PC doing more damage vs how much less percent damage he would take by going for more defense. Unless you can increase your individual damage alot, it's most likely that a moderate increase in defense helps more in this scenario.

3. Move and attack the ranged PC while taking an OA from the melee PC. Ranged PC will disengage straight back 30 ft. The melee PC will dash and position himself between the enemy and ranged PC (forcing the enemy to have to dash to reach the ranged PC next turn. Unless the enemy starts attacking the melee PC he will get no more attacks off against the ranged PC (at least till terrain forces a movement change) and the melee PC will just OA him to death or if he tries to disengage the ranged PC will just attack him to death as he continues to fall back. Thus, besides the initial attacks against the ranged PC, we are back in a situation where the enemies only real course of action is to attack the melee PC, which makes all the stipulations from option 2 above apply. Essentially a moderate amount of defense will be better unless it's a large increase in party offense that can be gained instead.

*Note, changing movement speeds of enemies or allies and/or giving them resource using movement/defensive/control abilities can drastically change the dynamics. But the point is that a brute enemy with 30ft movement and allies with 30 ft movement are quite common and this is one scenario where we can easily demonstrate that defensive abilities on the melee PC in the right party will outperform offensive ones.

*Also note, adding in more melee allies can also change the value of defense. If the enemy can choose to hit a more damaging less defensive melee ally he will almost always choose to do so (assuming he has that kind of tactical awareness and doesn't have emotions clouding his judgement). So in some sense it doesn't make sense to have significantly more defensive capabilities than your melee counterparts. Even if it makes sense to have more defensive capabilities than your ranged counterparts.

 

[Weiley31]

Is the Armorer really that much of a Trap Option? They seem pretty cool.

 

[TheSword]

This. One of the most unbalanced PCs we had in the last few campaigns was a Warforged Armored Artificer. Removed!

Can I ask what was it about them that felt OP?

I’m genuinely interested. Don’t really have a dog in the fight, my players Warforged Artificer is the first time I’ve seen one in use.

 

[FrogReaver]

Is the Armorer really that much of a Trap Option? They seem pretty cool.

Cool yes. Damage isn't the only metric but it's important one to recognize. In that line of thought an evoker wizard at level 11 using firebolt does more direct damage than them.

 

[ECMO3]

A giidoffense always beats defense in every edition of D&D.

Death is the ultimate debuff. If they're dead already they don't get to hit you back.

Or even if you kill them one round quicker.

That is not true if you measure offense vs defense on a hit point to hit point basis. When people say this they are usually comparing AC increases (for defense) to damage increases or hit increases for offense. If you compare it hit points done to hit point saved it is the other way around - mathmatically averaging 10 more damage per turn is actually substantially weaker than taking on average of 10 less damage per turn (note this is an average of 10 less taken per turn, not 10 less when you get hit).

As a party you have a pool of hp - both between short rests and for the whole day. That is the maximum amout of damage the party can take in an adventuring day. On the other hand there is no maximum to the amount a party can deal on an adventuring day. As long as you can buy more time to attack you can do more damage.

 

[Stoutstien]

Is the Armorer really that much of a Trap Option? They seem pretty cool.

Not really. It's a little slow going at first and finding armor to take advantage of the Prof can be a little dm dependent but overall it does a good job at what it sets out to do.