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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Levistus's_Leviathan" data-source="post: 8378444" data-attributes="member: 7023887">You did warn us, but this is a big, rambling mess. I will do my best to respond to the parts of it that I can.I love the concept of artificers, too! I always have! As a DM, I allowed my players to play the UA versions, as well as a few homebrew versions I came across that I liked (XP to Level 3's in a level 1-20 campaign, once).I disagree (I wouldn't be responding unless I disagreed, but I wanted to make this clear). The Artificer, IMO, is one of the best designed classes in all of 5e, with well-thought-out abilities that permeate nearly every aspect of the class and its subclasses (not all, but nearly all. I'm looking at you, Alchemist), and it has a flexibility and versatility that was only seen in Warlocks in 5e up until Eberron: Rising from the Last War came out.This is wrong. I'm sorry, but it's wrong. The Battlesmith, Artillerist, and Alchemist are no more MAD than the Hexblade Warlock. You need your Spellcasting Ability Score (INT or CHA) to be the highest of all of your Ability Scores, but you also need decent Dexterity (14 for Medium Armor, or 16 if you have/want Medium Armor Master) and good Constitution (16ish) in order to be as effective as you can be in combat.That's not hard. With Point Buy/Standard Array and the new Tasha's Customize Your Origin feature, you can start out with at least a 16 in both Constitution and Intelligence (or 15 CON and 17 INT if you want to set yourself up for half-feats in the future). Then, if you're using Standard Array, put your 13 in Dexterity and wait for a half-feat in the future (Resilient, Elven Accuracy if you're an elf/half-elf, Piercer/Slasher, Skill Expert, etc). That's 1 ASI to get yourself as MAD as you need to be, and then you'll have to use 2 more ASIs to max out your Spellcasting ability modifier at a +5 (like everyone else in the game has to). You get 5 ASIs (6 if you're a Vhuman or Custom Lineage character), so you still have 2-3 ASIs to put into whatever you want (Medium Armor Master, War Caster, Spell Sniper, etc). If you're a Half-Elf or Mountain Dwarf, you can use even less ASIs to complete your MADness.You can use any infused item as a spellcasting focus for your Artificer spells. If you're a Battlesmith, you can use your Enhanced Weapon/Radiant Weapon/Repeating Shot/Repulsion Shield as your spellcasting focus.Sure, you can't use any cool magic items that your DM gives you as a spellcasting focus, however, which IMO is a potential problem, but it's not that big of a deal, especially because quite a few of the infusions have unique effects that official magic items don't grant.Repeating Shot still works on Firearms, because it ignores the Ammunition property. You don't need to reload any ammunition if the infusion makes it so your weapon doesn't need ammunition. You can have a Repeating Shot Pistol in one hand and a Shield (potentially a Repulsion Shield) in the other hand no problem. Sure, you can't do that for two-handed firearms, but every martial character that uses ranged weapons has to choose good ranged damage or better AC.You can still take Gunner or Crossbow Expert. You have enough ASIs for Crossbow Expert/Gunner and Sharpshooter.Actually, all of the Smite Spells on the Battle Smith list work on all weapon attacks, including ranged ones. So, you can Branding Smite or Banishing Smite on your ranged weapon attacks.No one except the Bladesinger during Bladesong gets to add their Intelligence to your Armor Class. Hexblades don't get to. Even armorers that choose to use Light or Medium Armor don't get to. This is an invalid complaint, just like complaining "my Paladin doesn't get to use Charisma for their attack and damage rolls!", IMO.Uh, no, they can't (not through the Artificer features, at least). The other Artificers don't get any feature that lets them get an Iron Defender. That's like complaining that a Beast-Master Ranger is useless because any DM can give any character an Animal Companion.It's like a Paladin's Smite feature, but a bit less damage (or healing, if you want). Sure, it's no Hex, it doesn't take spell slots or action economy, can help allies that are at low hit points, isn't concentration, and can be stacked with Hex/Hunter's Mark if you get it through the Fey Touched Feat from Tasha's.We don't know exactly why they got rid of Arcane Weapon. It is a shame, yes, but IMO, it's not a huge deal.Uh, this is also not a valid complaint against artificers. This doesn't come up in most campaigns, and most DMs don't have NPCs like this.Not for Artificers. INT is not the weakest stat in 5e for Artificers, it's the best stat. Artificers can also use Radiant Weapon on two-handed weapons, so you're wrong there, too. Also, you can use an infused weapon as a spellcasting focus, so you don't need a tool or other item in order to cast your spells. (And, no, Artificers are not dependent on Strength, especially because of the Armor of Magical Strength.Uh, there are plenty of good concentration spells that the Artificer gets at fairly early levels (Guidance, Create Bonfire, Tasha's Caustic Brew, Blur, Enlarge/Reduce, Invisibility, Levitate, Spider Climb, Web, etc). Also, you're not trading full casting for cantrips, because no one does that. You're trading Fighting Styles, a d10 hit die, martial weapons, and Extra Attack for Cantrips and Infusions, which is well-worth the trade, IMO.Artillerists' Temporary Hit Points cannon does something that no one else in the game could do (up until the Twilight Cleric came out), grant a good amount of temporary hit points every round as a bonus action. They're not the best blasters (in terms of damage) in the game, but they were never meant to be.Uh, just about as good as simple weapons (in damage dice) that use elemental damage (and some of the best types of elemental damage), literally cannot be removed/disarmed from you unwillingly, using your Spellcasting modifier to hit instead of having to worry about Dexterity or Strength, and have benefits that none of the simple weapons in the game have (Thunder Gauntlets tank support, extra Lighting damage). So, yeah, they are better than simple weapons, and better than most martial weapons (if not in damage dice, they are in overall effects).Who cares about Grappling, Jumping, Climbing, or Strength saving throws when you can get Armor of Magical Strength, Boots of Springing and Striding, a Rope of Climbing, Winged Boots, and similar magic items from your Infusions?Also, you should have the best AC in the game. If you don't, your DM is either being overly-generous with magic items at the table, or you're in a party with people that max out AC and basically nothing else in their characters (through Paladins/martial-Clerics with Shield of Faith, Bladesingers with maxed out DEX and INT with the Shield spell, and similar characters). You'll have Enhanced Defense Armor (probably Plate), a Repulsion Shield (once you get to level 6), and a Cloak and Ring of Protection once you get high enough level to unlock those infusions through Replicate Magic Item (and you will have the attunement and infusion slots to have them, too, because of your Armor Modifications feature). That'll make your AC be at least 25 all the time (at level 14, though, but it will be high at previous levels, too). If you cast Haste on yourself, too, that will be a 27 for AC. You can also multiclass or take a feat to get Shield, so if you spam it enough, you'll have an effective AC of about 32. Good luck hitting that AC unless you're the Tarrasque.What the heck are you talking about? They get Ray of Sickness and Cloudkill, which do poison damage. They get Flaming Sphere to do Fire Damage, Acid Arrow to do Acid, and Blight to do necrotic damage. Those are all of the damage types that they get bonuses to through Alchemical Savant, and it takes up 5 of the 10 spells that they get from the Alchemist spell list. Then, they also get access to two healing spells through their subclass spell list and have other healing spells on their class spell list that can also benefit from the same feature.They 100% have spells that can make use of the Alchemical Savant feature.They're not "essentially equivalent to Warlock invocations". They work similarly (through scaling, having a pool of them that you can choose from, and letting you change one that you know on a level up), but they're not equivalent. The benefits of Infusions are overall better than Warlock Invocations. There's a reason why Artificers get less Infused Items than Warlocks get Invocations Known, and that's because Infusions are more powerful and versatile (through infusions being allowed to be put on nearly any item, being able to swap out the infusions you know when you take a long rest, and being able to swap the items that are infused when you take a long rest).Not all infusions take Attunement Slots (only 9 of the 15 do, and I'm not even counting Replicate Magic Item), and you can have other people attune to the magic items you create (including your Steel Defender/Homunculus Servant). You also want to attune to magic items if you get high enough level (due to the capstone ability). Then, there's absolutely no disadvantage to being "forced to equip mundane items", because IMO, I'd rather have the versatility of choosing what weapon/armor/shield that I want to be using every day instead of being tied down to an immutable DM-given magic item.There is a cost to making magic items, as described in the Downtime sections of the PHB/DMG and Xanathar's Guide of Everything (which does describe how to create magic items, even if it is vague, which is overall a good thing for the DMs), and the Artificers get more than enough features to cover for the Magic Item Savant features, even if they don't come up in play in the campaign (which most DMs should allow, but it won't make you suck if they don't allow it).I have absolutely no idea what you're complaining about here.This is no valid criticism. Yes, you will be powerful. Yes, powerful characters are rare in 5e. However, that doesn't make the artificer suck anymore than it would suck to be a trillionaire because no one on Earth is a trillionaire yet. That's just a nonsensical complaint.I wish you had. Or, at least, have created different paragraphs.</blockquote>

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