D&D 5E Does the Artificer Suck?

[Paul Farquhar]

I need to look at the infusion list. Can the artificer make a portable hole?

You could send a homunculus into the dragon with a bag of holding AND a portable hole that you infused, put them inside each other in the dragon's stomach, and not lose any permanent magic items after making a tear in space.

By default, Portable Hole isn't on the list.

But they can create alchemist's supplies using right tool for the job, which they can then use to create a keg of gunpowder.

 

[JackalTornMoons]

Giving your whole party Find Familiar over a few days at lvl 2 via Replicate Magic Item: Spellwrought Tattoo is also pretty cool.

Also doing stuff like letting the martial concentrate on Bless.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Giving your whole party Find Familiar over a few days at lvl 2 via Replicate Magic Item: Spellwrought Tattoo is also pretty cool.

Also doing stuff like letting the martial concentrate on Bless.

Yeah, replicating tattoos is a bit of an oversight.

 

[Flamestrike]

That's completely fair. Certain DM styles, such as having more or less short rests, can make a huge difference on how a class performs. Artificer is excellent for fast swaps on a relatively short timeline, making them good in low downtime campaigns. Flexibility is one of their strengths. Campaigns with more downtime will probably make some of the Artificer abilities less clutch (but he can still use that downtime to do his own things).

In campaigns with lots of downtime and the ability to make magic items Artificers get this at 10th:

If you craft a magic item with a rarity of common or uncommon, it takes you a quarter of the normal time, and it costs you half as much of the usual gold.

Add to that the ability to attune to up to 6 magic items at once (depending on level - or up to 8 items as an Armorer), and use every item in the game (ignoring class etc restrictions) the more downtime and magic items in the game, the better the Artificer gets.

 

[Flamestrike]

Giving your whole party Find Familiar over a few days at lvl 2 via Replicate Magic Item: Spellwrought Tattoo is also pretty cool.

Also doing stuff like letting the martial concentrate on Bless.

Are spellwrought tattoos on the replicatable item list though?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Are spellwrought tattoos on the replicatable item list though?

It says or any other common magic item, apart from potions or scrolls (possibly not exact text).

I think the spellwrought tattoo was an unintended oversight, but RAW it's allowed.

 

[JackalTornMoons]

Are spellwrought tattoos on the replicatable item list though?

Alternatively, you can choose the magic item from among the common magic items in the game, not including potions or scrolls.

 

[clearstream]

I think the omission of the word “different” in the description makes it clear that their intent was for you to be able to take it multiple times for the same item, but 1 Pipe of Haunting at level 6 is super strong either way

I don't agree that it makes their intent clear, notwithstanding that I agree with you as to the RAW.

 

[tetrasodium]

, it takes you a quarter of the normal time, and it costs you half as much of the usual gold.

Half and a quarter "ask your gm because despite making a big show of having them in xge wotc didn't actually bother to make a crafting system for 5e" is still identical to 100% of "ask your gm" in an awful lot of cases.

 

[tetrasodium]

There is more to support than casting healing spells.

Can your bard/cleric supply the fighter with a magic weapon, and deal with locks and traps better than a rogue, and identify that artefact you just found, and send a bomb carrying drone into the dragon's mouth to kill it from the inside, and make a bag of holding to stuff the dragon's treasure into, whilst brewing up a solution to the room flooded with poison gas you need to escape through?

In my experience, the real strength of the artificer is what is written between the lines of the rules - their ability to MacGyver solutions to whatever problems they come across.

Its pretty standard for the fighter to expe t y have a magic weapon by level 5 or do give or take and if the artificer is providing that there are decent odds they just used a class feature to prevent that from happening or don't need to till 10 at which point they can never provide another improvement even if the game goes to 20. In most of wotc's Hc adventures the fighter probably is getting an artifact or very rare weapon rather than a boring +2 weapon rather than a rare +2 weapon. The slow pace of access to a limited pool stuff laden with filler and right budget for using infusions gets to be an extremely obvious and frustrating weakness in something artificer sacrifices being a full coaster like warlock bard and others to gain.so; ever time the weaknesses of they see the downsides of being a half coaster or getting spells designed to go unused so much later those frustrations get another long on the fire. When a class makes real sacrifices to get something ot needs to be good at that thing not just functional capable of checking a thematic box.
Also because thieves tools tend to be DeX, a medium armor caster with them is going to.... well I'm sure you see the problem...