Well, I'm trying not to jinx it after we had to cancel the last two weeks, but we should (should) be starting our Spelljammer campaign this Sunday, in which I'll finally be able to play my Armorer Artificer (well, he probably won't be an armorer for a little while - especially since we're starting at level 1 and using XP instead of milestone leveling).
I am, of course, kind of obsessed with the Artificer as a class. I've always liked elements in fantasy games that bleed a little sci-fi into the story, and while you can certainly play an Artificer in a purely magical, rather than technological, way, I like to put robots and laser guns next to dragons and liches.
The Artificer has a strong identity as a class, even from a mechanical perspective, but despite having such a strong central concept, its subclasses also have a huge impact on the class.
Artificers came in as the third half-caster class, more slowly progressing as a spellcaster and only ever capping out at 5th level spells - something that pure casters will be able to get (just) before they even hit level 10. In practice, this places severe limitations on their ability to rely on spellcasting as their primary means of doing business.
While I encourage people to run campaigns at least up through tier 3, a lot of published adventures end around level 10 - Curse of Strahd does, and I believe Tomb of Annihilation ends at level 11, which is the first level of tier 3.
At level 10, a half-caster only has up to 3rd level spells, and the total number of spell slots they get is 9. By contrast, a level 10 pure caster has 5th level spells, but also their total spell slots is 15. If a typical combat encounter lasts 3 rounds and you have, say, four encounters per adventuring day, that means that by this level a pure caster can cast a spell every turn, while a half-caster is going to need to conserve at least a little (this of course ignores out-of-combat situations).
Now, the thing is, the previous existing half-casters, Paladins and Rangers, have a much more obvious "typical action" on their turns - they attack with a weapon. The spells are supplementary, either using Warlock-like efficiency (Hunter's Mark and Hex are very similar, for instance,) or they give you a few emergency buttons. Paladins even have an alternate way to spend spell slots that ties into their weapon attacks, rather than casting spells.
Again, as I said before, Artificer subclasses have a huge impact on the way they play. In the case of the Battle Smith and the Armorer, they replicate this kind of gameplay that the Paladin and Ranger use - focusing primarily on attacking with weapons (in the case of the Armorer, it's their built-in armor weapons) while their spells are situational. But the Artillerist and the Alchemist don't - they're built to rely on spellcasting as their primary function in combat.
In a certain way, this actually makes them a little like Warlocks. Warlocks are full casters in the sense that they get a new spell level every other class level up to 17, and keep pace with Sorcerers and Wizards in terms of the power of their spells, but their tiny number of spell slots encourages them to focus on things like Eldritch Blast as their primary action in combat.
Alchemists and Artillerists almost split the difference. Each gets a bonus at level 5 that allows them to add damage to their spells. In the case of the Alchemist, they add their Intelligence modifier to any spell that deals acid, fire, necrotic, or poison damage, as well as any that restores hit points. Artillerists can make an Arcane Firearm out of a staff, wand, or rod, and when they use that as their spellcasting focus, they get to add a d8 to one damage roll of any spell cast through it. (I've allowed the artificer in my campaign to use their +2 All-Purpose Tool for this).
These affect any spell, but that includes cantrips, so even if they aren't spending spell slots, they get a nice little bonus to their damage output in this way.
Indeed, there are two distinctions Artificers have from other half-casters - one is that they get cantrips, and the other is that they get them at level 1, rather than level 2.
I have high hopes that the Artificer will continue to thrive in D&D - I'm hoping they get printed in the 2024 Player's Handbook, which would allow the game's designers to more easily print supplementary material in future books (I think it might also put them under the open game license, which would encourage 3rd party designers to tinker with the class).
But I was thinking about how this division - between two "martial" subclasses and two caster subclasses - might continue with future Artificer design. It's my hope that we see a balance maintained here, allowing new Artificers to go in either direction.
One thing that's interesting about the class is that they get an optional firearm proficiency if the campaign uses such weapons. But of the subclasses, only one is likely to actually use them, namely the Battle Smith. Alchemists and Artillerists don't really have any support, mechanically, to use weapons, and while an Armorer's extra attack applies to any weapon attacks, the fact that only their built-in weapons get to use Intelligence as the attacking stat means that unless they rolled very high at character creation, they're going to probably be better off sticking with the Lightning Launcher.
Firearms are, of course, tricky, both in terms of tone and theme. In the real world, for instance, I don't intend to ever own a gun, and I think that America's gun culture is profoundly screwed up. But I also think that if we're in a world where our adventurers are already outfitting themselves with armor, weapons, and spells that can cause serious destruction, I don't see any issue with that type of person - an adventurer - outfitting themselves with the most effective armaments available to them. That's the thematic concern.
Tonally, of course, a lot of people prefer that their fantasy world remain in a pseudo-medieval technological level. And, arguably, one of the biggest elements of what makes something pseudo-medieval is that people don't have guns. Guns, of course, are disruptive to the world of military technologies. Before them, a rich noble who could afford a full set of plate armor was far less likely to get wounded in battle - it could deflect the spears and other simple weapons that the rank-and-file members of the opposing army could throw at them. Firearms made such armor obsolete, as a bullet at high speeds can punch right through that sort of armor (to be fair, longbows could as well, but while you needed to be extremely strong and well-trained to effectively fire a longbow, a gun has a simple "point and click" interface, to borrow a joke form Futurama).
The point is, some people feel that the presence of firearms breaks the fantasy world that D&D takes place within. As I've said many times on this blog, I disagree, because I think there's nothing inherent to the concept of fantasy that requires it to take place in a medieval setting.
Actually, the more fundamental point is that I think an Artificer subclass that revolves around using firearms would be really cool. I actually homebrewed one (that has never been playtested and probably needs some math passes). Because Artificers are crafters, the focus on the subclass is largely making special ammunition, which has different effects depending on which kind you make. I also built in that concept because one of the trickiest issues for firearm-wielders in a D&D setting is that, if it is a pseduo-medieval one, you might not be able to buy bullets at the general store the same way an archer buys arrows.
This could be a good niche for a new "martial" subclass. The Battle Smith, of course, can work perfectly fine as a gunslinger, but I think it would be nice to give players an option that allows them to function without a pet.
Now, in terms of spellcasting-focused Artificers:
The Alchemist and the Artillerist cover some big bases - the Alchemist has a lot of tools to make them a fairly effective healer, despite being only a half-caster. The Artillerist is one of the premiere single-target ranged damage dealers (though with Fireball, they are also by default not bad at area-of-effect damage). But spellcasting is a very diverse asset for classes in D&D.
My first instinct, because I'm a secret goth, is to go full Frankenstein. I actually started trying to come up with a homebrew subclass called the Necroticist, though I didn't really have any strong ideas mechanically. This would actually be another pet subclass, and I found it hard to come up with mechanics that were distinct from the Battle Smith - though at the least I think this would focus more on spells than weapons. Just about any Artificer can play the mad scientist trope, but I think that giving them some necromancy spells might be a fun way to get some of that Frankenstein vibe in there. I imagine a lot of lightning damage, as well.
It's a little harder for me to conceptualize it, but I feel that Artificers could have a subclass that is built around vehicles. My sort of "rule" with D&D campaigns as a DM is to always make sure that the party gets access to an airship at some point, perhaps as a reference to Final Fantasy. Now, of course, having all your features tied to some enormous ship would create some issues when you're down in some deep dungeon. Instead, I might focus on mobility - maybe have some subclass that is built around having a sort of jetpack-like device, which would improve their mobility and then could enhance spells or attacks. Yeah, this one needs work.
Moving on from subclasses, though:
There are two major avenues that are obvious places to expand the Artificer beyond subclasses.
The first is Arcane Infusions. Obviously, there are already a lot of options here thanks to Replicate Magical Item. It might be fun, though, to create more artificer-exclusive ones like the Mind Sharpener. I don't have any really strong ideas for this, but it's a place they could add things.
Actually, on the subject of infusions: in the class description, infusions are treated as "prototypes for magic items." I think the Artificer class as a whole would benefit a lot from robust rules about creating magic items in either the PHB or the DMG. I'd love to say that artificers can also make permanent versions of any artificer infusion they know without needing to find a special formula for them - if such rules are implemented in the core books.
The other major avenue for expanding the class is spells!
The Artificer does not have any exclusive spells - everything they can cast is from some other class' spell list. As a new class, I understand this, as it's already a lot of stuff to implement. But I would hope that if the class is published in a new PHB, we might get some Artificer-exclusive spells. I'd love to see some more lightning-focused damage spells, and perhaps spells that can take control of objects or vehicles. One thing this would also allow WotC to do is bend the power level of spells - maybe that 5th level spell is too powerful for a Wizard to get at level 9, but it's the right kind of high-level showstopper for an Artificer to get at level 17, so by making it exclusive to the class, you create a kind of valve on its power - similar to Banishing Smite for Paladins (yes, Hexblades can pick that up at level 9, but that was a later decision).
I don't actually have a great sense of how popular the class is - I haven't played Adventurer's League since it became AL-legal, for instance - but I believe it's a mechanically solid class that deserves to be one of the core options for the game moving forward.
No comments:
Post a Comment