Artificer subclass: Mana Fiend

[Humnhapymeal]

Hey guys this is a homebrew subclass for my campaign setting. (Steampunk with magic)
I have a pair of Subclasses artificer and barbarian that have alot of cross over. Barbarian is gonna be called a wrench monkey.
Anyway enjoy and feel free to call out all the op stuff so I can swing the nerf bat at it.
3rd level
Mana Injection. You have done the insane, you have injected raw mana into yourself. a number of times per day equal to your constitution modifier you can active this ability as a bonus action. For 1 minute your speed increases by 15ft, you are counted as under the effects of the jump spell and you may add your intelligence modifier to your melee attack and damage rolls.

3rd level
Gear head. you gain proficiency with engine tools.

5th level
artificial engine. once per day you can magically repair any vehicle of large size or smaller to working condition. the vehicle will stay in that condition for 1 hour. This repair is magical and can be dispelled early.
You may use a use of your mana injection to extend the duration to 8 hours.

9th level
Efficient Mana Injection. When you use mana injection you gain more benefits. You gain an additional attack action and your weapon now deals an additional 1d6 manaburn damage

15th level
Mana Overdose. You can burn an additional use of mana injection to overload your body. you gain double the benefits. at the end of you use of mana injection you gain a level of exhaustion.

[loki_ragnarock]

Hey guys this is a homebrew subclass for my campaign setting. (Steampunk with magic)
I have a pair of Subclasses artificer and barbarian that have alot of cross over. Barbarian is gonna be called a wrench monkey.
Anyway enjoy and feel free to call out all the op stuff so I can swing the nerf bat at it.
3rd level
Mana Injection. You have done the insane, you have injected raw mana into yourself. a number of times per day equal to your constitution modifier you can active this ability as a bonus action. For 1 minute your speed increases by 15ft, you are counted as under the effects of the jump spell and you may add your intelligence modifier to your melee attack and damage rolls.

I don't think this is that bad, all told. Being dependent on two abilities to make full use of it means that it'd be hard to fully exploit until you get a good few ASIs in. Not as good as blade dancing wizards, I suspect.


3rd level
Gear head. you gain proficiency with engine tools.

Seems appropriate.


5th level
artificial engine. once per day you can magically repair any vehicle of large size or smaller to working condition. the vehicle will stay in that condition for 1 hour. This repair is magical and can be dispelled early.
You may use a use of your mana injection to extend the duration to 8 hours.

World specific, totes flavorful.


9th level
Efficient Mana Injection. When you use mana injection you gain more benefits. You gain an additional attack action and your weapon now deals an additional 1d6 manaburn damage

What is manaburn damage?

Regardless, are you trying for "when you use the attack action you may make an additional attack," or are you legit adding an extra action to every round? Because that's multi-classing nightmare fuel. It comes online late enough that it's probably okay, but it's not getting alot of support from the rest of the class if that's the intent. I suppose it adds flexibility - dodge/attack, cast a spell/attack, etc - but it's not particularly powerful on the chassis it rests on, while being *very* enticing to the classes it isn't a part of. That's... questionable design, if it's the intent.


15th level
Mana Overdose. You can burn an additional use of mana injection to overload your body. you gain double the benefits. at the end of you use of mana injection you gain a level of exhaustion.
Seems a little one note, and it applies exhaustion. "What I do already, but more so" is I guess fine as a high level feature, but it's hardly exciting.

I notice that there are no bonus spells provided for this subclass? That would put it below the average for artificer classes, yes?

[Humnhapymeal]

What is manaburn damage?

Regardless, are you trying for "when you use the attack action you may make an additional attack," or are you legit adding an extra action to every round? Because that's multi-classing nightmare fuel. It comes online late enough that it's probably okay, but it's not getting alot of support from the rest of the class if that's the intent. I suppose it adds flexibility - dodge/attack, cast a spell/attack, etc - but it's not particularly powerful on the chassis it rests on, while being *very* enticing to the classes it isn't a part of. That's... questionable design, if it's the intent.

Seems a little one note, and it applies exhaustion. "What I do already, but more so" is I guess fine as a high level feature, but it's hardly exciting.

I notice that there are no bonus spells provided for this subclass? That would put it below the average for artificer classes, yes?

Ok so for manaburn it is a campaign specific damage type that i am adding in (pretty much radiation damage from condensed magic)

And you have a point on the additional attack action, perhaps, an additional action that cannot be an attack action. OR i could rework it to give them an extra action to cast an artificer spell. That could be interesting

15th level feature can be changed as im not really sold on it in the first place. Perhaps changing it so that the artificer can summon a vehicle for the duration of their mana injection. That would be cool and flavorful.

and a spell list is still being worked on, i use ALOT of homebrew so my extra spell list is... VERY extensive and would include to many extra spells that nobody would know about, so i just left what i have, out

[Greywander]

What if Mana Injection used spell slots and got stronger with higher level slots? E.g. +10 speed and double jump distance with a 1st level slot, +15 speed and triple jump distance with a 2nd level slot, etc. Make sure to cap it at 5th level. Consider having it give temp HP, too.

Artificial Engine doesn't specify how long it takes to use. I assume it's an action.

For a 9th level feature, how about Mana Extraction? As an action, you make an attack roll against a target in melee range and on a hit the target has to pass a CON save against your spell save DC or you steal a spell slot from them. Although, few monsters have spell slots, so maybe it would deal damage and recharge one of your 1st level slots.

Not sure what you could do for the subclass capstone.

[Greywander]

After thinking about it a bit more, I wanted to chime back in on this. Every other artificer subclass gets a damage boost at 5th level, so I suggest moving Artificial Engine to 9th level and instead making the 5th level feature an Extra Attack, either all the time or only when using the Mana Injection. Alternatively, instead of attacking twice, it could add extra damage to your single attack, not unlike the cleric's Divine Strikes, or Booming Blade, possibly scaling at higher levels. E.g. 1d8 extra manaburn damage at 5th level, 2d8 extra at 9th level, and maybe 3d8 extra at 15th level. (As an aside, you could just make all manaburn damage into force damage, unless there's a meaningful distinction. Force damage is basically raw magical damage, so I think it fits the concept. The only thing would be if you had special effects that interacted specifically with manaburn damage that you didn't want to interact with force damage.)

You could then make a Mana Extraction/Mana Vampire feature the capstone. Maybe it's an effect that triggers on simply hitting with an attack, instead of being its own action. It should still probably require a save, though.

Speaking of Mana Injection, because it only lasts for 1 minute, I can see giving a few free uses per day and then being able to spend a spell slot to use it additional times beyond that. If the effect scales with higher slots, then I would either do (a) proficiency bonus free uses, with the effect of a 1st level slot, (b) two free uses a day, as if you used your highest available slot, or (c) one free use per spell slot level, so the first time you use it is the most potent, but it gets progressively weaker until you recharge it or spend a spell slot. The Mana Extraction/Mana Vampire feature could then recharge your free uses of Mana Injection instead of giving you spell slots, which should curb most "bag of rats" exploits.

Alternatively, you could make the Mana Extraction/Mana Vampire feature the 5th level feature. When you hit with an attack, the target has to pass a CON save or they take 1d8 extra force/manaburn damage and you regain a use of Mana Injection, and if they pass the save then they still take half the extra damage. I'd then have it scale to 2d8 extra damage at 9th level.

For the capstone, then, you might do something that lets them eat an incoming spell to regain a spell slot. I did something like this for one of my own homebrews. If they're included as a target for a spell, you can use a reaction to make a CON(?) save against the caster's spell save DC, and on a success you negate the spell and regain a slot one level lower than that spell (max 5th level). Not sure if this fits the theme for the class, I'm just imagining them as some kind of drug addict, but for magic.

Another idea for a capstone might be to magically infuse trash to turn it into some kind of animated trash golem (https://i0.wp.com/dmdave.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/garbage-golem-2.jpg?w=800&ssl=1) or something.

[Peelee]

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Moved to Homebrew.

[Loek]

Mana Injection: This is basically an alternate version of blade singing. With a different set of upsides, but no AC boost (but also no armor/shield requirements). I'd be tempted to limit things slightly. Probably reducing the speed boost to 10ft and maybe make it impossible for the artificer to concentrate on spells while it's active? (Probably too harsh, but some sort of downsides/choice needs to be present)
Also, while going of Con mod is probably very flavorful, I'd be tempted to do what Blade singing does and have it be Prof mod per long rest instead.

Extended spell list: Every artificer sub class has this feature, so I think adding some flavour full spells will most certainly be a good idea. (And with the artificer being a half caster, you can easily getting away with some fancy paladin spells etc)

Gear head: I have no idea what engine tools are, but I'm all for it.

Final level 3 feature: much like the extended spell list, I think all the artificer classes have a final feature. Usually something to match with their big feature. In this case I'd say, proficiency in a small amount of martial weapons?


artificial engine: Interesting, but really not that great (unless your setting is very much one where vehicles are very prominent and very prone to breaking, and also used for short trips). Compare it to the Shipwright background. Or just mending type spells. I'd be tempted to toss this one and find a new ability instead.


Efficient Mana Injection: As I think others have mentioned, the "extra attack action" is probably too much. If you leave it as "only when using mana injection", then moving this ability to level 5 and only giving an addtional attack when using the attack action would probably be fine.


Mana Overdose: Exhaustion is a massive price to pay for a tiny boost in speed, a brief increase to to hit and damage. Not to mention spending an additional use of your "main" ability. Much like Artifical engine, I'd scrap this and start a new (though the name/theme is interesting).



Suggestions for level 9 and level 15 features:
Level 9: The ability to share your mana injection with 1 other creature (if it's a living thing, they get some downside during/after, if it's one of your constructs/homonculus/etc, no drawbacks)
Level 15a: Once per day you can overdose on mana and go into a super version of mana injection (3rd attack? something else? 3rd attack+something else?). Doing this a second time costs an extra use of your mana injection (3rd time would cost 3, etc).
Level 15b: The bonus damage of Efficient mana injection goes up to 2d6 (and maybe 3d6 while overdosing?)

And yeah, this cuts out the vehicle part, which is kind of a shame... Maybe the level 9 ability makes it so that creature you can share with, can also be a vehicle, super charging it instead?