D&D 5E My player wants an "infuser"

[der_kluge]

Hmm. This is a long story, but the tl;dr is that my player basically wants a kind of "infuser" class. And I'm not sure what to tell her.

So, the longer version is, we started with the UA Artificer, which sucks. For my thoughts on that, see also the UA Artificer thread. For my own peace of mind, I'm revising that class. I'll upload it when I'm done. Mine is a slightly low magic setting, but the artificer can work, and it's the closest thing the party has to a arcane caster, so she's been helpful so far.

But after a discussion at the end of the last game, she's decided that what she really wants is some sort of "infuser" (my word, not hers), rather than an artificer. I explained to her what I was doing with my class, and she's thinking in way different terms.

Her email to me:

We are thinking different things. My thought was that the artificer would not be limited by spell slots. She could "infuse" or "imbue" up to her limit daily, but once the artifacts were set up, they would remain good until used. So she could, given time and resources, exceed her spell slot limit. So, she could drop 2 burning hands on a glove on Monday, then 2 more on Tuesday (if her limit is 2). That would actually be the point of the class, actually; to bank spells for herself and others. I would guess she'd be an par with a warlock in battle, assuming she held some banked spells for herself.

Could easily get out of hand, but only if we let it. Unless the party sits around doing nothing, with a lot of cash on hand, she's not going to be cranking out artifacts any faster than a wizard regains spells.

I'm not thrilled with the whole "drop a spell slot on this artifact and now it's gone until the artifact is used" thing. Too much bookkeeping.

The idea for the Infuser came from Mystic Eye Games Artificer's Handbook, which has an Artificer Prestige class, and an Infuser PrC. The latter is a bit more like a warlock in flavor, I think. Essentially, it allows the character to put spells into items. I told her that I couldn't see the class being any more than a kind of slave in service to a despotic king, or something like that. It's great that she wants to be helpful, but after passing out all of her powers to other people, she won't actually have anything to do during the BBEG fight, or whatever. Except the player doesn't actually want spell slots. Instead she just wants access to every spell so that she can infuse it into something else.

So I'm thinking:

1. No spell casting at all. Instead, has ability to imbue spells up to level X up to X per day, *provided she can get access to the spell somehow.*

2. She can get access to a spell by being taught, by purchasing it, in which case she writes it down and has it for future reference, OR
Someone else can cast it into her artifact for her, which her help to channel it.
This lets her let OTHER party members bank spells, which I think would be a great party-building skill.

3. Material components matter. She cannot build things if she has no materials.
If she wants to put two charges of spell X into a thing, then she needs 2 sets of the material components.
Use the thing twice and the components are gone and the artifact becomes mundane.

To which I replied that it's almost sounding a bit like an Al-Qadim Sha'ir (good thing I own that handbook!), which I'll have to look up to see if it could be translated to 5th edition. Flavorwise, that's a LOT closer to Warlock, than Artificer, and certainly suggests a charisma-based style of casting rather than Int.

But part me suggests I should just tell her to stop, and play a wizard. lol

Any ideas?

 

[Marandahir]

4e's Sha'irs were, in fact, Wizards with Int, though their features were basically like a variant Warlock (binding elemental genies). There were elemental warlocks that had genie patrons too, though.

Just food for thought. Sha'ir isn't officially in 5e yet.

 

[Lanliss]

I wanted something similar, but never got around to making it. My thoughts, as far as the balance of it, is that you gain more Flexibility in your spells, at the cost of convenience. Never cast a spell on command again, you only have access to what you have in your tool bag. If you already used your two ranged magic items (Maybe something like Fireball attached to a pebble) You had to close the distance, or go mundane.

On making it, I wouldn't allow things like wands, as they would reasonably allow casting of whatever spell is attached to them. I would limit all ranged spells to "pebble casting". She can cast whatever spell she wants, infusing it into a small pabble. it's range is however far she can throw it. I would also limit her "spells known", but not her list. So, she can learn two spells at level 1. she can infuse them into whatever she wants, with the actual result being left to DM adjudication. For example, Burning hands on a Glove is obvious. Burning hands on a rock? Up to the DM, but I would say the cone is weaker, but sprays in a direction you throw the pebble (pebble lands, flame sprays out in a 15 foot cone from the landing spot, continuing in the direction the pebble was going.)

Give her simple weapons, and maybe medium armor proficiency, since she will be spending a lot of time trying to save her precious few single-use items, so she will need to be either good at mundane range, or good at melee. Either give her 1 spell known per level after the first, or something like 3 new spells at select intervals. No casting "infusions" on already magic items.

Also, think about casting times and concentration. I cannot see holding concentration on a pebble, so maybe don't allow concentration spells? IDK, up to you. On casting times, make all spells on pebbles cost an action to use(and it works as a ranged attack action), but allow some flexibility. for example, a Shield Spell, cast on a shield, can still be used with a reaction, giving a single use of +5 AC.

Lastly, consider Infusion times. How long do you want it to take to infuse an item? I would say make it a ritual, that can be done over a short or long rest.

Hope this 2 cp helps.

 

[der_kluge]

Yea, the UA artificer has the same quirky problem with spells on infused items. In that write-up, it doesn't call out how to deal with Concentration spells on infused items. So, it's problematic.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

There's a wizard's school based on imbuing wands on middle finger of Vecna. Here's the link, if you think that might help http://www.middlefingerofvecna.com/2016/04/wand-wizard.html

 

[Tony Vargas]

You could bring in the attunement limit. So she can infuse a bunch of items, but can only have three ready to go at any given moment - if she's passing them out, other attuned magic items will limit how many other players can accept. Un-attuned items could fade after a period of time, so 'infusers' wouldn't be so tempting to enslave in magic-item sweatshops.

You could give her more flexibility to change out attuned items or attune more, so that she has to hold onto more of her own power, if you think that's going to be an issue.

Alternately, tell her to just play a wizard, but work with her to pick out spells that work with the concept with a little re-skinning and re-jiggering. So, if she might want to cast Haste on someone, she first 'infuses' an item and gives it to them, so they can receive that benefit when she decides to burn the slot. That kind of thing.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

As written there's no way to balance it. There has to be some kind of limit on how many infused items you can have, which means some kind of bookkeeping. Two ways come to mind. The first, which I've use, is that it costs gold to infuse an item, which makes treasure awarded by the DM the limiting factor. This actually worked very well, much better than I expected. The second way is to say the infusions decay after a certain amount of time. This requires a significant amount of bookkeeping. Alternately you could roll d10 at the start of each day for each infusion; if the roll is lower than the spell level, the infusion decays.

 

[pukunui]

Alternately, tell her to just play a wizard, but work with her to pick out spells that work with the concept with a little re-skinning and re-jiggering. So, if she might want to cast Haste on someone, she first 'infuses' an item and gives it to them, so they can receive that benefit when she decides to burn the slot. That kind of thing.

This is probably the simplest solution. A good example of it in play would be Ashley Johnson's Force Grey: Giant Hunters character, Dagny. She's a cleric of Gond, the god of innovation and craft, and Ashley reflavored all her spells to make it like she was using gadgets and things instead of just casting spells.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Hmmm. How do you handle spell scrolls? Would you consider allowing any class to use them?

I'm asking because about the only character that can 'bank' daily resources in a very limited fashion is probably the Artificer Wizard tradition: You can 'precast' your ability to replenish your spell slots into scrolls so they are available for the first combat of the next day. Note that that is still limited to your daily resources however: you don't get to recover them until after the scrolls are used.
Likewise you can create a bunch of potions and share them around the group pre-emptively but they still come out of your daily spell allocation. You can't burn all your spell slots on potions and scrolls, 'bank' them, and the next day make a bunch more, so on the third day you have effectively three days worth of spell slots to use.
That would be the potential issue with your player's suggested mechanics.

You could convert the basic artificer wizard a bit though: give them the artificer class' infusion ability, and don't allow them to cast spells normally. Allow them to infuse spells from their spellbook and also from when another character casts the spell, but it still costs the infuser their own spell slot to infuse. Extend infusion to last for a week, but the infuser can't regain a spell slot until the infusion that it was used to create has been expended.

So the infuser class is still limited as to power: they can't bank multiple day's spell slots to give themselves massive levels of power occasionally. They only produce spells as often as another pure caster. Their massive advantage lies in being able to spread around the action and concentration economy, and ability to bank spells from other classes.

An item infused with a cantrip is not expended when used, but the infuser can only create as many of those items as she knows cantrips.

Yea, the UA artificer has the same quirky problem with spells on infused items. In that write-up, it doesn't call out how to deal with Concentration spells on infused items. So, it's problematic.

That's already dealt with in the PHB rules. The UA says that the person activating the infused item is considered to have cast the spell. Thus they are the ones who have to maintain concentration.