Preview: Artificer 2.0 (Golemsmith Only)

Yeah, I suppose I should clarify that; they can be taken up to the stat cap.

KibblesTasty

Also, in a similar vein - it's not specified whether you can repeatedly pick Systematic Strength, Fine-Tuned Dexterity, or Structural Constitution - I'm assuming you can, given the stat maximums are 18, but its a litttle unclear.

Jau

Ah yes, that would be more reasonable, wouldn't it? :) Fixed, thanks! :)

KibblesTasty

Minor question about Structural Constitution; is it meant to give proficiency in Constitution saves at 18 Con instead of 18 Strength?

Jau

Thanks for the reply! Honestly I didn't consider all of the points that you shown (ranged options on Warforged golem, limited space and especially cost of larger armor) and from that perspective both Chassis seem to be balanced and distinct, yet not limiting in options. I initially thought that Warfare Routines don't work on natural weapons but I wanted to be sure about that. If I have the opportunity to play the Artificer in the future (forever DM here, I only created one Warforged Warsmith NPC so far) I'll gladly give you my feedback :)

One of the big differences is flexibility - the Warforged Golem can do things like throw Javalins or (somewhat poorly) shoot a crossbow, while the Quad golem has no real ranged attacks, even with upgrades. Sort of like how the Launcher has a good ranged attack, but no real melee attack. Combined with the ability to wield magical weapons, and for the ARtificer to buff the Golem's weapon, etc, I think it adds up to a lot of power. I also think that a being large is not objectively a good thing, especially given that the quad golem cannot wield weapons, so Large Weapons are off the table, meaning its large target without necessarily a large amount of damage - it makes it more suited to the mount/defender role as it can block up a lot of space, but isn't necessarily as effective at attacking as the amount of space it takes up (for example in a 10 foot corridor, it would basically either have to 1v2 or have disadvantage on all attacks due to squeezing). I think the con buff is somewhat necessary to keep it from just getting smushed when being used that way. Notably Warfare Routines wouldn't technically work for a Quad RAW. Their natural weapon is a bite, which would not actually fall into any category (dueling specifies the weapon is held in their hand). I may want to clarify there; that's not really intended as a balance difference, just the nature of the fighting styles. I would also note that Heavy Armor plating is a lot harder to use with a Large golem; the golem still has to equip the armor, and Large plate armor is going to be a lot harder to find (I would say Warhorse Barding Rules would be the way to go there, which is a lot more expensive). So I think the drawbacks to Quad golem are already substantial; it's going to appeal to people that really want to ride their golem, but I think it really out competes the Warforged Golem currently - maybe I'm wrong, but that's my feeling currently. Definitely keep me posted if you give it a shot and feel otherwise! I will continue to consider as 2.0 continues to evolve! :)

KibblesTasty

Hi Kibbles, I'm huge fan of your work and 2.0 revision looks great so far :) I wanted to ask about differences between Golem Chassis, specifically Warforged and Quadrupedal. Both have same Strenght score but Quadrupedal is larger so it can grapple bigger enemies, also is better tank with 2 more AC and 4 more Constitution, so more health. Warforged can pick up a shield to offset AC difference and wield a longsword to do same damage, but he still has lower health and 5ft less speed. Other upgrades are available to both chassis so it's not a balancing factor. Do you think that ability to wield non-attunement restricted weapons and shields are what brings Warforged back on par with Quadrupedal? Or that Warforged is more helpful in exploration because of humanoid form? Maybe Warfare Routines and/or Heavy Armor Plating should be restricted to Warforged Chassis to differentiate them more? I just want to hear your design philosophy on that and I hope I'm not too picky :)

No, I should update that, must have missed those (as all of them used to call golem as warforged golem). If there is an exclusion, I will exclude it in the prerequisite (like with mark of life).

KibblesTasty

There are a few Golemsmith upgrades (Structural Constitution, Iron Fortress, Cloaking Device) that mention Warforged Golem specifically in the text. Is that a deliberate prerequisite, or are they intended for any shape of golem?

Matthew Gesus

I considered it a few ways, but I'd have to remove way too many high level upgrades to make it viable. I think overall it makes things a good bit less interesting. Artificers, particularly with these later versions, are really pushing the upper boundary of class power is, so there'd have to be substantial nerfs to the higher tier upgrades if I was going to double or trouble the number you could select. I agree the the selection level is a pain point, but I think it's a better solution than the alterative of having to balance all the upgrades against each other. Eldritch Invocations actually have quite few level restricted upgrades, and most of the ones that are (like for Pact of the Blade) are "must take" upgrades where there no actual decision making involved in taking them. You just take all the level restricted invocations, and decide what to do with your few remaining invocations, and I don't want Upgrades to fall into the same problem. Hope that make sense. It is definitely one of the points I considered in 2.0 (as well as reducing the upgrade count to balance something like that) but ultimately after looking at that sort of system I just didn't tihnk it was better or more interesting, and the ease of upgrade selection wasn't worth the hit to unique and powerful higher level upgrades to me.

KibblesTasty

Let me throw this out there, since it's a 2.0 version: What if the upgrades you swap weren't level limited? The "upgrades must be of a level you were when you got them" has always been a little bit of a pain point (warlocks don't have that restriction when you swap invocations), and I'm not sure how many broken combinations there would be if you could multiple high level upgrades. The swaps per long rest (like for Gadgetsmith) could still be restricted to same level swaps, though.

Matthew Gesus

Would the capstone ability still require physical contact with the magical items being attuned? If so then swapping attunement on five items sounds like a potentially awkward task to try to accomplish in one action. I'm imagining a character doing a quick Macarena dance trying to touch five different items on themself in six seconds, or maybe they just stick their hand in their backpack and wave it around to make sure they touch all the new items. :P I like Saveliy's idea of spreading the attument swaps out over a full adventuring day, although I'm not sure about tying it to Int Mod. What about giving the ability five charges, each charge can be used to change one attunement and you can use an action to expend as many charges as you want. That way you don't have to worry about wasting the ability if you only want to swap out one item. Also, don't Artificer's get proficiency in 3-4 tools depending on subclass or are you adding an additional proficiency in 2.0?

The 20th level ability currently lets you swap as many or as few attuned items as you want during the action. We'll see. Maybe if people don't like it I'll change it, but I think it's an interesting idea for now, so will play around with it a bit. Infusionsmith will be the next 2.0 subclass released, and will have the expected variants (as we've already seen some of it's variants), but i'm still working out one detail there. It will have the variant for infused and animated weapon at least; the main problem I'm working through there is I don't want to just give the Animated Sword extra attack, as I think the multiple animated swords is more interesting, so there's a conflict for the variants at 5th level. Potionsmith will not really have variants added, so it's design is a bit different, given that it gets access to three infusions at level 1 as is, but will see some updates.

KibblesTasty

After thinking about it for a bit I think I agree with you in regards to expertize, but the capstone still bugs me a little. Are you supposed to be able to swap only 1 item? Because if yes, it feels a bit lackluster, considering you already have 5 items you can attune to, so you will probably already be attuned to all you super good items and swapping one won't make that much of a difference. What about Int Mod swaps per long rest, or even the ability to ingnore attunement altogether for 1 minute, for maximum Iron Man 3 final fight vibes? Last question, are there variants planned for the Potionsmith and/or Infusionsmith? If yes, can you maybe give a little sneak peak at what will they be about?

So I don't know how feasible it will be to keep WIP PDFs updated, but here is a PDF of the current version: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1qyyqW_nQSrY4aeKoCjKldHVPZiAuYvjQ

KibblesTasty

The Thundersmith or Warsmith only have 1 attuned item from their subclass, and in most cases wouldn't actually want to swap it, it's just an option for more flexibility. Things like Wands and the like are what you are going to usually want to swap, and Potionsmith gets as much value from that as anyone else. It doesn't really make sense to grant Expertise in the class for things you didn't get from the class, and considering that the class gives a large amount of tool proficiencys at level 1, there is no real danger of you not having the tool proficiency you want expertise in from the class. I don't see there being a particularly compelling reason that Artificer needs Expertise in *more* than 4-5 tools, that should be enough to cover everything they could reasonably be an expert in. Remember that backgrounds specifically allow you to swap a proficiency if it conflicts with something you already have, so just take the class proficiency in what you want expertise in, and the background proficiency in something else. The UA Artificer does this because it doesn't give tool proficiency in your actual area of expertise until level 3, which is a bit awkward. They are probably assuming that many people will take the tool proficiency they will get at level 3 (wasting that feature) at level 1 from their background, as it makes sense that an Artificer that is going to becoming an Alchemist has a background in alchemy tools. But if they didn't grant universal expertise, this means if you did that you wouldn't only waste the level 3 tool proficiency, you'd also no have expertise in it. It is a side effect of the incredibly awkward nature of level 3 subclasses. Personally I think tool proficiency does have some power to it - you can do a lot of things with tools that can replace skill checks or even minor spells; always consider when you are making a skill check if there's a tool proficiency check that could also work as an Artificer. Given that, and that they will already have 4-5 tool proficicies that are getting expertise in, it all just seems a bit over the top to give them even more when the only real reason that would even come into play was if they were leveraging it to do something a bit ridiculous in most cases.

KibblesTasty

Any chance of a PDF, my phone doesn't like the formatting.

Levi Andringa

Looks great, but I have a couple of questions. Isn't the capstone ability much more useful on Thundersmith or Warsmith, compared to the Potionsmith, for example, that doesn't get a single cool item with a ton of features to swap attunements. Also, is there a reason for the tool expertise to be limited only to proficiencies you gain through the class? The recent UA gives expertize regardless of the origin of the profficency. I don't think that more expertize really adds to the power level if you already have thieve's tools, but it certainly adds to the cool factor.