I just realized... this kinda makes non-variant humans slightly more viable... 18 16 and 14 are really good for a MAD class like a paladin and the 13 could be used for a multiclass dip...
I just saw the video and I was thinking to mention the mounted gnome build until you mentioned it at the end. Anyways, I played this mounted build once and even though it isn't as tanky as kelly's one, it was defensive enough and lot of fun to play. I think the only thingh I can add is what I did to get some use of the advantage feature of the mounted combatant feat: I cast enlarge on my mount to make it of large category. Most of the battles with multiple foes have medium or smaller creatures and as both the steel defender and I have reach (large size and lance weapon) its only matter of move from foe to foe dealing damage with advantage and almost never provoking opportunity attack. And what happens with larger foes? Most of the times there are only one large and more powerful foe with or without small minions, for those cases, I earlier took the replicate magic item infusion to replicate the spellwrought tattoo for a find familiar spell (that you can replace later on if you can reliable keep your familiar alive) that you can cast even without paying the gold cost, and have an owl that can provide advantage with the help action and flyby trait against those enemies. Finally, if you have high enough ability scores you can try to get the sentinel feat and maybe even the polearm master and make enemies unable to hit you or run away from you. Not the most optimized build but a very funny way to avoid the tank fallacy wich can happen with kelly's build for example.
It’s strenght is 14 times 15 to calculate its carrying capacity = 210 lb… a cart = 200 lb. a carriage = 600 lb (two humans combined are average 210 lb)…. Sooo no travel. :(
Ow, never mind. A cart or carriage is not carrying but dragging so 210 lb x 2 = 420 lb. still not possible for a full party unless they are all gnomes or kobalds ;)
If Kelly really wanted to send his AC over the edge, he could multi into Bladesinger. He can't wear medium or heavy armor, but he can add his INT mod to his AC with Bladesong active, and still have a similar AC as if he still had heavy armor. Not to mention, he'd almost never fail a Concentration save.
@@a.z.pantera5577 he could also multiclass into hexblade warlock to get some of the great defensive spells they get access to... Blur, blink, and mirror image can all stack... Along with the armor of hexes ability... Take his 10th level build and add 10 levels of hexblade for a helluva badass tank that can hit HARD bc you can then also add eldritch smite to your attacks and you're always armed thanks to being able to conjure your weapon
Don’t forget mounted combatant also forces any attacks on your mount to attack you instead. Which means your steel defender reacts to this and gives disadvantage
You can then throw up shied if somehow an attack still hit you. If you have a shield equipped and have a breastplate at +2 dex. Even with no magic items. A 23 ac and they hit at disadvantage once per turn.
"Artificer seemed half-baked at first glance" This was my take as well when I first looked at Artificers in Ebberon, but eventually you come to realize they are actually the best tanks in 5e just behind a lvl 20 Moon Druid, with high AC, fantastic saves, fairly decent hit die, proficiency in Con saves, and a "I don't die" option at lvl 20.
@@agsilverradio2225 I felt the same way about the Artificer. The thing is, I think, the player might think that everything has to stay within the confines of the Artificer features. Like everything you make has to be an infusion, or spell storing item or something that the class gives you. You can still build things like you would with other classes. Artificer just frontloads you with these things that are "like" crafting things.
@@mitchelldkirby That's interesting, that really builds on that whole "Infusions are like prototypes of a magical item" thing. I would be worried about someone doubling down and making permanent versions of say, repeating shot revolvers. They could accumulate a lot of power that way. But if it's managed well, then that's not a problem I guess 👍👍👍
@@charger1369 Yeh, I've done a similar thing, my DM treats any infusion I know how to make as a valid schematic for crafting rules, so I just need to get the materials and spend the time to make it.
In my buddies game, another player was this subclass this and for his steel defender, he envisioned it as a pangolin. Hilarity ensued along with my Beast Master's giant badger.
We just played a 5th-level one-shot this past weekend for one of the Candlekeep Scenarios, and I also used the Battle Smith specialist to build a Combat Medic (he's also our Sniper). He's a gnome from the island of Lantan, with the Marine background from Ghosts of Saltmarsh. My defender is a steel gorilla, so moving around in a ship's rigging shouldn't be so much of a problem for him. The build worked out pretty well, but the one-shot has now become a possible campaign. Oh darn.
I made a Warforged battle smith, we were in a homebrew world so he was created by a dwarf. His creator passed away and made his steel defender a statue of his creator to honor him.
I like the idea of a Warforged Artificer who sees themselves as a sort of cleric/healer of their mechanical people, seeing the craft of creating machines like creating life
There's so much that you can do with the steel defender even beyond combat: if you're small enough you could ride them, you can give it items to use, infuse it, make it the designated door opener if you're worried about traps (just heal it with mending), instant advantage giver if you multiclass in rogue, and so, so much more. I do wish I could take the Eldritch Adept feat and use Gaze of Two Minds (effectively makes the steel defender a familiar) maybe as a way of 'becoming one with the machine' but the wording is a little funky (it would only work on 'humanoids' not constructs). It, and Artificer itself, is a Swiss army knife though and I love it.
in theory, the steel defender could be hollow. this means, dm willing, you could have it house things such as dead body for a necromancer's later use (assuming you can cover the smell), small summons like a familiar or homonculus, or (again, REALLY up to the dm on this one) you could wear it like a suit of armor amd launch it off you when combat starts (but wearing it could protect from sneak attacks before combat)..
@@darcraven01 More Theory: Level 10 Spell Storing Item Give it to Defender . Two Good Spells to make it concentrate on. Enlarge reduced and invisibility. You make the Defender Near permanently large size in combat. So mountain combatant can be used for consistent advantage on every Attack against most Enemy's . The second and the real star of the show is invisibility. As per the rules anything that a creature is caring is invisible along with it. If your DM Sees being mounted on your still Defender as Being carried on them then as long as your Defender doesn't attack you will gain what is functionally greater invisibility with a level four spells slot
Glad that Monty and Kelly are finally seeing the light on artificers, but they missed a huge feature. At 11th level they get to make a spell storing item that can cast 2x the intelligence modifier instances of up to a 2nd level artificer spell. Give a homonculus or familar a spell storing dagger and 10 instances (if you have 20 intelligence)of say heat metal. Have the pet cast it on an armored foe and dive into a bag of holding or other interdimensional space (rope trick), you get to have your pet deliver 20d8 damage over 10 rounds no save. If you don't like heat metal, there's web, invisibility, rope trick etc to choose from instead. 10 instances of offloaded concentration, amazingly good.
If you’re an Artillerist, load up with Scorching Ray and take the Fey Touched feat with Hex. Add a D6 to all those attack rolls from Scorching Ray plus your attacks with your Eldritch Cannon(s) which are attacks made BY YOU (just from the cannon) and your DM will hate you for how much damage you deal.
Also, (not done the vid yet.) They have not mentioned flash of genius yet. FoG is soooo good. Boom. +5 to skill or save. Edit: i suppose it makes sence. They were focusing on only the BS. FoG is all artificers
They also missed out on the OTHER big feature in Flash of Genius. As a reaction being able to say to people "oh yeah, by the way, there's a +5 to the save" (if you're int is 20) can really help shore people up. The armorer artificer in my party has saved my Barbarian ass from control effects numerous times by throwing in that +5 and just squeaking past the save DC.
@@TheHandgunhero take it even further with the tiny servant spell. duct tape 10 tiny objects to your spell storing item, then use your high level spell slots on making 10 tiny servants that can all be commanded with a single bonus action. now you have a plasma cannon, have fun rolling 30 spell attack rolls for 2d6 fire damage each, all in one turn. you can do that with other fun spells like catapult, shatter and magic missile for armorers is it a good use of your spell slots and spell storing item? probably not, but it sure is cool.
I found personally this was best used to store 10 charges of 2nd level cure wounds making it work as an excellent out of combat healing tool. Also working well to give a non casting party member like the fighter the ability to bring people back up from unconcious
For the idea of the Gnome on the Defender: Casting Enlarge on the Defender would give you that advantage even against medium creatures from Mounted Combatant. And with a Mind Sharpener infusion, you can keep up that concentration for longer than you regularly would.
I mean... I would have just taken War Caster to get those spicy booming blade opportunity attacks and advantage on Con Saves (which you are proficient in). Then again I like Kobalds way more than Gnomes, getting that sweet juicy advantage from your SD is so tasty. Throw in a Ring of Spellstoring on your SD with Warding Bond and infusions on your shield and armor to get a monstrous AC and you become the bringer of pain and sadness since anything short of a fireball can't really touch you. (Never a bad Idea to throw a charge or 3 of Absorb Elements into the ring to halve the damage that your SD takes from said fireball aswell.)
@@KingFate20 By level 8 you can do all these things at once. The absorb elements would also stack on top of the Evasion your mount gets from Mounted Combatant, leading to it only taking 1/4 damage from the fireballs.
The downfall is anything that can stun your SD. its been killing my build to get illithids hitting party with mind blast which the poor SD about always fails.
Looking at Kelly's build. Rather then investing as heavily as he did in Strength he could actually pick up Medium Armor Master and get to 16 Dex and wear Half Plate he would the same bas AC as with Full plate and now ignores the Disadvantage on Stealth checks
The easy answer is swap starting stats, He could move his 13 Str to Con, 15 Con to Dex and 10 Dex to Strength and then move the +1 floating stat from Str to Dex so he starts at 16 Dex. He loses out on a hit point per level, but that can be made up with either taking an Amulet of Health Infusion or an ASI at higher levels.
Even then, Con is a favored save for Artificers and they have multiple ways to mitigate the effect with infusions (or just take the Amulet of Health infusion at 10th level and jump to a 19 Con). And if you don't want to waste infusions the given stat array that they are starting with its not to hard to find the +1 from an ASI at 12th level to balance it out (since Con and Int are both odd numbers they only need +1 each from an ASI)
@cak01vej His build was already delaying both his stat boosts anyway, and the you are also ignoring the bonus to Dexterity saves and initiative checks that you get from the higher Dexterity over Strength. As for free Infusion slots the Enhanced Weapon infusion is actually the first one that likely gets dropped as the odds of finding at least a +1 or better effect (Flame Tongue etc.) weapon is very high. freeing up the option to take a Mindsharpener Infusion or at higher level the Amulet of Health. Even the Repulsion Shield is likely something that could be swapped early as Kelly was using it incorrectly (since it doesn't stop opponents from moving back in on him after he uses it) and a basic +1 Weapon or Shield are only Uncommon items which means at 10th level his Magic Item Adept would let him make one or more of them very easily thus freeing up infusion slots.
@@prasanthnaidu9999 Flash of Genius plus infusions like Ring of Protection and Cloak of Protection means an Artificer can easily throw +7 on any saving throws if they need to make them.
My Battle Smith made his steel defender a double of himself and pretend that he has a twin brother. He was a sad and lone boy, until the party come to town and basically kidnapped him.
Very similar to my concept...his name was nibis and his steel defender was named twinbis...eventually he gave the steel defender a headband of intellect...I love that character
My Kobold Battlesmith rides his dragon-shaped Defender into battle. Thanks to Pack Tactics, he never has to worry about sunlight, AND gets advantage on his attacks in anything but.
I treated my Battle Smith as if she were building a gunblade, treating her spells and abilities as the cartridges. Her metal drake is simply a bonus for me.
Same-ish, but my defender is “Bob” ( “BoB, DO something!”). Also I just cosmetically describe the AOE as a lot of gunslinger quick shots of different types of bullets - same effects but gun style :)
I'm playing a lvl 10 halfling artificer who rides around on a steel raptor. He switches between hand crossbow and lance, with lots of buffs to keep his ride mobile, so Mind Sharpener is vital. He's probably one of the most versatile martial characters I've ever played.
Yeah, few people give credit to the artificer's versatility. I played a goblin artillerist and not only was he a very good ranged damage dealer, but he was also a good support that enhanced the other players with his infused magic weapons and armor, healing and disables that also did almost everything outside of battle, from intel gathering to survival and scouting. Heck, even sessions I couldn't attend I could help by handing people my infusions! Truly one of the best support classes ever.
Cantrips: Haven't finished the video yet, but I think its pretty important to mention this. Artificers can change their cantrips EVERY LEVEL, not just at ASI levels. It's super important to take advantage of this, especially as a Battle Smith or Armourer because you want an attack cantrip to start, but definitely don't need one once your subclass kicks in at 3rd. Swap it out for mending, which you don't need as a BS until 3rd. Extra attack should carry you after that.
The artificer I played was closer to Kelly's. Tungsten had an ac of 21 with Sentinel. He'd run up with Puba (the pit-bull steel defender) and block hits while keeping a single enemy from moving. The bowlock in the party was very similar to Monty's build with sharpshooter and eldrich smite dealing massive damage while Tungsten just stood there like "where do you think you're going" it was really fun to play.
This is pretty great! I made an artillerist that was a pain in the ass for my players to fight...Artificer is a pretty amazing class for ingenuity and clever thinkers.
I've got to say, it feels like their starting standard array of 17,15 (as opposed to the standard 15,14) feels like it completely changes the balance of the game. It makes the cost of adding feats so much lower.
I agree with this, but I feel asis are so boring. Adding a feat is everything an ASI isn't. I think this is my preference as dm and player. I'm not excited for a level where I have to add +2 to str so I can add a +1 to dice...
Indeed. I am currently building a battle smith with regular point buy, and so it restricted the options considerably. I took variant human for lineage, which means that in 19 levels I get 6 ASIs, and 4 of them are half-feats increasing INT, with only two spare ones, for which I chose Tough (as, I figured, getting Tough is simply better than getting +2 to CON) and Lucky (to compensate for low charisma and wisdom, as there are saving throws with those). Had I had a standard array of 17, 15, 13, 12, 10, 8, I would've been MUCH more liberal about all of that. Hell, I might've chosen a warforged instead of variant human.
I had the pleasure to do a one-shot with a Warforged Artificer Battlesmith whose Steel Defender was a female construct that did roundhouse kicks. They were such an entertaining pair, I want to play them in a long term campaign.
I went against the mechanic battlr smith and build a "battle chef" that uses his cooking utensils to cast spells and cook magic items. He wields a sauce pan as a warhammer and has a roasting pan as his shield. His steel defender is an sentient upside down cast iron frying pan that walks on six bacon legs. Don't forget that you can go for any artisans tools with your artificer. I think a painter or a scribe would be really cool too.
I made a similar thing. My drow battle smith is going ranged with a longbow, but her steel defender looks like a retriever. So here we have the dark elf archer, with her mechanical spider doing most of the dirty work while she snipes people from afar
I think this video highlights one of the more overlooked strengths of the Artificer: choosing your own magic items. So many characters are beholden to the DM's discretion on items, and the perfect item to push them over the edge is locked out because the DM fears they could become too powerful. Artificers, particularly selfish ones, can load themselves up with exactly what they want when they want it, and that's a majorly impactful ability to have.
I played a gnome artificer that rode their defender! It was so fun. He made animal like constructs after exploring the wilds of the world. Would pull out a massive amount of constructs from his bag of holding. Things like ants, squirrels, and birds.
The mounted gnome is so much fun, frees up your bonus action for homunculus servant, can't discount animate objects for damage output too, I love this class/subclass
You guys are like the Starsky and Hutch, The Riggs and Murdock of 5e Build Videos. You crack each other up and look like your having so much fun making these with the occasional nod of respect and approval. This is my favorite video of yours and I have watched almost all of them. I want to be a merman artificer and my steel defender is called magnum. Dear God... its beautiful.
I’m currently running a battle smith in my main campaign and have been loving it. We were lacking int and a tank so I was able to fill both of those rolls beautifully!
I took my BattleSmith a different way. I took 3 levels in rogue to get thief's fast hands. I took the healer feat. With that I run around feeding potions and bandaging my party as a Field Medic. I also use the steel defender to protect the downed until I can get there. Reading thru the comments someone mentioned casting enlarge on the steel defender... definitely going to try that. So what do you think?
Since the Steel Defender's Strength is so high it makes a great pack animal. Mine carries the party supplies in a chest on its back. In addition, I have built in several hooks and clamps for easy attachment of important items and a landing pad for my Homunculus and Familiar (from ritual caster). I will say that it is hard to keep a bad guy within 5ft of a steel defender. Lots of bad guys have reach and when you and your steel defender get in the mix your SD could provoke from one opponent when moving into position against another. It can be a little thorny.
@@DungeonDudes for the first two levels, you play as an armored wizard. cast cantrips, use your spell slots as big guns, and occasionally resort to a dagger or crossbow. once you hit level 3, swap out that damage cantrip (which artificers can do every level!) for booming blade or something similar, and then once you hit level 5 go all in on cantrip utility.
Tulok the Barbarian gave me the idea to use this class to make Penny Parker from 'Into The Spiderverse'. And I'm so going to use that in the next game I play, because I already used the Armorer class to make a Kobold Ironman.
@@rickau You're not casting Heat Metal to make them drop their weapons, you use it on their armor to impose disadvantage on all their attacks and deal a little extra damage
Could you guys do a tier list ranking of all the Grim Hollow subclasses now that they're available? I just bought the PDF of the Player's Guide the other day and I'm in love with so many of the subclasses in there and you guys were the whole reason I bought it! :D
I am so happy in seeing another battle master with a musket. I will be playing a halfling soon who focuses more on stealth and range rather than playing the paladin in the group (which is also still pretty awesome).
I want to make a warforged battle Smith now, whose stell defend is a copy of him. And do what Kelly did with sentinel. Look like that scene from Civil War where cap and bucky were fighting Tony.
Going to 2nd level wizard to get War Wizard is an interesting option to me. It might not be as optimized, but it gives a bump in utility, plus Arcane Deflection and Tactical Wit could come in handy.
I like this approach. Arcane deflection adds another option to an already busy reaction. There is a bit of overlap with shield spell and flash of genius but it is a resource free reaction so it is a preferable reaction use. That said it does allow you personal reaction save/ac reaction while freeing up your flash of genius for your party mates. The extra initiative is always huge for any spell caster.
Well people are probably still in the comments I wanted to ask, how is it that bruce can fly in shadows of drakkenheim? Also wanted to say that I love your videos, and your campaigns (and you kickstarter - super exited for that to arrive). Keep it up, you guys are the best!!!!!!!!! Also the how to play a... are my favorite types of videos!
From what I can remember of the 1st season the haze goes up hundreds of meters and a few places(clock tower, academy tower, castle) are above the haze so if you are travelling to these places I would say it's fine, otherwise your vision is blocked and is up to DM determinate how preciselly you can navigate. In addition, it's raining like 95% of the days so maybe thunderstorm could be a possible problem.
@@kelvinvoorneveld7265 I'll bet you're correct. It is easy to forget that you're not necessarily limited to the familiars listed in the description for Find Familiar especially if the DM is willing to work with you
@Snazzy Feathers yeah i would love to use a Almiraj for my centaur eldritch knight. not because it will be usefull in battle but for scouting it is pretty good with darkvision up to 30 ft and a +4 to perception and +5 stealth. but mainly because it is a very cute bunnycorn @Snazzy Feathers yeah i would love to use a Almiraj for my centaur eldritch knight. not because it will be usefull in battle but for scouting it is pretty good with darkvision up to 30 ft and a +4 to perception and +5 stealth. but mainly because it is a very cute bunnycorn
Bilbron and Dragons made a killer Artillerist. Spoiler - who needs extra attack if you have the following: Booming Blade on quarter staff Crusher Pole Arm Master Warcaster Artillerists are amazing with their bonus action canons (I love the protector). Their damage output at first glance can seem meh for their action but was solved by Bilbron's build. 2 huge thumbs up.
I had a player make an absolutely ridiculous battle smith recently. She went Variant Human with the variant Noble Background (Knight) which gave her two retainers, that wouldn't fight, but help in other tasks. She took the feat "Magic Initiate" and got herself the Spell "Find Familiar". She then at lvl three got her Steel Defender, and took the Create Homunculi Infusion. Finally, she multiclassed Ranger and went Beast Master. She would try to keep levels in each as even as possible after that point. Her strategy was to keep the Steel Defender next to herself as a defensive measure, while her primal beast companion(Thanks Tasha for helping out the Beast Master) would go on the offensive, helped by the familiar and the homunculi, delivering touch buff/debuffs spells for her, with her two retainers hiding behind her. Trust me, it got wild when she got access to Conjure Animals... By the end she was Battle Smith 8/Beast Master 9
A little hot take that I have that I kinda like to preach around: Flash of Genius is better than Aura of Protection. Everybody talks about its disadvantages over the aura, but nobody talks about its 30 feet range. More often than not, the paladin can only save himself while the artificer can save anyone or help that wizard keep concentrating. There's also the fact that an artificer is guaranteed to have high intelligence while a paladin will probably not have high charisma, at least at mid levels. A +2 to all saves is cool, but a +4 to all saves of the whole party when they need it the most is just better in my opinion. The limited uses is usually not a problem, most of the time you have enough uses for each day because you only spend them when they already rolled it and you see a fail coming. Ah, of course, I'm only considering mid levels, like, 7th to 10th level, which are the most played levels. I'll give you that, at super high levels the aura is better.
I want to make a gnome artificer that 'wears' the steel defender like a mech suit because they hate short jokes. Mounted combatant plus enlarge for advantage on medium foes
@@guyman1570 nah, I like the spells better for battlesmith for a supporting buff/crowd control idea. plus the walking headless suit and armour that can operate independently has some interesting potential
I modeled my battle smith after Victor Frankenstein. Instead of a purely mechanical creature, my steel defender was the reanimated and partially enhanced corpse of a crag cat. The DM let me use Magical Tinkering to create buttons on his collar that played cute little phrases like "I love you" and "you're my best friend" like some sort of nightmare Teddy Ruxpin
Im playing in a campaign right now with a character very similar to Kelly's build... Except I took it even further and added some levels as a Cavalier with the Sentinel feat... Attack me with 23ac and disadvantage and you are almost guaranteed to miss, or attack my Steel defender with disadvantage and I get to punish you for it...
so for my Artificer Battle Smith I kinda went a bit nuts started with a Warforged & got the following stats: 12STR 11DEX 18CON 14INT 11WIS 12CHA now they're like this for one reason Warforged CAN'T CAST SPELLS its our table rule we can use magic like Alarm & Various Detections as those can be internal Mechanisms that operate in a similar fashion to the corresponding spell, additionally we have a custom Cantrip Construct mending which allows for a weak healing spell to restore parts of constructs to their original unbroken state however reattaching limbs with this spell will take 1 day to re attune the limb to a working state & 5 more days to fully reattune the limb to not make roles at disadvantage. now that those are out the way. at Level 1 i chose a feat to discount the prices of components for my spells by 20% & for the crafting discount of another 20% this means ALL magical Items I produce from purely mundane objects are 40% cheaper! for infusions I took Homunculus Servant, and Replicate Magic Item, with Enhanced Weapon & Defense (another table rule here I can infuse up to 2 items per day, IF its instead Replicate Magic item DEPENDING on the item rarity it's not counted toward my limit eg a Bag of holding is counted while making a pair of Goggles of night is not additionally normal attunement rules apply but i can infuse as many items as I want & those persist upon death indefinitely (cause how else do we find loot in dungeons if their creators are LONG dead ie this is a D&D loophole) at Level 3 which is as far s we've gotten so far, I got to officially become a Battle smith, & took my Steel Defender & HERE's where the shit hits the fan so to speak because we're allowed to flavor this how we like, but at our table Flavor can have small mechanics tweaks SO mine is robot Zergling with 4 legs 2 of which are digitigrade & the other 2 standard animal fore legs with sharp spider like "feet" this gets it up to 60ft speed & can Leap forward 30ft from sprint (move at least 20ft before leaping) & vertically 15ft from standing, it has 2 Attack arms on the back with 3 claws each which are armed with Armblade Sickles 6 total 3 per claw for a 3d4 + Mod & a duel wield bonus attack for a 3d4 no mod (because your tearing into them with 3 blades on one "hand") its got a saddle on the back to count as a mount & this has Runes to cast force wall in a dome over the rider(still vulnerable from the sides) for our parties smallest member so if needed she can command it (our other Artificer will be making Eldritch cannons for this seat later) and lastly the head has 2 jaws an outer pneumatic jaw to snap shut to grab & hold the target in a Grapple dealing 1d4 piercing damage and an inner Jaw with Hydraulics to CRUSH Armor & bone, for 2d6+ mod piercing & 1d8 Armor damage (Using our rules for Armor damage where Iron plate has 10hp & 10ac & each metal gains its AC as HP) this attack with how out table rules work IF my Steel Defender successfully grabs a targets armors section my Armor damage on next action ignores attack role (& thus AC) to deal direct damage as they're already the Hydraulic Jaw may NOT be used in the same turn as it has not been engaged but given the damages its enough to break armor & thus remove a limb or if the targets unlucky & small enough its enough to bite something in half. all this to say within a few table rules you can make some stuff that really emphasizes the rule of cool though one issue, we want to use my Mechaling as enemy but we can't nail down their CR lol the stt block is a normal Steel Defender its just faster, & has 2 alt attacks anyone want to try to CR this thing?
This is amazing. I've been playing around with the idea of making an Artificer based on Alice in Wonderland, with a medium sized robotic rabbit following her around XD This video gave me so many ideas and made me love the class that much more.
Another thing you can do is give spell storing item with warding bond to your steel defender. That's another +1 to AC for kelly, along with resistance to ALL DAMAGE. Either that, or you get 10 rounds of cure wounds, web, enlarge/reduce, blur and invisibility. All of those you can have your Defender cast as a BONUS ACTION. AND spell storing item goes into your infusions, so ylu can put any of those spells into gauntlets of ogre power, boots of speed, or whatever else you wanna give it.
22:30 16? What about spellstoring item at level 11? It's one of the most powerful abilities the artificer has. Also you did get new infusion options at level 6 which you skipped.
Check out returning weapon, with the martial adept feat, paired with fighter maneuver that lets you use a thrown weapon as a bonus action(quick toss). You now have a possible +6 to hit magical spear at level 3, that returns to you and can be thrown as a bonus action on the fly.
Currently playing a gnome battlesmith who rides a mechaspider, complete with Mounted Combatant and a lance, with Enlarge in my Spell Storing Item for my mount to cast on itself to make it Large. Lots of fun Edit: woo it got called out at the end
have a very similiar build but with a Kobold and his Dragonlike Steel Defender :) So i don't need the enlarge and can put warding bond on the ring for more juicy AC. Steel defender can heal himself pretty well and will soak up the dmg which is nice
@@SwissStrawberry enlarge is to make the mount larger for Mounted Combatant for area control as well as advantage against Medium creatures. Otherwise dont need it to use the lance cause still small race on a medium
@@Visteus as a kobold you get the advantage of pack tactics. which you always have on your mount. so you don't get disadvantage while in close combat. if a teammember is beneath a monster you can even stay at 10feet range to get advantage, then step closer to get the sweet deflect.
The first thing that came to mind when I read about the battlesmith artificer was a rock gnome battlesmith/hunter who wears the classic safari hunter garb and his steel defender resembles a rhino.
Currently playing a Battle Smith in a Tiamat campaign, love the fact that it's basically a Magitech engineer that can lay the smackdown. My Steel Defender is a robotic dragon named Hraesvelgr! He's the best boi!
I love this video! I took inspiration from a backup fighter character to build out a hoplite battle smith. Fights with spear and shield from level 1. Takes returning weapon infusion on the spear, so now he has limited ranged attack in addition to ranged attack cantrip. Later levels start looking at feats like piercer, sentinel, or medium armor master (to boost half-plate AC and better stealth).
A player on my table while running Tomb of Annihilation played a warforged battle smith and as a steel defender he chose a velociraptor, it was absolutely mental! So weird for the other dinosaurs to see one of their kind and trying to figure out what was up with this thing!
Kobold Artificer, use Tasha's to move the +2 to int and -2 to Cha, 17int 15con, 13dex, 12wis, 10 str, 8 Cha. Pack tactics means you get advantage when your mounted. Use any 1d8 one handed weapon, and a shield, wear the best armor you can. Take mounted combatant feat at 4th level to redirect attacks from your Steel defender to you, then the defender gives them disadvantage. lvl 8 sentinel is a good idea for when you would rather not redirect an attack off you mount, or you just need to punish someone for attacking not you. 12 is where you boost Dex and Int, and the 16 is a feat wild card, or con increase. Infusions and spells would follow Kelly's character pretty spot on.
@@CaptainLackey ok that's awesome, also where is that errata writen? That way I can give a source to my gaming group and help out my kobald party members.
Should always take returning weapon over enhanced weapon at low level, it’s the same +1 enhancement only it returns to your hand when you want. Can help prevent being disarmed or allow you to wield things like throwing axes or throwing hammers.
Battlesmith Artificer reflavor-Necromancer Antipaladin. Small Dhampir, using bite and eventually getting better with a weapon, and using my steel defender to take damage. Cure Wounds for healing. Steel Defender is an undead zombie, weapon infusions, both on my bite and sword, eventually infusion on armor. Planning this for a campaign where I start as a kid, and grow up. Looking at Seintal. Magic Initiate Wizard for some extra spells, or a 1-2 level dip in to wizard, for utility spells/extra rituals.
20:00 Wait, if a multi-attack is interrupted by forced movement, the following attacks are canceled? Where can I find that rule? My Armorer may have just gotten an inadvertent buff lol
I believe they said that the multiattack is interrupted if the creature can't hit the next target without moving. So if there's more stuff to kill in its new location, it can keep attacking, but if it has to move back to where it was, that ends the multiattack.
Specifically, if the creature used its movement to engage and then gets pushed back, if it has no more movement left to get back in to combat, it has nothing to hit with its second attack.
"Oak defender" companion , sounds cool. Consider the herbalist skill there are rules to use the skill to make health potions. Thematic and healthy and no rule says you have to share them with the party !
@@bluebird3281 Thanks, I wanted to do a reflavor/feeling that wasn't super technical. Plus I was inspired by the whole Battle Smith Ranger is basically a Beast Master Ranger Revised but better.
@@Zarsla Ensorcellments sounds more flavorful than infusions to describe what your character does(imho). I have been kicking around the idea for an NPC since I read you post. You might end up being a boss level bad guy or key quest giver. Hope you don't mind my theft of your IP. (ensorcellment is a word but spell check does not recognize it)
I love the thought of a gnome battlesmith, and rig him like a light cav unit, and the thought of hasting either you or your defender mount to harass the enemy with infused crossbows and heat metal on knights or their mounts could be one heck of a war campaign. Or an elite unit to hunt down players if they decide to cast Explode Orphanage too many times
I often like the way Monty builds his characters a bit more but I think Kelly really nailed this one. I didn't really realize how good a tank they could be (I had some idea) until I really saw him play out this build. And with all of that meaty goodness, you're still also a half caster, so you're going to be a lot less bored than a conventional tank. And with that high Int, you'll be much more useful in non-combat situations where those very handy Int skills will actually be rolling well.
My Warforged Battlesmith has gotten to level 8 (we're mid Mad Mage). Mechanical Leopard (called MARC). Initially started with Musket (and also picked up repeating shot), but during Dragon Heist picked up Azuredge. The potency of taking Enhanced Defence just kills it, as Scalemail with shield and a ring of protection from Dragon Heist has gotten me up to AC 21. But as a revolver wielder, once I get higher level I might go Animate Objects, and just flood the field with a bunch of targets for my enemy to worry about while standing back and blasting away. 11 constructs surrounding them, disorientating them.
I kinda did the middle of the road of your builds, My artificer has a a great axe and a longbow, breastplate with enhance defence, winged boots, amulet of health for more hp, picked up great weapon master, sharpshooter, healer and lucky so in any situation I could he up front tanking or stealthily shooting from the back, using my spells for utility or healing, let me always have options which is what makes artificer so much fun I felt.
Awesome Video and cool builds. Quick questions: Can the Battle Smith cast Shield with Weapon and Shield in Hand? Wouldn't you need the War Caster Feat?
Artificer has a special "any item enchanted with an infusion can be used as an arcane focus." Edit: Beefing up this reply. Artificers are special as "ALL" of their spell casting requires a tool focus or arcane infusion to cast. This is a special exception as some spells do not require a material component, but for Artificers they do. Due to this exception, Artificers do not need a free hand, as per the rules compendium, the hand handling the material component can also do the somatic piece.
Y’all forgot to mention what you would put in your spell storing item! I like web and give it to your steel defender. That way you can have them cast a spell with your bonus action and use their concentration. Pairs especially well if you have a reach weapon and winged boots, just fly over the enemy and smash them with great weapon master at advantage because they are restrained. If the enemies break free just have your defender cast web again.
One of the big things that I did with my battle smith was focus on buffing my steel defender. At late levels he has a Belt of the Fire Giant, bracers of armor, and the boots of flying. He’s great at crowd control since he flys with a 40 speed. Not only does he work well offensively, but he is also completely expendable! If the fight doesn’t go well, send in the steel defender and grapple while we run. The next morning it’s back with its equipment.
I think Kelly is falling victim to the very common: leaning too far into a theme. Here its the 'Cannot be Hit' Tank theme. It's good to build AC but Kelly goes too far. Instead, set Str at 10, drop Heavy Armor, and keep Half-Plate medium armor and have your Dex boosted to 14. You lose 1 AC and +2 to Str checks (Athletics) and saves. You gain +2 to Initiative, +2 to the very common Dex saving throws, +2 to Dex checks (Acrobatics/Stealth), and you have a free ASI. The ASI allows you to get that +1 to Int and Con 4 levels earlier, which is +1 to hit, damage, spell DC, spell attack, and hit points [EDIT: and Con saves such as Concentration]. You've already got so many buffs to AC that losing 1 really isn't going to matter very much and you gain so much more from the Dexterity boost and free ASI.
Yeah, people in the comments are swooning over Kelly's massive AC and great saves without realizing that Monty can also get a really decent AC and very similar saves with less investment. Also that excessively high AC isn't immediately desirable on a tank since after a couple rounds even low INT creatures will realize they are better off targeting the squishy characters because of how impossible it is to hit Kelly's 30+ AC. Meanwhile building so singlehandedly towards that has reduced Kelly's artificer's ability to draw attention by putting out massive damage/control effects that there is much less reason to target him than Monty's artificer pumping out 1d12+17 damage per attack. Monty's pick of Winged Boots is arguably a much better overall pick than burning 4+ infusions on AC buffs since only a very narrow range of creatures are able to attack flying enemies, effectively shielding him just as well for way less investment. Sure, on the ground he's more vulnerable, but the moment he has room for his character to fly any creature without range/flight is just simply not going to be able to hit him. From there he still has options to use infusions to pump his already decent AC while baiting enemies into openings to fight him, namely flying low/nearby and generally kiting them around the arena to protect his allies. Sure Kelly is nearly unhittable, but Monty trades some of that direct defensive ability for reasons to actually want to hit him in the first place.
I'm currently doing the warforged idea, but with a few differences. I took Booming Blade, as that's going to be very important for AoO strikes once I take Warcaster later on. I started with 2 levels of fighter to get that Heavy Armor right off the bat along with Second Wind and Action Surge, then four levels of Artificer and took Fey-Touched at my feat to give myself Misty Step, Bless and +1 to INT. I've taken 2 more levels of Artificer so far, and once I get two more levels, I'll be upping my INT to 18. After I get to 10 Artificer, I'll take my next two fighter levels into Eldritch Knight, and then the rest in Artificer, picking up Warcaster and rounding my INT to 20.
As always, we use our house-rule custom array for ability score generation which is explained in this video: ruclips.net/video/q0eCR7OY95Q/видео.html
I just realized... this kinda makes non-variant humans slightly more viable... 18 16 and 14 are really good for a MAD class like a paladin and the 13 could be used for a multiclass dip...
So you make a system that makes variant humans even more powerful? Oh super.
idk if yall replay but if i took custom lineage for the battlesmith instead of warforge what feat would you take or would you max int level one
a reply would be appreciated love you guys been watching for awhile
I just saw the video and I was thinking to mention the mounted gnome build until you mentioned it at the end. Anyways, I played this mounted build once and even though it isn't as tanky as kelly's one, it was defensive enough and lot of fun to play. I think the only thingh I can add is what I did to get some use of the advantage feature of the mounted combatant feat: I cast enlarge on my mount to make it of large category. Most of the battles with multiple foes have medium or smaller creatures and as both the steel defender and I have reach (large size and lance weapon) its only matter of move from foe to foe dealing damage with advantage and almost never provoking opportunity attack. And what happens with larger foes? Most of the times there are only one large and more powerful foe with or without small minions, for those cases, I earlier took the replicate magic item infusion to replicate the spellwrought tattoo for a find familiar spell (that you can replace later on if you can reliable keep your familiar alive) that you can cast even without paying the gold cost, and have an owl that can provide advantage with the help action and flyby trait against those enemies. Finally, if you have high enough ability scores you can try to get the sentinel feat and maybe even the polearm master and make enemies unable to hit you or run away from you. Not the most optimized build but a very funny way to avoid the tank fallacy wich can happen with kelly's build for example.
Steel defender is immune to exhaustion. Simply attach it to the cart and you can travel all night.
And/or saddlebags.
That's genius, never would have considered that.
It’s strenght is 14 times 15 to calculate its carrying capacity = 210 lb… a cart = 200 lb. a carriage = 600 lb (two humans combined are average 210 lb)…. Sooo no travel. :(
Ow, never mind. A cart or carriage is not carrying but dragging so 210 lb x 2 = 420 lb. still not possible for a full party unless they are all gnomes or kobalds ;)
@@maanNL I house rule that a quadruped would double carry cap. Otherwise a goliath fighter can never ride a horse... lol
Monty: I made a sniper character that can fly
Kelly: you can't hit me ever
If Kelly really wanted to send his AC over the edge, he could multi into Bladesinger. He can't wear medium or heavy armor, but he can add his INT mod to his AC with Bladesong active, and still have a similar AC as if he still had heavy armor. Not to mention, he'd almost never fail a Concentration save.
And…. Fireball
Okay so it just occurred he also couldn't use a shield as a Bladesinger. Umm, Bracers of Defense??
@@a.z.pantera5577 he could also multiclass into hexblade warlock to get some of the great defensive spells they get access to... Blur, blink, and mirror image can all stack... Along with the armor of hexes ability... Take his 10th level build and add 10 levels of hexblade for a helluva badass tank that can hit HARD bc you can then also add eldritch smite to your attacks and you're always armed thanks to being able to conjure your weapon
@@torunsmok5890 Almost anything could be improved with Hexblade warlock. XD
DM Monty: Ok the Bone Devil charges and slashes you with its raking claws
Kelly: Ok but get this, it actually doesn't
This is how it is woth my dm right now. Its so fun. I love it
Enemy damage dice: "Let me in! LET ME IN!!"
DM: "Okay, so how do I actually hit your character?"
Battle smith: "That's the neat part. You don't."
@@TheRealMuckluck good thing that there are spells that always hit :)
@@MGC-XIII not if you cast shield :)
Don’t forget mounted combatant also forces any attacks on your mount to attack you instead. Which means your steel defender reacts to this and gives disadvantage
You can then throw up shied if somehow an attack still hit you. If you have a shield equipped and have a breastplate at +2 dex. Even with no magic items. A 23 ac and they hit at disadvantage once per turn.
If you cast Enlarge on the Defender it becomes a large creature and you can get that advantage.
I thought the same.
Rock Gnome mounted on the Steel Defender with the stuff Kelly said.
enlarge the Steel Defender for advantage attacks against medium and small targets.
"Artificer seemed half-baked at first glance"
This was my take as well when I first looked at Artificers in Ebberon, but eventually you come to realize they are actually the best tanks in 5e just behind a lvl 20 Moon Druid, with high AC, fantastic saves, fairly decent hit die, proficiency in Con saves, and a "I don't die" option at lvl 20.
I need to show this comment to a player of mine who always wants to craft stuff, but thinks the artificer class is "too restrictive."
@@agsilverradio2225 I felt the same way about the Artificer. The thing is, I think, the player might think that everything has to stay within the confines of the Artificer features. Like everything you make has to be an infusion, or spell storing item or something that the class gives you. You can still build things like you would with other classes. Artificer just frontloads you with these things that are "like" crafting things.
@@mitchelldkirby That's interesting, that really builds on that whole "Infusions are like prototypes of a magical item" thing. I would be worried about someone doubling down and making permanent versions of say, repeating shot revolvers. They could accumulate a lot of power that way. But if it's managed well, then that's not a problem I guess 👍👍👍
@@charger1369 Yeh, I've done a similar thing, my DM treats any infusion I know how to make as a valid schematic for crafting rules, so I just need to get the materials and spend the time to make it.
They really lag behind at the levels that 99% of players play at though
In my buddies game, another player was this subclass this and for his steel defender, he envisioned it as a pangolin. Hilarity ensued along with my Beast Master's giant badger.
Great minds think alike. My player also went pangolin
Ah yes, the ant eater version of a dragon.
I made mine a Dwarf Soldier, who I built to be a combat medic and his steel defender is a statue of a dwarf which he made to honor a fallen comrade.
We just played a 5th-level one-shot this past weekend for one of the Candlekeep Scenarios, and I also used the Battle Smith specialist to build a Combat Medic (he's also our Sniper). He's a gnome from the island of Lantan, with the Marine background from Ghosts of Saltmarsh. My defender is a steel gorilla, so moving around in a ship's rigging shouldn't be so much of a problem for him. The build worked out pretty well, but the one-shot has now become a possible campaign. Oh darn.
I made a Warforged battle smith, we were in a homebrew world so he was created by a dwarf. His creator passed away and made his steel defender a statue of his creator to honor him.
@@chrishelt4389 sounds fun! Would you be willing to share the lv 3 character sheet for him? :)
I like the idea of a Warforged Artificer who sees themselves as a sort of cleric/healer of their mechanical people, seeing the craft of creating machines like creating life
There's so much that you can do with the steel defender even beyond combat: if you're small enough you could ride them, you can give it items to use, infuse it, make it the designated door opener if you're worried about traps (just heal it with mending), instant advantage giver if you multiclass in rogue, and so, so much more. I do wish I could take the Eldritch Adept feat and use Gaze of Two Minds (effectively makes the steel defender a familiar) maybe as a way of 'becoming one with the machine' but the wording is a little funky (it would only work on 'humanoids' not constructs). It, and Artificer itself, is a Swiss army knife though and I love it.
in theory, the steel defender could be hollow. this means, dm willing, you could have it house things such as dead body for a necromancer's later use (assuming you can cover the smell), small summons like a familiar or homonculus, or (again, REALLY up to the dm on this one) you could wear it like a suit of armor amd launch it off you when combat starts (but wearing it could protect from sneak attacks before combat)..
He could also multi into fighter to get action surge.
@@darcraven01 More Theory:
Level 10 Spell Storing Item Give it to Defender . Two Good Spells to make it concentrate on. Enlarge reduced and invisibility. You make the Defender Near permanently large size in combat. So mountain combatant can be used for consistent advantage on every Attack against most Enemy's .
The second and the real star of the show is invisibility.
As per the rules anything that a creature is caring is invisible along with it. If your DM
Sees being mounted on your still Defender as Being carried on them then as long as your Defender doesn't attack you will gain what is functionally greater invisibility with a level four spells slot
I loved being a Dwarven Battle Smith riding a mechanical Ostrich in a tophat.
Whos the defender now? Mwahaha. Amazing
Glad that Monty and Kelly are finally seeing the light on artificers, but they missed a huge feature.
At 11th level they get to make a spell storing item that can cast 2x the intelligence modifier instances of up to a 2nd level artificer spell. Give a homonculus or familar a spell storing dagger and 10 instances (if you have 20 intelligence)of say heat metal. Have the pet cast it on an armored foe and dive into a bag of holding or other interdimensional space (rope trick), you get to have your pet deliver 20d8 damage over 10 rounds no save. If you don't like heat metal, there's web, invisibility, rope trick etc to choose from instead. 10 instances of offloaded concentration, amazingly good.
If you’re an Artillerist, load up with Scorching Ray and take the Fey Touched feat with Hex. Add a D6 to all those attack rolls from Scorching Ray plus your attacks with your Eldritch Cannon(s) which are attacks made BY YOU (just from the cannon) and your DM will hate you for how much damage you deal.
Also, (not done the vid yet.) They have not mentioned flash of genius yet. FoG is soooo good. Boom. +5 to skill or save.
Edit: i suppose it makes sence. They were focusing on only the BS. FoG is all artificers
They also missed out on the OTHER big feature in Flash of Genius. As a reaction being able to say to people "oh yeah, by the way, there's a +5 to the save" (if you're int is 20) can really help shore people up. The armorer artificer in my party has saved my Barbarian ass from control effects numerous times by throwing in that +5 and just squeaking past the save DC.
@@TheHandgunhero take it even further with the tiny servant spell. duct tape 10 tiny objects to your spell storing item, then use your high level spell slots on making 10 tiny servants that can all be commanded with a single bonus action. now you have a plasma cannon, have fun rolling 30 spell attack rolls for 2d6 fire damage each, all in one turn.
you can do that with other fun spells like catapult, shatter and magic missile for armorers
is it a good use of your spell slots and spell storing item? probably not, but it sure is cool.
I found personally this was best used to store 10 charges of 2nd level cure wounds making it work as an excellent out of combat healing tool. Also working well to give a non casting party member like the fighter the ability to bring people back up from unconcious
Man, as someone who is constantly prepping backup characters, this is definitely my favorite video style of yours. Fills me with tons of inspiration!
@@alexanderthompson7164 lol you described my exact situation. I have about 5 my friend, so I am right there with you!
For the idea of the Gnome on the Defender: Casting Enlarge on the Defender would give you that advantage even against medium creatures from Mounted Combatant. And with a Mind Sharpener infusion, you can keep up that concentration for longer than you regularly would.
I mean... I would have just taken War Caster to get those spicy booming blade opportunity attacks and advantage on Con Saves (which you are proficient in). Then again I like Kobalds way more than Gnomes, getting that sweet juicy advantage from your SD is so tasty. Throw in a Ring of Spellstoring on your SD with Warding Bond and infusions on your shield and armor to get a monstrous AC and you become the bringer of pain and sadness since anything short of a fireball can't really touch you. (Never a bad Idea to throw a charge or 3 of Absorb Elements into the ring to halve the damage that your SD takes from said fireball aswell.)
@@KingFate20 By level 8 you can do all these things at once. The absorb elements would also stack on top of the Evasion your mount gets from Mounted Combatant, leading to it only taking 1/4 damage from the fireballs.
The downfall is anything that can stun your SD. its been killing my build to get illithids hitting party with mind blast which the poor SD about always fails.
Monty’s is very close to my artificer. Goblin, and I’m going with a full Rocket & Groot vibe. :)
Looking at Kelly's build. Rather then investing as heavily as he did in Strength he could actually pick up Medium Armor Master and get to 16 Dex and wear Half Plate he would the same bas AC as with Full plate and now ignores the Disadvantage on Stealth checks
The easy answer is swap starting stats, He could move his 13 Str to Con, 15 Con to Dex and 10 Dex to Strength and then move the +1 floating stat from Str to Dex so he starts at 16 Dex. He loses out on a hit point per level, but that can be made up with either taking an Amulet of Health Infusion or an ASI at higher levels.
Even then, Con is a favored save for Artificers and they have multiple ways to mitigate the effect with infusions (or just take the Amulet of Health infusion at 10th level and jump to a 19 Con). And if you don't want to waste infusions the given stat array that they are starting with its not to hard to find the +1 from an ASI at 12th level to balance it out (since Con and Int are both odd numbers they only need +1 each from an ASI)
@cak01vej His build was already delaying both his stat boosts anyway, and the you are also ignoring the bonus to Dexterity saves and initiative checks that you get from the higher Dexterity over Strength.
As for free Infusion slots the Enhanced Weapon infusion is actually the first one that likely gets dropped as the odds of finding at least a +1 or better effect (Flame Tongue etc.) weapon is very high. freeing up the option to take a Mindsharpener Infusion or at higher level the Amulet of Health. Even the Repulsion Shield is likely something that could be swapped early as Kelly was using it incorrectly (since it doesn't stop opponents from moving back in on him after he uses it) and a basic +1 Weapon or Shield are only Uncommon items which means at 10th level his Magic Item Adept would let him make one or more of them very easily thus freeing up infusion slots.
And that makes my AC a 32
Me, a DM: (*through tears) How could this happen to meeeee!!!
Heat metal...
Cool, make a wisdom save.
Lol.. and keep making that wisdom save till the end of the campaign for every 5 min.
@@Golem501 Artificers can get absorb elements and counterspell.
@@prasanthnaidu9999 Flash of Genius plus infusions like Ring of Protection and Cloak of Protection means an Artificer can easily throw +7 on any saving throws if they need to make them.
Monty: _I have A Sharpshooting Flying Enemy that uses a magical Musket, that everybody should fear._
Me: _Someone watched Saga of Tanya the Evil._
My Battle Smith made his steel defender a double of himself and pretend that he has a twin brother. He was a sad and lone boy, until the party come to town and basically kidnapped him.
Very similar to my concept...his name was nibis and his steel defender was named twinbis...eventually he gave the steel defender a headband of intellect...I love that character
Nice!
Or you could build your lonely hero a steel defender wife...
Awe😟, that's kind of sad.
(For the character, that is.)
War forged battlesmith inception.
As we all know, the rules for the steel defender states how many legs it can have, but never a limit on how arms it can have, heh
So…. Octopus Steal Defender?? Omg
@@TheMollyDevine i also joked about how you can make one that looks like General Grievous from Star Wars
My Kobold Battlesmith rides his dragon-shaped Defender into battle. Thanks to Pack Tactics, he never has to worry about sunlight, AND gets advantage on his attacks in anything but.
More or less the same here xD
I treated my Battle Smith as if she were building a gunblade, treating her spells and abilities as the cartridges. Her metal drake is simply a bonus for me.
Same-ish, but my defender is “Bob” ( “BoB, DO something!”).
Also I just cosmetically describe the AOE as a lot of gunslinger quick shots of different types of bullets - same effects but gun style :)
“Come here my little creation, this mending BULLET will heal you :D”
Steel Defender: *internal panic*
I'm playing a lvl 10 halfling artificer who rides around on a steel raptor. He switches between hand crossbow and lance, with lots of buffs to keep his ride mobile, so Mind Sharpener is vital. He's probably one of the most versatile martial characters I've ever played.
Yeah, few people give credit to the artificer's versatility. I played a goblin artillerist and not only was he a very good ranged damage dealer, but he was also a good support that enhanced the other players with his infused magic weapons and armor, healing and disables that also did almost everything outside of battle, from intel gathering to survival and scouting. Heck, even sessions I couldn't attend I could help by handing people my infusions! Truly one of the best support classes ever.
@@rafaelbordoni516 also pretty handy at lock picking and detecting traps.
Cantrips: Haven't finished the video yet, but I think its pretty important to mention this. Artificers can change their cantrips EVERY LEVEL, not just at ASI levels.
It's super important to take advantage of this, especially as a Battle Smith or Armourer because you want an attack cantrip to start, but definitely don't need one once your subclass kicks in at 3rd. Swap it out for mending, which you don't need as a BS until 3rd. Extra attack should carry you after that.
The artificer I played was closer to Kelly's. Tungsten had an ac of 21 with Sentinel. He'd run up with Puba (the pit-bull steel defender) and block hits while keeping a single enemy from moving. The bowlock in the party was very similar to Monty's build with sharpshooter and eldrich smite dealing massive damage while Tungsten just stood there like "where do you think you're going" it was really fun to play.
This is pretty great! I made an artillerist that was a pain in the ass for my players to fight...Artificer is a pretty amazing class for ingenuity and clever thinkers.
I've got to say, it feels like their starting standard array of 17,15 (as opposed to the standard 15,14) feels like it completely changes the balance of the game. It makes the cost of adding feats so much lower.
I agree with this, but I feel asis are so boring. Adding a feat is everything an ASI isn't. I think this is my preference as dm and player. I'm not excited for a level where I have to add +2 to str so I can add a +1 to dice...
Indeed. I am currently building a battle smith with regular point buy, and so it restricted the options considerably. I took variant human for lineage, which means that in 19 levels I get 6 ASIs, and 4 of them are half-feats increasing INT, with only two spare ones, for which I chose Tough (as, I figured, getting Tough is simply better than getting +2 to CON) and Lucky (to compensate for low charisma and wisdom, as there are saving throws with those). Had I had a standard array of 17, 15, 13, 12, 10, 8, I would've been MUCH more liberal about all of that. Hell, I might've chosen a warforged instead of variant human.
@@mickeyyowzahhi, know this was from a year ago. but what stats did you actually go with?
I had the pleasure to do a one-shot with a Warforged Artificer Battlesmith whose Steel Defender was a female construct that did roundhouse kicks. They were such an entertaining pair, I want to play them in a long term campaign.
At least one person read this comment and thought "Of course you did that, that's so Hetero-normative"
I mean, I did wonder how a robot is "female" and then recoiled from the subtext.
Having an eldrich mechanical deer with human hands as a companion has been pretty fun so far!
excuse me a what
@@nykthosshrinetome Her name is Malory and she despenses rope from her mouth like a confused spider while making clicking noises. She is a queen.
@@notthis9586 I don’t know anything else about them or the character who has them as a companion, but I would give my life for them. 10/10.
So that weird ass deer from that one episode of Adventure Time?
I went against the mechanic battlr smith and build a "battle chef" that uses his cooking utensils to cast spells and cook magic items. He wields a sauce pan as a warhammer and has a roasting pan as his shield. His steel defender is an sentient upside down cast iron frying pan that walks on six bacon legs. Don't forget that you can go for any artisans tools with your artificer. I think a painter or a scribe would be really cool too.
Just started playing an artificer. Likely going armorer, but these builds were super cool and you might convince me to change my mind.
Much the same here. Thinking Armorer but now wondering.
I was just thinking going Range build with a bow, making my steel defender being a mechanical velocirapter and now I'm Aloy from Horizon Zero dawn
I made a similar thing. My drow battle smith is going ranged with a longbow, but her steel defender looks like a retriever. So here we have the dark elf archer, with her mechanical spider doing most of the dirty work while she snipes people from afar
I never considered that, that’s a really cool idea
The Battle Smith was introduced in Eberron Rising from the Last War. It was reprinted in Tashas.
I am literally starting a campaign as a battle smith next week. Your timing is awesome as always ❤
I think this video highlights one of the more overlooked strengths of the Artificer: choosing your own magic items. So many characters are beholden to the DM's discretion on items, and the perfect item to push them over the edge is locked out because the DM fears they could become too powerful. Artificers, particularly selfish ones, can load themselves up with exactly what they want when they want it, and that's a majorly impactful ability to have.
the intro with "D&D" instead of "Dungeons&Dragons" and "DMs" instead of "Dungeon Masters" shocked me more than it should
A Dungeon Dudes artificer video released the same day I was planning my Armorer/Thief sky pirate?
IT'S A SIGN, THE BUILD MUST BE PLAYED!
I played a gnome artificer that rode their defender! It was so fun. He made animal like constructs after exploring the wilds of the world. Would pull out a massive amount of constructs from his bag of holding. Things like ants, squirrels, and birds.
The mounted gnome is so much fun, frees up your bonus action for homunculus servant, can't discount animate objects for damage output too, I love this class/subclass
My favorite battle smith flavor is as a small character with the steel defender as a mech that I wear/mount
You guys are like the Starsky and Hutch, The Riggs and Murdock of 5e Build Videos. You crack each other up and look like your having so much fun making these with the occasional nod of respect and approval. This is my favorite video of yours and I have watched almost all of them. I want to be a merman artificer and my steel defender is called magnum. Dear God... its beautiful.
I’m currently running a battle smith in my main campaign and have been loving it. We were lacking int and a tank so I was able to fill both of those rolls beautifully!
I took my BattleSmith a different way. I took 3 levels in rogue to get thief's fast hands. I took the healer feat. With that I run around feeding potions and bandaging my party as a Field Medic. I also use the steel defender to protect the downed until I can get there. Reading thru the comments someone mentioned casting enlarge on the steel defender... definitely going to try that. So what do you think?
that's super cool! I love that take on it
I REALLY like how you presented the subclass along 2 different builds
Ive been playing a tiefling battlesmith for years now hes my absolute favorite and its my favorite class as well
Since the Steel Defender's Strength is so high it makes a great pack animal. Mine carries the party supplies in a chest on its back. In addition, I have built in several hooks and clamps for easy attachment of important items and a landing pad for my Homunculus and Familiar (from ritual caster).
I will say that it is hard to keep a bad guy within 5ft of a steel defender. Lots of bad guys have reach and when you and your steel defender get in the mix your SD could provoke from one opponent when moving into position against another. It can be a little thorny.
“Level 1&2 I’ll be relying on cantrips and the steel defender.”
You don’t have the steel defender at levels 1&2.
Fair, I was too excited for level 3. Guess I’ll just hide for 2 levels.
@@DungeonDudes for the first two levels, you play as an armored wizard. cast cantrips, use your spell slots as big guns, and occasionally resort to a dagger or crossbow. once you hit level 3, swap out that damage cantrip (which artificers can do every level!) for booming blade or something similar, and then once you hit level 5 go all in on cantrip utility.
@@DungeonDudes Or just idk use a spear for a little while
Tulok the Barbarian gave me the idea to use this class to make Penny Parker from 'Into The Spiderverse'. And I'm so going to use that in the next game I play, because I already used the Armorer class to make a Kobold Ironman.
Monty: I'll shoot you from way up.
Kelly: Can't touch me...
DM: Antimagic field, ACTIVATE!
DM: The enemy casts Heat Metal
@@maid_of_heart3261 so they just take the fire damage? because they'll be passing their con saves without a problem
@@rickau Artificers can cast absorb elements as well or get infusions to give themselves resistance to certain damage types like fire. :’)
@@maid_of_heart3261 dispel magic 🤷♂️. Whilst the steel defender holds you For next round
@@rickau You're not casting Heat Metal to make them drop their weapons, you use it on their armor to impose disadvantage on all their attacks and deal a little extra damage
Could you guys do a tier list ranking of all the Grim Hollow subclasses now that they're available? I just bought the PDF of the Player's Guide the other day and I'm in love with so many of the subclasses in there and you guys were the whole reason I bought it! :D
Currently playing a battlesmith with the blackrazor and GWM... its way too good.
I am so happy in seeing another battle master with a musket. I will be playing a halfling soon who focuses more on stealth and range rather than playing the paladin in the group (which is also still pretty awesome).
I want to make a warforged battle Smith now, whose stell defend is a copy of him. And do what Kelly did with sentinel. Look like that scene from Civil War where cap and bucky were fighting Tony.
I hope you guys do a similar one with the armourer, I'd find it interesting what combinations you would go with on this sub class :)
Lol I am literally playing Kelly's concept right now. Down to the in construction Warforged as my Steel Defender but I focused on INT first.
He also focused on INT first.
I’ve been looking into building a Battle Smith, and then you upload this. Y’all are life savers
Going to 2nd level wizard to get War Wizard is an interesting option to me. It might not be as optimized, but it gives a bump in utility, plus Arcane Deflection and Tactical Wit could come in handy.
I like this approach. Arcane deflection adds another option to an already busy reaction. There is a bit of overlap with shield spell and flash of genius but it is a resource free reaction so it is a preferable reaction use. That said it does allow you personal reaction save/ac reaction while freeing up your flash of genius for your party mates.
The extra initiative is always huge for any spell caster.
DM: Kelly, I need you to make a CHA saving throw.
Kelly: Wait, that's illegal!
Kelly: *Laugh in Flash of Genius for a +5 in all saves*
He will be banished alot which is what 1 minute.
Well people are probably still in the comments I wanted to ask, how is it that bruce can fly in shadows of drakkenheim? Also wanted to say that I love your videos, and your campaigns (and you kickstarter - super exited for that to arrive). Keep it up, you guys are the best!!!!!!!!! Also the how to play a... are my favorite types of videos!
because I think that Bruce a Tressym is. it also how bruce is immune to poison
From what I can remember of the 1st season the haze goes up hundreds of meters and a few places(clock tower, academy tower, castle) are above the haze so if you are travelling to these places I would say it's fine, otherwise your vision is blocked and is up to DM determinate how preciselly you can navigate. In addition, it's raining like 95% of the days so maybe thunderstorm could be a possible problem.
@@kelvinvoorneveld7265 I'll bet you're correct. It is easy to forget that you're not necessarily limited to the familiars listed in the description for Find Familiar especially if the DM is willing to work with you
BRUCE is a God!
@Snazzy Feathers yeah i would love to use a Almiraj for my centaur eldritch knight. not because it will be usefull in battle but for scouting it is pretty good with darkvision up to 30 ft and a +4 to perception and +5 stealth. but mainly because it is a very cute bunnycorn
@Snazzy Feathers yeah i would love to use a Almiraj for my centaur eldritch knight. not because it will be usefull in battle but for scouting it is pretty good with darkvision up to 30 ft and a +4 to perception and +5 stealth. but mainly because it is a very cute bunnycorn
Really amazing builds! Would like to see this for the Artillerist. ^^
Bilbron and Dragons made a killer Artillerist.
Spoiler - who needs extra attack if you have the following:
Booming Blade on quarter staff
Crusher
Pole Arm Master
Warcaster
Artillerists are amazing with their bonus action canons (I love the protector). Their damage output at first glance can seem meh for their action but was solved by Bilbron's build.
2 huge thumbs up.
I had a player make an absolutely ridiculous battle smith recently.
She went Variant Human with the variant Noble Background (Knight) which gave her two retainers, that wouldn't fight, but help in other tasks. She took the feat "Magic Initiate" and got herself the Spell "Find Familiar". She then at lvl three got her Steel Defender, and took the Create Homunculi Infusion. Finally, she multiclassed Ranger and went Beast Master. She would try to keep levels in each as even as possible after that point. Her strategy was to keep the Steel Defender next to herself as a defensive measure, while her primal beast companion(Thanks Tasha for helping out the Beast Master) would go on the offensive, helped by the familiar and the homunculi, delivering touch buff/debuffs spells for her, with her two retainers hiding behind her.
Trust me, it got wild when she got access to Conjure Animals...
By the end she was Battle Smith 8/Beast Master 9
A little hot take that I have that I kinda like to preach around: Flash of Genius is better than Aura of Protection. Everybody talks about its disadvantages over the aura, but nobody talks about its 30 feet range. More often than not, the paladin can only save himself while the artificer can save anyone or help that wizard keep concentrating. There's also the fact that an artificer is guaranteed to have high intelligence while a paladin will probably not have high charisma, at least at mid levels. A +2 to all saves is cool, but a +4 to all saves of the whole party when they need it the most is just better in my opinion. The limited uses is usually not a problem, most of the time you have enough uses for each day because you only spend them when they already rolled it and you see a fail coming. Ah, of course, I'm only considering mid levels, like, 7th to 10th level, which are the most played levels. I'll give you that, at super high levels the aura is better.
I absolutely love these character build videos where you both give your take on a subclass!
I want to make a gnome artificer that 'wears' the steel defender like a mech suit because they hate short jokes. Mounted combatant plus enlarge for advantage on medium foes
Just subclass into Armorer then your gnome has a mechanical suit. Done.
@@guyman1570 nah, I like the spells better for battlesmith for a supporting buff/crowd control idea. plus the walking headless suit and armour that can operate independently has some interesting potential
I modeled my battle smith after Victor Frankenstein. Instead of a purely mechanical creature, my steel defender was the reanimated and partially enhanced corpse of a crag cat. The DM let me use Magical Tinkering to create buttons on his collar that played cute little phrases like "I love you" and "you're my best friend" like some sort of nightmare Teddy Ruxpin
Im playing in a campaign right now with a character very similar to Kelly's build... Except I took it even further and added some levels as a Cavalier with the Sentinel feat... Attack me with 23ac and disadvantage and you are almost guaranteed to miss, or attack my Steel defender with disadvantage and I get to punish you for it...
so for my Artificer Battle Smith I kinda went a bit nuts started with a Warforged & got the following stats: 12STR 11DEX 18CON 14INT 11WIS 12CHA now they're like this for one reason Warforged CAN'T CAST SPELLS its our table rule we can use magic like Alarm & Various Detections as those can be internal Mechanisms that operate in a similar fashion to the corresponding spell, additionally we have a custom Cantrip Construct mending which allows for a weak healing spell to restore parts of constructs to their original unbroken state however reattaching limbs with this spell will take 1 day to re attune the limb to a working state & 5 more days to fully reattune the limb to not make roles at disadvantage. now that those are out the way.
at Level 1 i chose a feat to discount the prices of components for my spells by 20% & for the crafting discount of another 20% this means ALL magical Items I produce from purely mundane objects are 40% cheaper! for infusions I took Homunculus Servant, and Replicate Magic Item, with Enhanced Weapon & Defense (another table rule here I can infuse up to 2 items per day, IF its instead Replicate Magic item DEPENDING on the item rarity it's not counted toward my limit eg a Bag of holding is counted while making a pair of Goggles of night is not additionally normal attunement rules apply but i can infuse as many items as I want & those persist upon death indefinitely (cause how else do we find loot in dungeons if their creators are LONG dead ie this is a D&D loophole)
at Level 3 which is as far s we've gotten so far, I got to officially become a Battle smith, & took my Steel Defender & HERE's where the shit hits the fan so to speak because we're allowed to flavor this how we like, but at our table Flavor can have small mechanics tweaks SO mine is robot Zergling with 4 legs 2 of which are digitigrade & the other 2 standard animal fore legs with sharp spider like "feet" this gets it up to 60ft speed & can Leap forward 30ft from sprint (move at least 20ft before leaping) & vertically 15ft from standing, it has 2 Attack arms on the back with 3 claws each which are armed with Armblade Sickles 6 total 3 per claw for a 3d4 + Mod & a duel wield bonus attack for a 3d4 no mod (because your tearing into them with 3 blades on one "hand") its got a saddle on the back to count as a mount & this has Runes to cast force wall in a dome over the rider(still vulnerable from the sides) for our parties smallest member so if needed she can command it (our other Artificer will be making Eldritch cannons for this seat later) and lastly the head has 2 jaws an outer pneumatic jaw to snap shut to grab & hold the target in a Grapple dealing 1d4 piercing damage and an inner Jaw with Hydraulics to CRUSH Armor & bone, for 2d6+ mod piercing & 1d8 Armor damage (Using our rules for Armor damage where Iron plate has 10hp & 10ac & each metal gains its AC as HP) this attack with how out table rules work IF my Steel Defender successfully grabs a targets armors section my Armor damage on next action ignores attack role (& thus AC) to deal direct damage as they're already the Hydraulic Jaw may NOT be used in the same turn as it has not been engaged but given the damages its enough to break armor & thus remove a limb or if the targets unlucky & small enough its enough to bite something in half.
all this to say within a few table rules you can make some stuff that really emphasizes the rule of cool though one issue, we want to use my Mechaling as enemy but we can't nail down their CR lol the stt block is a normal Steel Defender its just faster, & has 2 alt attacks anyone want to try to CR this thing?
This is amazing. I've been playing around with the idea of making an Artificer based on Alice in Wonderland, with a medium sized robotic rabbit following her around XD This video gave me so many ideas and made me love the class that much more.
Another thing you can do is give spell storing item with warding bond to your steel defender. That's another +1 to AC for kelly, along with resistance to ALL DAMAGE. Either that, or you get 10 rounds of cure wounds, web, enlarge/reduce, blur and invisibility. All of those you can have your Defender cast as a BONUS ACTION. AND spell storing item goes into your infusions, so ylu can put any of those spells into gauntlets of ogre power, boots of speed, or whatever else you wanna give it.
22:30 16? What about spellstoring item at level 11? It's one of the most powerful abilities the artificer has. Also you did get new infusion options at level 6 which you skipped.
I'm so glad you mention the gnome at the end. In my old campaign one of my players ran exactly that, Sir Perry and Barnabas were amazing!
Kelly's warforged be like
Daniel
The cooler daniel
Also my artificer would be a goblin who insists his creation piggy back him everywhere
Check out returning weapon, with the martial adept feat, paired with fighter maneuver that lets you use a thrown weapon as a bonus action(quick toss). You now have a possible +6 to hit magical spear at level 3, that returns to you and can be thrown as a bonus action on the fly.
Currently playing a gnome battlesmith who rides a mechaspider, complete with Mounted Combatant and a lance, with Enlarge in my Spell Storing Item for my mount to cast on itself to make it Large.
Lots of fun
Edit: woo it got called out at the end
have a very similiar build but with a Kobold and his Dragonlike Steel Defender :) So i don't need the enlarge and can put warding bond on the ring for more juicy AC. Steel defender can heal himself pretty well and will soak up the dmg which is nice
I did something similar, except mine was a goblin and his defender looked like a displacer beast.
@@SwissStrawberry enlarge is to make the mount larger for Mounted Combatant for area control as well as advantage against Medium creatures. Otherwise dont need it to use the lance cause still small race on a medium
Note that your enlarged mount weighting now close to 2 tons, you can do quite some damage, ramming into buildings or floors. Tactical options !
@@Visteus as a kobold you get the advantage of pack tactics. which you always have on your mount. so you don't get disadvantage while in close combat. if a teammember is beneath a monster you can even stay at 10feet range to get advantage, then step closer to get the sweet deflect.
The first thing that came to mind when I read about the battlesmith artificer was a rock gnome battlesmith/hunter who wears the classic safari hunter garb and his steel defender resembles a rhino.
i've been marathoning the drakkenheim campaigns for about a week now, and seeing Kelly with such long and luscious hair threw me off
Currently playing a Battle Smith in a Tiamat campaign, love the fact that it's basically a Magitech engineer that can lay the smackdown. My Steel Defender is a robotic dragon named Hraesvelgr! He's the best boi!
It amazes me that a year back they were saying that the wizard can already do anything the artificer can, this is character development
I love this video! I took inspiration from a backup fighter character to build out a hoplite battle smith. Fights with spear and shield from level 1. Takes returning weapon infusion on the spear, so now he has limited ranged attack in addition to ranged attack cantrip. Later levels start looking at feats like piercer, sentinel, or medium armor master (to boost half-plate AC and better stealth).
A player on my table while running Tomb of Annihilation played a warforged battle smith and as a steel defender he chose a velociraptor, it was absolutely mental! So weird for the other dinosaurs to see one of their kind and trying to figure out what was up with this thing!
Dude, a velociraptor construct? That's "metal".
Kobold on a 4leg spider mount. Spear and shield and advantage on all melee attack rolls. Crushing it!
I'm curious about your standard array for ability scores. Is there a video that discusses why you use a custom standard array?
Yes, check out Our House Rules for Character Creation
Kobold Artificer, use Tasha's to move the +2 to int and -2 to Cha, 17int 15con, 13dex, 12wis, 10 str, 8 Cha.
Pack tactics means you get advantage when your mounted.
Use any 1d8 one handed weapon, and a shield, wear the best armor you can. Take mounted combatant feat at 4th level to redirect attacks from your Steel defender to you, then the defender gives them disadvantage. lvl 8 sentinel is a good idea for when you would rather not redirect an attack off you mount, or you just need to punish someone for attacking not you.
12 is where you boost Dex and Int, and the 16 is a feat wild card, or con increase.
Infusions and spells would follow Kelly's character pretty spot on.
They dropped the -2 Str on Kobolds, so you just get +2 Dex, Pack Tactics, Grovel, Cower, & Beg, and Sunlight Sensitivity.
@@CaptainLackey ok that's awesome, also where is that errata writen? That way I can give a source to my gaming group and help out my kobald party members.
Should always take returning weapon over enhanced weapon at low level, it’s the same +1 enhancement only it returns to your hand when you want. Can help prevent being disarmed or allow you to wield things like throwing axes or throwing hammers.
Battlesmith Artificer reflavor-Necromancer Antipaladin.
Small Dhampir, using bite and eventually getting better with a weapon, and using my steel defender to take damage. Cure Wounds for healing.
Steel Defender is an undead zombie, weapon infusions, both on my bite and sword, eventually infusion on armor.
Planning this for a campaign where I start as a kid, and grow up.
Looking at Seintal.
Magic Initiate Wizard for some extra spells, or a 1-2 level dip in to wizard, for utility spells/extra rituals.
20:00 Wait, if a multi-attack is interrupted by forced movement, the following attacks are canceled? Where can I find that rule? My Armorer may have just gotten an inadvertent buff lol
I believe they said that the multiattack is interrupted if the creature can't hit the next target without moving. So if there's more stuff to kill in its new location, it can keep attacking, but if it has to move back to where it was, that ends the multiattack.
Specifically, if the creature used its movement to engage and then gets pushed back, if it has no more movement left to get back in to combat, it has nothing to hit with its second attack.
@@FrankBocker you can always move between attacks
With the gnome riding their steel defender you could cast enlarge/reduce to synergies with mounted combatant
Thinking of doing a plant based battle smith, basically makes things a out of plants, like a sort of golem botanist.
"Oak defender" companion , sounds cool. Consider the herbalist skill there are rules to use the skill to make health potions. Thematic and healthy and no rule says you have to share them with the party !
@@bluebird3281 Thanks, I wanted to do a reflavor/feeling that wasn't super technical.
Plus I was inspired by the whole Battle Smith Ranger is basically a Beast Master Ranger Revised but better.
@@Zarsla Ensorcellments sounds more flavorful than infusions to describe what your character does(imho). I have been kicking around the idea for an NPC since I read you post. You might end up being a boss level bad guy or key quest giver. Hope you don't mind my theft of your IP.
(ensorcellment is a word but spell check does not recognize it)
@@bluebird3281 Nah go for it, no ip lost or stolen.
I love the thought of a gnome battlesmith, and rig him like a light cav unit, and the thought of hasting either you or your defender mount to harass the enemy with infused crossbows and heat metal on knights or their mounts could be one heck of a war campaign. Or an elite unit to hunt down players if they decide to cast Explode Orphanage too many times
I often like the way Monty builds his characters a bit more but I think Kelly really nailed this one. I didn't really realize how good a tank they could be (I had some idea) until I really saw him play out this build.
And with all of that meaty goodness, you're still also a half caster, so you're going to be a lot less bored than a conventional tank.
And with that high Int, you'll be much more useful in non-combat situations where those very handy Int skills will actually be rolling well.
My Warforged Battlesmith has gotten to level 8 (we're mid Mad Mage). Mechanical Leopard (called MARC). Initially started with Musket (and also picked up repeating shot), but during Dragon Heist picked up Azuredge. The potency of taking Enhanced Defence just kills it, as Scalemail with shield and a ring of protection from Dragon Heist has gotten me up to AC 21. But as a revolver wielder, once I get higher level I might go Animate Objects, and just flood the field with a bunch of targets for my enemy to worry about while standing back and blasting away. 11 constructs surrounding them, disorientating them.
I can't figure out what I'm missing that got Monty to a +14 with his musket at level 10
+4 int, +4 proficiency, +2 fighting style, +2 magic weapon.... Not sure where he getting extra +2 from.
@@ashleyhoughton8592 That's what I was coming up with as well.
I kinda did the middle of the road of your builds, My artificer has a a great axe and a longbow, breastplate with enhance defence, winged boots, amulet of health for more hp, picked up great weapon master, sharpshooter, healer and lucky so in any situation I could he up front tanking or stealthily shooting from the back, using my spells for utility or healing, let me always have options which is what makes artificer so much fun I felt.
Awesome Video and cool builds. Quick questions: Can the Battle Smith cast Shield with Weapon and Shield in Hand? Wouldn't you need the War Caster Feat?
Artificer has a special "any item enchanted with an infusion can be used as an arcane focus."
Edit: Beefing up this reply. Artificers are special as "ALL" of their spell casting requires a tool focus or arcane infusion to cast. This is a special exception as some spells do not require a material component, but for Artificers they do. Due to this exception, Artificers do not need a free hand, as per the rules compendium, the hand handling the material component can also do the somatic piece.
I love the artificer so much. Im currently playing a lvl 17 Artilierist and its one of the most fun characters I've ever played.
"level 1 and 2 Im gonna let my steel defender do the brunt work"
I'm very confused
Nah, you’re right, that made no sense.
Y’all forgot to mention what you would put in your spell storing item! I like web and give it to your steel defender. That way you can have them cast a spell with your bonus action and use their concentration. Pairs especially well if you have a reach weapon and winged boots, just fly over the enemy and smash them with great weapon master at advantage because they are restrained. If the enemies break free just have your defender cast web again.
Bonus points if your steel defender looks like a spider
Kelly set out with a mission to ruin a dms day
One of the big things that I did with my battle smith was focus on buffing my steel defender. At late levels he has a Belt of the Fire Giant, bracers of armor, and the boots of flying. He’s great at crowd control since he flys with a 40 speed. Not only does he work well offensively, but he is also completely expendable! If the fight doesn’t go well, send in the steel defender and grapple while we run. The next morning it’s back with its equipment.
I think Kelly is falling victim to the very common: leaning too far into a theme. Here its the 'Cannot be Hit' Tank theme. It's good to build AC but Kelly goes too far. Instead, set Str at 10, drop Heavy Armor, and keep Half-Plate medium armor and have your Dex boosted to 14. You lose 1 AC and +2 to Str checks (Athletics) and saves. You gain +2 to Initiative, +2 to the very common Dex saving throws, +2 to Dex checks (Acrobatics/Stealth), and you have a free ASI. The ASI allows you to get that +1 to Int and Con 4 levels earlier, which is +1 to hit, damage, spell DC, spell attack, and hit points [EDIT: and Con saves such as Concentration]. You've already got so many buffs to AC that losing 1 really isn't going to matter very much and you gain so much more from the Dexterity boost and free ASI.
Yeah, people in the comments are swooning over Kelly's massive AC and great saves without realizing that Monty can also get a really decent AC and very similar saves with less investment. Also that excessively high AC isn't immediately desirable on a tank since after a couple rounds even low INT creatures will realize they are better off targeting the squishy characters because of how impossible it is to hit Kelly's 30+ AC. Meanwhile building so singlehandedly towards that has reduced Kelly's artificer's ability to draw attention by putting out massive damage/control effects that there is much less reason to target him than Monty's artificer pumping out 1d12+17 damage per attack.
Monty's pick of Winged Boots is arguably a much better overall pick than burning 4+ infusions on AC buffs since only a very narrow range of creatures are able to attack flying enemies, effectively shielding him just as well for way less investment. Sure, on the ground he's more vulnerable, but the moment he has room for his character to fly any creature without range/flight is just simply not going to be able to hit him. From there he still has options to use infusions to pump his already decent AC while baiting enemies into openings to fight him, namely flying low/nearby and generally kiting them around the arena to protect his allies.
Sure Kelly is nearly unhittable, but Monty trades some of that direct defensive ability for reasons to actually want to hit him in the first place.
I'm currently doing the warforged idea, but with a few differences. I took Booming Blade, as that's going to be very important for AoO strikes once I take Warcaster later on. I started with 2 levels of fighter to get that Heavy Armor right off the bat along with Second Wind and Action Surge, then four levels of Artificer and took Fey-Touched at my feat to give myself Misty Step, Bless and +1 to INT. I've taken 2 more levels of Artificer so far, and once I get two more levels, I'll be upping my INT to 18. After I get to 10 Artificer, I'll take my next two fighter levels into Eldritch Knight, and then the rest in Artificer, picking up Warcaster and rounding my INT to 20.