D&D 5E Does the Artificer Suck?

[Stoutstien]

Infusions are a class feature so that kinda is the point of the statement of keeping the comparison fair.

Flight is extremely important for a tank because you have full control of positioning, can bypass area denial effects, and double down on control/damage. It's one of the biggest flaws of barbarians they struggle to keep pressure because they can only threaten what they can reach. You want a tank? Have an artificer yank target back into the cloud of daggers from above dropping them prone, adding fall damage, and procing the AoE. Could even ready an action for this.


Cloak of protection is +1 AC and +1 to all saves. If your not using the push back of the shield that choice is even worse than it was originally.

EHP do exist. You can calculate them and talk about them in a context anyone can see. 20 AC and 100 HP is more EHP than 10 AC and 100HP. Cloak of protection is better for staying power than doubling your HD rolls.

Artificers address challenges differently than most classes so they need to keep some flexibility on hand. You are a swiss army knife not a Hammer.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Irrelevant. The point is that the BS will get hit, will need to rely on those HP, and will drop more often or be forced to fall back more often, if the DM is actually challenging the group.

If you’re casting upcast false life, blur, and multiple shields in every single fight, you are bringing less efficacy to your party than any other Wizard build would.

Just knowing that you don’t use spell slots out of combat makes me wince at the thought of your Bladesinger in any party I’ve been involved in.

So, for the last time. We play vastly different games, CR is useless, and there is no point in continuing this.

But in an all wizard party, it might not be the bladesingers role to cast spells out of combat, but instead be tanky. No matter what a wizard could bring to the table otherwise, you can "waste" all your slots on tankiness and be reasonably useful for that purpose.
And on days, where you don't have to tank, you can do wizardly too.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

But in an all wizard party, it might not be the bladesingers role to cast spells out of combat, but instead be tanky. No matter what a wizard could bring to the table otherwise, you can "waste" all your slots on tankiness and be reasonably useful for that purpose.
And on days, where you don't have to tank, you can do wizardly too.

You can do whatever you want, and if you’re having fun, great!

But the argument upthread was very much that wizards are the best tanks. They aren’t, especially not the whole day, and especially not if they are trying to be unhittable turtles with no meaningful offense or utility.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

You can do whatever you want, and if you’re having fun, great!

But the argument upthread was very much that wizards are the best tanks. They aren’t, especially not the whole day, and especially not if they are trying to be unhittable turtles with no meaningful offense or utility.

No argument there. You know I am at your side here.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

No argument there. You know I am at your side here.

Yeah for sure. Sorry if it came across aggro.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Because on an artificer I’d almost never expect to get as many magic items as the other PCs. A magic weapon or shield or whatever would be fine, though.

Why wouldn't you have the same number of magic items as the character that you are directly comparing against? Surely you should try to make external factors like DM generosity the same across all comparisons?

 

[tetrasodium]

Why wouldn't you have the same number of magic items as the character that you are directly comparing against? Surely you should try to make external factors like DM generosity the same across all comparisons?

Thsts a big part of the artificer's problem. Artificial er gets magic items as a class feature, other classes get class features plus magic items equal or better from adventuring. Without a wbl or similar system the artificer can't point at they cant even make a solid case when they get slighted in treasure.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Why wouldn't you have the same number of magic items as the character that you are directly comparing against? Surely you should try to make external factors like DM generosity the same across all comparisons?

It really doesn’t matter. I’m not trying to like, map out a spreadsheet, here.

 

[Stoutstien]

It really doesn’t matter. I’m not trying to like, map out a spreadsheet, here.

It does matter though. It's especially true if you're giving the fighter an item that moves his attack and damage up alongside overcoming resistance or immunity to non magical weapon attacks.

Way back at the beginning of this thread there was discussion on issues with DM's own personal cognitive biases on how the class is structured could affect the balance. That's not something that you really can fault the class design on.

It's in the same vein of thought of if a character takes great weapon master or sharpshooter the DM inadvertently just starts adding HP/AC to all their NPCs.

 

[FrogReaver]

It does matter though. It's especially true if you're giving the fighter an item that moves his attack and damage up alongside overcoming resistance or immunity to non magical weapon attacks.

Way back at the beginning of this thread there was discussion on issues with DM's own personal cognitive biases on how the class is structured could affect the balance. That's not something that you really can fault the class design on.

It's in the same vein of thought of if a character takes great weapon master or sharpshooter the DM inadvertently just starts adding HP/AC to all their NPCs.

It depends to some degree on what you view the DMs role to be.

when my players heavily optimize they tend to face harder challenges and encounters than a less optimized party would.

That doesn’t mean they don’t get to face opponents they will decimate, but that they will face those and also ones that are going to be challenging.

Optimization is a bit of an illusion - not totally - but DM behavior suggests they will mitigate some of the advantages of optimization in encounter design at least sometimes.

It often means playing characters thematically and holding back their power and tactics to some degree in play makes for a ‘more optimized and effective’ character as you can always push yourself to the next level in dire circumstances.