I'm currently playing a rock gnome artillerist toymaker who's cannons are little transformer constructs. For flavour he also has the homunculus servant for another transformer. At tier one play, the artillerist is actually quite a strong blaster, arguably better than a wizard. The bonus action 2D8 extra damage (or more if you get multiple enemies under the flamethrower cone), means that he can do consistent damage over a long period, whereas most spellcasters have to be frugal with their spells. One fun thing I've found with tier two play (level 6) is using the artillerist as a bit of a GISH class. Green flame blade works really well with arcane firearm and a magic staff (mine is using the Spider Staff from Lost Mines of Phandelver). He has also just got the All-purpose Tool, so selects Shillelagh. This gives him a melee attack of 3D8 + 1D6(poison damage from staff) + 4 (Int mod). In addition he will do 1D8 + 4 against another target with 5ft. Then bonus action attack for another 2D8. I haven't played him at higher levels, so haven't seen how all this scales.
That is great damage! Yeah at low levels this thing does really well at either blaster or GISH but tends to fall short once we reach above level 10 purely due to the slow spell slot progression and is outshined by the Wizard and Warlock whether it be Bladesinger/Hexblade for GISH or Chronurgy/Genie/Fiend for blaster. Not having access to high level spells and the spells coming online later and no extra attack like the Bladesinger is tough but I love what you've done with yours. I'll be talking about my wife's build later this week and I think you'll like it.
I love the looney tunes style idea of making a little walking cannon with the appearance of something harmless like a kitten, sending it into the bigbads room, then making it detonate in their face when they go to investigate it.
Personally, I feel a good fix or homebrew for the protector cannon is to give it 1d8+your INT modifier, and then at 9th level give it your proficiency bonus too. Then, at 9th level you get 1d8+9 (assuming you have a +5 INT mod) giving you a range of +10 to +17 temp hit points. The minimum and maximum increases by +1 at both 13th and 17th level, culminating in +12 to +19 temp hit points. Still not amazing at that level, but it is still way sronger to get a guaranteed +12 temp HP than only +6. It also makes a good compromise by giving you a guaranteed bonus of +4,+5,+6, rather than the fluxuating addition of an extra 1d8, which would be the alternative.
If you look at the level 9 ability, it states that EVERY cannon you create is MORE powerfull. Wouldn't that mean that every cannon you make gets 1d8 more. So if you create about 30 throughout the campaign you and up with a 2d8+30d8???? Just asking because that is how we read the rulles. And it makes it so that the artificer becomes a really fun build that really has to do its own things and because they only can have one for most of the game you can have them be a background suport tipe that randomly does some extra damage. Scaling quite nicely whit the others, the further you go.
I don't believe that was what was intended and not how I read it. It seems that they were just trying to clean wording up by not saying "the damage from your Flamethrower and Force Ballista increases to 3d8". 30d8 is nuts and all someone would have to do is just make a cannon, dismiss it and repeat while blowing all spell slots over and over and this interpretation would get out of hand very quickly
I would say that, since you can recreate a destroyed cannon using ANY spell slot, exploding a cannon is a useful and viable tactic at any time, right from 9th level. I mean, a half-damage Fireball doing Force damage and using only a first-level spell slot is a bargain in my book. So is using a second-level slot, since you're essentially recreating the Shatter spell, but with twice the radius ... which means you can potentially damage four times as many targets. 😁
I'm currently playing a rock gnome artillerist toymaker who's cannons are little transformer constructs. For flavour he also has the homunculus servant for another transformer. At tier one play, the artillerist is actually quite a strong blaster, arguably better than a wizard. The bonus action 2D8 extra damage (or more if you get multiple enemies under the flamethrower cone), means that he can do consistent damage over a long period, whereas most spellcasters have to be frugal with their spells.
One fun thing I've found with tier two play (level 6) is using the artillerist as a bit of a GISH class. Green flame blade works really well with arcane firearm and a magic staff (mine is using the Spider Staff from Lost Mines of Phandelver). He has also just got the All-purpose Tool, so selects Shillelagh. This gives him a melee attack of 3D8 + 1D6(poison damage from staff) + 4 (Int mod). In addition he will do 1D8 + 4 against another target with 5ft. Then bonus action attack for another 2D8.
I haven't played him at higher levels, so haven't seen how all this scales.
That is great damage! Yeah at low levels this thing does really well at either blaster or GISH but tends to fall short once we reach above level 10 purely due to the slow spell slot progression and is outshined by the Wizard and Warlock whether it be Bladesinger/Hexblade for GISH or Chronurgy/Genie/Fiend for blaster. Not having access to high level spells and the spells coming online later and no extra attack like the Bladesinger is tough but I love what you've done with yours. I'll be talking about my wife's build later this week and I think you'll like it.
I love the looney tunes style idea of making a little walking cannon with the appearance of something harmless like a kitten, sending it into the bigbads room, then making it detonate in their face when they go to investigate it.
That is pretty hilarious. The cannon is such a fun feature!
d&d ?!?!? what a sudden turn of events 🤔 I love ya buddy!
Thanks man. I'll have to show you the ropes sometime
Personally, I feel a good fix or homebrew for the protector cannon is to give it 1d8+your INT modifier, and then at 9th level give it your proficiency bonus too.
Then, at 9th level you get 1d8+9 (assuming you have a +5 INT mod) giving you a range of +10 to +17 temp hit points. The minimum and maximum increases by +1 at both 13th and 17th level, culminating in +12 to +19 temp hit points. Still not amazing at that level, but it is still way sronger to get a guaranteed +12 temp HP than only +6.
It also makes a good compromise by giving you a guaranteed bonus of +4,+5,+6, rather than the fluxuating addition of an extra 1d8, which would be the alternative.
I like this. The fluctuating nature of the feature is both good and bad but I like the added consistency
If you look at the level 9 ability, it states that EVERY cannon you create is MORE powerfull. Wouldn't that mean that every cannon you make gets 1d8 more. So if you create about 30 throughout the campaign you and up with a 2d8+30d8???? Just asking because that is how we read the rulles. And it makes it so that the artificer becomes a really fun build that really has to do its own things and because they only can have one for most of the game you can have them be a background suport tipe that randomly does some extra damage. Scaling quite nicely whit the others, the further you go.
I don't believe that was what was intended and not how I read it. It seems that they were just trying to clean wording up by not saying "the damage from your Flamethrower and Force Ballista increases to 3d8". 30d8 is nuts and all someone would have to do is just make a cannon, dismiss it and repeat while blowing all spell slots over and over and this interpretation would get out of hand very quickly
That moment, when eldritch слииои
I would say that, since you can recreate a destroyed cannon using ANY spell slot, exploding a cannon is a useful and viable tactic at any time, right from 9th level. I mean, a half-damage Fireball doing Force damage and using only a first-level spell slot is a bargain in my book. So is using a second-level slot, since you're essentially recreating the Shatter spell, but with twice the radius ... which means you can potentially damage four times as many targets. 😁
The USS Texas
Your pronunciation of “Artificer” very stranger to me. I pronounce it “ART-TA-FI-SCHER” as in artificial.
There are like 6 ways people pronounce it honestly. I just kinda roll with it however someone wants to pronounce it lol