So, a friend of mine recently tweeted (this is the usual DM of our Sunday games in which I have my Armorer (well, eventually) Artificer) in response to a prompt about D&D classes that responders dislike, and named Artificers, saying that the concept is cool but she does not like the execution.
Now, full disclosure, I have not asked her why she thought that, but it prompted some thoughts of my own.
I've been on record here that I adore the Artificer class, and while I haven't had a chance to play mine very much or at the levels where I think you start to get a real feel for it, on paper it seems awesome. (I also have an Artillerist Artificer in my Ravnica game, so I've been able to vicariously experience it that way).
But I was thinking a bit about the execution of the Artificer, and whether it lives up to the class fantasy, and I think spellcasting is potentially the real sticking point here (not the only one, but we'll get to the other in a bit).
The vibe of an artificer is typically portrayed as being a little Steampunk-y (or other pre-modern punk genres like Clockpunk, Stonepunk, or what-have-you). In a world with medieval knights and wizards, you're the one who is using anachronistically advanced engineering to give yourself an edge. This is particularly well-expressed with things like the Battle Smith's Steel Defender or the Artillerist's Eldritch Cannons. That sense of anachronism (which is admittedly less unique in my D&D campaigns, which embrace a lot of so-called anachronism - though remember that a fantasy world doesn't have the same history as our own, so there's no reason why, for example, ethnic diversity and modern ideas about pluralism couldn't thrive in a technologically medieval world) is what people tend to think of when they think of Artificers, and I think is also why the class might rub purists the wrong way (this is definitely not the source of my DM's objections, who once ran a combat encounter in an ilithid tiki bar hidden in Skullport).
But the class is actually a broader concept than that - the Alchemist subclass is actually a perfect match for a very medieval character archetype (and also great for a Gothic one if you're doing something in Ravenloft, especially a place like Barovia).
I think the crux of the issue here is that the Artificer's spellcasting is meant to represent something that is not quite the same as other classes' spellcasting. The requirement to use artisan's tools (or infused items) to cast even spells that don't have a material component is meant to demonstrate that the Artificer is not casting spells in the way that a Wizard, Druid, or Sorcerer would. And, arguably, they're not really casting spells - they're creating spell-like effects with the devices that they've created.
Now, simply giving them the Spellcasting feature like most of the classes in the game have makes them play a lot better with others. A Four Elements Monk, for example, uses an entirely different system, spending ki points to cast spells or produce spell-like effects, and that means that, for example, multiclassing is incompatible.
Arguably, Warlocks' Pact Magic being its own separate system for spellcasting is something that makes their class unique.
But this approach to the Artificer has created some odd consequences. One example is that, while all Artificers gain proficiency in firearms (technically optional, but if your DM has a world with firearms and doesn't let your artificer have proficiency with them, they better have a damned good reason) only one of the four subclasses (of a likely four to ever exist) will actually use them as a primary weapon. Artillerists and Alchemists rely on cantrips for their meat-and-potatoes action, while Armorers only get to use their Intelligence to attack if they're using the built-in weapons in their suit, leaving Battle Smiths the only subclass that has a reason to make a firearm their primary means of fighting monsters.
I actually think that there might have been a better way to do this: Battle Smiths get to use Intelligence to use attack with any magical weapon (which they can easily make any weapon thanks to Artificer Infusions.) I think maybe this should have been a class trait.
Because hey, isn't a weapon just a type of tool, ultimately? I mean, it's literally a tool that allows you to more easily inflict violence, just as a screwdriver more easily allows you to turn screws.
So, even if it looks like half-casters in general are getting broader access to cantrips, I actually think that Artillerists and Alchemists should have been designed to use weapons as well. And what's great is that you wouldn't have to change their level 5 features by much.
The Artillerist adds a d8 to one damage roll of spells they cast. We could just add that to ranged weapons as well. Perhaps at higher levels, more dice could be added to make up for the lack of cantrip-scaling. (If you're using Firebolt currently, which goes from 1d10 (5.5) to 2d10+1d8 (15.5) to 3d10+1d8 (21) to 4d10+1d8 (26.5), we could swap you to, say, a Heavy Crossbow, which could similarly go from 1d10+3ish (8.5) to 1d10+1d8+4 (14) to 1d10+2d8+5 (19.5) to 1d10+3d8+5 (24) - and don't forget that thanks to magical weapons, we're actually probably adding a point or two to the damage, which makes this almost identical). Something similar could be applied to weapons (maybe limited to ranged) wielded by Alchemists (obviously the scaling is different, as Alchemists add their Intelligence modifier, which they'd be doing already to their weapons, so we might have to come up with a different mechanic).
Now, I'll admit that things get a lot more complex when we get past damage cantrips. Spells are a major way that D&D introduces complexity to a player options without bogging down the individual class design. The Artificer wants to have tons of tricks they can pull to help out the party, and the best way to represent that without making an Artificer chapter that is fifty pages long is to simply make those tricks spells.
Artificer Infusions, arguably, act a bit like this. I could maybe imagine a version of the Artificer that simply leans much harder into infusions to replace spellcasting, but that seems really unwieldy, and would likely require far more unique artificer infusions, rather than simply covering things with the "replicate magical item" infusion.
Before we move on to the second (of two planned) issues, we can go a little more radical:
I've tended to flavor an Artificer's spell slots as taking the form of energy stored in some energy capacitor within their equipment. They have some sort of power-pack in their armor or carried on them, or an alchemist might have some "broad-use quintessence" that they have to pour into each vial as they cast a spell, which they then have to brew more of over the course of a long rest. It's pure flavor, of course, but it reinforces the idea that their spells are being cast through their equipment, rather than drawing upon some internal, direct connection to the arcane weave.
In practice, this is pure flavor, and practicalities of making this work in-game could get dicey - for example, what if my Artificer creates a second power-pack - does that mean that in the middle of the day, I could just refresh all my spell slots by swapping them out?
But I do think that this could maybe be reflected mechanically? One thing I've always been tempted to play with is Spell Points, an optional rule in the DMG. Here, rather than Spell Slots of particular levels, you simply have a pool of Spell Points equal to the combined levels of the spell slots that you'd have. You can then use a number of spell points equal to the level of a spell you want to cast (spending more if you're upcasting) to produce the spell. It's basically like most "mana" systems in other RPGs.
The consequences of this system are interesting - a player can cast a massive number of 1st-level spells if that's all they need over the course of a game. Conversely, a high-level spellcaster could cast several 9th level spells per day at the expense of being able to cast nearly as many lower-level spells. It's 100% a player buff, as it creates these options, but if you played exactly as if you had traditional spell slots, you wouldn't notice any difference.
But perhaps, especially as a half-caster, this could make the Artificer feel different.
Again, though, we have the "stepping on Warlocks' toes" issue (notably, the Spell Point optional rule does not apply to Pact Magic) but it also, again, would Artificers not play so well with multiclassing.
To reiterate: this was not the change that my DM suggested, just one that I'm speculating on. I think I really like the idea of letting every Artificer use Intelligence with weapons, but otherwise wouldn't rid them of spellcasting in general.
Now, the other issue is one that I think is a bit fraught, and that is crafting.
Artificers are the class built most to craft magic items. But item crafting, and specifically magic item crafting (which is the most impactful version) is a system that isn't very well spelled-out. For one thing, it can be trivially easy in some campaigns and impossible in others. In my old Sunday campaign, which ran for about three years, and took us from level 3 to level 12, I don't think we ever had a single day of downtime, instead sending us hopping from adventure to adventure. So even though my Eldritch Knight Fighter, possessing the Arcana skill, in theory could create magic items, I'd never have the time to do so. And the rules surrounding even crafting mundane items break down as expense crawls higher. I believe it's one workweek for every 50 gold the item is worth. Crafting a Longbow over a week? I can believe that. But if Split Armor can be made in four weeks, why does it take 30 weeks to make a suit of plate? (A quick google search said that a blacksmith in the middle ages could make a suit of plate armor in 20 days - a tenth the time.)
Now, Artificer Infusions are described in the class chapter as being "prototypes" for magic items that the Artificer intends to eventually produce for real, permanently. Here, game mechanics and flavor clash. I think it's perfectly reasonably as a game mechanic to limit the number of bespoke magic items the artificer can just have after a long rest, and picking infusions and figuring out which ones you want active at any given time is a big part of the strategy of playing an artificer (like the Warlock, I think it's a complex build/simple play class). But in theory, if an Artificer can make permanent versions of their infused items, they'd free up more and more infusion "slots" to do more things, and over time the Artificer would be a crazy arsenal of insane magic gear.
Granted, Infusions become a little less exciting when you're in a magic-item-heavy campaign. (My Ravnica game has showered the party with magic items, to the chagrin of the Artificer, and I can give them awesome weapons only for them to lament that they have no use for them, or they're full up on attunement slots).
Unless I'm pleasantly wrong, the Artificer as an object of ongoing design is basically in the rear view mirror. I'm hoping we at least get a document showing how to update the class for One D&D. So relitigating its design is probably moot. But as someone who loves this class, I thought it might be interesting to reexamine it and see whether some patches might have fixed up its cracks.
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