WIP Artificer 2.0: Warsmith, Version 2.
Added 2019-06-18 04:04:01 +0000 UTCSo, there was a lot of feedback for the last version, and I think Artificial Strength missed the mark. After reflecting and reviewing the poll and feedback, I don't think it's entirely a lost cause, but it wasn't there yet.
So we are trying a new version, this has a few key differences.
Artificial Strength is changed to:
While wearing your gauntlet, as an action, you can dedicate some of your intelligence to fully controlling the power of the gauntlet and reduce your current and maximum Intelligence score to increase your current Strength ability score by the same amount. You can stop using Artifical Strength at any time, and it automatically ends if you remove your gauntlet.
While your gauntlet is integrated into your armor, your maximum Strength ability score is 22.
This will still penalize dumping Strength, but will do 2 things; first of all, it means you can still build strength and just sacrifice 2 int into strength to maximize it, rather than focusing Intelligence, and two is hopefully more thematic.
The other big change is that when building your armor, you can build whatever other gauntlet upgrade you want into the other gauntlet. This makes requiring energy projector potentially less painful, though not so much for power fist builds the upgrade twice, but power first is maybe too good right now anyway.
I'm not sure if this is the best solution. I think it makes a lot of thematic sense to tie the energy projector to the other projectors, but if people really hate that, I might give up on it.
That said, the class is almost certainly too strong right now with the current arrangement, so I will have to find somewhere to reduce some power before this is finalized, I just wanted to update this as it changes direction a bit, and I'd rather any feedback be for the new direction (at least in regards to Artificial Strength).
Update Log:
* I removed jump gear. Pretty much everyone did not like it.
* I reverted the nerfs/changes to Capacitors and made them exclusive with each-other again.
* I tweaked Piloted Golem slightly.
* I tweaked Iron Muscle to account for the new Artificial Strength.
I think the two things I need to resolve right now still are:
* It's too strong; they get the same power as they used to have for few upgrades, and they were already very strong.
* I think the balance between the various gauntlet upgrades isn't quite there yet. Power Fist is slightly too good, Energy Projector is too required. I should probably just drop the synergy between it and the elemental projectors, but I'm still reluctant to do it. I don't like it upgrading them if they don't use it, as that doesn't make a lot of thematic sense (as they'd be separate things, rather than enhancements to it). I will give this one a bit more thought, as I have heard the feedback here.
This is not all the changes that I gathered from the feedback, just the ones that I thought required immediate attention in terms making feedback valuable.
Comments
Gadgetsmith -> Potionsmith -> Fleshsmith. I may do Gadget and Potion at the same time, they may come tomorrow. If I decide to do just Gadget, it will definitely be tomorrow. Sort of want to do both though as I'm targeting the end of the month for 2.0 complete, and that's approaching rapidly. Got a lot of stuff I need to do for D&D this month. Sort of got behind as I ended up working on the Warsmith longer than expected and doing some extra tested to validate if I was being crazy or not. Really want to include Fleshsmith in the 2.0, and that inclusion may make 2.0 delayed, but I also don't want perfect to get in the way of done here. 2.0 isn't the end, and 2.1 will come.
KibblesTasty
2019-06-24 04:38:26 +0000 UTCOut of curiosity, once you’re happy with the Warsmith, what subclass is next in line?
Ihileath
2019-06-24 04:28:26 +0000 UTCIt essentially puts them at +1 upgrade if that second gauntlet is useful to them. This is why for Martial Grip and Energy Projector, it doesn't really matter, but for Power Fist it is too good, as a second power first is effectively +1 upgrade. They already get +1 upgrade at level 1, so this is placing them 2 free upgrades ahead of the current version. Further, collapsing the Strength and Intelligence upgrades means that all Artificers are at least +1 upgrade ahead. So it is essentially +2 upgrades over the current version for everything besides Martial Grip, which is +1 Upgrade over the current version. Artificers have a lot of powerful upgrades, so their balance is fairly sensitive to how many of those upgrades they can get. The Strength Upgrade used to take 3 upgrades; it was reduced to 2 a few versions ago, and going to 1 has sort of pushed it over the edge; that compounds with the 1 (or 2) free upgrades energy generator/power first builds are getting. Energy Generator could afford that, and why I was doing that in first place, but Power Fist was already very powerful. The current solution is keeping the level 1, keeping the 22 strength at 3, and dropping the second guantlet upgrade, as that unfairly benefited power fist a lot more - it was nice for martial grip/energy generator to get another option, but it wasn't a real power bump for them the same way. This is combined with some other changes, like dropping the energy projector requirement from everything, and making some other low level upgrades. We'll see how that goes. I think trying to give the second gauntlet felt like an idea that made sense to me, but there was no way that was going to fit in the power budget, and people would rather keep the strength than get it. I do plan to keep Artificial Strength as the way to break the strength cap rather than giving it for free, which is a minor nerf, but I think ultimately not the end of the world. People might still hate it, but we'll see.
KibblesTasty
2019-06-19 23:00:12 +0000 UTC
