Recent content by Cap'n Kobold

I think the thing to bear in mind is that Artificers can be regarded as low-magic. Wizards are capable of far more powerful effects, and creating far more powerful items than artificers for example. They don't have to always use items as props or crutches: they can generate far more powerful...

Yep. - Artificers fit in pretty much all current D&D settings. I would not be surprised if the class is reprinted in a later "of Everything" book, probably with an updated spell list.

If the intent is that infected characters avoid having to make checks at all (because even just 5 days of DC10 Charisma saves, at advantage, is going to knock most characters out of the party), then you should definitely add rules for identifying the contagion and knowing appropriate...

A DC 25 Charisma save that has to be taken repeatedly is going to doom almost any character to a forced retirement. Wererats slow down when they transform and do minimal damage?

Based on a published AL module, although I have no idea what freedoms were taken in converting it.

The party encountered a village where the cats had become telepathic and were protecting humans that they had bonded to from a dream-monster/memory slime of some sort. Some of the cats bonded with party members including the artificer. He decided that he was turning his iron defender into a mech...

Indeed. And the Battle Smith is probably the best subclass Artificers have: They get more attacks than the others due to their Iron Defender, and at least some of their attacks are likely to scale well well due to using actual weapons, which allows flametongue, wounding effects to add to their...

Maybe, but at least initially, the OP seems to be conflating "unusual characters" with "characters with no connection to the setting". I have seen a player play a telepathic housecat in a mech suit, and a sentient spider colony, and still have more connection to the setting and campaign than...

You're entitled to do so. Player engagement is a spectrum, it does not require "extremely enthusiastic buy in" for a player to start being engaged. If the only players what show any engagement are the extremely enthusiastic ones, it might be an issue with the setting being one that the other...

This is a table and social issue, not a setting issue however. If a player is engaged (and the DM encourages that engagement), they will happily interact with the setting as their character. If a player is not engaged with the game, nothing (other than perhaps mechanical rewards) will make them...

Overall, I am disappointed with the new Artificer. There are some improvements compared to the older one, and some changes that I regard as worse than the previous. My biggest annoyance is that the original issue of the Artificer was not addressed gracefully: It has a general problem with sheer...

When I was looking at homebrewing Artificer, I basically made them full wizard spell progression with a very limited spell list, but the ability to invest spell slots to create items that remained as long as the spell slot remained invested. This actually led to a more "traditional Vancian"...

Granting one player who wants that is likely to be detrimental to the enjoyment of the game for the other players. To repeat a question asked earlier: What happens if there are more than one player with that attitude? . . . and what happens if the rest of the table is not made up of players...

There are so many other character building choices and potential for optimisation in 5e, that sabotaging entire classes just so there is a "best" and "worst" option is not good design at all. Wanting to play a "better character than anyone else" with no other preferences or thoughts as to...

No one complains about the chance of rolling a 1 increasing with number of attacks. However I can assure you that there are complaints when people try to change rolling a 1 from just "automatic miss" to "fumble with potentially "hilarious" results like damaging your weapon, teammates or yourself".