New Hobgoblin Artificer/Mastermind?

[Aalbatr0ss]

I’ve been playing a hobgoblin artificer armorer in a long campaign. They’re level 9 now, straight armorer, and I’ve gone back and forth on a few multiclass ideas. So far I’ve mainly been using guardian taunt to tank. (STR 12, DEX14, CON15, INT20, WIS12, CHA9, mobile, AC23 in plate).

Levels 10-15 of armorer are all pretty strong and there isn’t a strong need to MC, but for the campaign I’d like our party to have better stealth/espionage capabilities.

Our party recently took on a rune knight, and we have a monk and hexadin. So we have lots of melee power. I’m not trying to overshadow them in damage, but to facilitate whole group in combat. We also have druid + ranged ranger. No rogue. Rogue role is sort of split between the monk and my guy.

Anyway, DM is allowing me to switch to the new Monsters of the Multiverse hobgoblin with the enhanced bonus action help actions. This gels with a concept I’ve already been considering: Armorer 11/Rogue 3 Mastermind and focus on a combat coordinator role. Use Vortex Warp (spell storing item x10/day) and 30’ BA help action to focus on moving the strong damage dealers around the battlefield and giving advantage at key moments. We tend to fight on big maps and spend lots of time maneuvering into place. I usually have no bonus action because I stopped using the fragile homunculus.

Not trying to optimize this character for damage, but for making the whole team as strong as possible while keeping everyone safe (and giving the newer players chance to shine up front). There are other builds I could move on for damage (assassin / gloom stalker) or more spells/defense (war magic) that I’ve considered but not going for that with this character. Just curious if anyone had any thoughts/suggestions on this approach.

[Psyren]

1) I assume you knew this, but just in case - even if you have Bonus Action Helps from another source (both neo-hobgoblin and MM in this case), you can still only use the extra hobgoblin Help bonuses with your racial trait, i.e. up to your proficiency bonus per LR. Once those are used up, you can still Help your allies as a bonus action thanks to MM, but you won't get the free Hospitality, Passage or Spite add-ons.

2) If your party has too much melee, consider going ranged with your Armorer. They're quite good at switch-hitting since you can go from Guardian to Infiltrator even just using a short rest, and you use the same stat (Int) for attack and damage either way. Infiltrator's Lightning Launcher will work with your MM sneak attack, and because you can Help from 30ft. away you can hang back behind the front line. Going Infiltrator will also make you a great scout thanks to Dampening Field and your rogue proficiencies, especially if you get your hands on a breastplate.

3) I would keep the Homunculus around. It can Help your allies too, and at a much longer range than you can (line of sight basically) which may come up. More importantly, it gives you something to do with your bonus action even if nobody needs Help (e.g. if they already have advantage from some other source, the homunculus can either Help you instead or just spam its Force Blast.) You don't always have to send it into combat if you're worried about your DM attacking it but since it's a ranged attacker you should be able to keep it safe most of the time. Remember that it can move and Dodge on its own if you want to keep it out of trouble until you need it.

[Aalbatr0ss]

1) I assume you knew this, but just in case - even if you have Bonus Action Helps from another source (both neo-hobgoblin and MM in this case), you can still only use the extra hobgoblin Help bonuses with your racial trait, i.e. up to your proficiency bonus per LR. Once those are used up, you can still Help your allies as a bonus action thanks to MM, but you won't get the free Hospitality, Passage or Spite add-ons.

2) If your party has too much melee, consider going ranged with your Armorer. They're quite good at switch-hitting since you can go from Guardian to Infiltrator even just using a short rest, and you use the same stat (Int) for attack and damage either way. Infiltrator's Lightning Launcher will work with your MM sneak attack, and because you can Help from 30ft. away you can hang back behind the front line. Going Infiltrator will also make you a great scout thanks to Dampening Field and your rogue proficiencies, especially if you get your hands on a breastplate.

3) I would keep the Homunculus around. It can Help your allies too, and at a much longer range than you can (line of sight basically) which may come up. More importantly, it gives you something to do with your bonus action even if nobody needs Help (e.g. if they already have advantage from some other source, the homunculus can either Help you instead or just spam its Force Blast.) You don't always have to send it into combat if you're worried about your DM attacking it but since it's a ranged attacker you should be able to keep it safe most of the time. Remember that it can move and Dodge on its own if you want to keep it out of trouble until you need it.

Thank you. I'll give this some thought. Especially point 3 because I may have been underutilizing the homunculus?
1) Yes. I was thinking just save the hobgoblin helps for the special occasions (use hospitality for temp HP in infiltrator mode, like defensive field for armorer).
2) There are some story reasons he may still use guardian at times, but definitely planning around mostly infiltrator with this build once it gets going. (breastplate in infiltrator / stealth expertise)
3) I'm a little confused how homunculus can use help at range. Is this a thing? Its got AC13, 15 HP and tends to go down in 1 hit. This may seem silly, but I stopped using it in combat when it became a beloved team mascot (it's basically a flying Thomas the tank engine). Planning to bring it back in beefier form when I get summon construct.

Also, I'm sharing out a repeating shot heavy crossbow to the ranger, so limited on infusions. Limited is the wrong word, but I'm greedy with what I'm using. Enhanced weapon +defense (Armorer 9), planning mind sharpener, jet boots, and helm of awareness at 10. Not sure which of these I'd want to give up to get the homunculus back on the battlefield. (The ranger could just use a longbow, but really likes the item and he's great weapon damage). I'm keeping mind sharpener for concentrating on fly, haste, hypnotic pattern. We do a lot of airship fighting above an abyss and dropping fly on someone could be... bad.

Just to clarify, there are other reasons I'm doing rogue besides just the help action. The bad guys keep trying to steal our artifacts and noone on our team is really equipped to steal back. I want my artificer to enable us to have a mini-stealth squad.

[Psyren]

Regarding homunculi:

"Ranged Help" with the homunculus just means commanding it to use the Help action on an enemy that it (and presumably, one of your melee allies) is within 5 feet of. The crucial difference is that there is no range limit on this between your pet and you, as long as it can perceive your commands, i.e. you two can be much further apart than 30ft. You can command it to Help because your bonus action command is not limited to the actions listed in its statblock. (That was how the original version of the homunculus in ERtLW worked, but the updated version from Tasha's doesn't have that restriction.) It also speaks all your languages, so you can command it in ways the enemy may not be able to overhear.

It's not as reliable as your own ranged Help ability since as you correctly mentioned, it's highly dependent on how readily your GM chooses to target it, but it is a way to "Help" your allies while you are more than 30ft away from them.

Having the homunculus get killed does suck when bringing it back costs 100gp, but arguably it should be allowed to make death saves rather than being instagibbed, and even when it goes down, that's still an attack that didn't go towards an actual party member. You can always stabilize it and then spam mending once the fight is over.


Regarding Infusions:

If all 5/6 infusion slots on your level 9/10 budget are spoken for then homunculus probably isn't necessary. Personally I'd consider dropping Mind Sharpener - you have proficiency in Constitution saves and a decent score, on top of not being on the front line - but that's my napkin theory speaking; as the player you have a much better sense for how often you need to make concentration saves and how tough your DM makes them.

[Aalbatr0ss]

Regarding homunculi:

"Ranged Help" with the homunculus just means commanding it to use the Help action on an enemy that it (and presumably, one of your melee allies) is within 5 feet of. The crucial difference is that there is no range limit on this between your pet and you, as long as it can perceive your commands, i.e. you two can be much further apart than 30ft. You can command it to Help because your bonus action command is not limited to the actions listed in its statblock. (That was how the original version of the homunculus in ERtLW worked, but the updated version from Tasha's doesn't have that restriction.) It also speaks all your languages, so you can command it in ways the enemy may not be able to overhear.

It's not as reliable as your own ranged Help ability since as you correctly mentioned, it's highly dependent on how readily your GM chooses to target it, but it is a way to "Help" your allies while you are more than 30ft away from them.

Having the homunculus get killed does suck when bringing it back costs 100gp, but arguably it should be allowed to make death saves rather than being instagibbed, and even when it goes down, that's still an attack that didn't go towards an actual party member. You can always stabilize it and then spam mending once the fight is over.


Regarding Infusions:

If all 5/6 infusion slots on your level 9/10 budget are spoken for then homunculus probably isn't necessary. Personally I'd consider dropping Mind Sharpener - you have proficiency in Constitution saves and a decent score, on top of not being on the front line - but that's my napkin theory speaking; as the player you have a much better sense for how often you need to make concentration saves and how tough your DM makes them.


Thanks. I'll give this some thought. This plan will be slow coming online. And the homunculus is extremely beloved in the party so bringing it back in could be fun. People got legitimately pissed when I switched that infusion out.

You know what, I've been playing around with casting aid, primarily to keep the monk safe. Maybe I can drop one of those 3 on the lovable toy train and get it up to 25 HP