Trying to Create a Specific Artificer While Avoiding Homebrew

[Kereea]

So I had an idea for an artificer where she's a textile artisan. I feel the artillerist subclass wouldn't be too bad since it'd be funny to use her knitting needles as "firearms" but I'm overall trying to figure out what my options are for infusing/creating cloth-based magic items without dipping into homebrew, since overall I'm making this to probably use on something like Roll20 during the pandemic. Creating Bags of Holding is always nice (and could be a source of cash for the group depending on campaign) but there's more to any character than that.

What are some good ideas you guys have?

[Contrast]

Artificer actively encourages reflavouring to allow for this sort of thing so honestly any of the subclasses works really.

Alchemist could reflavour the potions as patches that you slap on peoples clothes to empower them, battle smith could create a large stuffed teddy bear companion, etc etc.

[nickl_2000]

What about the Unearthed Arcana Armorer? That would only take a small amount of re-fluffing to be amazing for this.

[Citadel97501]

There are a large number of items that can be made by a weaver, so many in fact that I am just going to do the infusions from the Eberron book.

Off the top of my head make magical flying carpets, and just use the rules of the Broom of Flying which are one of my favorite uncommon items and spreading those to all of the guards or making an elite force of carpet riders for a city would be damn cool, and would allow nasty crossbow shots especially for a small race as they are lighter letting multiple ride one carpet.

I would also like to point out that any of the items below technically become arcane focus items for the artificer, and therefore can become Spell Focus Items, this could be a lot of fun with you switching out your robe to be different SSI's daily, hell you could even have little patches on it that you pull off to act as tiny servants or leave on to enchant you with the spell :)

Infused Items
Bag of Holding: As mentioned always good...

Boots of the Winding Path: While this is normally thought of as leather it is easy to think sandals :)
-Boots of elven kind, Boots of Striding & springing, Boots of the Winterlands, Slippers of Spider Climbing, Winged Boots, Boots of Levitation, Boots of Speed,

Belt of Hill Giant Strength

Bracers of Archery: I think changing these over to a friendship bracelet with little arrowheads woven into it would be cool.
-Bracers of Defense

Cap of Water Breathing: I have trouble not thinking of this as the old grey fishermans cap, which is usually wool.
-Headband of Intellect, Hat of Disguise, Helm of Telepathy: Any of these can be hats or caps.

Cloaks of Elvenkind: A lot of cloaks are available...
-Cloak of the Manta Ray, Cloak of Protection, Cloak of the Bat

Gloves of Thievery: Mittens, or fingerless wool gloves?
-Gauntlets of ogre power (Oh crap he put on his mittens...), Gloves of Missile Snaring, Gloves of Swimming & Climbing,

Rope of Climbing: Ropes are woven :)

[Evaar]

I would also go with Artillerist, using wands as knitting needles or spindles. That all fits.

Sewing has a lot of magic associated with it in fantasy stories.

From Sleeping Beauty you have the cursed spindle.
Rumplestiltskin spun straw into gold.
Fantasy stories are rife with magical cloaks, and so is D&D.
The three Fates from Greek mythology used a loom and threads representing lifelines.
In the Incarnations of Immortality book "With A Tangled Skein," one of the jobs of the fates is to gather raw material from the Void to spin into thread to weave the tapestry of life (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_a_Tangled_Skein). Maybe you discovered a way to gather a small bit of material from the Astral Plane, which you use to make magical threads that power your creations.

Magical threads would be a flexible source of your power. You just need to think of a way to attach a thread to an object in a way that sounds interesting to you, but you can justify any magic item with that. It could be as simple as tying a small loop of thread around the hilt of a longsword, or as complex as having the sword forged with the thread embedded in the core of the blade. Or maybe it's in the middle - the infusion process embeds the thread within the blade magically.

Your eldritch cannons can be enchanted sewing tools. Maybe the Protector version is an animated loom that weaves protective threads of force around the party. Maybe the Force Ballista is an enchanted spinning wheel that fires needles or threads of pure force. Maybe the Flamethrower is a kiln. Get nuts with these, go full Baba Yaga and put chicken legs or whatever on it. It's a magical invention that only works for you, so make it as idiosyncratic as you can.

[Vogie]

I'd do an artificer of your choice with 2 levels of Conjuration Wizard. Not only does it give you a ton more spells & rituals (the most weaving-est of spells), but you always have the ability to churn something out really fast.

When I played an Alchemist artificer, I really leaned into it. Even Ritually casting Detect magic had her setting out the right materials, mixing things up correctly, cleaning as she goes, and finally downs the concoction to make her eyes glow with Fremen Eyes-of-Ibad blue for the 10-minute duration.

[Citadel97501]

I'd do an artificer of your choice with 2 levels of Conjuration Wizard. Not only does it give you a ton more spells & rituals (the most weaving-est of spells), but you always have the ability to churn something out really fast.

When I played an Alchemist artificer, I really leaned into it. Even Ritually casting Detect magic had her setting out the right materials, mixing things up correctly, cleaning as she goes, and finally downs the concoction to make her eyes glow with Fremen Eyes-of-Ibad blue for the 10-minute duration.

I hadn't thought of that combination but I like it :)

[pantastic]

Creating Bags of Holding is always nice (and could be a source of cash for the group depending on campaign)

Maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't an Artificer have limited infusions to create things like a Bag of Holding? I'm not understanding how that could be a source of cash ... unless the plan is to scam people by creating one and selling it, then the next day creating another one (which would destroy the first bag of holding you created).

Am I missing something? If I am, please share, because I'm playing an Artificer in a campaign starting next week!

[Citadel97501]

Maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't an Artificer have limited infusions to create things like a Bag of Holding? I'm not understanding how that could be a source of cash ... unless the plan is to scam people by creating one and selling it, then the next day creating another one (which would destroy the first bag of holding you created).

Am I missing something? If I am, please share, because I'm playing an Artificer in a campaign starting next week!

Unfortunately they took out the bonus to crafting your specific items, but provided a powerful tool to High Tier 2, & Tier 3 Artificers. At level 10 Artificer you get Magic Item Adept, which gives you 4 attunement "slots".

Magic Item Adept Relevant part: You can make things of common or uncommon rarity in 1/4 of the time, and at half the usual cost...

So if using the Xanathar's guide crafting rules, you can make Bags of Holding in less than 4 days, for 100 gold pieces. Now Xanathar's guide also notes a system for selling magic items, this takes a week and lets say your trained in Persuasion, have a Charisma of 12, and cast guidance before rolling. This gives you a minium of 6, and an average of 10 is a lot more reasonable. So using the low average it sells for 100% of the sale price IE 400 GP. So in 11 days you make 300 gp roughly 30 x a high end craftsmans wages.

Oh and wizards might barely be even with this doing the same thing with their spell books, but that should be a MUCH MUCH harder persuasion check due to the limited market. So it might work, but I would definitely add another 10 to the DC's for selling the spell books.