Staying classy? In THIS economy?

Eberron Artificer Implementation Notes

As I stated in the description of my Eberron Artificer mod for Baldur's Gate 3, I was aiming to stay within the tabletop rule margins from Eberron: Forge of the Artificer to the best that I could within BG3's framework, which is both built on an earlier version of 5th edition D&D, and which makes a bunch of its own compromises even with those rules.

For the most part I think I succeeded, but there are a few adaptation choices I made that I think are important enough that I want to explain why I made the choice I did.

I'm unlikely to change these implementations unless there's a super compelling reason, like a save-bricking bug, etc.

Table of Contents:

Spell-storing Item

In EFotA, the Artificer's level 11 "Spell-storing Item" feature is enormously powerful, and rules-as-written reads like this:

Whenever you finish a Long Rest, you can touch one Simple or Martial weapon or one item that you can use as a Spellcasting Focus, and you store a spell in it, choosing a level 1, 2, or 3 Artificer spell that has a casting time of an action and doesn’t require a Material component that is consumed by the spell (you needn’t have the spell prepared).

While holding the object, a creature can take a Magic action to produce the spell’s effect from it, using your spellcasting ability modifier. If the spell requires Concentration, the creature must concentrate. Once a creature has used the object to produce the spell’s effect, the object can’t be used this way again until the start of the creature’s next turn.

The spell stays in the object until it’s been used a number of times equal to twice your Intelligence modifier (minimum of twice) or until you use this feature again to store a spell in an object. That is crazy strong; this is effectively [Int mod x2] free spell slots of level 1-3 per day, to cast one spell.

In BG3, making an item with charges was beyond me (there are probably ways to do it with technical statuses and frozen durations, but this is my first mod, and I was already doing a bunch of other nonsense technical stuff beyond my pay grade).

So, instead, I opted to use an approach similar to the existing "(Mostly) Faithful Artificer" mod: you can make [Int mod x2] consumables per long rest from a range of Artificer spells.

It's not every spell in the list; I left off some that didn't make sense (Arcane Lock) or ritual spells that could be used out of combat for free anyway (Longstrider etc.), but picked the buffs, heals, and suchlike that would seem the most helpful. For each subclass, I picked a level 1 spell and a level 3 spell from the subclass list that seemed like popular candidates (yes, Artillerists get 8 free Fireballs a day; you're welcome). Sadly, making the spells use your spellcasting stats instead of the person casting the stored spell was a no-go, which is unfortunate, but is just How BG3 Is.

Pros (compared to EFotA): Wider variety of spells vs. one spell per LR Cons (compared to EFotA): Spells rely on user's spellcasting stat, limited spell selection

Considering that this ability is still a tremendous power boost for the class that comes very late (this is the same level Fighters get Improved Extra Attack), I think I'm okay with this tradeoff.

Armor Model Weapons

This was a much thornier problem. The Armorer subclass has three "modes" for their Arcane Armor feature: Dreadnaught (a melee brawler), Guardian (a melee tank), and Infiltrator (a ranged scout). Each armor mode has its own weapon.

In previous 5th edition versions of the Artificer (i.e. in UA and Tasha's), these weapons were actual physical items you held in your hand. EFotA changed this so that the weapons were usable even if your hands were full (and the weapons no longer have types, so they don't benefit from weapon type feats etc). This meant I had two ways to implement this:

  1. Say 'screw it' and make them weapons anyway, which is easier in a lot of ways -- baseline BG3 support with items and statuses works out of the box with actual items -- but which isn't actually tabletop RAI (or RAW, really) and presents some logistical problems, like making them vanish when your armor is unequipped, etc.
  2. Have your built-in weapon be a spell that you unlock in the temporary bar, as long as your armor is equipped. This is closer to RAI/RAW, has fewer logistical problems for tracking when your armor is on/off, but a bunch of things that should benefit these weapons -- bonus damage from Enlarge, being usable with Opportunity Attacks -- would have to be coded in separately. They also benefit from spell attack gear, when they really shouldn't.

A lot of work went into this, and technically speaking functional versions of both are in the mod as shipped. Ultimately, though, I came down on the side of "built-ins are provided as spells by the armor buff." A lot of testing and thought about both implementations went into this, and a few things made up the difference:

Perhaps at some future time I'll change my mind and re-enable the item versions, but for now I'm perfectly okay with the spell versions as they currently work.

Mystra's Spells Compatibility

I know the Mystra's Spells addon is very popular, so I did at least look through the list of spells included in that mod to see if there were any significant omissions that are on the Artificer spell lists for levels 1-3.

The answer is: not really. There are a couple, but they were esoterica like Prestidigitation and Create Food and Water; while I can understand wanting those spells from an RP standpoint, I think what people would be most concerned with is combat spells, and there were really none to implement. Thus, I have no current plans to make a compatibility patch because you're not actually missing anything.

Future Additions

This was my first mod, ever. It was a wildly ambitious project and frankly I'm not sure I ever plan to make another one, though I plan to support this one as long as is feasible with my actual life.

I know there are things people probably want, so here is my preemptive answer on the ones I can think of:

I'm not above changing my mind on any of this, but for the time being, I'm fine with a 1-12 mod and the core four subclasses.