Forge Cleric or Battle Smith Artificer?

[Celaeno]

Hello!

New poster, hoping for some perspective for a new character for a future elven campaign (all players non-human and preferably elves or elf-friend races). We have a total of 6 experienced players, and as a group we tend to try to build balanced teams, and thus far we have a wild elf wildshape druid with some homebrew help on optimization, and a wild elf druid caster, the others are undecided at this time. Our DM also lets us go with dice rolls for stats (4d6 an add the highest 3, assign as you like) so MAD isn't quite the issue it could be. My last two characters were a lore bard and a wild magic sorc, and while fun, I wanted to go a bit more front-line melee, either main or side tank, and have the idea of an elven smith turned warrior. I know fighter is the best in melee, but I like having a 'tool belt' of combat options from spellcasting and would still like to have some spell utility.

With all background in mind, does anyone have thoughts about the Forge Cleric or the Battle Smith Artificer in play? Have you played (or seen them played) and have thoughts or suggestions on what you liked or didn't like about them in a campaign?

Thanks!

[nickl_2000]

Both of the two are good options really. If you are going Elf I think you are better off going with Battlesmith Artificer since the stats bonus matches better with the class/subclass than it does with Forge Cleric. Additionally, you get to have the shield spell as well.

[Contrast]

A lot depends on what you mean when you say you want to be 'front-line melee'.

If you mean your go to plan is to be moving forward into melee combat as your go to strategy, then battle smith is the better option.

If you mean you just want to be able to hang around in the general vicinity of melee without immediately planning to run away as soon as you can, I'd say forge cleric is the better option.


I personally think artificers are underwhelming in play (my experience may be biased as I tried out the alchemist which I accept is the weakest subclass) while clerics are flexible and powerful full casters. By that metric though, the forge clerics plan is always about how their spells will influence the combat and often the solution is casting a spell and then maintaining concentration rather than getting up in the enemies faces and beating them to death with a weapon.

If a melee combatant with some side magic utility is what you're after try out battle smith - my experience says just don't hold up too many expectations for their magic. Particularly in such a large party there are probably going to be other casters who can solve similar problems to you earlier and with more spare spell slots.

[Eldariel]

Well, I'm quite familiar with Forge-cleric, less so with Battle Smith. For Forge I can say that it's very good at what it does; it's the implacable frontline beast with a full dose of delicious divine magic to back it up (indeed, Spiritual Weapons and Spirit Guardians are par de course). It boasts potentially the highest AC on level 1 with magic heavy armor and shield; the ability to switch the magic bonus to a weapon is really key too when you begin running into things with resistance to non-magical attacks (say, you ended up in hell somehow). Then it gets a further AC bonus down the line and it has all the divine tools for further boosting your survivability. Also a great set of magical weapons. Sadly the offense is fire-based, which is commonly resisted, but on the flipside it also gets fire resistance, which is commonly inflicted. The spells are decent, but again, quite fire-based, and the 2nd level ability of crafting stuff can range from incredibly sweet to fringe depending on the campaign and equipment availability.

[stoutstien]

Two of my favorite options. Both are really strong options providing good defense and enough offense to hold their own. If you've never played a half caster before I highly recommend the battle Smith. Don't underestimate the power of the steel defender using the help action and then using their reaction to cause disadvantage on an incoming attack to allies.

Saying that is multi-class is on the table mixing the two can be really fun.

[Quietus]

To me, it would really come down to one question. Do you want your damage to come from spiritual weapon /spirit guardians with a weak melee attack, or from stronger martial abilities and the occasional Arcane jolt from mechanopuppy?

[stoutstien]

To me, it would really come down to one question. Do you want your damage to come from spiritual weapon /spirit guardians with a weak melee attack, or from stronger martial abilities and the occasional Arcane jolt from mechanopuppy?

Arcane jolt can work off the BS attacks as well. It's better served as the best action economy heal in the game than a weak smite other than spiking the stray crit.

[Celaeno]

Thank you everyone for the answers and ideas. It's certainly been helpful. I realized that I forgot to add in my original post that a lot of the inspiration for the character idea comes from the Armorer from the Mandelorian series. I would rather the character be in melee and dishing out the pain with some warhammers. That being said, I wondered two if multi-classing the forge cleric with a fighter would also be viable, but I usually avoid MC with spell casting and non-spell casting classes to minimize the reduction to spell progression.

[Deathtongue]

If your DM will allow Unearthed Arcana material, Armorer might fit your vision even better than Battle Smith:
http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/artificer:armorer-ua

[Celaeno]

I saw the Amor Artificer and while cool, it seemed more Iron Man that Armorer. Still very cool though.

[KnotaGuru]

What about a fighter or paladin? Both are more melee focused. Battle master fighter could give you some limited "tool belt" options. Paladin has a whole slew of options and supports your teammates quite well. Orders have access to a wide variety of spells and channel divinity options. You could go DEX based with either, use a shield, and only be slightly behind the AC of STR based heavy armor. Dueling fighting style adds some decent damage in the long run as well.