My girlfriend played in a campaign recently where she was a Thri-Kreen Artillerist Artificer, and since shes an irl entomologist, she themed everything around bugs and grafted bug parts, with some runic magic mixed in! Her eldritch cannon was a beetle that latched onto her back like a backpack and it was so cute
My Artillerist was an old lady that knitted spells, and her Eldritch Cannons were just crocheted beanie babies of D&D monsters. A beholder that looks like a deflated soccer ball, rolling around shooting beams. A dragon flamethrower. A Unicorn that defends people with rainbows. Honestly it was SUCH a fun character. Adelaide Clydesmare, what a legend.
That’s beautiful and honestly one of the coolest character concepts I’ve heard of. My table would love this, would you mind if I used her as an NPC (maybe shop vendor) in the game I run?
ME TOO! Constyance ran a knitting store which was home to a rather energetic knitting group. But then her niece and nephew got caught up (literally) with the wrong crowd. I played at cons mostly so Constance would hand out +1 sword cozys and knit caps at the start of the adventure. She had a yarn ball holder on her belt and threw out yarn like ray of sickness.
I really think this video was missing the big part that Artificer can cast from ANY infusion. Bag of holding magician pulling things out a hat! Instrument of Illusion casting musical spells and with artillerist turrets can be other instruments Boots of flying allowing spells to be fired from the feet!
Personally I love the steampunk style and find it doesn't need to contradict swords and scorcery. I got into 3d printing so I could make my own vision of the eldritch cannons and they are on thingiverse (including the dragon flamethrower). Its been a few years and I decided to run a tabaxi battlesmith and it is similarly a custom mini of my design.
I think it’s worth pointing out just how well the Artificer can be reflavoured as a witch. All the infusions feeling like witchy trinkets, the alchemist brewing potions in a cauldron, the eldritch cannons walking around with Baba Yaga’s hut’s chicken feet, the steel defender being a reanimated familiar, the armourer’s armour just being a heavily enchanted apron. Tools required can allow for an alchemist supply, herbalism kit or cooks utensils to be used as a focus, all of which could just be pulling spells out of a cauldron.
Tbh EVERYONE should be reflavouring their spells, not just artificers. Non-mechanical theme changes are tons and tons of fun. My very first character was a genasi fire mage evocation wizard. When he cast "Fly" he used flame jets to propel himself because i thought it would be cool. The table loved it
I remember doing a Wild Magic Barbarian who was a former gladiator, and I reflavored some of the Wild Magic effects so that there was a sort of invisible audience that was supporting him. A couple of my favorite examples being roses being tossed at him from out of nowhere and causing the plants to grow and cause the difficult terrain effect, and another where a magical spotlight with no source is shone on him and grants him +1 AC. Some are more simple like an ethereal crowd chanting his name and providing one of the handful of other buffs.
@@derrinerrow4369 That's awesome. To me the most fun is found in the details. The mechanics of the game are strong enough to carry almost endless variation
I love re-flavoring shit in D&D, currently making a Fighter who was a Collegiate Sport drop out after not making his Ice Hockey team, his Glaive is his hockey stick but refashioned, and his armor is just his hockey gear, though I have found a custom background for him on D&D Beyond, I initially was re-flavoring the Soldier background to suit his story more. Even his abilities I've tried to flavor after Ice Hockey, such as his Interception being played off more like a check, barging into the enemy to mess up their attack and reduce the damage, much like a check in hockey would disrupt a play to get them off the puck.
I asked one of my DMs if I could reflavor a certain spell, and he said no. The spell works a certain way and that's it. Only time I ever wanted to reflavor a spell. One of the few problems I have with my group is that most of them are really focused on following the Rules as Written. Even though one of the books has a ruling that any spell can be reflavored--it might be an optional rule, though.
@@chriscollins2095 It's not a variant rule, it's directly stated in the artificer section of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. You should patiently explain that reflavouring doesn't affect the rules of the spell. You can describe casting each spell a spell a million different ways without changing a single letter of the spell description
I got inspired by Luz from the Owl House to make an artificer who casts with their painter's supplies, I took an alchemist artificer and re-flavored the potions as glyphs, I still had the alchemists tools to "make paint". This character felt very different from what you expected an artificer to be like. I only wish we got more subclass options.
Three subclasses does feel very restricting!! If I'm starting from level 1 it is nice to know that I have options for where I take my class specialization.
Hopefully with the 2024 rules we get more subclasses, did you try any of the magical painting items that let you create stuff with them (don't know the names specifically)
The thing about Artillerist is that their primary set of tools (every artificer subclass has one bonus tool proficiency) are woodcarving tools. Those cannons are absolutely meant to be wooden!
"But only slightly less well known is this!!" OMG Ginny, absolutely brilliant. I had to back up because I missed what the "this" was because I was giggling too much.
I’ve never had a problem with standard Artificer flavor but a prominent character on the list of ones I’d like to play sometime is a “deflavored” artillerist artificer who’s a witch. She channels her magic through earth and stone and all her spells and abilities are flavored as using them. Her cannons are constructs of rock and ground shaped like tiny dragons shooting fire/beams as though they were breath weapons. She infuses items by taking rocks with runes carved into them and trying them to the item. Her bag of holding is always half full of dirt she’s picked up along the way and whenever she pulls an item out it looks like she’s pulling a vegetable out of the ground. When she cast Firebolt she taps a rock with her staff causing it to launch towards her target and catch fire along the way. And as a Vuman she picks up Magic Initiate- Druid for Mold Earth and Druidcraft for extra nature-y flavor.
My battlesmith was flavoured as a paladin, who had divinely imbued magic items. Their steel defender was an angel, their arcane jolts were mini divine smites. We are in a fairly high fantasy campaign and I think it has worked really well.
Artificers are so much fun to flavor! I like to pick a set of artisan's tools to specialize in (not necessarily linked to the subclass) - my dragonborn alchemist is a master of cook's tools and candymaking, and takes advantage of her fire resistance to directly handle molten sugar and create magically-infused confections. I ended up getting into candy-making IRL and passed out sweets in game when I cast spells on my allies.
I have an (as of yet unused) idea for an Artificer who's a scribe, and uses papers, inks, blotting powders, etc for their spellcasting. Like if they want to cast Detect Magic, they make a quick sketch of the area, and magical items light up on the paper like a treasure map. Or toss a quill at an ally to sprout giant feathery wings to cast feather fall. You can make so many fun flavors over the mechanics. And really that could apply to Artificer or ANY class.
This. This is exactly what I like about them. Sure, the traditional artificer is very steampunk due to its inclusion in the very steampunky Eberron, that doesn't mean they all have to be. Tool-based flavoring is the best way to make an artificer your own unique thing.
Thank you!! EDIT: The bad news is, I have been hoodwinked by an “artist” at a local flea market. The good news is, you can get these at Walmart. And for less than I paid!! 🥲
Almost anything can be reflavored to fit into almost any campaign. That’s one of my favorite things about D&D-it’s so easy to change the flavor details and end up with something that feels completely original. I’ve actually been floating a campaign idea around in my head where the PCs are dolls and stuffed animals who fight to protect a child from the monsters under the bed. Mechanically, it won’t be any different from a traditional D&D campaign, but the flavor will give it a completely different feel. Imagine a teddy bear healing their comrades with a hug, or a fashion doll using their accessories as weapons.
Yeah, I really can't wrap my head around someone getting stuck at "but it's a _steel_ defender, it needs to be _steel."_ The pseudo-steampunk flavor, IMHO, is only there to make it easier to communicate the concepts behind the class. One _could_ write a theme-agnostic version of the Artificer rules, but that would be *a lot* harder to read and understand.
Oh my gosh this campaign idea sounds amazing and I hope you get to do it cause that concept is gold! I’m especially loving Fighter Barbie using accessories as melee weapons!
And not even that sometimes. You can even have all the metal and mechanics of the class and still fit any setting, just by changing the esthetic. From the constructs like the giant Talos and the vareous works of Hephestus from Greek mythology, to the silver hand of king Nuadha of irush mythology, to the dwarfs of Norse sagas crafting magical itams, to the clockwork Nightingale, Golems...... There are so many examples of what look like technology and high crafting that date back to well before the middle ages in world mythologies that fit perfectly well within the high fantasy worlds of said mythology's. The real problem is the whole modern/stempunk esthetic, or rather the perception that the artefiser, and for that anything that even the slightest bit mechanical,artificial or highly advanced in fantasy must obviacely be done with this kind of flavoure, when that just plain rediculas.
I'm glad you realized that the flavor is just that. There's tons of ideas for how to flavor the Artificer for an LOTR style setting. 1. Armorer- Old man or lady that is too infirm learns how to enchant armor to act as their body. They could be missing limbs that the armor replaces or just simply need additional assistance due to age. 2. Artillerist- Toymaker that brings their toys to life. You could get a whole quasi santa type vibe going where his turrets are animated toys that do things. Small wooden or lead toys soldiers with bow and arrow, a small animated dragon that flies to the target for the Scorching rays and fireballs, etc. 3. Alchemist- The witch is pretty straightforward, or you can make a master crafter of high Quality alcohol. The experimental elixirs are new recipes that are being tried out and are kept in their own brewing batch. Potion and booze could have enough similarities to make a natural connection point between the 2 and you could have the healing potions you make be high qaulity mead that the party likes more because it tastes better than a normal healing potion. 4-Battle Smith- One of the smaller races tried joining a knightly order but was rejected because they were too small to effectively mount and control a warhorse, so they devoted themselves to study to show up the knights and made their own smaller warhorse out of stone. If you make it an uncontrolled mount you could flavor the character similar to Sir Diddymus from Labyrinth while keeping the defenders attacks, or just have it use it's mobility to get around faster and stand watch while sleeping. The options are plentiful and it's only a lack of imagination that keeps the artificer in the steampunk setting. **Edit** You can get a little wild and crazy with multiclassing too. Bard+Battle smith= your defender is an animated set of instruments that play while you sing. Battle Smith + Paladin= You become a holy knight on your animated steed. battle Smith allows you to use your Int instead of strength allowing you to leave that at minimum requirement. Barb+ Artillerist= You fashion healing totems that you can carry with you into battle to make you even more durable. Rogue+ Alchemist= You make your own poisons and disguises and are very good at it. Minimum int is all that needed, burn spell slots to make more potions that you can pick what the effects are for a little flight, shape shifting for disguises, etc.
Bard+Battle Smith sounds like a good way to incorporate the organmobile from WH40k into a fantasy setting where you are a bard with a pipe organ, but your organ is too heavy, so you give it legs.
In the case of most published D&D campaign settings, it's not even a notion that "artificer = steampunk" and "D&D = LotR-styled high fantasy". It's straight ignorance of the settings in play. The only setting in which artificers, warforged, and autognomes cannot be reasonably justified is Dark Sun, end of story. The next-lowest-tech setting -- Greyhawk -- still has realms of Renaissance-level technology, not to mention it's the biggest hub of spelljammer travel and commerce of all published settings. Even Krynnspace during the Age of Despair, when its crystal sphere was isolated and impenetrable to outside entry, had higher levels of technological development between dwarves and gnomes than Greyhawk (even though the presence and borderline tyranny of the Orders of High Sorcery prevented quite a bit of the research and experimentation necessary to produce magitek-type stuff). Forgotten Realms is the default published setting of 5e, and as a result you hear a lot of "would X work in Forgotten Realms?" discussion...if you know the lore, you know the answer is almost always "yes". Some cases might be harder to explain than others, but it's usually there. I can't remember his name, but there's canonically a Solamnic Knight who somehow found his way to realmspace for crying out loud. People over here asking if artificers and warforged work in Forgotten Realms, like...my dude, Lantan and Halruaa are so advanced they'd consider artificers and warforged quaint by comparison. Halruaan spellbooks aren't even books, they're Weave-powered laptop computers. They have neither a standing army or a navy, because they have an air force.
My alchemist artificer is a harengon from the feywild. He's smol and cute, and his "potions" are actually just tasty snacks and meals. He fights with a frying pan that deals extra fire damage on a crit.
notes on using battle smith for Geppetto and Pinocchio: 1. steel defender is a creature. 2. magical tinkering allows a creature to tap on the imbued object to play a short pre-recorded message. 3. that message can be "I'm a real boy"
I love the idea of a Druid Artificer who reshapes plants into living constructs, weaving gems into them for arcane powerups, now and then mixing in the blood and bones of animals and monsters to imbue the constructs with their natural abilities. Some are covered with moss to be sneaky, some are huge lumbering trebuchets for a siege, some are used like a terrifying but expendable "zerg-rush", and some are even made of root and used to burrow like snakes underneath castle walls...
I had an idea for a Firbolg Artillerist from a druidic community. He nurtures the spark of nature magic that once filled the item’s raw materials. His ‘cannon’ is a staff with a carved wooden dragon’s head
i played that in a game, my battle smith steel defender was a wood and stone golem, she was a moon elf, raised by druids of moonshae, but never found a connection with nature, yet in her learning, she still kept a cultural flair to her artifice, and then avernus happened... poor girl had never killed anyone and suddenly there was this object trying to make deals with her... (if you know you know, if you don't?, play the module)
At level two you get access to an expendable, reusable Pot of Awakening. A druid flavored Artificer can be extremely game breaking, given a couple months prep time.
I love that you pointed out that a lot of the game's constructs already come from wizards. I totally get having trouble seeing past flavour and aesthetic, but at the end of the day an artificer building a steel construct and a wizard animating a golem aren't as different as they may seem.
I've even run the Steel Defender as an iron elemental. You summon this thing to fight by your side. And the idea that its this shifting iron sand that takes different shapes to move about...was a lot of fun.
@@LupineShadowOmega Hell, there's shield defenders in the standard Monster Manual before Tasha's Cauldron of Everything released to integrate artificer into 5e outside of Eberron.
this gets exactly at what i love about artificer-the class concept itself is just so creative when you strip back the flavor packaged with it, i love building artificers cus of this, theres just so much you can do
my battle smith was summoning golems from stone and sand, while siphoning magical energy from magical weapons to be able to swing with twohanded sword masterfully and putting part of own soul to fuel magical runes in artificers infusions. I love that class
I knew the INSTANT you mentioned Armorer that The Stormlight Archive would get brought up! Can confirm Shardplate is literally magical power armor, and it's one of my favorite examples of how to make something like that feel more fantastical and less factory-made within a fantasy setting.
I started RP with Artificers and also played with Pathfinder. So, Artificers from Ebberron was fun. We didn't play it as guns. We played it as they are the people who make all the magic items you are buying magic items. That seemed to work well.
@@ittyandpocky Not STRICTLY true, the author of Eberron has come out and said that guns DO exist as a GM option...sort of...but they'd mostly used by the goblin tribes, they're noisy, unreliable and sort of ramshackle traditional black powder weapons, they're inherently less reliable than the go to for most people...which is wands. Wand of magic missile are easily made on Eberron and are used in place of firearms because they A) Always hit and B) deal enough damage to kill most folk in one or two hits (remember commoners have 4 hit points). So when you have what is essentially a magical gun with auto-aim built in, why use a gun? Especially when most people would carry 3-4 wands of magic missile on them and use them like pirates used flintlock pistols, carried in a brace and once one was depleted, sheathe it and go on to the next one.
Sauron, Feanor, Celebrimbor ( the dude who made all the other rings) the swordsmiths who made Narsil and other "magic" weapons. (Anduril even seems to light on fire in the books, though I think that's more a paladin courage/fear aura than damage buff.) Galadriel since she makes the phial and probably her mirror. Artifcers are everywhere in Tolkien.
@@nealenthenerd399 Sauron is Armourer for me. Feanor and Celebrimbor... I'm not sure, they mostly make jewelry, that doesn't feel specific to any subclass. Galadriel is Alchemist. And Saruman multiclassed into Artillerist
There are no PC wizards in One Ring. And no full magic system. There is some dozen people in the world who can use magic. They are more like a force of nature than a neat package. All magic recedes as the world becomes more banal.
@@nealenthenerd399 Oh man, probably a homebrew class revolving around gift giving or cursed items. Honestly, they don't support the class enough for a good answer to that one. Good question though.
I loved the discussion about the Alchemist because everything described is pretty much exactly what I did with a recent character of mine! They were an army medic, and had settled down as a local doctor in a small village before getting involved with the adventuring party via an old soldier friend (the party's fighter.) I flavoured all their spells via herbs and concoctions, and described them carrying a big thick medicine bag everywhere with them. Things like Acid spells were them pouring peroxide on enemies, healing spells were salves, temp HP was bestowed using painkillers, things like that. It was great fun playing them, and I discussed with my DM about what "components" I could get from monsters we slew, or scavenging plants, etc. to add extra roleplay after every combat encounter.
Goblin Alchemist with Investigator background. Apprenticed under an alchemist who was routinely "community serviced" as a forensics specialist, to identify methods of various crimes around the city. After training became a wandering potion maker, who occasionally investigated crimes.
Exactly! I came to the same conclusion while I was prepping for my Planegea campaign (prehistoric fantasy/stonepunk) in the beginning of this year. One of my players decided to play as a Dwarven Battlesmith Artificer. Luckily for him, there's lots of potential for crafting with stone and bone and it's easy to reflavor the Artificer's Infusions as stone age objects. We reflavored the Steel Defender to a stone golem ;D
11:22 - "You could play Geppetto and have Pinocchio be your Steel Defender." So... I actually do kind of have a character I've been working on that fits this description. They're not literally Geppetto, but it's very much that vibe - and I did even consider doing this exact thing of making them an Artificer with a reskinned Defender, but I had talked myself out of it because the class a whole still didn't QUITE feel like it fit the flavor I was going for with them. I have been struggling with how to mechanically represent what this character had become for a while now - and as much as the thought of trying to homebrew something for them myself feels daunting - I cannot manage to be satisfied with any of the core class or multiclass options I have considered for making them function the way they do in my head.
@@atsukana1704 What originally started as an idea for a 'creepy bard' became a old halfling man who lost his family to a tragic accident and went full Geppetto making puppets in their likeness in his grief until one day one od them came to life, seemingly possessed by the soul of his daughter. I feel like the concept has landed in this middle ground between a Bard, an Artificer, and a Warlock flavor-wise, and I'm stuck in that deadlock not sure how to make a proper build out of it.
Oooo as someone whos fav class is artificer the "its all just steam punk :/ it doesn't fit fantasy" mentality has always been one of my biggest pet peeves, and I'm so glad you made this video to convince others how untrue it is! If your setting has any magic items it HAS artificers! Dwarven runecraft, enchanted items, elven craft, living rugs as you said, there's so much you can do and is done by artificers in a high fantasy setting, and I really wish WoC had done more to illustrate that when bringing artificers over in Tasha's. Either by putting more effort into outlining at least a few non-steampunk options in the flavor text or putting in one or two more subclasses that focused on other kinds of artifice: like a charm/ward maker or something more elvish/druidic. I had one artificer who was more of a gardener, growing their little companions from specially curated seeds that released pollen of different effects; they were an artillerist and usually used the healing 'bot'. I had another who did glasswork and each 'bot' was a windchime with a magic scroll hanging from its chimes that activated on the ting. I've heard others make living dolls and more vodo esk artificers, I've heard of people having 'armor' that's like the venom symbiote but as a homunculus, or others that choose to give it all the flavor of blood magic carving runes into their own skin! Taxidermy necromancers, magical food, literally weaving the weave, magical jewelry, it just goes on and on! I just AHHHHHHHHHH once you take that half step to considering the possibilities of what an artificer actually is, there's SO MUCH cool stuff you can do, and its tragic to me that to so many the artificer is just the mechanical sparky sparky boom man...
Re: The concept of the Eldrich Cannon - in One Piece, a certain character's cannon 'ate' an animal-transformation type Devil Fruit, and subsequently transformed into a Dachshund that shoots explosive baseballs. It makes no more sense in-context except that it's absolutely ridiculous and fun at the same time. The sky's the limit when it comes to flavour!!
As for battle smith, I played a retired ships cook who fought alongside their mechanical cast-iron stove. A guardian during the day, cooking delicious meals at night.
My artificer is a glassmaker with a bit of a daydreaming issue. Her eldritch cannons look like a blown glass seahorse (force), goldfish (flamethrower), and lotus flower (the one that gives you temporary hp) She basically animates her little glass creations so she can bring the magic of her daydreams into real life; her class gameplay is all about whimsy, sparkles, and cute creatures who happen to be translucent
"clockwork things are too steampunk" In 1515, Leonardo Da Vinci was commissioned by Pope Leo X to design and construct a golden mechanical lion to present to the king of France, the lion is recorded to have strode forwards, roared, and then it's chest sprung open spilling lilies out at the feet of the king. If you need an artificer that fits the wonky, indistinct, perpetual late-medieval to high-renaissance fantasy theming of D&D, then Da Vinci is a pretty solid shout.
Also, look into the inventions of Heron of Alexandria. He lived around 60 CE. And his inventions were amazing. He even invented a very basic steam engjne.
The 1500s saw the proliferation of effective personal firearms as well, pushing the time period into that Renaissance, shot and pike era. So that's still pretty late for a truly medieval swords, knights and castles vibe.
Automatons existed since the 9th or 10th century AD. Both the Emperor of Constantinople and the Abbasid Caliph had automaton statues of lions that could pound their feet and roar. In dnd, an artificer could use magic to enhance automatons and make actual robots
My first play in DND 5e I ran an artificer because it was new to me. But when I talked with the GM about how I would flavor the guy, we came to the idea of being a runesmith. I carved my spells in to items, rather than building items out of odd bits. We even ended up deciding that the languages I based my etching in would impact the damage types for some homebrew selections, which led me to take the Eldritch Adept Feat and pick up Eyes of the Rune Keeper. Not exactly a typical pick for your one Invocation on that one I imagine. So, my character had a motivation to travel around looking for lost ruins to uncover lost languages, and to study the languages of all types which still thrive in the world. Perfect hook to get out and adventure with the team. And my flavor all naturally fit the world aesthetic of typical high fantasy flawlessly.
I'm currently playing an Artillerist artificer, and I made their Eldritch Cannon, which shoots force damage, look like a baby amethyst dragon (since amethyst dragons have a force damage breath weapon). Very practical, and very cute!
I think another thing people oftentimes tend to ignore is that even in High Fantasy artificers do play a significant role. Orcs in Tolkien’s lore are known to be “clever in the arts of building things for destruction”. Of course, they’d still use catapults, ballistae and trebuchets but there’s a passage where it’s mentioned that the projectiles “burst into flame as they came toppling down”. Don’t tell me that’s not some artificer work there. Considering that Gandalf literally brings fireworks to Bilbo’s party, it’s not that much of a stretch to realize orcs used gunpowder of some sort to do that trick. Even by Morgoth’s time it’s mentioned that “masters of fire” were summoned to “set great engines” to destroy the walls of Falas. It’s ok if people want to play Arthurian tales in their D&D games, and I have no issues with classic Sword & Sorcery, but technology has been part of High Fantasy for as long as High Fantasy has been a thing, it was just a bad guy stuff… but again, if people are playing as Kobolds, Orcs and Goblins, they shouldn’t care that much about it.
Holy crap, the Pinocchio comment made me think about flavoring Lies of P Pinocchio into an artificer. So easy too, he's literally just an Artillerist who's eldritch cannon is a prosthetic arm. Doesn't even have to be a fully articulated arm either. I love this idea now, oh my God, i need to make it happen
I genuinely appreciate how you approached explaining the Artillerist since it is a wonderful archetype. I played one myself that I worked with my DM to make sure wouldn't break the world setting. My artificer was a kobold who used to salvage and repair discarded items like lamps and vices because she found them fascinating. As a result, she was highly gifted at essentially transforming items into other items. She was eventually imprisoned and released as part of a work program in a form of rehabilitation. Her Eldritch Cannon were actually her prison manacles which she imbued with runes and added additional segments into. The runes would essentially use arcane energy to give the manacles a new shape, acting as an arcane amplifier for her abilities. Her Arcane Firearm was very similar. If you can imagine a metal rod looking like gun-shaped stick that a child would play with, it was essentially that. It didn't have the capability to fire on its own but acted as a condenser for energy, allowing her to generate more energy with her spells without expending anything additional. Her whole gimmick was the transformative nature of magic and how it could enable new items and ideas to be given shape and life. I think this was a fun way to approach an artificer in a high fantasy setting because it isn't too unlike a wizard going out and developing their own unique magic after years of study and practice.
My Armorer enchanted a pair of bracelets that she would raise in front of her (Wonder Woman style) and tap together. This would form ethereal armor around her. A white, faintly glowing set for Gaurdian, and a dark, almost smokey set for Infiltrator. Any infusions were modifications to the bracelets, and I still spent the money as if crafting plate armor.
Eldritch cannon is a magic automated sentry backpack on a squirrel familiar. The shield "cannon" is just a floating orb of light that pulses every now and then to provide and refresh a magical shield on all your allies. Armorer artificer, except the armor isn't physical armor, it's suped up permanent mage armor. Magical ethereal micro barriers that cover each limb either reflect attacks or warp light around them to make you harder to see.
And this is why Artificer is one of my favourite classes: It so open to flavouring of everything. In fact, the flavouring it already suggests is that the spells cast have different flavouring from all the other classes. Their whole thing is that even normal spellcasting is done by channeling energy through stuff. With a plant-based homebrew subclass (that frankly could mostly be re-flavoured as something else), I have a character I made that uses the Spelljammer-related Astral Drifter background, and mentally to me her spells are all flavoured as being derived from a bunch of exotic plants from different worlds, either in seed form or cuttings, just waiting for a bit of magic to awaken their unusual properties to create the spell effects.
Other characters an Artificer could be: - A dwarven runewriter, an elvish magewright, a goblin shaman, a nonmagical medical doctor, a warsmith, those hobgoblin dudes in ebberon - the whole shaman class in WoW, the apothycary's from WoW, the antiquarian from DD, a witcher, a mandalorian - Crescent moon, Trap, Saw, Spears, Blinkblade and demolitionist from the *haven series - The tinkerer class in gloomhaven is a pretty neat example of what a fantasy inventor might look like, same for like Kehli from Descent
Esoteric Enterprises had a non-magical doctor class. No reskin or anything, just a literal black market doctor with scalpel and sutures. Or non-magical amphetamines. You got a trauma care ability to press hp into people fast and a high Medicine skill. WFRP has plenty of non-magical Renaissance medicine with amputation, syphilis and cancer. They can't fix cancer so you die.
I once made an artificer who used cook's utensils as his arcane focus, wore a tabard with flames on it, had spiky hair, and was all about bringing his enemies to "flavour town"
I take inspiration for the artificer from a light novel called "Let this grieving soul retire". The alchemist is the richest in her party from selling her potions, but in battle, she uses essentially a flesh golem to fight, her steel defender.
I just want my parties weren't full of artíficers. It's like if most player's didn't know any other class. I also agree they don't fit D&D base setting (middle ages). They are steampunk (industrial revolution.) 😢
I was thinking, "There's no real way not to think of Armorer as anything but Iron Man" but as soon as I heard Shardplate I immediately forgot about Iron Man's comparison
I've literally never thought of the armourer as Iron man, and I've played 2. Iron man is so far removed from fantasy that it didn't even cross my mind. The armour I've been using as an armourer was full of runes and protective wards. 1 of them I played didn't even have metal armour. It was a rogue armourer multi class that used studded leather armour and the stealthy armour type of the 2. The other was a dwarven rune smith in full plate.
My armorer is basically a metal bender, like in Legend of Korra (although in game I'm calling it ferromancy). It's really fun and fits neatly into fantasy, since my flavor is that she has magical abilities, but for some reason can only influence metal with them.
Mine was always biomancer that created a venom style symbiote. The longer it stays on a host, the more it grows and develops. It can shapeshift between modes, it can bond to new armor types, it creates it own weapons and develops magical abilities based on the stimulus you give it.
Your initial feelings around Artificers is completely understandable - I obviously have a background with Eberron, But I too have issues with how Artificers have been incorporated into 5e by art and flavour - I agree that the artillerist is the biggest flavour hurdle for the class. Eldritch Cannon and Arcane Firearm definitely needed different names and more varieties of illustrations to make the 'guns' feel only being one option of many. I am glad this book got you in a new mindset about the class!
There is the one art piece that has the kinda basilisk robot looking cannon, and it was responsible for my decision to make my Eldritch Cannon be a little frog sculpture. Having a walk/climb speed fits a little tree frog perfectly, and it actually makes a ribbit noise when it opens it mouth to breathe fire or spit out a "force ballista" shot. All any class takes to fit the flavor of a campaign is a bit of refluffing.
To be fair, they also pushed wands as guns and I really love that flavor. Wandslinger feels like a thing that a combat mage would focus on. Even having wands that can attack without you present. It would be a lot of fun to be an Artillerist cowboy.
I made a Battlesmith crossbow user for a dark fey wild campaign I was in. Longest campaign I was a part of. Over the course of a year his story evolved and I turned him from an artificer, to a wizard, to a different type of wizard. As his story changed I tried to change his class to match it. For my final arc I planned to return to artificer (sort of like him accepting who he is, long plot story) and giving his wizard powers to his familiar so she can keep herself safe and help out. Basically become an artillerist artificer and my "familiar" becomes the turret. So imagine a little bird person casting fire bolts and shielding everyone. Unfortunately my time in that campaign is over, and I never did get to learn how my characters story ended. I really miss P'wish.
In the campaign I am running, a fantasy mash up of magic, psionics, steampunk,and cyberpunk we have someone playing a technomacer which is a subclass of artificer. He has come in quite useful even in the middle of battle because he has adjusted our weapons to give them a boost. He has a strong affinity for crystals ,and the world is loosely based on the Jayne Anne Krentz novel series about a planet called Harmony in which all the technology is using a stone they called amber... It just works great. In other campaign worlds you just need to get a little more creative. In Harmony I already had a reason for the artificer class to show up.
One thing this made me think of is how both flavors exist in the setting of Blades in the Dark and can even be played, but they feel very different in many ways despite both making things that generally violate the laws of physics. In the game I played in ages ago, my characters (you can play multiple in that system and switch between them session by session) included both an alchemist/artificer who could make drugs, poisons, alchemical preparations and electropunk gadgets, and an enchanter who could make wards and bindings, as well as other oddball things like magic darts that could free the spirit from a Hull. In Blades, they were a Leech and a Whisper, but in D&D they would both make sense as artificers.
I'm playing a Tortle Artificer/Wizard, treating it more as a hedge wizard natural scientist. He uses calligraphy tools to draw up plans, experiments, and notes, and that works as his spellbook. He inks runes and glyphs onto objects for things like infusions, and does some papercraft/origami for spell effects like conjuration. Going to make him a BattleSmith/Abjurer eventually, with a Steel Defender like a clockwork coconut crab.
The artillery artificer in my current game it's in eberron Had a great line in our last game " I cast gun prepare to meet god" when he said this the whole table ERUPTED in laughter and has been a campaign highlight so far
So happy to see someone talking about how artificers can fit into any setting. I've been playing a high fantasy artificer for a while now. My Kenku Artillerist, Graverobber has always aspired to be a powerful necromancer but lacks a certain talent with channeling raw, unfocused, magic. As a result they use parts from exhumed bodies to craft their magic items. Their eldritch cannon is a spider crafted from two skeletal hands attached at the wrist and a skull serving as the abdomen. The skulls mouth opens to reveal a gem that fires bolts of magical energy.
When she described the artillerist my mind went to 40k and it’s daemon engines. Where the technology it started as changed into biological matter. I can imagine a campaign where as other artificers slowly become more machine while you and your cannon become more alive
The Young Adventurer’s Guides are awesome! I run a campaign for kids at the school I work at, and they do an excellent job at distilling concepts down to explain them to young readers.
I remember when I was DMing a campaign based off of Darkest dungeon’s aesthetics (which in all fairness does have guns) we had two artificers. The one was a Yaun Ti alchemist that took the looks of a plague doctor, and he used his natural resistance of poison to help him make different concoctions to help the party, and it worked with the theme super well. The other was a Dhampir Battle smith, and her “steel defender” was a stone gargoyle she named Sampson (we loved him). She has a very Van Helsing vibe, using a magical crossbow and different gadgets that were specialized from being a monster hunter while allowing Sampson to just lunge at creatures and be kind of the party’s off tank. Both of these characters are ones that I loved (though I just enjoyed that campaign and the players entirely anyways) and were fun and creative ways to go against the mold of what an artificer may be!
As far as the artificer's armor, it's pretty much a transformation mechanic, you could have it be an armor made of bones that protect you as a necromancer or that your shadow materializes, or that it's made of starlight, or that it's some kind of living thing you fuse with, etc...
I had thought about making the armor be magical armor that you can summon and dismiss (like the shadow that materializes you mention) but I think that is not RAW. RAW would mean that your armor has weight and a physical presence if you take it off (that could be stolen or otherwise tampered with if left unattended). It's similar to when i wanted my shield to be made of magical energy because I hate the thought of my character lugging around the thing at all times but also not wanting to surrender that +2 AC.
The thing is, the 5e implementation shits the bed with this little line: > As an action, you can turn a suit of armor you are wearing into Arcane Armor, provided you have smith's tools in hand. It tells you to use Smith's Tools for no reason.
@@NageIfar True but it doesn't really define what counts as smith tools for you, that is up to your interpretation, if you're going to re-flavor that ability you should also re-flavor the rest. It's also important to note that while the ability requires an armor of some kind it doesn't specify what happens to the armor after.
@@tafferinthedark That is true yes the armor has to have weight and a physical appearance but that does not impede you, the magical shadow thing can be tied to a a rune in an actual piece of armor, the bones could become a bone armor once you don it off, etc... The mechanics suggest you do something some piece of armor but it doesn't say what, only that it takes an action . You could say for example that your shadow covers the armor changing it's color, the armor must still exist but you don't have to think of the magical effect as being as directly part of the armor.
@@rapidLupine7687 That's just not true. From XGE: Components. Smith's tools include hammers, tongs, charcoal, rags, and a whetstone. There's nothing up to interpretation. WotC consciously chose to tailor these subclasses to the engineer/mechanic archetype, and they made the wrong choice. It's their responsibility to print proper content, period. Every experienced DM worth their salt will of course allow this to be replaced with any other tool, but that's besides the point of WotC creating an unnecessarily limited image for their class.
I once played an battle Smith in theros. I was a satyr and my steel defender was a glass deer. It was fun explaining how when I cast mending or spend a spell slot how all the peices cobbled and unshattered themselves back together. Or how the force attacks or heals leapt off of its antlers like lightning.
We had an artificer in our epic level campaign join part way through He had a little mechanized robo-lizard (Arcane cannon) that was named Caustic and we just loved him immediately. His species was a homebrew thing from the setting that had been noted as "the lizard people that used to rule the world" before they took themselves out with their hubris, inventors of Warforged, ect ect Most of our artificers in setting have been researching the ancient magics the galadons had made prior. With runestones to cast our spells, humunculi made with runes stitched or carved into their bodies and the like. We do have a steampunk one making clockwolves, but most of them just build their stuff around runes and magic crystal "bullets"
My opinion on artificers has varied over the past few years. I really didnt want them in my game at first but one of my players brought me his artificer Rony Krats and talked me through the flavor and characteristics of the pc and I was immediately convinced. Watching him play the pc over the next year or so helped cement my new opinion. So yes. Artificers belong in D&D and I'm a little bummed they wont be a core class in the new PHB for 5.5e Thanks to my charismatic friend Sean, I have seen the light and it is glorious.
This video feels so helpful, and not just regarding artificers! But also in general, finding ways to bring in flavor through different interpretations of the mechanics you're using. It was something that just hasn't come up for me personally in tabletop gaming... But a case of reflavoring the Arcane Trickster subclass in Dimension 20's current campaign really sparked my interest. So it was awesome to see this!
As far as the "Steampunk/Science-based magic", like you pointed out, the artificer was introduced into 5E by way of the Eberron book, which revolves around many of those themes. I still hold that there's room for an "artificer/tinkerer" class in a more standard high-fantasy setting, but one that's more based around an alchemy/apothecary background rather than a mechanic/engineer one would probably be a better fit for that kind of setting. Also, those earrings are WILD!
I strongly encourage you to look up Hero of Alexandria (also called Heron). The things that they were creating more than 1200 years before knights in plate armor, and more than 1500 years before rapiers existed, are absolutely astonishing. Also, don't forget about other well-known figures, such as Archimedes or Yi Xing. The idea that someone might see something like that (or even just a ballista, trebuchet, crane, windlass crossbow, etc.) and decide to improve it by adding magic doesn't seem at all out of place to me. Nor, for that matter, does the idea that a magic user might focus their experimentation on making a wand or staff that improves the destructive potency of their spells, as well as magical objects (a "force ballista" and a flamethrower that emits Greek fire) which have some advantages over normal spellcasting. Unless you expect every peasant (or even just every stonemason and every shipwright) to have a wizard on call for every time they need to lift something heavy, engineers are an absolute necessity to the basic functionality of society. It's inevitable that the same principles which allow them to make cranes and siege engines will eventually be turned toward more destructive pursuits, because that's simply what people do.
Eberron isn’t really Steampunk or Science-based. It’s more magicpunk or industrialized magic. Unfortunately a lot of the official art conflicts with the actual text of Eberron. For example, a lot of official Eberron art features firearms but canonically Firearms don’t exist in Eberron.
i once made my battle smith as an ex forge cleric that learned how to infuse objects with magic (i flavored the creed around taming a lesser fire elemental and placing it in the forge to create magical items) and the steel defender was a ram shaped armor infused with the his lesser fire elemental companion that could be estracted and placed in an anvil/forge to create items. basically the steel defender was an armor moved by an elemental. for the infusion he used the power of the elemental to inscribe magical runes on the armors or weapons of his friends, it was really fun and perfect for an high fantasy setting.
I had the same feeling as you with Artificers. Thank you for this enlightening view on how they can fit into my homebrew world. I love these little books and agree they look great on my bookshelf. Soon my grandson will be of age where these will be nice to share with him. After all, he's been part of our family D&D games since he was born. Dangling in front of his mom and dad why we adventure! Since our game is posted on RUclips he forever has proof he's literally been gaming since he was born! 😂
I always just say I'm an "Enchanter" because someone in the world has to be making all of these magical items. And not all wizards are running around throwing fire with their hands, some are working for weeks on Bracers of Defense or making Immovable Rods. It makes perfect sense in most D&D worlds.
Left out a part of the artillerist that most people over look which is the fact that the cannon can also give temporary hit point *every round*. That means that if you position your party correctly then you can gain a damage buffer that's constantly refreshed.
I love taking artificers into the high-fantasy mindset. I have a story that I’m working on about a battle smith who uses magnets and mystical crystals with hand gestures and ancient language to channel their magic
... Ok, I just realised this class is perfect for one of my characters that I never knew how to make into DnD. I wanted her to specialise in a very nieche kind of magic- specifically creating live puppets out of wood and fabric. Thanks for the video, it's very useful!
One of my favorite tropes is where technology has started to advance and disrupt traditional fantasy settings. It plays with an interesting dynamic of magic vs science as opposed to magic or science vs humanity. It’s a conflict between the mysticism of the past and innovation of the future. I’ve never had an issue with the artificer for that reason.
@@GinnyDi everything from Sanderson’s Cosmere, to Joe Abercrombie’s Circle of the world, going back to Lord of the Rings deal with this theme. It’s almost baked into fantasy as a genre. I’m working on a campaign set in a MTG world where this exact question comes up.
Honestly, a fantastic example of this would be Seto Kaiba in YuGiOh, especially in the Dark Side of Dimensions movie. The stuff he pulls off might as well be magical, but it's all tech based with no real explanation except "roll with it." I mean, he quite literally at the end of the movie creates a stargate tunnel to astrally project himself to ancient Egypt to finally duel the Pharaoh one on one.
That ad about the Young Adventurer's Guide series was the most wonderfully and naturally implemented sponsorship ad I've encountered. Well done, and thank you!
Artificer is one of my favorite class fantasies, the idea of a person creating the magic items seen in the world and working with the fundamentals of magic was always super appealing. Personally, my artificer works magic through fibers/weaving. They bind magic and create magic threads that are able to channel arcane energy, which in my class fantasy is a more "efficient" way of producing magic than through force in an instant like a wizard would. My artificer would then bind the magic spell by knotting/weaving the threads with others and creating a unique creation per spell. From a mundane perspective, they looked like fancy knotted charms or bands, but when activated they would burn through like a fuse and release the magic that had been lying dormant until that moment. These then can be worked into nearly any other creation: a magic binding on a swords handle, a broach or charm that holds a protective spell, the winding that functions with levers to produce something similar to "clockwork". It was a great way to tie in my love for fiber arts with traditional crafts from real cultures, as weaving/textiles are some of the oldest creations that humans have made.
Gosh your eye makeup is so spot on this video. I feel like Artificers only really "belong" if the DM works with you to achieve it. I don't see why high fantasy should be technologically restricted, but it can feel out of place if the setting makes you stick out like a sore thumb. Overall such a fun class to base characters around in my opinion!
I mean Medieval Era was more advanced than a lot of people give it credit for too. We're so used to seeing an ABSENCE of Guns, we forget the term "Bulletproof" was actually CREATED in that Era. Hell there were NINJAS who used Blackpowder Firearms.
There is an argument that necessity drive invention, so from a world-building point of view a valid argument that if you have magic that can achieve a goal there's no need for a technological solution. Imagine for example that half the population could cast Mold Earth - would you get the magically inclined person to use that cantrip, or force a person to dig a hole by hand? What use would firefighters be in a world where you have a squad of people who go around using Control Flames as a team to extinguish house fires? In this kind of theoretical worldbuilding context we can see why many worldbuilders don't truck with the idea of firearms or technology in their fanasty. In fact firearms are great examples of this. The earliest Firearms were things like lances and hand cannons that were radically experimental at best. It wasn't until the 12/1300's that we start to see what we would recognise as guns began to emerge. Their spread and popularity were bolstered by the relative ease of use and lack of training required...but even many forces preferred traditional archery and sword. Swords were even being carried and actively used in warfare as late as the First World War! It took until the 1800s for the accuracy and range of firearms to even match or exceed the bow. So, building on this principle...if a large portion of the world can cast even just 'Fire Bolt' as a Cantrip you have something as good if not better than a bow and something that is going to be immensely superior to a firearm for at least the first 400-600 years of technological development. In such a world would someone really bother exploring the capabilities of black powder? The answer many world builders come up with is 'no'. For my own part, my thought is that technology would still be developed, but perhaps more slowly for the same reason that gunpowder and firearms developed - ease of use. You develop something that requires no extra training. The real question that then pops up is when does Fantasy shift from high fantasy to urban fantasy to space fantasy? Unfortunately in that question thar be pedants!
@@TheAyanamiRei Medieval period ended around the 1200-1300's...so a little late for the emergence of guns. Likewise, it was the word 'proof' which has it's etymology in 1200's france. Bullet was derived from the french word from ball, entering common usage around the 1500's at the absolute earliest. Bulletproof was well outside of the medieval era sorry to say. Ninjas however, yeah their existance extending into the 1700s still baffles me somewhat. Though, I feel like their most superior skill was the storytelling they managed around themselves, their training, and their perported abilities.
@@MartinNelson Um, what? The medieval period ended in the mid 1400s at the earliest (and in England at least, it is often considered to end in 1513 with the Battle of Flodden). But regardless of when you consider the medieval period to have ended, D&D is explicitly Renaissance; rapiers did not exist before then. Another thing to consider is that artificers don't need firearms. It can be someone who looks at cranes and crossbows and ballistae and realizes that they can make those better via the application of magic, or who sees a magical construct and works out how to make one for themselves that will accompany them on their adventures.
@@MartinNelson While I found the response fascinating and have to agree with alot of points, one thing I would like to point out that the whole theory seems to apply at a more broad spectrum the way you put it. This necessity would perhaps be a reason to act on and invent more technological means to keep up for individuals who are not ablr to cast such spells ; having to develop different means of extinguishing a fire since you as an individual do not wish to be denied the opportunity of being a firefighter (Acting on your example). A player in our current high fantasy setting has become an artificer due to losing his legs and having to make himself mechanical ones as most people were, Para-phrasing "Narrowminded on magics and couldn't make me magical legs." While Artificers and technology aren't a common thing, our DM found a great intrigue and sense in developing different means than "The norm" to achieve these things, therefore also developing out of necessity. Even if most people are capable of casting produce flame, there will still be a crazy exception out there somewhere currently developing his flamethrower due to his lack of magical connection, slowly progressing the technology just like you have previously stated ; which is where my original comment does come in. Not every player may be comfortable in roleplaying those "exceptions" or sticking out like a sore thumb in an otherwise magical world, so I find Artificers to be a class that should be used with tight-knit conversation and cooperation to the DM, as the nature of a mechanic in a world of wizards can be both intriguing and intimidating, and the latter can definetly be worked around. ;p
Artificers were originally a setting-specific class for Eberron only. Unfortunately like most setting-specific PC things (Aarakocra, Warforged, Thri-Kreen, etc) people nicked it and started using it in all the settings. D&D players often don't really want to fit within game settings as written, and instead just play what they want to play... and Wizards have kinda rolled with it.
I’ve always played in Forgotten Realms, you can probably find an environment and geography that could fit any race from most realms. As a GM, I think this finding a home is true for many realms, not all though.
@@SusCalvin Sure, but if you're playing in Faerun, then why are you taking the magitech ideas from Eberron? Faerun has its own stuff that's different and unique. Why not just play an Eberron game?
@@Zahaqiel That's what I mean. If you do not want a world where magic can be churned out along industrial principles then you might not want Eberron and its systems.
I don't think she's actually read it, though. She said people travel by horses in that world. I think either she has friends that have read it that told her about Shardplate or it came up in her research for this video.
In our campaign, my alchemist was a shopkeeper who would make and sell her potions, until the shop got destroyed by the dragon that destroyed the town. I flavoured all my spells as some kind of powder/potion/ointment, so cure wounds was an ointment, faerie fire was shiny powder such as glitter, and poison spray was literally a vial of poisonous gas.
I had a warforged armorer artificer that I favored as a Lich’s Grisgol (a golem powered by a Lich’s phylactery), and the flavoring the magic as either consuming the souls stored in the phylactery of channeling a Lich’s raw power was probably the most fun I’ve had playing a character.
I've always seen the Steel Defender subclass as a golem-maker, most of the time, and golems have been in there seen the 1st ed Monster Manual. I had an Artillerist whose mobile "cannon" looked like a small statue of a dragon and the attack was its breath weapon. He named it "Henry" and I RP'd him as spending some of the evening downtime polishing and cleaning Henry, then putting down a small model of a pile of coins. "I know it's fake, but Henry doesn't, and I don't want him to be sad."
Artificers clicked for me when I saw that eldritch cannon can be fired from anything you choose to designate as your arcane firearm. I did a level 18 mini campaign as an artificer with a Staff of the Magi as my firearm, and the character was effectively somebody who'd wanted to be a wizard when she was young, but didn't have the theoretical mind for it... but she DID have a talent for the more hands on and applied work of an artificer. So she has a collection of magic items that make up the difference, but looks rather like a wizard. A wizard with a breastplate.
The idea of an artificer always made sense to me. Magic items are very common in most fantasy settings and artificer is the one that makes them. Flavour is just that, flavour.
I once played a Battle Smith firbolg, who used runes learned from his druidic/nature-based roots and his wood carving tools to craft his infusions and contraptions. His Steel Defender was actually a large, hand-carved wooden construct, à la Mokujin from Tekken
the longest dnd character i ever played was an artificer. they were an art student and instead of being the stereotypical scientific inventor type, they painted and sculpted tools and used their art supplies as a spellcasting focus! they even designed and built their first steel defender by painting a bunch of magic swirls of color on it. i wish i’d gotten to explore them a little more because i feel like there were so many unexplored ideas i had for how to flavor their spells and abilities thanks for defending artificers, they mean so much to me and i wish they were more widely loved :)
(context this is me before watching the video) Oh Ginny I oh so do wonder what you're going to say about my most beloved class. Jk I know you mean well.
After watching yeah I completely agree with your sentiment. Personally I loved making tattoo artist artificers or an armorer that commands liquid mercury into armor. Or a weakling half orc that uses this magical armor to be stronger. Or an amputee that uses the armor in the flavor as a magical prothstetic. Made the armorer one of if not my favorite subclass as soon as I picked up tasha's.
Artificer has always been my favorite class. So underrated, and there's so much potential. They really have the option to be what you want you want them to be, probably more so then other classes. Like I kinda want to play an Armor that is a paraplegic, and their armor is the only way to actually move around. Or a gnome or even something like a Pixie that builds their own Mecha... Or a snake oil salesman (Alchemist, even though it really needs some tweaks) that hesitantly joins the party and supports them on the sidelines. It's such a great class... you can really build it to be totally supportive to other players, or be greedy and use all the buffs on yourself. There's a lot of fun and open options that can really fit any theme when you give it a little thought.
I played a character I fashioned after Sazed in Mistborn. It would be easy to think he woud be a monk. But the notion of storing or using powers in metal (feruchemy) and then calling on them led me to flavor an armorer in a similar way. My 'armor' were my metalminds, the metal pieces used to store the energy. Also, I see Sazed as intelligence and wise. I equipped him with keen mind and observant. It was super fun.
The fact that the words "Brandon Sanderson" and "Shardplate" made me excitedly and frantically start taping my legs, armrests and desktop, overtaken by such unreasonable HYPE, it's SO unfair. Why does so few words can have such POWER over me!? 😭 P.D.: Thanks, Ginny! Now I can play an Armorer Artificier reflavored as a full Shardbearer! :D
As someone who runs a Kobold Artificer for my current D&D campaign, I see my Artificer as a magical blacksmith, someone who can build items and imbue them with magic. Who can boost their abilities both of themselves as well as the party with quick and dirty magic items. And can reduce the time and cost of enchanting items. Also remember Wrath of the Titans? The mechanical owl companion would be a homunculus servant. And Hephaestus on his own is an Artificer of the Olympian Gods, who created Pandora who was imbued with blessings/enchantments from the other gods. He also made Zeus's Lighting Bolt that he is famous for. The Dwarves who made Mjolnir in Norse Mythology. Tons of examples to justify Artificer in D&D.
My first introduction to an artificer being played in anything DnD was Zirk Vervain from Not Another D&D Podcast. He is an alchemist and thus serves as pretty much the primary healer (there’s a wizard with a cleric level too but that only goes so far). Some of his backstory is that he was pretty much an intern doctor before the plot started. So that really helped with kind of recontextualizing what artificers could be and showing their versatility. One of my friends is gonna play an artificer in my next campaign and I’m interested to see how she flavors it and if she’ll lean more into DPS than support. It’ll be really cool either way!
9:10 I did a OSE version of the Temple of Elemental Evil where our Artificer was a dwarf named Dorn. His cannon followed him around like a puppy. Our gloom stalker, Psy,christened him “Junior”. The legs were Pinocchio-like iirc.
Non-steampunk Artificers I have played in the past: a Dhamphir Battle Smith who's "Steel" defender was a bone golem. A lot of their stuff had necromancy/horror vibes...AOE spells were often thrown bombs made out of various animal and demihuman/human skulls, wands and rods made from limbs carved with scrimshaw, etc. In Curse of Strahd, I played another Battlesmith who did use a Musket, but had more Georgian vibes then Victorian. Less steampunk, more age of sail/revolutionary war/war of 1812/golden age of piracy/etc. Her defender was a Frankenstein-esq monster shaped like a three head dog (good ol'cerberus ref.) and was stitched together via taxidermy from the remains of the smith's hunting pack who had defended her from a dragon attack during a hunting trip gone astray. Had a sense of quiet tragedy whenever she would order it. In a game with a much more primative setting, I played an Artillerist who was a "Talismonger"...a hermit witch-y type who had Blair Witch style wicker and stone charms to cast spells with, and their "cannons" were a trio of straw dolls, each corresponding to a different turret function (flamethrower, force ballista, and the temp HP generator). Think "voodoo priestess". Honorable mention: Definitely more "Steampunky" I suppose, but in another Ravenloft game (Not Curse of Strahd, set after the events of that campaign), I played a Reborn Armorer who's "Secondskin" was a full metal-plated diving suit. 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea, with the cage-reinforced globular helmet. with the tiny viewport windows for sight and everything. Was almost always in Infiltrator Mode, and their lightning blasts were cast in arcing bolts from their primary weapon: a harpoon connected by a retractable metal chain connected to a small spool and "generator" (tiny ghostly electric eel thing in a tiny aquarium box) on their back. They were the amalgamation of a bunch of trapped spirits who all tried to flee their bonds in mass, and fused together to be Reborn as a solid person, and now collectively were "haunting" the diving suit and working as a mistwalking investigator for the Vhage Agency (a unique Dread Domain that takes the form of a singular Private Detective agency, with a singular occupant: Vhage herself, who is that realm'0s Dark Lord and has a tendency to employ adventurers as agents to go out and investigate various crimes in the Islands of Dread, a lot of which are actually the work of Vhage's secret split personality, a devious criminal mastermind). Sure, the diving suit gives it more of a Steampunk vibe to be sure, but I thought I'd mention this one anyways, just for the reflavouring factor. Iron-man Armorer? Pssh, no...Ghostly Mariner/Deep Sea Diver? Yesssssss.
I’ve got an artillerist artificer named dusk. She’s a Dhampir that’s been around for over 700 years. In her travels along with her sisters she met a dragon named Aurixarion the Golden (Tinkering Ancient Gold Dragon). After a while he took her under his wing and taught her a lot of his knowledge. Her eldritch cannons are flavoured to be small mechanical dragons that she has spent most of her lifetime along side her master to make out of some of the rarest ever materials. They even contain some souls of animals or pets that her master put in them to make them be actually alive. They are so cool.
For all intents and purposes, "Dragon's Breath" turns a creature into an Eldritch Cannon! Minecraft has an "Iron Golem", not a single person I know talks about "it's a robot"
The artificer in our campaign is a trash loving racoon that finds new things to tinker in the trash (Mechanically he's a battlesmith). He is the heart of the group, honestly. He created his own spider vehicle from trash parts, and called him Sp1d3Я. He also used one of his magical tinkering tricks to convince an NPC he was cursed (the item was a jar with three pickles, one of which could talk and glow and say "yes" to the NPC, confirming they are cursed). He fits in perfectly if you ask me.
My girlfriend played in a campaign recently where she was a Thri-Kreen Artillerist Artificer, and since shes an irl entomologist, she themed everything around bugs and grafted bug parts, with some runic magic mixed in! Her eldritch cannon was a beetle that latched onto her back like a backpack and it was so cute
That idea is awesome!!!
Stealing this
Ohh I like this
Baby Tyranid!!!😂😂😂
It makes me think of the artillery bugs from Starship Troopers that vomit or shit plasma that melts people. But small and cute.
My Artillerist was an old lady that knitted spells, and her Eldritch Cannons were just crocheted beanie babies of D&D monsters. A beholder that looks like a deflated soccer ball, rolling around shooting beams. A dragon flamethrower. A Unicorn that defends people with rainbows.
Honestly it was SUCH a fun character. Adelaide Clydesmare, what a legend.
That’s beautiful and honestly one of the coolest character concepts I’ve heard of.
My table would love this, would you mind if I used her as an NPC (maybe shop vendor) in the game I run?
ME TOO! Constyance ran a knitting store which was home to a rather energetic knitting group. But then her niece and nephew got caught up (literally) with the wrong crowd.
I played at cons mostly so Constance would hand out +1 sword cozys and knit caps at the start of the adventure. She had a yarn ball holder on her belt and threw out yarn like ray of sickness.
My Artillerist makes Bard Instruments!
I really think this video was missing the big part that Artificer can cast from ANY infusion.
Bag of holding magician pulling things out a hat!
Instrument of Illusion casting musical spells and with artillerist turrets can be other instruments
Boots of flying allowing spells to be fired from the feet!
Personally I love the steampunk style and find it doesn't need to contradict swords and scorcery. I got into 3d printing so I could make my own vision of the eldritch cannons and they are on thingiverse (including the dragon flamethrower). Its been a few years and I decided to run a tabaxi battlesmith and it is similarly a custom mini of my design.
I think it’s worth pointing out just how well the Artificer can be reflavoured as a witch. All the infusions feeling like witchy trinkets, the alchemist brewing potions in a cauldron, the eldritch cannons walking around with Baba Yaga’s hut’s chicken feet, the steel defender being a reanimated familiar, the armourer’s armour just being a heavily enchanted apron. Tools required can allow for an alchemist supply, herbalism kit or cooks utensils to be used as a focus, all of which could just be pulling spells out of a cauldron.
oh damn yeah, that's perfect, I love it
Not to mention your infusions can outright be the cauldron magic items
For almost all of the same reasons, you could reflavor them as a necromancer/witch doctor, using bones and hides to create constructs or cast spells.
@@wizrad2099 that’s such a shout
Literally what I did with my Winged Tiefling Hexblood alchemist artificer when Hexblood was released.
Armorer:
HAUNTED ARMOR PUT GHOSTS IN THE ARMOR, INFUSE YOUR ARMOR WITH THE SOULS OF THE DAMNED, PUT GHOSTS IN YOUR DAMN ARMOR
Metal af.
...Five Nights at Full-Metal Alchemist?
SER TONY STARK BUILT THIS SUBCLASS IN A CAVE!!!!!! WITH A BOX OF SMITH TOOLS!!!!
Its a real Alfonz Elrick/Ghost in the shell situation
Alphonse, is that you?
Tbh EVERYONE should be reflavouring their spells, not just artificers. Non-mechanical theme changes are tons and tons of fun.
My very first character was a genasi fire mage evocation wizard. When he cast "Fly" he used flame jets to propel himself because i thought it would be cool. The table loved it
I remember doing a Wild Magic Barbarian who was a former gladiator, and I reflavored some of the Wild Magic effects so that there was a sort of invisible audience that was supporting him. A couple of my favorite examples being roses being tossed at him from out of nowhere and causing the plants to grow and cause the difficult terrain effect, and another where a magical spotlight with no source is shone on him and grants him +1 AC.
Some are more simple like an ethereal crowd chanting his name and providing one of the handful of other buffs.
@@derrinerrow4369 That's awesome. To me the most fun is found in the details. The mechanics of the game are strong enough to carry almost endless variation
I love re-flavoring shit in D&D, currently making a Fighter who was a Collegiate Sport drop out after not making his Ice Hockey team, his Glaive is his hockey stick but refashioned, and his armor is just his hockey gear, though I have found a custom background for him on D&D Beyond, I initially was re-flavoring the Soldier background to suit his story more. Even his abilities I've tried to flavor after Ice Hockey, such as his Interception being played off more like a check, barging into the enemy to mess up their attack and reduce the damage, much like a check in hockey would disrupt a play to get them off the puck.
I asked one of my DMs if I could reflavor a certain spell, and he said no. The spell works a certain way and that's it. Only time I ever wanted to reflavor a spell. One of the few problems I have with my group is that most of them are really focused on following the Rules as Written. Even though one of the books has a ruling that any spell can be reflavored--it might be an optional rule, though.
@@chriscollins2095 It's not a variant rule, it's directly stated in the artificer section of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.
You should patiently explain that reflavouring doesn't affect the rules of the spell. You can describe casting each spell a spell a million different ways without changing a single letter of the spell description
I got inspired by Luz from the Owl House to make an artificer who casts with their painter's supplies, I took an alchemist artificer and re-flavored the potions as glyphs, I still had the alchemists tools to "make paint". This character felt very different from what you expected an artificer to be like.
I only wish we got more subclass options.
Ooh, that sounds like a fun reflavour.
I'm a little curious, did you end up designing any glyphs for this?
@@eddiemate No, but in hindsight I probably should have, it would have been a fun exercise to get into character.
Three subclasses does feel very restricting!! If I'm starting from level 1 it is nice to know that I have options for where I take my class specialization.
Hopefully with the 2024 rules we get more subclasses, did you try any of the magical painting items that let you create stuff with them (don't know the names specifically)
tbh a Pictomancer would be a great artificer subclass.
The thing about Artillerist is that their primary set of tools (every artificer subclass has one bonus tool proficiency) are woodcarving tools. Those cannons are absolutely meant to be wooden!
I think the woodcarving tools are mostly for the wands and staves they make for arcane firearms, but yes, cannons too.
Yeah making the cannons literally says woodcarving tools or smiths tools. It says woodcarving tools first, that's the default!
Yeah they’re just carved up objects with magical runes. It isn’t a firearm, it’s just a base for the time to fire through.
The “classic blunders” gag had me nearly spitting out my soda I was laughing so hard! Love The Princess Bride so a reference is always welcome!
Came here just to say this 😎
Never get involved in a land war in Khorvaire! 😂 So true! 🤣
"But only slightly less well known is this!!" OMG Ginny, absolutely brilliant. I had to back up because I missed what the "this" was because I was giggling too much.
A The Princess Bride reference? Inconceivable!
I need to watch that movie, keep hearing it pop up all over the place. I do need to say though, isn't Khorvaire from Eberron? Am I just stupid?
I’ve never had a problem with standard Artificer flavor but a prominent character on the list of ones I’d like to play sometime is a “deflavored” artillerist artificer who’s a witch. She channels her magic through earth and stone and all her spells and abilities are flavored as using them. Her cannons are constructs of rock and ground shaped like tiny dragons shooting fire/beams as though they were breath weapons. She infuses items by taking rocks with runes carved into them and trying them to the item. Her bag of holding is always half full of dirt she’s picked up along the way and whenever she pulls an item out it looks like she’s pulling a vegetable out of the ground. When she cast Firebolt she taps a rock with her staff causing it to launch towards her target and catch fire along the way. And as a Vuman she picks up Magic Initiate- Druid for Mold Earth and Druidcraft for extra nature-y flavor.
My battlesmith was flavoured as a paladin, who had divinely imbued magic items. Their steel defender was an angel, their arcane jolts were mini divine smites. We are in a fairly high fantasy campaign and I think it has worked really well.
Artificers are so much fun to flavor! I like to pick a set of artisan's tools to specialize in (not necessarily linked to the subclass) - my dragonborn alchemist is a master of cook's tools and candymaking, and takes advantage of her fire resistance to directly handle molten sugar and create magically-infused confections. I ended up getting into candy-making IRL and passed out sweets in game when I cast spells on my allies.
This is amazing!! And you must be the most popular player at the table 😍
I have an (as of yet unused) idea for an Artificer who's a scribe, and uses papers, inks, blotting powders, etc for their spellcasting. Like if they want to cast Detect Magic, they make a quick sketch of the area, and magical items light up on the paper like a treasure map. Or toss a quill at an ally to sprout giant feathery wings to cast feather fall.
You can make so many fun flavors over the mechanics. And really that could apply to Artificer or ANY class.
That's SWEET! I love it.
@JDub-TV I like the concept, but quill throwing sounds painful. On the other hand, if it protects them and hurts just the littlest bit, then why not.
This. This is exactly what I like about them. Sure, the traditional artificer is very steampunk due to its inclusion in the very steampunky Eberron, that doesn't mean they all have to be. Tool-based flavoring is the best way to make an artificer your own unique thing.
Damn, that eyeshadow with those earrings? Slay sis.
Really feeling the Jem vibes
And the flawless pale skin makes it REALLY stand out!
LOL was disctracted by these for the first 2 min of the video XD
@@SilentSooYun YES! Very very Jem and the Holograms!
Thank you!!
EDIT: The bad news is, I have been hoodwinked by an “artist” at a local flea market. The good news is, you can get these at Walmart. And for less than I paid!! 🥲
Almost anything can be reflavored to fit into almost any campaign. That’s one of my favorite things about D&D-it’s so easy to change the flavor details and end up with something that feels completely original. I’ve actually been floating a campaign idea around in my head where the PCs are dolls and stuffed animals who fight to protect a child from the monsters under the bed. Mechanically, it won’t be any different from a traditional D&D campaign, but the flavor will give it a completely different feel. Imagine a teddy bear healing their comrades with a hug, or a fashion doll using their accessories as weapons.
Yeah, I really can't wrap my head around someone getting stuck at "but it's a _steel_ defender, it needs to be _steel."_
The pseudo-steampunk flavor, IMHO, is only there to make it easier to communicate the concepts behind the class.
One _could_ write a theme-agnostic version of the Artificer rules, but that would be *a lot* harder to read and understand.
Oh my gosh this campaign idea sounds amazing and I hope you get to do it cause that concept is gold! I’m especially loving Fighter Barbie using accessories as melee weapons!
And not even that sometimes. You can even have all the metal and mechanics of the class and still fit any setting, just by changing the esthetic.
From the constructs like the giant Talos and the vareous works of Hephestus from Greek mythology, to the silver hand of king Nuadha of irush mythology, to the dwarfs of Norse sagas crafting magical itams, to the clockwork Nightingale, Golems......
There are so many examples of what look like technology and high crafting that date back to well before the middle ages in world mythologies that fit perfectly well within the high fantasy worlds of said mythology's.
The real problem is the whole modern/stempunk esthetic, or rather the perception that the artefiser, and for that anything that even the slightest bit mechanical,artificial or highly advanced in fantasy must obviacely be done with this kind of flavoure, when that just plain rediculas.
💡🤯
Teddy Bear Tank!!
I neeeeeed to play a teddybear tank now!
@@BastrdGod I'm picturing a paladin bear - named Paddington- that does lay on hands with hugs. This needs to happen now!
I'm glad you realized that the flavor is just that. There's tons of ideas for how to flavor the Artificer for an LOTR style setting.
1. Armorer- Old man or lady that is too infirm learns how to enchant armor to act as their body. They could be missing limbs that the armor replaces or just simply need additional assistance due to age.
2. Artillerist- Toymaker that brings their toys to life. You could get a whole quasi santa type vibe going where his turrets are animated toys that do things. Small wooden or lead toys soldiers with bow and arrow, a small animated dragon that flies to the target for the Scorching rays and fireballs, etc.
3. Alchemist- The witch is pretty straightforward, or you can make a master crafter of high Quality alcohol. The experimental elixirs are new recipes that are being tried out and are kept in their own brewing batch. Potion and booze could have enough similarities to make a natural connection point between the 2 and you could have the healing potions you make be high qaulity mead that the party likes more because it tastes better than a normal healing potion.
4-Battle Smith- One of the smaller races tried joining a knightly order but was rejected because they were too small to effectively mount and control a warhorse, so they devoted themselves to study to show up the knights and made their own smaller warhorse out of stone. If you make it an uncontrolled mount you could flavor the character similar to Sir Diddymus from Labyrinth while keeping the defenders attacks, or just have it use it's mobility to get around faster and stand watch while sleeping.
The options are plentiful and it's only a lack of imagination that keeps the artificer in the steampunk setting.
**Edit**
You can get a little wild and crazy with multiclassing too. Bard+Battle smith= your defender is an animated set of instruments that play while you sing.
Battle Smith + Paladin= You become a holy knight on your animated steed. battle Smith allows you to use your Int instead of strength allowing you to leave that at minimum requirement.
Barb+ Artillerist= You fashion healing totems that you can carry with you into battle to make you even more durable.
Rogue+ Alchemist= You make your own poisons and disguises and are very good at it. Minimum int is all that needed, burn spell slots to make more potions that you can pick what the effects are for a little flight, shape shifting for disguises, etc.
Bard+Battle Smith sounds like a good way to incorporate the organmobile from WH40k into a fantasy setting where you are a bard with a pipe organ, but your organ is too heavy, so you give it legs.
In the case of most published D&D campaign settings, it's not even a notion that "artificer = steampunk" and "D&D = LotR-styled high fantasy". It's straight ignorance of the settings in play.
The only setting in which artificers, warforged, and autognomes cannot be reasonably justified is Dark Sun, end of story. The next-lowest-tech setting -- Greyhawk -- still has realms of Renaissance-level technology, not to mention it's the biggest hub of spelljammer travel and commerce of all published settings. Even Krynnspace during the Age of Despair, when its crystal sphere was isolated and impenetrable to outside entry, had higher levels of technological development between dwarves and gnomes than Greyhawk (even though the presence and borderline tyranny of the Orders of High Sorcery prevented quite a bit of the research and experimentation necessary to produce magitek-type stuff).
Forgotten Realms is the default published setting of 5e, and as a result you hear a lot of "would X work in Forgotten Realms?" discussion...if you know the lore, you know the answer is almost always "yes". Some cases might be harder to explain than others, but it's usually there. I can't remember his name, but there's canonically a Solamnic Knight who somehow found his way to realmspace for crying out loud.
People over here asking if artificers and warforged work in Forgotten Realms, like...my dude, Lantan and Halruaa are so advanced they'd consider artificers and warforged quaint by comparison. Halruaan spellbooks aren't even books, they're Weave-powered laptop computers. They have neither a standing army or a navy, because they have an air force.
My alchemist artificer is a harengon from the feywild. He's smol and cute, and his "potions" are actually just tasty snacks and meals. He fights with a frying pan that deals extra fire damage on a crit.
Daw he sounds adorable.
notes on using battle smith for Geppetto and Pinocchio:
1. steel defender is a creature.
2. magical tinkering allows a creature to tap on the imbued object to play a short pre-recorded message.
3. that message can be "I'm a real boy"
I love the idea of a Druid Artificer who reshapes plants into living constructs, weaving gems into them for arcane powerups, now and then mixing in the blood and bones of animals and monsters to imbue the constructs with their natural abilities. Some are covered with moss to be sneaky, some are huge lumbering trebuchets for a siege, some are used like a terrifying but expendable "zerg-rush", and some are even made of root and used to burrow like snakes underneath castle walls...
I had an idea for a Firbolg Artillerist from a druidic community. He nurtures the spark of nature magic that once filled the item’s raw materials. His ‘cannon’ is a staff with a carved wooden dragon’s head
Amazing concept
i played that in a game, my battle smith steel defender was a wood and stone golem, she was a moon elf, raised by druids of moonshae, but never found a connection with nature, yet in her learning, she still kept a cultural flair to her artifice, and then avernus happened... poor girl had never killed anyone and suddenly there was this object trying to make deals with her...
(if you know you know, if you don't?, play the module)
Might as well reference Poison ivy from Batman and any Harry Potter fanfiction featuring Neville Long bottom as a central or significant character.
At level two you get access to an expendable, reusable Pot of Awakening. A druid flavored Artificer can be extremely game breaking, given a couple months prep time.
I love that you pointed out that a lot of the game's constructs already come from wizards. I totally get having trouble seeing past flavour and aesthetic, but at the end of the day an artificer building a steel construct and a wizard animating a golem aren't as different as they may seem.
I've even run the Steel Defender as an iron elemental. You summon this thing to fight by your side. And the idea that its this shifting iron sand that takes different shapes to move about...was a lot of fun.
@@LupineShadowOmega Hell, there's shield defenders in the standard Monster Manual before Tasha's Cauldron of Everything released to integrate artificer into 5e outside of Eberron.
this gets exactly at what i love about artificer-the class concept itself is just so creative when you strip back the flavor packaged with it, i love building artificers cus of this, theres just so much you can do
my battle smith was summoning golems from stone and sand, while siphoning magical energy from magical weapons to be able to swing with twohanded sword masterfully and putting part of own soul to fuel magical runes in artificers infusions. I love that class
I knew the INSTANT you mentioned Armorer that The Stormlight Archive would get brought up! Can confirm Shardplate is literally magical power armor, and it's one of my favorite examples of how to make something like that feel more fantastical and less factory-made within a fantasy setting.
I started RP with Artificers and also played with Pathfinder. So, Artificers from Ebberron was fun. We didn't play it as guns. We played it as they are the people who make all the magic items you are buying magic items. That seemed to work well.
How easy should it be to churn out magic? If you can apply industrial logic to magic you have Eberron.
Good you didn't use guns, because guns don't exist in Ebberon.
@@ittyandpocky So you can't homebrew in stuff even if you wanted to?
@@ittyandpocky Not STRICTLY true, the author of Eberron has come out and said that guns DO exist as a GM option...sort of...but they'd mostly used by the goblin tribes, they're noisy, unreliable and sort of ramshackle traditional black powder weapons, they're inherently less reliable than the go to for most people...which is wands. Wand of magic missile are easily made on Eberron and are used in place of firearms because they A) Always hit and B) deal enough damage to kill most folk in one or two hits (remember commoners have 4 hit points).
So when you have what is essentially a magical gun with auto-aim built in, why use a gun? Especially when most people would carry 3-4 wands of magic missile on them and use them like pirates used flintlock pistols, carried in a brace and once one was depleted, sheathe it and go on to the next one.
I thought that was obvious
Sauron was an Artificer. Always made sense to me as a high fantasy class.
Sauron, Feanor, Celebrimbor ( the dude who made all the other rings) the swordsmiths who made Narsil and other "magic" weapons. (Anduril even seems to light on fire in the books, though I think that's more a paladin courage/fear aura than damage buff.) Galadriel since she makes the phial and probably her mirror. Artifcers are everywhere in Tolkien.
Which subclass would you give him?
@@nealenthenerd399 Sauron is Armourer for me. Feanor and Celebrimbor... I'm not sure, they mostly make jewelry, that doesn't feel specific to any subclass. Galadriel is Alchemist. And Saruman multiclassed into Artillerist
There are no PC wizards in One Ring. And no full magic system. There is some dozen people in the world who can use magic. They are more like a force of nature than a neat package.
All magic recedes as the world becomes more banal.
@@nealenthenerd399 Oh man, probably a homebrew class revolving around gift giving or cursed items. Honestly, they don't support the class enough for a good answer to that one. Good question though.
I loved the discussion about the Alchemist because everything described is pretty much exactly what I did with a recent character of mine!
They were an army medic, and had settled down as a local doctor in a small village before getting involved with the adventuring party via an old soldier friend (the party's fighter.)
I flavoured all their spells via herbs and concoctions, and described them carrying a big thick medicine bag everywhere with them. Things like Acid spells were them pouring peroxide on enemies, healing spells were salves, temp HP was bestowed using painkillers, things like that.
It was great fun playing them, and I discussed with my DM about what "components" I could get from monsters we slew, or scavenging plants, etc. to add extra roleplay after every combat encounter.
Goblin Alchemist with Investigator background. Apprenticed under an alchemist who was routinely "community serviced" as a forensics specialist, to identify methods of various crimes around the city. After training became a wandering potion maker, who occasionally investigated crimes.
Exactly! I came to the same conclusion while I was prepping for my Planegea campaign (prehistoric fantasy/stonepunk) in the beginning of this year. One of my players decided to play as a Dwarven Battlesmith Artificer. Luckily for him, there's lots of potential for crafting with stone and bone and it's easy to reflavor the Artificer's Infusions as stone age objects. We reflavored the Steel Defender to a stone golem ;D
11:22 - "You could play Geppetto and have Pinocchio be your Steel Defender."
So... I actually do kind of have a character I've been working on that fits this description. They're not literally Geppetto, but it's very much that vibe - and I did even consider doing this exact thing of making them an Artificer with a reskinned Defender, but I had talked myself out of it because the class a whole still didn't QUITE feel like it fit the flavor I was going for with them.
I have been struggling with how to mechanically represent what this character had become for a while now - and as much as the thought of trying to homebrew something for them myself feels daunting - I cannot manage to be satisfied with any of the core class or multiclass options I have considered for making them function the way they do in my head.
Describe what you are going for? Maybe some help can be given
Creation Bard??
Wood has lower AC than steel but is probably cheaper and easier.
@@atsukana1704 What originally started as an idea for a 'creepy bard' became a old halfling man who lost his family to a tragic accident and went full Geppetto making puppets in their likeness in his grief until one day one od them came to life, seemingly possessed by the soul of his daughter.
I feel like the concept has landed in this middle ground between a Bard, an Artificer, and a Warlock flavor-wise, and I'm stuck in that deadlock not sure how to make a proper build out of it.
Exactly. The class is just badly designed.
Oooo as someone whos fav class is artificer the "its all just steam punk :/ it doesn't fit fantasy" mentality has always been one of my biggest pet peeves, and I'm so glad you made this video to convince others how untrue it is! If your setting has any magic items it HAS artificers!
Dwarven runecraft, enchanted items, elven craft, living rugs as you said, there's so much you can do and is done by artificers in a high fantasy setting, and I really wish WoC had done more to illustrate that when bringing artificers over in Tasha's. Either by putting more effort into outlining at least a few non-steampunk options in the flavor text or putting in one or two more subclasses that focused on other kinds of artifice: like a charm/ward maker or something more elvish/druidic.
I had one artificer who was more of a gardener, growing their little companions from specially curated seeds that released pollen of different effects; they were an artillerist and usually used the healing 'bot'. I had another who did glasswork and each 'bot' was a windchime with a magic scroll hanging from its chimes that activated on the ting.
I've heard others make living dolls and more vodo esk artificers, I've heard of people having 'armor' that's like the venom symbiote but as a homunculus, or others that choose to give it all the flavor of blood magic carving runes into their own skin! Taxidermy necromancers, magical food, literally weaving the weave, magical jewelry, it just goes on and on!
I just AHHHHHHHHHH once you take that half step to considering the possibilities of what an artificer actually is, there's SO MUCH cool stuff you can do, and its tragic to me that to so many the artificer is just the mechanical sparky sparky boom man...
Re: The concept of the Eldrich Cannon - in One Piece, a certain character's cannon 'ate' an animal-transformation type Devil Fruit, and subsequently transformed into a Dachshund that shoots explosive baseballs. It makes no more sense in-context except that it's absolutely ridiculous and fun at the same time. The sky's the limit when it comes to flavour!!
"My weapon of choice is the sword. What's yours?" "Oh, me? I favor the explosive dachshund artillery."
This was posted like 12 minutes ago how is ur comment from like 10 hours ago?
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@@GinnyDiI had an explosive dachshund… and that’s why he doesn’t get human food anymore…
@@GinnyDi I was going to say he was ahead of his time, but I guess I'm late to the party ;)
As for battle smith, I played a retired ships cook who fought alongside their mechanical cast-iron stove.
A guardian during the day, cooking delicious meals at night.
Love the concept. Delicious and dangerous!
My artificer is a glassmaker with a bit of a daydreaming issue.
Her eldritch cannons look like a blown glass seahorse (force), goldfish (flamethrower), and lotus flower (the one that gives you temporary hp)
She basically animates her little glass creations so she can bring the magic of her daydreams into real life; her class gameplay is all about whimsy, sparkles, and cute creatures who happen to be translucent
"clockwork things are too steampunk"
In 1515, Leonardo Da Vinci was commissioned by Pope Leo X to design and construct a golden mechanical lion to present to the king of France,
the lion is recorded to have strode forwards, roared, and then it's chest sprung open spilling lilies out at the feet of the king.
If you need an artificer that fits the wonky, indistinct, perpetual late-medieval to high-renaissance fantasy theming of D&D, then Da Vinci is a pretty solid shout.
There's also the "Antikythera Mechanism" which is a clockwork astrological computer thought to have been built some time around the 2nd century BCE!
Also, look into the inventions of Heron of Alexandria. He lived around 60 CE. And his inventions were amazing. He even invented a very basic steam engjne.
The 1500s saw the proliferation of effective personal firearms as well, pushing the time period into that Renaissance, shot and pike era. So that's still pretty late for a truly medieval swords, knights and castles vibe.
Ancient Hellenic Greeks in BC telling fantasy myths: "Oh, yeah, this thing's a big brass clockwork robot, or whatever. That's just god magic. No big."
Automatons existed since the 9th or 10th century AD. Both the Emperor of Constantinople and the Abbasid Caliph had automaton statues of lions that could pound their feet and roar. In dnd, an artificer could use magic to enhance automatons and make actual robots
My first play in DND 5e I ran an artificer because it was new to me. But when I talked with the GM about how I would flavor the guy, we came to the idea of being a runesmith. I carved my spells in to items, rather than building items out of odd bits.
We even ended up deciding that the languages I based my etching in would impact the damage types for some homebrew selections, which led me to take the Eldritch Adept Feat and pick up Eyes of the Rune Keeper. Not exactly a typical pick for your one Invocation on that one I imagine.
So, my character had a motivation to travel around looking for lost ruins to uncover lost languages, and to study the languages of all types which still thrive in the world. Perfect hook to get out and adventure with the team. And my flavor all naturally fit the world aesthetic of typical high fantasy flawlessly.
And the even less known saying is "Never go in against a Basalt caecilian when death is on the line." (Campaign 3, episode 73)
as you wish
I'm currently playing an Artillerist artificer, and I made their Eldritch Cannon, which shoots force damage, look like a baby amethyst dragon (since amethyst dragons have a force damage breath weapon). Very practical, and very cute!
I think another thing people oftentimes tend to ignore is that even in High Fantasy artificers do play a significant role. Orcs in Tolkien’s lore are known to be “clever in the arts of building things for destruction”. Of course, they’d still use catapults, ballistae and trebuchets but there’s a passage where it’s mentioned that the projectiles “burst into flame as they came toppling down”. Don’t tell me that’s not some artificer work there. Considering that Gandalf literally brings fireworks to Bilbo’s party, it’s not that much of a stretch to realize orcs used gunpowder of some sort to do that trick. Even by Morgoth’s time it’s mentioned that “masters of fire” were summoned to “set great engines” to destroy the walls of Falas.
It’s ok if people want to play Arthurian tales in their D&D games, and I have no issues with classic Sword & Sorcery, but technology has been part of High Fantasy for as long as High Fantasy has been a thing, it was just a bad guy stuff… but again, if people are playing as Kobolds, Orcs and Goblins, they shouldn’t care that much about it.
Holy crap, the Pinocchio comment made me think about flavoring Lies of P Pinocchio into an artificer. So easy too, he's literally just an Artillerist who's eldritch cannon is a prosthetic arm. Doesn't even have to be a fully articulated arm either. I love this idea now, oh my God, i need to make it happen
Love the cassette earrings 😊
And when you mentioned a wand with legs, I immediately had the mental picture of a walking stick insect!
Thank you! 😊
I genuinely appreciate how you approached explaining the Artillerist since it is a wonderful archetype. I played one myself that I worked with my DM to make sure wouldn't break the world setting. My artificer was a kobold who used to salvage and repair discarded items like lamps and vices because she found them fascinating. As a result, she was highly gifted at essentially transforming items into other items. She was eventually imprisoned and released as part of a work program in a form of rehabilitation.
Her Eldritch Cannon were actually her prison manacles which she imbued with runes and added additional segments into. The runes would essentially use arcane energy to give the manacles a new shape, acting as an arcane amplifier for her abilities. Her Arcane Firearm was very similar. If you can imagine a metal rod looking like gun-shaped stick that a child would play with, it was essentially that. It didn't have the capability to fire on its own but acted as a condenser for energy, allowing her to generate more energy with her spells without expending anything additional.
Her whole gimmick was the transformative nature of magic and how it could enable new items and ideas to be given shape and life. I think this was a fun way to approach an artificer in a high fantasy setting because it isn't too unlike a wizard going out and developing their own unique magic after years of study and practice.
My Armorer enchanted a pair of bracelets that she would raise in front of her (Wonder Woman style) and tap together. This would form ethereal armor around her. A white, faintly glowing set for Gaurdian, and a dark, almost smokey set for Infiltrator. Any infusions were modifications to the bracelets, and I still spent the money as if crafting plate armor.
Eldritch cannon is a magic automated sentry backpack on a squirrel familiar.
The shield "cannon" is just a floating orb of light that pulses every now and then to provide and refresh a magical shield on all your allies.
Armorer artificer, except the armor isn't physical armor, it's suped up permanent mage armor.
Magical ethereal micro barriers that cover each limb either reflect attacks or warp light around them to make you harder to see.
And this is why Artificer is one of my favourite classes: It so open to flavouring of everything. In fact, the flavouring it already suggests is that the spells cast have different flavouring from all the other classes. Their whole thing is that even normal spellcasting is done by channeling energy through stuff.
With a plant-based homebrew subclass (that frankly could mostly be re-flavoured as something else), I have a character I made that uses the Spelljammer-related Astral Drifter background, and mentally to me her spells are all flavoured as being derived from a bunch of exotic plants from different worlds, either in seed form or cuttings, just waiting for a bit of magic to awaken their unusual properties to create the spell effects.
Other characters an Artificer could be:
- A dwarven runewriter, an elvish magewright, a goblin shaman, a nonmagical medical doctor, a warsmith, those hobgoblin dudes in ebberon
- the whole shaman class in WoW, the apothycary's from WoW, the antiquarian from DD, a witcher, a mandalorian
- Crescent moon, Trap, Saw, Spears, Blinkblade and demolitionist from the *haven series
- The tinkerer class in gloomhaven is a pretty neat example of what a fantasy inventor might look like, same for like Kehli from Descent
Love these ideas!! Hope someone uses them
Esoteric Enterprises had a non-magical doctor class. No reskin or anything, just a literal black market doctor with scalpel and sutures. Or non-magical amphetamines. You got a trauma care ability to press hp into people fast and a high Medicine skill.
WFRP has plenty of non-magical Renaissance medicine with amputation, syphilis and cancer. They can't fix cancer so you die.
An ork alchemist called Steve Orkle. When drinking a certain potion he becomes Stefan Orkel.
I once made an artificer who used cook's utensils as his arcane focus, wore a tabard with flames on it, had spiky hair, and was all about bringing his enemies to "flavour town"
Did you also go to diners drive ins and dives?
@@shadenthal6276 dungeons and drive ins and dragons and diners and dives
I take inspiration for the artificer from a light novel called "Let this grieving soul retire". The alchemist is the richest in her party from selling her potions, but in battle, she uses essentially a flesh golem to fight, her steel defender.
I just want my parties weren't full of artíficers. It's like if most player's didn't know any other class. I also agree they don't fit D&D base setting (middle ages). They are steampunk (industrial revolution.) 😢
I was thinking, "There's no real way not to think of Armorer as anything but Iron Man" but as soon as I heard Shardplate I immediately forgot about Iron Man's comparison
I've literally never thought of the armourer as Iron man, and I've played 2. Iron man is so far removed from fantasy that it didn't even cross my mind. The armour I've been using as an armourer was full of runes and protective wards. 1 of them I played didn't even have metal armour. It was a rogue armourer multi class that used studded leather armour and the stealthy armour type of the 2. The other was a dwarven rune smith in full plate.
I started thinking of a Kamui from Kill la Kill
My armorer is basically a metal bender, like in Legend of Korra (although in game I'm calling it ferromancy).
It's really fun and fits neatly into fantasy, since my flavor is that she has magical abilities, but for some reason can only influence metal with them.
That's kind of a funny comparison because while reading those novels i thought, "Oh, it's fantasy power armor/Iron Man suit."
Mine was always biomancer that created a venom style symbiote. The longer it stays on a host, the more it grows and develops. It can shapeshift between modes, it can bond to new armor types, it creates it own weapons and develops magical abilities based on the stimulus you give it.
Your initial feelings around Artificers is completely understandable - I obviously have a background with Eberron, But I too have issues with how Artificers have been incorporated into 5e by art and flavour - I agree that the artillerist is the biggest flavour hurdle for the class. Eldritch Cannon and Arcane Firearm definitely needed different names and more varieties of illustrations to make the 'guns' feel only being one option of many. I am glad this book got you in a new mindset about the class!
There is the one art piece that has the kinda basilisk robot looking cannon, and it was responsible for my decision to make my Eldritch Cannon be a little frog sculpture. Having a walk/climb speed fits a little tree frog perfectly, and it actually makes a ribbit noise when it opens it mouth to breathe fire or spit out a "force ballista" shot. All any class takes to fit the flavor of a campaign is a bit of refluffing.
To be fair, they also pushed wands as guns and I really love that flavor. Wandslinger feels like a thing that a combat mage would focus on. Even having wands that can attack without you present. It would be a lot of fun to be an Artillerist cowboy.
@@LupineShadowOmega You just sold me on Artificer with the Artillerist cowboy!
I made a Battlesmith crossbow user for a dark fey wild campaign I was in. Longest campaign I was a part of. Over the course of a year his story evolved and I turned him from an artificer, to a wizard, to a different type of wizard. As his story changed I tried to change his class to match it. For my final arc I planned to return to artificer (sort of like him accepting who he is, long plot story) and giving his wizard powers to his familiar so she can keep herself safe and help out. Basically become an artillerist artificer and my "familiar" becomes the turret. So imagine a little bird person casting fire bolts and shielding everyone.
Unfortunately my time in that campaign is over, and I never did get to learn how my characters story ended. I really miss P'wish.
In the campaign I am running, a fantasy mash up of magic, psionics, steampunk,and cyberpunk we have someone playing a technomacer which is a subclass of artificer. He has come in quite useful even in the middle of battle because he has adjusted our weapons to give them a boost. He has a strong affinity for crystals ,and the world is loosely based on the Jayne Anne Krentz novel series about a planet called Harmony in which all the technology is using a stone they called amber... It just works great. In other campaign worlds you just need to get a little more creative. In Harmony I already had a reason for the artificer class to show up.
One thing this made me think of is how both flavors exist in the setting of Blades in the Dark and can even be played, but they feel very different in many ways despite both making things that generally violate the laws of physics. In the game I played in ages ago, my characters (you can play multiple in that system and switch between them session by session) included both an alchemist/artificer who could make drugs, poisons, alchemical preparations and electropunk gadgets, and an enchanter who could make wards and bindings, as well as other oddball things like magic darts that could free the spirit from a Hull. In Blades, they were a Leech and a Whisper, but in D&D they would both make sense as artificers.
I'm playing a Tortle Artificer/Wizard, treating it more as a hedge wizard natural scientist. He uses calligraphy tools to draw up plans, experiments, and notes, and that works as his spellbook. He inks runes and glyphs onto objects for things like infusions, and does some papercraft/origami for spell effects like conjuration. Going to make him a BattleSmith/Abjurer eventually, with a Steel Defender like a clockwork coconut crab.
The artillery artificer in my current game it's in eberron
Had a great line in our last game
" I cast gun prepare to meet god" when he said this the whole table ERUPTED in laughter and has been a campaign highlight so far
Industrial standards means Joe and Jane Orc at level 0 can man a mortar and shoot the PCs. I like the random artillery in Only War.
It's always a great feeling when a joke really lands and everyone at the table laughs out loud!
What's a gun?
Does he happen to be a clown named chuckles?
@@krumpits no but I'm pretty sure that is where he got the line from
So happy to see someone talking about how artificers can fit into any setting. I've been playing a high fantasy artificer for a while now. My Kenku Artillerist, Graverobber has always aspired to be a powerful necromancer but lacks a certain talent with channeling raw, unfocused, magic. As a result they use parts from exhumed bodies to craft their magic items. Their eldritch cannon is a spider crafted from two skeletal hands attached at the wrist and a skull serving as the abdomen. The skulls mouth opens to reveal a gem that fires bolts of magical energy.
When she described the artillerist my mind went to 40k and it’s daemon engines. Where the technology it started as changed into biological matter. I can imagine a campaign where as other artificers slowly become more machine while you and your cannon become more alive
The Young Adventurer’s Guides are awesome! I run a campaign for kids at the school I work at, and they do an excellent job at distilling concepts down to explain them to young readers.
I remember when I was DMing a campaign based off of Darkest dungeon’s aesthetics (which in all fairness does have guns) we had two artificers. The one was a Yaun Ti alchemist that took the looks of a plague doctor, and he used his natural resistance of poison to help him make different concoctions to help the party, and it worked with the theme super well. The other was a Dhampir Battle smith, and her “steel defender” was a stone gargoyle she named Sampson (we loved him). She has a very Van Helsing vibe, using a magical crossbow and different gadgets that were specialized from being a monster hunter while allowing Sampson to just lunge at creatures and be kind of the party’s off tank.
Both of these characters are ones that I loved (though I just enjoyed that campaign and the players entirely anyways) and were fun and creative ways to go against the mold of what an artificer may be!
Mad props for the Princess Bride reference!! Yet another reason to love Ginny Di and her sense of humor ^_^ Keep it up, Ginny!!
As far as the artificer's armor, it's pretty much a transformation mechanic, you could have it be an armor made of bones that protect you as a necromancer or that your shadow materializes, or that it's made of starlight, or that it's some kind of living thing you fuse with, etc...
I had thought about making the armor be magical armor that you can summon and dismiss (like the shadow that materializes you mention) but I think that is not RAW. RAW would mean that your armor has weight and a physical presence if you take it off (that could be stolen or otherwise tampered with if left unattended). It's similar to when i wanted my shield to be made of magical energy because I hate the thought of my character lugging around the thing at all times but also not wanting to surrender that +2 AC.
The thing is, the 5e implementation shits the bed with this little line:
> As an action, you can turn a suit of armor you are wearing into Arcane Armor, provided you have smith's tools in hand.
It tells you to use Smith's Tools for no reason.
@@NageIfar True but it doesn't really define what counts as smith tools for you, that is up to your interpretation, if you're going to re-flavor that ability you should also re-flavor the rest.
It's also important to note that while the ability requires an armor of some kind it doesn't specify what happens to the armor after.
@@tafferinthedark That is true yes the armor has to have weight and a physical appearance but that does not impede you, the magical shadow thing can be tied to a a rune in an actual piece of armor, the bones could become a bone armor once you don it off, etc... The mechanics suggest you do something some piece of armor but it doesn't say what, only that it takes an action .
You could say for example that your shadow covers the armor changing it's color, the armor must still exist but you don't have to think of the magical effect as being as directly part of the armor.
@@rapidLupine7687 That's just not true. From XGE:
Components. Smith's tools include hammers, tongs, charcoal, rags, and a whetstone.
There's nothing up to interpretation. WotC consciously chose to tailor these subclasses to the engineer/mechanic archetype, and they made the wrong choice. It's their responsibility to print proper content, period.
Every experienced DM worth their salt will of course allow this to be replaced with any other tool, but that's besides the point of WotC creating an unnecessarily limited image for their class.
Not gonna lie; I am totally obsessed with the idea of the moonshiner artificer now! I'll be rolling that one up later today!
I once played an battle Smith in theros. I was a satyr and my steel defender was a glass deer. It was fun explaining how when I cast mending or spend a spell slot how all the peices cobbled and unshattered themselves back together. Or how the force attacks or heals leapt off of its antlers like lightning.
We had an artificer in our epic level campaign join part way through
He had a little mechanized robo-lizard (Arcane cannon) that was named Caustic and we just loved him immediately.
His species was a homebrew thing from the setting that had been noted as "the lizard people that used to rule the world" before they took themselves out with their hubris, inventors of Warforged, ect ect
Most of our artificers in setting have been researching the ancient magics the galadons had made prior. With runestones to cast our spells, humunculi made with runes stitched or carved into their bodies and the like. We do have a steampunk one making clockwolves, but most of them just build their stuff around runes and magic crystal "bullets"
My opinion on artificers has varied over the past few years. I really didnt want them in my game at first but one of my players brought me his artificer Rony Krats and talked me through the flavor and characteristics of the pc and I was immediately convinced. Watching him play the pc over the next year or so helped cement my new opinion. So yes. Artificers belong in D&D and I'm a little bummed they wont be a core class in the new PHB for 5.5e
Thanks to my charismatic friend Sean, I have seen the light and it is glorious.
This video feels so helpful, and not just regarding artificers! But also in general, finding ways to bring in flavor through different interpretations of the mechanics you're using. It was something that just hasn't come up for me personally in tabletop gaming... But a case of reflavoring the Arcane Trickster subclass in Dimension 20's current campaign really sparked my interest. So it was awesome to see this!
As far as the "Steampunk/Science-based magic", like you pointed out, the artificer was introduced into 5E by way of the Eberron book, which revolves around many of those themes. I still hold that there's room for an "artificer/tinkerer" class in a more standard high-fantasy setting, but one that's more based around an alchemy/apothecary background rather than a mechanic/engineer one would probably be a better fit for that kind of setting.
Also, those earrings are WILD!
I strongly encourage you to look up Hero of Alexandria (also called Heron). The things that they were creating more than 1200 years before knights in plate armor, and more than 1500 years before rapiers existed, are absolutely astonishing. Also, don't forget about other well-known figures, such as Archimedes or Yi Xing.
The idea that someone might see something like that (or even just a ballista, trebuchet, crane, windlass crossbow, etc.) and decide to improve it by adding magic doesn't seem at all out of place to me. Nor, for that matter, does the idea that a magic user might focus their experimentation on making a wand or staff that improves the destructive potency of their spells, as well as magical objects (a "force ballista" and a flamethrower that emits Greek fire) which have some advantages over normal spellcasting.
Unless you expect every peasant (or even just every stonemason and every shipwright) to have a wizard on call for every time they need to lift something heavy, engineers are an absolute necessity to the basic functionality of society. It's inevitable that the same principles which allow them to make cranes and siege engines will eventually be turned toward more destructive pursuits, because that's simply what people do.
Eberron isn’t really Steampunk or Science-based. It’s more magicpunk or industrialized magic. Unfortunately a lot of the official art conflicts with the actual text of Eberron. For example, a lot of official Eberron art features firearms but canonically Firearms don’t exist in Eberron.
The alchemist as a masked plague doctor is my jam. It radiates off such a classical dark-fantasy medieval vibe, it's the best!
i once made my battle smith as an ex forge cleric that learned how to infuse objects with magic (i flavored the creed around taming a lesser fire elemental and placing it in the forge to create magical items) and the steel defender was a ram shaped armor infused with the his lesser fire elemental companion that could be estracted and placed in an anvil/forge to create items. basically the steel defender was an armor moved by an elemental. for the infusion he used the power of the elemental to inscribe magical runes on the armors or weapons of his friends, it was really fun and perfect for an high fantasy setting.
I had the same feeling as you with Artificers. Thank you for this enlightening view on how they can fit into my homebrew world.
I love these little books and agree they look great on my bookshelf. Soon my grandson will be of age where these will be nice to share with him. After all, he's been part of our family D&D games since he was born. Dangling in front of his mom and dad why we adventure! Since our game is posted on RUclips he forever has proof he's literally been gaming since he was born! 😂
That is so cute!! 😍 Truly raised in a family tradition, haha!
I always just say I'm an "Enchanter" because someone in the world has to be making all of these magical items. And not all wizards are running around throwing fire with their hands, some are working for weeks on Bracers of Defense or making Immovable Rods. It makes perfect sense in most D&D worlds.
Left out a part of the artillerist that most people over look which is the fact that the cannon can also give temporary hit point *every round*. That means that if you position your party correctly then you can gain a damage buffer that's constantly refreshed.
Honestly this is one of your best videos I’ve seen. You really made me think about this class differently
Glad it helped!!
I love taking artificers into the high-fantasy mindset. I have a story that I’m working on about a battle smith who uses magnets and mystical crystals with hand gestures and ancient language to channel their magic
... Ok, I just realised this class is perfect for one of my characters that I never knew how to make into DnD. I wanted her to specialise in a very nieche kind of magic- specifically creating live puppets out of wood and fabric. Thanks for the video, it's very useful!
The Princess Bride and Eberron mashup quote made me so happy
Highly enjoyed your take on the Artificer 🎉
One of my favorite tropes is where technology has started to advance and disrupt traditional fantasy settings. It plays with an interesting dynamic of magic vs science as opposed to magic or science vs humanity. It’s a conflict between the mysticism of the past and innovation of the future. I’ve never had an issue with the artificer for that reason.
That sounds super interesting! Artificers are great for science vs magic plots - especially when you have traditional magic users in the party!
@@GinnyDi everything from Sanderson’s Cosmere, to Joe Abercrombie’s Circle of the world, going back to Lord of the Rings deal with this theme. It’s almost baked into fantasy as a genre. I’m working on a campaign set in a MTG world where this exact question comes up.
You should check out the Shadowrun RPG sometime.
Final Fantasy 6 and 7 come to mind for this, and even some of the more recent Zelda games
Honestly, a fantastic example of this would be Seto Kaiba in YuGiOh, especially in the Dark Side of Dimensions movie.
The stuff he pulls off might as well be magical, but it's all tech based with no real explanation except "roll with it."
I mean, he quite literally at the end of the movie creates a stargate tunnel to astrally project himself to ancient Egypt to finally duel the Pharaoh one on one.
That ad about the Young Adventurer's Guide series was the most wonderfully and naturally implemented sponsorship ad I've encountered. Well done, and thank you!
Artificer is one of my favorite class fantasies, the idea of a person creating the magic items seen in the world and working with the fundamentals of magic was always super appealing.
Personally, my artificer works magic through fibers/weaving. They bind magic and create magic threads that are able to channel arcane energy, which in my class fantasy is a more "efficient" way of producing magic than through force in an instant like a wizard would. My artificer would then bind the magic spell by knotting/weaving the threads with others and creating a unique creation per spell. From a mundane perspective, they looked like fancy knotted charms or bands, but when activated they would burn through like a fuse and release the magic that had been lying dormant until that moment. These then can be worked into nearly any other creation: a magic binding on a swords handle, a broach or charm that holds a protective spell, the winding that functions with levers to produce something similar to "clockwork".
It was a great way to tie in my love for fiber arts with traditional crafts from real cultures, as weaving/textiles are some of the oldest creations that humans have made.
Gosh your eye makeup is so spot on this video.
I feel like Artificers only really "belong" if the DM works with you to achieve it. I don't see why high fantasy should be technologically restricted, but it can feel out of place if the setting makes you stick out like a sore thumb. Overall such a fun class to base characters around in my opinion!
I mean Medieval Era was more advanced than a lot of people give it credit for too. We're so used to seeing an ABSENCE of Guns, we forget the term "Bulletproof" was actually CREATED in that Era. Hell there were NINJAS who used Blackpowder Firearms.
There is an argument that necessity drive invention, so from a world-building point of view a valid argument that if you have magic that can achieve a goal there's no need for a technological solution. Imagine for example that half the population could cast Mold Earth - would you get the magically inclined person to use that cantrip, or force a person to dig a hole by hand? What use would firefighters be in a world where you have a squad of people who go around using Control Flames as a team to extinguish house fires?
In this kind of theoretical worldbuilding context we can see why many worldbuilders don't truck with the idea of firearms or technology in their fanasty. In fact firearms are great examples of this. The earliest Firearms were things like lances and hand cannons that were radically experimental at best. It wasn't until the 12/1300's that we start to see what we would recognise as guns began to emerge. Their spread and popularity were bolstered by the relative ease of use and lack of training required...but even many forces preferred traditional archery and sword. Swords were even being carried and actively used in warfare as late as the First World War! It took until the 1800s for the accuracy and range of firearms to even match or exceed the bow.
So, building on this principle...if a large portion of the world can cast even just 'Fire Bolt' as a Cantrip you have something as good if not better than a bow and something that is going to be immensely superior to a firearm for at least the first 400-600 years of technological development. In such a world would someone really bother exploring the capabilities of black powder? The answer many world builders come up with is 'no'.
For my own part, my thought is that technology would still be developed, but perhaps more slowly for the same reason that gunpowder and firearms developed - ease of use. You develop something that requires no extra training.
The real question that then pops up is when does Fantasy shift from high fantasy to urban fantasy to space fantasy? Unfortunately in that question thar be pedants!
@@TheAyanamiRei Medieval period ended around the 1200-1300's...so a little late for the emergence of guns.
Likewise, it was the word 'proof' which has it's etymology in 1200's france. Bullet was derived from the french word from ball, entering common usage around the 1500's at the absolute earliest. Bulletproof was well outside of the medieval era sorry to say.
Ninjas however, yeah their existance extending into the 1700s still baffles me somewhat. Though, I feel like their most superior skill was the storytelling they managed around themselves, their training, and their perported abilities.
@@MartinNelson Um, what? The medieval period ended in the mid 1400s at the earliest (and in England at least, it is often considered to end in 1513 with the Battle of Flodden).
But regardless of when you consider the medieval period to have ended, D&D is explicitly Renaissance; rapiers did not exist before then.
Another thing to consider is that artificers don't need firearms. It can be someone who looks at cranes and crossbows and ballistae and realizes that they can make those better via the application of magic, or who sees a magical construct and works out how to make one for themselves that will accompany them on their adventures.
@@MartinNelson While I found the response fascinating and have to agree with alot of points, one thing I would like to point out that the whole theory seems to apply at a more broad spectrum the way you put it. This necessity would perhaps be a reason to act on and invent more technological means to keep up for individuals who are not ablr to cast such spells ; having to develop different means of extinguishing a fire since you as an individual do not wish to be denied the opportunity of being a firefighter (Acting on your example).
A player in our current high fantasy setting has become an artificer due to losing his legs and having to make himself mechanical ones as most people were, Para-phrasing "Narrowminded on magics and couldn't make me magical legs." While Artificers and technology aren't a common thing, our DM found a great intrigue and sense in developing different means than "The norm" to achieve these things, therefore also developing out of necessity.
Even if most people are capable of casting produce flame, there will still be a crazy exception out there somewhere currently developing his flamethrower due to his lack of magical connection, slowly progressing the technology just like you have previously stated ; which is where my original comment does come in.
Not every player may be comfortable in roleplaying those "exceptions" or sticking out like a sore thumb in an otherwise magical world, so I find Artificers to be a class that should be used with tight-knit conversation and cooperation to the DM, as the nature of a mechanic in a world of wizards can be both intriguing and intimidating, and the latter can definetly be worked around. ;p
Artificers were originally a setting-specific class for Eberron only. Unfortunately like most setting-specific PC things (Aarakocra, Warforged, Thri-Kreen, etc) people nicked it and started using it in all the settings. D&D players often don't really want to fit within game settings as written, and instead just play what they want to play... and Wizards have kinda rolled with it.
I don't see why you would take magitek ideas from Eberron and not want the magitek.
I’ve always played in Forgotten Realms, you can probably find an environment and geography that could fit any race from most realms. As a GM, I think this finding a home is true for many realms, not all though.
@@SusCalvin Sure, but if you're playing in Faerun, then why are you taking the magitech ideas from Eberron? Faerun has its own stuff that's different and unique. Why not just play an Eberron game?
@@Zahaqiel That's what I mean. If you do not want a world where magic can be churned out along industrial principles then you might not want Eberron and its systems.
"Unfortunately" players do things that sound fun?
Me: *about to comment asking if Ginny has read stormlight*
Ginny: I’m referring of course to shardplate
I don't think she's actually read it, though. She said people travel by horses in that world. I think either she has friends that have read it that told her about Shardplate or it came up in her research for this video.
In our campaign, my alchemist was a shopkeeper who would make and sell her potions, until the shop got destroyed by the dragon that destroyed the town. I flavoured all my spells as some kind of powder/potion/ointment, so cure wounds was an ointment, faerie fire was shiny powder such as glitter, and poison spray was literally a vial of poisonous gas.
I had a warforged armorer artificer that I favored as a Lich’s Grisgol (a golem powered by a Lich’s phylactery), and the flavoring the magic as either consuming the souls stored in the phylactery of channeling a Lich’s raw power was probably the most fun I’ve had playing a character.
I've always seen the Steel Defender subclass as a golem-maker, most of the time, and golems have been in there seen the 1st ed Monster Manual.
I had an Artillerist whose mobile "cannon" looked like a small statue of a dragon and the attack was its breath weapon. He named it "Henry" and I RP'd him as spending some of the evening downtime polishing and cleaning Henry, then putting down a small model of a pile of coins. "I know it's fake, but Henry doesn't, and I don't want him to be sad."
Ngl I'd read a book about Henry and his wielder going on shenanigans filled adventures ngl
@@StonedHunter I'm working on my gameworld and books in it, so I'll add them to the list. :)
Artificers clicked for me when I saw that eldritch cannon can be fired from anything you choose to designate as your arcane firearm. I did a level 18 mini campaign as an artificer with a Staff of the Magi as my firearm, and the character was effectively somebody who'd wanted to be a wizard when she was young, but didn't have the theoretical mind for it... but she DID have a talent for the more hands on and applied work of an artificer. So she has a collection of magic items that make up the difference, but looks rather like a wizard. A wizard with a breastplate.
The idea of an artificer always made sense to me. Magic items are very common in most fantasy settings and artificer is the one that makes them. Flavour is just that, flavour.
My favorite artificer eldritch cannon idea I’ve come up with: the cannon is a little porcelain teapot that was enchanted by the artificer
I once played a Battle Smith firbolg, who used runes learned from his druidic/nature-based roots and his wood carving tools to craft his infusions and contraptions. His Steel Defender was actually a large, hand-carved wooden construct, à la Mokujin from Tekken
the longest dnd character i ever played was an artificer. they were an art student and instead of being the stereotypical scientific inventor type, they painted and sculpted tools and used their art supplies as a spellcasting focus! they even designed and built their first steel defender by painting a bunch of magic swirls of color on it. i wish i’d gotten to explore them a little more because i feel like there were so many unexplored ideas i had for how to flavor their spells and abilities
thanks for defending artificers, they mean so much to me and i wish they were more widely loved :)
VHS Earrings!? massive slay tbh
I think they're actually regular audio cassette, but either way, you're right -- they absolutely slay.
Thank you! They're actually little cassette tapes and I love them 😂
@@GinnyDi Do they transform into robots?
@@Draconamus let's aim higher, gotta be blitzwing and ravage!
@@Manuel-zt6sn blitzwing is a triplechanger(tank and jet) and ravage is the panther cassete
(context this is me before watching the video) Oh Ginny I oh so do wonder what you're going to say about my most beloved class. Jk I know you mean well.
After watching yeah I completely agree with your sentiment. Personally I loved making tattoo artist artificers or an armorer that commands liquid mercury into armor. Or a weakling half orc that uses this magical armor to be stronger. Or an amputee that uses the armor in the flavor as a magical prothstetic. Made the armorer one of if not my favorite subclass as soon as I picked up tasha's.
Artificer has always been my favorite class. So underrated, and there's so much potential. They really have the option to be what you want you want them to be, probably more so then other classes. Like I kinda want to play an Armor that is a paraplegic, and their armor is the only way to actually move around. Or a gnome or even something like a Pixie that builds their own Mecha... Or a snake oil salesman (Alchemist, even though it really needs some tweaks) that hesitantly joins the party and supports them on the sidelines.
It's such a great class... you can really build it to be totally supportive to other players, or be greedy and use all the buffs on yourself. There's a lot of fun and open options that can really fit any theme when you give it a little thought.
I played a character I fashioned after Sazed in Mistborn. It would be easy to think he woud be a monk. But the notion of storing or using powers in metal (feruchemy) and then calling on them led me to flavor an armorer in a similar way. My 'armor' were my metalminds, the metal pieces used to store the energy. Also, I see Sazed as intelligence and wise. I equipped him with keen mind and observant. It was super fun.
any setting that uses magic items, and magical item crafting as a part of culture, can use artificer.
The fact that the words "Brandon Sanderson" and "Shardplate" made me excitedly and frantically start taping my legs, armrests and desktop, overtaken by such unreasonable HYPE, it's SO unfair.
Why does so few words can have such POWER over me!? 😭
P.D.: Thanks, Ginny! Now I can play an Armorer Artificier reflavored as a full Shardbearer! :D
As someone who runs a Kobold Artificer for my current D&D campaign, I see my Artificer as a magical blacksmith, someone who can build items and imbue them with magic. Who can boost their abilities both of themselves as well as the party with quick and dirty magic items. And can reduce the time and cost of enchanting items.
Also remember Wrath of the Titans? The mechanical owl companion would be a homunculus servant. And Hephaestus on his own is an Artificer of the Olympian Gods, who created Pandora who was imbued with blessings/enchantments from the other gods. He also made Zeus's Lighting Bolt that he is famous for.
The Dwarves who made Mjolnir in Norse Mythology. Tons of examples to justify Artificer in D&D.
My first introduction to an artificer being played in anything DnD was Zirk Vervain from Not Another D&D Podcast. He is an alchemist and thus serves as pretty much the primary healer (there’s a wizard with a cleric level too but that only goes so far). Some of his backstory is that he was pretty much an intern doctor before the plot started. So that really helped with kind of recontextualizing what artificers could be and showing their versatility.
One of my friends is gonna play an artificer in my next campaign and I’m interested to see how she flavors it and if she’ll lean more into DPS than support. It’ll be really cool either way!
9:10 I did a OSE version of the Temple of Elemental Evil where our Artificer was a dwarf named Dorn. His cannon followed him around like a puppy. Our gloom stalker, Psy,christened him “Junior”. The legs were Pinocchio-like iirc.
Gotta be honest, at least half the stuff in DnD doesn't belong in DnD
Non-steampunk Artificers I have played in the past:
a Dhamphir Battle Smith who's "Steel" defender was a bone golem. A lot of their stuff had necromancy/horror vibes...AOE spells were often thrown bombs made out of various animal and demihuman/human skulls, wands and rods made from limbs carved with scrimshaw, etc.
In Curse of Strahd, I played another Battlesmith who did use a Musket, but had more Georgian vibes then Victorian. Less steampunk, more age of sail/revolutionary war/war of 1812/golden age of piracy/etc. Her defender was a Frankenstein-esq monster shaped like a three head dog (good ol'cerberus ref.) and was stitched together via taxidermy from the remains of the smith's hunting pack who had defended her from a dragon attack during a hunting trip gone astray. Had a sense of quiet tragedy whenever she would order it.
In a game with a much more primative setting, I played an Artillerist who was a "Talismonger"...a hermit witch-y type who had Blair Witch style wicker and stone charms to cast spells with, and their "cannons" were a trio of straw dolls, each corresponding to a different turret function (flamethrower, force ballista, and the temp HP generator). Think "voodoo priestess".
Honorable mention: Definitely more "Steampunky" I suppose, but in another Ravenloft game (Not Curse of Strahd, set after the events of that campaign), I played a Reborn Armorer who's "Secondskin" was a full metal-plated diving suit. 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea, with the cage-reinforced globular helmet. with the tiny viewport windows for sight and everything. Was almost always in Infiltrator Mode, and their lightning blasts were cast in arcing bolts from their primary weapon: a harpoon connected by a retractable metal chain connected to a small spool and "generator" (tiny ghostly electric eel thing in a tiny aquarium box) on their back.
They were the amalgamation of a bunch of trapped spirits who all tried to flee their bonds in mass, and fused together to be Reborn as a solid person, and now collectively were "haunting" the diving suit and working as a mistwalking investigator for the Vhage Agency (a unique Dread Domain that takes the form of a singular Private Detective agency, with a singular occupant: Vhage herself, who is that realm'0s Dark Lord and has a tendency to employ adventurers as agents to go out and investigate various crimes in the Islands of Dread, a lot of which are actually the work of Vhage's secret split personality, a devious criminal mastermind).
Sure, the diving suit gives it more of a Steampunk vibe to be sure, but I thought I'd mention this one anyways, just for the reflavouring factor. Iron-man Armorer? Pssh, no...Ghostly Mariner/Deep Sea Diver? Yesssssss.
I’ve got an artillerist artificer named dusk. She’s a Dhampir that’s been around for over 700 years. In her travels along with her sisters she met a dragon named Aurixarion the Golden (Tinkering Ancient Gold Dragon). After a while he took her under his wing and taught her a lot of his knowledge. Her eldritch cannons are flavoured to be small mechanical dragons that she has spent most of her lifetime along side her master to make out of some of the rarest ever materials. They even contain some souls of animals or pets that her master put in them to make them be actually alive. They are so cool.
For all intents and purposes, "Dragon's Breath" turns a creature into an Eldritch Cannon!
Minecraft has an "Iron Golem", not a single person I know talks about "it's a robot"
The artificer in our campaign is a trash loving racoon that finds new things to tinker in the trash (Mechanically he's a battlesmith). He is the heart of the group, honestly. He created his own spider vehicle from trash parts, and called him Sp1d3Я. He also used one of his magical tinkering tricks to convince an NPC he was cursed (the item was a jar with three pickles, one of which could talk and glow and say "yes" to the NPC, confirming they are cursed). He fits in perfectly if you ask me.