Ultimate Guide to Artificers in D&D 5e

Guide by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

Artificers are the inventor class 5th edition has been sorely missing. It exists to satisfy the alchemist throwing explosive potions fantasy alongside the steampunk inventor with their whirring gizmos launching gears and flames at people. Mechanically, the class can be a bit tricky to navigate, as it’s core play pattern isn’t particularly straightforward. Still, if you’re in the mood to pick up a wrench and fashion your team some wild magic items alongside an animated construct butler, Artificer is here for you.

Using This Guide

This guide breaks down the Artificer class from your initial moments in character creation, including Ability Score assignments and base proficiencies, to upper-tier features and 5th-level spell choices.

For newer players to the class, I’d recommend focusing on the first three levels to get a feeling for the class’s core play pattern and feeling.

If you’re already playing an artificer and feeling like you’re lacking in one department or another, or just feeling unsatisfied with your damage output or contributions to world exploration, specific sections focusing on your infusions, subclass, and spell selections will be a great place to find my thoughts on specific features and abilities that may be the source of some frustrations.

The Basics of Artificer

Artificers are the most subclass dependent class in the game. Not only are they just half-casters, meaning they get no 6th-level + spells, but they also lack Extra Attack within their core class. This puts them in a spot next to rogues and warlocks, but where rogue gets Sneak Attack to empower their damage as the game progresses and warlocks get Mystic Arcanum for some upper tier spell-casting power, artificer gets no such comparable scaling features.

This sets them in a unique space: Artificers outside their specialty, are going to feel like supportive utility centered characters who bring their infusions to the table as their primary means of contribution. These are similar to warlock’s Eldritch Invocations: they’re a list of special abilities unique to the artificer class that involve some form of magic item interaction.

Two of the artificer subclasses do get Extra Attack, though, which frames how they’ll play past 3rd level. Knowing you’re going into an option with Extra Attack or not will shape some of your early game decisions; of all the classes, I’d recommend reading through and deciding on a subclass at 1st level most on artificers.

One other quick rules note; artificers use infusions to make magic items, some which require attunement. A character typically can only attune to three items at a time. If you’re receiving other items that require attunement, you may want to consider creating other items that don’t require attunement to better fill out your total character’s total value.

Starting Proficiencies and Equipment

In the proficiency department, Artificers get light and medium armor, shields, and simple weapons.

Artificer AC. Medium armor is likely what you’re going to use to determine your AC for the early game. They get Scale Mail in their starting equipment, giving you an AC of 14 + Dexterity modifier (max 2) out the gate in exchange for disadvantage on stealth checks. You can upgrade this to Breastplate eventually for 400 gold to remove the stealth debuff, or downgrade your AC to 13 + Dex mod (max 2) with a Chain Shirt.

Light armor can work on Dex based artificers, namely those planning on multi-classing a martial class like Fighter or Rogue to enhance their attacks.

Simple Weapons. Light crossbows are by far your best early game option for damage, as they hit for 1d8+ Dex mod at a great range. If you’re intending to play Armorer or E

One other odd note: if possible, getting proficiency with a wind instrument from your background opens up additional magic items to you with your infusions. If you want to eventually use Pipes of Haunting or Pipes of the Sewers, getting proficiency through your background can open those doors to you.

Ability Score Considerations

Artificer’s care most about Intelligence. It defines how many spells you get to prepare, boosts your Spell Save DC, and gives you some bonus damage in some subclass features. You’ll likely want this to be your highest ability score. If you intend to play a weapon attack based character, you’ll likely want to be multiclassing, and in that scenario, may consider Intelligence as your second highest stat instead with your primary attack stat being your highest.
Dexterity opens up an array of opportunities to you, as in the early game you can use a light crossbow for a ranged d8+ Dex mod damaging attack and daggers for melee ranged moments. On top of that, it enables you to have a higher AC with Light Armor should you opt for that route, but at minimum, having a +2 will maximize your Medium Armor AC.
Strength could be an option to consider on artificers looking to hit with heavier simple melee weapons like spears or handaxes. Dexterity normally is the weapon damaging stat you’ll want to lean into to get both AC and damage at the same time, but if Dex doesn’t appeal to you and you want to hit harder with bigger sticks, Strength can work.
Charisma is my next recommendation, as it opens up multiclass options for Warlocks, Sorcerers, and Bards, all of which radically empower your utility. Wisdom also can work, as Clerics are a great consideration for multiclassing as well.

Armorer and Battle Smith are two artificer specialties that get access to Extra Attack. These are options you want to consider out the gate, as your Ability Score choices can be radically adjusted. Battle Smiths can use Greatswords and other big, splashy martial weapons to great effect, making Strength an option to build with should you want more room for your infusion to be utility focued. Both still can attack with Int, though, making it a safe bet as a primary stat regardless of subclass selection.

1st Level: Spellcasting, Magical Tinkering

Artificer’s feel very similar to most full-casters at fist level with just Spellcasting, some proficiencies, and a cantrip-like feature, Magical Tinkering.

Spellcasting

At first level, you get two cantrips, two first level spell slots, and can prepare your Int mod + half your level, rounded down, for typically 3 prepared spells. This compares great to Bards and Sorcerers, both of whom know very few total spells anyway and have the same amount of spell slots.

Spellcasting as an artificer is otherwise the same as rangers and paladins; you get half as many spell slots that come in every other level instead of every level, leaving you feeling like you’ve got reasonable stuff to do for the first five levels of the game, and quickly finding your magic matters less and less as the full-casters pick up 6th + level spells.

The artificer spell list bums me out, namely because there are zero artificer exclusive spells. Not one. Everything you can do your Wizard friend definitely can do better. Still, sharing a lot of spells with Wizard leaves you with a lot of excellent low-level spells.

Fortunately, Artificers are Ritual Casters; if you’ve got some spells you intend to use your few slots on, you can prepare the rest as rituals to expand out your characters total amount of utility.

Cantrip Recommendations

Mage Hand feels like an auto-include to me on basically every Artificer I want to be playing. As a scientist of some nature, having a remote hand to interact with stuff to safely test from a distance is a huge flavor win. In practice, this cantrip is a massive boon to out of combat exploration, offering you a myriad of opportunities to mess around with objects remotely as needed. Its the cantrip I see cast the most in all tiers of play, save maybe my next recommendation.
Guidance acts as a +1d4 to ability checks out of combat at many tables, my own included. It will regularly feel like it gives a passive boon to your entire team when they’re exploring a scene. Investigating for traps? Guidance helps. Chatting up the local guards for information? Guidance helps. Sneaking past a watchful sentry? You best believe Guidance helps.

The other remaining options are substantially worse than these two spells in their total utility you can get out of them for the duration of a campaign, but can be still reasonable pickups in the right scenarios.

Magic Stone gives you an Intelligence based ranged weapon attack. The d6+ mod can average out to match a light crossbow with only a +2 Dexterity. The +1 bonus to hit with a +3 Int, +2 Dex doesn’t sell me enough on it, but if you want the extra +1 to hit on your early-game weapon attacks and also really want a +3 Int, Magic Stone has you covered.
Message is another utility tool for telepathic communication out the gate that can feel right for an artificer. Having your tools send brain waves at your friends that they can magically understand and send back fits the magical tool artisan fantasy great. It’s definitely less impactful at an average table than Mage Hand and Guidance, but can still be super fun to play with.

Build Specific Options

Green Flame Blade and Booming Blade both go on melee ranged artificers, typically builds planning on multi-classing rogue. On their own, with only mediocre weapon proficiencies, you probably don’t want to commit one of your two cantrips to effects that barely empower your damage.
Mending specifically works with the Artillerist and Battle Smith specialty, as it can freely repair your damaged Eldritch Canons and Steel Defender. I’d highly recommend it on both, where otherwise its utility is a bit too niche to justify.

Cantrips to Avoid

Resistance is one of the worst cantrips in the game, working on a tiny fraction of characters in any meaningful way. It may read like Guidance, but it plays so much worse, as you need to know the saving throw is coming AND have the ability to touch your target knowing they’ll be affected, all while considering it will break your concentration on any other concentration spell you may have up.
Light and Dancing Lights both serve to provide light. A torch will normally solve this problem, and given how you only start with two cantrips, the other upsides these cantrips offer isn’t worth it.

Almost all of the damaging cantrips do scale with level, but are likely something you can consider picking up past 5th level if you expert to continue to cast cantrips as damaging options in combat. The best of these is probably Fire Bolt, but ideally you don’t need this and have better in combat actions to take round to round.

1st Level Spell Recommendations

The artificer 1st level spell list is focused primarily around utility options that expand a character’s physical capabilities with some supportive options mixed in.

Detect Magic is a ritual spell that you can use to explore the world in a way that feels like a magical scientist. Having a little magic detecitng radar feels right, and beyond the flavor win, is an excellent tool most characters that can take it are happy to. Your group probably doesn’t want more than one character with this, but why not have that character be you?
Tasha’s Caustic Brew deals 2d4 acid damage in a 30 by 5 ft. line at the start of each creature in the areas turn on a failed Dex save. While a bit clunky, given that there are almost no other meaningful damage spells in your 1st level options, Tasha’s Caustic Brew is often going to be the tool you reach for to get bigger damage numbers in lower tier fights. At minimum, getting one or two creatures to take 2d4 damage and waste an action is a great rate for a 1st level spell, and while that’s not guaranteed, nor necessarily easy to set up, can be excellent in the right environments.
Jump, Feather Fall, Longstrider, and Expeditious Retreat all somewhat fit in the same category to me in being movement enhancers. They help navigate the world in and out of combat, with Jump and Feather Fall helping navigate vertical distances, and Longstrider and Expeditious Retreat being great tools for getting moving quickly.
Absorb Elements may not be Shield or Silvery Barbs, but it does provide you a meaningful defensive reaction that can save your life on many occasions, and in the lower tiers, gives your next attack a bit more bite.
Cure Wounds, while not a spell I want on any character with any other healing option, can get an ally off of zero hit points to return to a fight. Having access to this mechanic is important; if you’ve got other allies with Goodberry or Healing Word, you probably don’t need this, but if you’re one of only one or two magical characters in a group with no other access to healing, Cure Wounds can save lives.

1st Level Spells to Avoid

Purify Food and Drink rarely matters; when you know you’re going into a treacherous lord’s party or facing off against hired mercenaries trying to poison you, sure, prepare it. These situations rarely occur, making this something you’ll likely never need, nor want.
Snare shouldn’t be a spell; its clunky, and definitely could be constructed mundanely. Its limitations in use speed, setup, and actual impact make it a spell that’s aimed at player’s wanting to play trap smith, which does fit some Artificer fantasy’s, and then fails them the majority of the time.
False Life rarely will justify its 1st level slot, especially given that you’re going to need to lean on these spell slots more than your full-caster companions. If you had three or four spare slots laying around I’d be all about it. In reality, you’re going to have far better options for defensive 1st level effects than this at every tier.

Magical Tinkering

With Magical Tinkering, you’ve got the power to augment tiny non-magical items to give them fun, cosmetic properties that have niche utility. You can get a bit of light, record and play short messages, create an odor, or make a small picture or up to 25 words. This is basically Artificer’s Prestidigitation; its a cosmetic effect you can use willy nilly to get some moments to feel like an Artificer. Plus, you might find hiding messages on objects has some espionage potential at the right tables.

2nd Level: Infusions

Instead of getting buckets of spell slots or consistent extra attack empowerements, Artificer’s lean on their Infusions to bring power and utility to fights and out of combat exploration and social navigation. They are the core that holds the class together, and beyond subclass, are the most important choices you’re going to be making.

You learn four infusions at 2nd level, and can use these infusions to infuse up to two items at a time, scaling up with your class level to 3 items at 6th level, 4 at 10th level, 5 at 14th level, and 6 at 18th level. You learn two additional infusions at each of the listed levels as well.

When you infuse an item, you can immediately attune to it, making them easier for you to typically use than your allies, as they’d need to undergo the normal attunement process should the magic item you infuse require it.

Infusions are split into two primary categories: unique artificer infusions, and Replicate Magic Items. The unique artificer infusions aren’t as plentiful as the warlock invocations, but do offer the class some amount of new abilities to play around with nobody else can get. Replicate Magic Item opens up a bunch of magic item options that you can functionally create and use, most of which mimic some kind of spell, or provide a neat boon you and your party can get utility out of.

Every infusion has level gates corresponding with when you learn new infusions; 2nd, 6th, 10th, 14th, and 18th level.

2nd Level Infusions Considerations

Homunculus Servant mimics Find Familiar, but offers extra durability and a free d4 ranged weapon attack on top of all the boons a flying servant offers. You can’t telepathically control it, but you can remotely deliver touch effects like Cure Wounds. Controlling it as a bonus action in combat does lead to some small hiccups when working alongside other bonus action based options, but with how useful a tiny flying servant can be out of combat, you’ll always be happy to have this little friend running around. It can be well worth one of your early infusions.
Mind Sharpener gives the wearer 4 free means of maintaining concentration through a failed save. This has bonkers potential on allies with summoning effects or other debilitating concentration based spells like Haste. This is one of the biggest contributions you can provide an allied caster, and while not necessarily incredible on you until the mid tiers, will be a house of an infusion with the right allies around you.

2nd Level Replicate Item Considerations

Alchemy Jugs provide a ton of acid, mayonnaise, wine, beer, or poison as needed. Getting two free vials of acid a day is pretty nifty, and with the other modes available, knowing Alchemy Jug can at minimum make you the life of the party.
Bags of Holding are iconic for a reason. Being the party’s personal private bank can be useful. It hides larger objects easily, and make smuggling a breeze, allows you to largely ignore carrying capacity (if you weren’t already), and gives you a place to store hazardous or dangers magical objects relatively securely. Its a great option for most tables, and being a provider with one can be worth it.
The Rope of Climbing has a ton of potential, kind of acting like an out of combat group Spider Climb. It gets a 60 ft. rope where you want it, secures it, and enables the group to climb it easier. While its not something for every adventure, preparing this ahead of a hiest or mountain expedition can be a major boon for the group, making it potentially worth learning early on, and replacing later when flight is more abundant.
Sending Stones also offer some fun utility with a once per day free Sending between them. Sending probably shouldn’t be 3rd level for what it does, but getting it on a 2nd level character does majorly empower you when navigating complex plans. You can get a lot of mileage out of Sending Stones with a coordinated group.
Finally, the Wand of Magic Detection is a great option if you’ve got other spells you want to prepare and also want access to Detect Magic. Sure, you could prepare and ritual cast it, but if there are spells your more excited about, this can be a way to have you cake and eat it too.

Common Item Recommendations

In addition the given list, Replicate Magic Item also can replicate any of the common magic items presented in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. Most of these are entirely flavor driven, such as the Armor of Gleaming, which simply is armor that can’t ever get dirty. There are some worth considering for their utility, though. None are super high impact, but if you like their flavor as well, these can be worth it. Crucially, you can swap these out any time you get a level in the class, making their overall cost at 2nd level fairly low.

Boots of False Tracks are nifty, providing you a deception tool to mask a single humanoid’s tracks as some other humanoids. Minotaurs and other hooved humanoids make for great disguises that can leave misleading clues to your party’s illicit shenanigans.
Clockwork Amulets let the wearer take a 10 on one attack roll a day instead of rolling, which can often equate to one guarantee hit a day. That has a lot of potential to be powerful, as landing the one crucial hit against a villain with certainty of success can feel great. The cost is quite high for a once per day effect, though.
The Hat of Vermin is one of the best common options, giving you 3 charges to summon a bat, frog, or rat. That creature acts like a regular creature of that type. What you do with this is a puzzle, but has a ton of potential. A character with access to Animal Friendship or Speak with Animals can turn this into three summonable NPCs with flight, swim, and run speeds respectively, making it an incredibly fun option for low tier characters to mess around with.
A Horn of Silent Alarm acts similarly to the Message cantrip with 4 charges, but has a range of 600 feet, can’t communicate words, but works agnostic of being able to see that companion. If you’re in a game that is heavily centered around complex plans with party members scattered around, this is a nifty tool to have access to early that you can swap out later.
Perfume of Bewitching functions similarly to Friends, but affects Charisma checks directed at all humanoids CR 1 or lower for an entire hour, and doesn’t enrage them after. This is a sneaky excellent option to consider, especially as something you infuse specifically for social events and give to your warlock, bard, or sorcerer.
The Pole of Collapsing may seem innocuous, but having a small pole capable of swapping at will between 1 and up to 10 feet can be pretty useful. It’ll perfectly wedge itself in places, making it an easy option available for barring doors, can add an extra support to collapsing passage ways. You can use it to reach things up to ten feet away, check for traps, or try crazy pole-vaulting maneuvers. I do think this can be a solid option for lower tier adventures you can get a surprising amount of mileage out of.
An infusion you should know exists at tables with long durations of downtime is the Pot of Awakening. You infuse it, plant a shrub, and let it sit for 30 days. In return, you get an awakened little shrub friend! Of all the common magic items, this has the highest potential utility, but does require a month of downtime to function and get a shrub buddy for future adventures you won’t even need the Pot of Awakening actively infused for!
Talking Dolls are creepy yet useful little communication tools that can spread messages in specific scenarios to specific people. It can act as a flexible Magic Mouth like effect I’d expect to get about as much use out of as a spell like Illusory Script; if you need to remotely communicate short ideas or phrases to people, a Talking Doll can be a flexible way to communicate a bunch of information to different people.

The +1 Weapons and Armor

I think it can be easy to see a +1 weapon and get excited; after all, that adds +1 to every hit and damage roll made with it. They’re common rewards in the low tiers to empower martial characters.

On artificers, though, when you’ve only got two infusions, giving up a new magic item that opens up a ton of potential unique effects for +1 to a single character’s single weapon attack per round is terrible.

The armor feels the same way; trading half of your infusions for a passive +1 AC to one party member just isn’t enough power when you’re so dependent on these abilities. Unfortunately this is most of your non-replicate magic item options.

It gets a bit more exciting when you start stacking bonuses on top of each other; a paladin ally with the best heavy armor in the game with a shield and +3 AC from your infusions can make them feel unhittable. Early, though, you’re getting diminishing returns at a steep cost.

Even when you get Extra Attack at 5th level on Battle Smiths and Armorers, I’m not crazy excited to sink one of my two precious magical items into a +1 to hit and damage on two attacks. You can, and when you do it’ll feel close to a fighting style, but it does cost you a lot in the utility department for bonus to hit and damage that you don’t necessarily need.

In the upper tiers, giving a fighter +2 to the six attacks they make a turn with Enhanced Weapon can be great, especially with you having more total item infusions to play around with. When you’ve only got two, infusions like Returning Weapon, Repeating Shot, Enhanced Weapon, and Enhanced Arcane Focus all just aren’t giving you enough new stuff to do. Armorers get two free infusions at 9th level that can make these a lot more digestible, as they are more subclass improvements to your attacks in place of taxing your utility.

If you’re an artificer feeling like you aren’t meaningfully contributing, if you’re taking these infusions, I’d highly recommend considering other alternatives.

3rd Level: Artificer Specialist and Right Tool for the Job

Third level is the final major boost low-tier artificers get that slams them into a specific lane that will determine how they navigate combat for the rest of the game.

Artificer Specialist

Base artificer up to this point has been basically entirely regulated to out of combat spellcasting with some boons from infusions in the same category. The specialties all give you a direct means of engaging in fights that you didn’t have access to prior that differs majorly subclass to subclass.

Three also come with expanded spells akin to cleric’s domain spells. These are easy to overlook, but can be major contributing factors to an options power.

Alchemists are by far the worst option of the bunch I wouldn’t recommend anyone take. It fails spectacularly at delivering on the fantasy of being a an alchemist, with you getting only one randomly generated potion per long rest before they start costing you spell slots, and most of their effects compare poorly to reasonable 1st level spells. If you want to play an alchemist, proficiency in alchemist supplies and a 3 level dip into Thief rogue will get you a lot closer to the fantasy than this subclass can.
Armorers look and play like hulking frontline tanks. Extra Attack and free bonus augmentations to their empowered Guardian or Infiltrator model armors make it an option that kind of builds itself. Of the options, this is the only one that has some unique interactions with the base aritifcer’s infusions, which is pretty sweet, and scales moderately well with the game to be rewarding martial hybrid option to consider.
Artillerists come with a bonus action Eldritch Cannon that can be a 2d8 flamethrower, 2d8 long ranged force ballista, or temporary hit point shield generator. When you get it, it feels crazy strong. The subclass lacks extra attack, and up until 15th level doesn’t get a ton of features that improve it with lots of new stuff to do or exceptional new damage, but with Fireball on its expanded spell list for bonus damage and Shield as a cheap, reusable reaction, you can have a blast with this specialty .
Battle Smiths are the most “standard” artificer speciality that closely mirrors the other half-casters. They get a robot buddy similar to the Beast Master or Drakewarden conclaves, Extra Attack with martial weapon proficiencies, making most weapon based feat builds easy routes to empower your character further, and the Arcane Jolt feature that closely mirrors divine smite in utility and damage. If you like the play patterns of pet based options or paladins, this option will be very familiar, and will feel solid to play in the low to upper middle tiers.

Right Tool for the Job

This feature is a cute ribbon to help make any artisan’s tools you could need. It’s nice that it helps you make the tools for your new subclass, but probably isn’t doing a lot more beyond that.

4th Level: Feat Considerations

What feat options work with your artificer will range massively by specialty. Battle Smiths are the only option with martial weapon proficiency, making them scale best (by a lot) with all the traditional martial feats we’ve seen excel. Armorer and Artillerist, meanwhile, are doing a very unique and different thing than most other builds, and don’t have a ton of supporting feats that empower their in combat play pattern.

Feats to Take on Any Artificer

Fey Touched, Shadow Touched, Magic Initiate, and Ritual Caster all are excellent feats for empowering your magical capabilities if you’re in the market to expand your out of combat aptitude. Artificers that want to feel more magical will get a ton of use from all of these, with my two largest recommendations being Magic Initiate or Ritual Caster for access to Find Familiar. It plays great alongside a Humunculus servant, giving you two little critters to control about in and out of combat. Shadow and Fey Touched both feel like an extra 1st and 2nd level slot dedicated to excellent spells, making them both also excellent options for expanding your role in the party as a magical utility machine.
Telekinetic feels like a perfect fit for most artificer’s who enjoy playing around with their mage hand, as it empowers it in some fun ways by making it invisible and extending its range to have better remote control over stuff. The bonus action shove also can help make for an easy disengage, and the bonus to Intelligence can make this feel free if you’re starting with a 15 or 17 in Int, or plan to take another feat that can boost it next.
War Caster, as it is one most characters that cast spells, will work great on artificers looking to defend their concentration on something. If you’d rather not use an infusion on Mind Sharpener, or are giving it out to a friend and still want to protect your own concentration, War Caster is a tried and true method to help you with that.

Battle Smith Martial Feats

Sharpshooter, Sentinel, Great Weapon Master, and Polearm Master all work as advertised with a Battle Smith like you’d expect them to on a ranger or paladin. Polearm Master in particular I like on Battle Smiths, as they engage with their Steel Defender to lock down an even wider space, then eventually adding in Sentinel to set up a defensive zone that can hold off three or four creatures at a time.

Feats to Avoid

Crossbow Expert eats your bonus action for an off-hand attack. On all the options that could use it, you’ve got better things to do with that bonus action as far as attacks go.
Poisoner presents an avenue to introduce poisons more readily to the game, and comes with an extra new option to give you something to do with the hastened applications. The problem with this is it takes your bonus action to use, and applies to just one weapon hit. All three subclasses that like making weapon attacks have bonus actions already lined up they want to be using round after round that are more consistent and don’t cost gold.

5th Level: Specialist Feature and 2nd Level Spells

5th level artificers get two major boosts: their 5th level Specialist feature and 2nd level spells.

Specialist Feature

Extra Attack is opened up to Battle Smiths and Armorers here, with Artillerists getting a bonus d8 damage to their damaging spells, and Alchemist adding their Int mod to their damaging and healing spells.

This split isn’t particularly fair; the Extra Attack options are way better typically than the bonus damage dice on singular spell effects. Alchemists is particularly abysmal. Artillerists can get by with their Eldritch Cannon just fine, though.

You can expect a huge bump in power to the two subclasses with Extra Attack, and less so on the other two.

2nd Level Spells of Note

Like their 1st level spell selection, this is a water-downed version of the wizard spell list mainly. Still, there are some great options that are exciting even when you get them two levels later than your friends.

Invisibility changes stealth missions forever. It fundamentally shifts how creatures can interface with somebody visually, which opens up opportunities that were otherwise unavailable. It has a long duration, is great to set up a fight or get out of one when things go wrong, and has a massive amount of applications out of combat when exploring the world. This is the kind of spell I want access to as soon as possible, and as often as possible.
Web offers you a massive area of restraints that can eat a ton of actions for their cost. Plus, in a pinch you can ignite them for some bonus fire damage.
Heat Metal can deal damage with no save against specific enemies. Somewhat niche, but usually you’ll find a place to cast this once or twice a dungeon, making it a reasonable single target damage option to prepare if that’s what you’re in the market for.
Rope Trick is a nice tool to have when you’re delving into places you’re not supposed to be, as it can act as a hiding spot in a pinch that gets you and your allies safely out of the way. As an otherwise wizard exclusive effect, bringing this to the table can catch your DM and fellow players off guard with an effect that entirely avoids some incoming threat entirely.

2nd Level Spells to Avoid

Lesser Restoration looks like a supportive healing-like spell that can be helpful, but in practice, you end up wasting more resources than its worth to stop most of the more common conditions. If you’re going against creatures like Ghouls that have a paralyze effect, it can be worth taking, as paralysis is a quick way to get utterly destroyed, but for poisons and blinds, you’re better off just letting the afflicted target save out of it and saving the 2nd level slot.
Continual Flame, Pyrotechnics, and Skywrite are cute flavorful effects that don’t have nearly enough impact to justify preparing them for adventuring.
Enhance Ability’s effects are all easily replicated by taking the help action in out of combat exploration. Searching a room? Help whoever you’d give Fox’s Cunning to. Climbing a rope? Help whoever you’d give Bull’s Strength to. None of these effects are worth a 2nd level slot when all they do is empower ability checks with advantage. Advantage is easy peasy to get out of combat thanks to Help. You don’t need to waste a 2nd level slot on something you can usually get for free.

6th Level and Beyond

Artificer was given a few more choices than their half-caster competition at and beyond 6th level thanks to their growing infusions with prerequisites and spell slots.

6th Level Infusion Options

At 6th level, four new infusions become available with eight additional Replicate Magic Item options.

Radiant Weapon makes a weapon a +1 magical weapon that has a bonus action light effect attached to it. Additionally, the wielder can use 4 charges as a reaction to attempt to blind an attacker, making it a great defensive weapon enchantment to take, especially when gifted to characters lacking defensive reactions.
Repulsion Shields give the wielder a +1 AC and a 15 ft. shove reaction, making it kind of like a conditional free disengage when hit. Not may favorite, but easy to enable a paladin ally to have a ludicrous AC when stacked with magic armor as well.
Resistant Armor is a flexible option to infuse when needed. If you know you’re going to face down Fire Elementals, giving somebody resistance to fire damage can be worth it. You’re probably not going to regular use this infusion, but it is one of the better options to have on hand to infuse when needed.
Finally, there is the Spell-Refueling Ring, which gives the user a free bonus 3rd level or lower slot. I like this specifically on Artillerists who want to be slinging out Fireballs, or gifted to the wizard doing the same thing. This will feel solid the second you get it, and marginally worse as the game progresses and 3rd level and higher slots start to become a bit more plentiful.

Of the Replicateable Magic Items opened up here, the Cloak of the Manta Ray makes you zoom under water, making it a great selection for aquatic games if you want somebody to dart about freely. Eyes of Charming is basically three Charm Persons for an infusion, which can be fine in heavily social games where charms are readily usable. The Pipes of Haunting is probably the best of the new options, offering an area of effect scultpable Fear three times per day, with most of the uses getting recharged regularly.

Tool Expertise

Additionally at 6th level, you get to become an expert at your favorite artisan’s tools. This plays best with tools that get a lot of new abilities from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything like alchemist’s supplies, but can find little uses here and there regardless of set.

Flash of Genius

Flash of Genius comes in at 7th level to offer you a supportive reaction to empower you or your allies’ ability checks or saving throws by your Int mod your Int mod times per long rest. Getting +5 to a saving throw is a big deal; getting that five times is an excellent. It’s not particularly complicated, but can have a huge impact on your team’s success.

3rd Level Spell Recommendations

9th level opens up 3rd level spells to you. While it’s coming four levels later than your full-caster buddies, these still have enough power at this tier that they’re pretty exciting to get.

Dispel Magic gives you a tool to mitigate spells of any level. Its a single spell solution to stronger magic user’s effects, and regularly is a great option to have access to.
Haste is probably the strongest concentration effect Artificer’s are getting access to, and they can protect it with the Mind Sharpener, making it something you can even cast on yourself as a Battle Smith for extra AC and attacks. It works great as an ally boon regardless of subclass, though, easily empowering your martial allies with a speed boost and more attack rolls.
Revivify rounds out my recommendations, as having access to a spell to save the life of a recently dead ally is just useful. Sometimes you can afford to keep a 3rd level slot banked for this in lethal fights, and can keep your damage sponge barbarian from reaching the afterlife.
Tiny Servant should be an artificer exclusive spell. It deserves it. It’s richly flavorful, and a beautiful execution of flavor. 3rd level is somewhat expensive for a tiny helpful construct for 8 hours, but given it’s ability to smack things around, deliver potions, and simply act as an extra force to engage in exploration with and enact complex plans, I think it’s worth taking. The bonus action command will make it nearly unusable in combat on Artiliterists and Battle Smiths, both of whom have way better bonus action options, but Alchemists and Armorers can probably get a bit more out of it with their slam attacks and 60 ft. blind sight.

Being able to stack up more of these as the game progresses can sell the eclectic gnomish tinkerer with dozens of little clockwork helpers running about to collect parts left littered around the workshop, and in a pinch, defend their home from weaker invaders. It isn’t crazy powerful, but so fun and whimsical I can’t stay away from it.

3rd Level Spells to Avoid

Elemental Weapon only affects non-magical weapons, immediately making it unable to work on weapons you infuse. Additionally, it only offers +1 to hit and a d4 bonus damage, making it about as good as something like Hunter's Mark or Hex. I don’t want to wait till 9th level to give an ally a boon to hit and damage roughly equivalent to a 1st level spell. Flame Arrows has similar issues.
Intellect Fortress does nothing in the vast majority of encounters. Some tables literally will never run an encounter that it contributes to. As far as niche effects go, this is unbelievably niche.

Beyond these three, the third level options are reasonable to prepare in certain situations.

10th Level Infusion Options

There is only one new infusions unlocked at this tier, the Helm of Awareness, which only offers advantage on initiative rolls and prevents the user from being surprised. This option rarely will be worth it.

Enhanced Arcane Focus, Defense, and Weapon all scale up to a +2 bonus here as well, and on characters that are using these bonuses multiple times a turn, start to feel pretty good round to round compared to the lower tiers, especially as you now have more infusions up at once.

While there isn’t a robust new selection of infusions, Replicate Magic Item gets twenty-two new options, giving you a massive new pool of items to pick from.

The Cloak of Protection lets you stack another +1 AC on top of a character with the Enchanced Defense and a magic shield if your goal is to get as high an AC as possible.
Guantlets of Ogre Power set a character’s strength to 19. While probably not best suited for you, another ally, like a paladin or barbarian, opting for feats and other ability score improvements over maxing their Strength can get a +4 Strength mod here if needed. Most tables likely don’t have great ways to efficiently use these, though, as characters who want a high strength probably have at least a 16 anyway.
The Headband of Intellect has similar issues; you’ve already had opportunities for two ability score improvements, meaning your Int might already be higher, or at least even while still having feat (or two if they both add +1 to your Int). If you do take two feats that don’t improve your Int, or build knowing you can maximize other stats and grab a Headband of Intellect at 10th level to empower your other artificer features, this can be a powerful improvement.
Gloves of Missile Snaring take monk’s ability to catch missiles and give it to anyone as a free reaction. Against ranged weapon attacks, shrugging off 1d10 + Dex mod damage once a round can be excellent, but might not be something empowering every encounter, leaving this as an infusion reasonable to know and prepare ahead of specific dungeons and fights.
The Hat of Disguise would be exciting to me if Mask of Many Faces wasn’t a Warlock Invocation that does functionally the same thing at 2nd level. Still, a Hat of Disguise can be a super fun item to mess around with.
The Helm of Telepathy, on the other hand, offers you Detect Thoughts at will that enhances it further with telepathic messages and a free cast of Suggestion daily, making it a spicy option for the mentalist artificers out there.
Pipes of the Sewers is one of the few summoning like effects available to artificers by potentially summoning and giving you control over one to three swarms of rats at a time. These swarms can be charmed by you, and when charmed, will follow your commands. If not, they act like a regular swarm of rats, which still can be useful to have. This is a neat option, and while not necessarily insanely powerful given how mediocre swarms of rats are, it can be a cool tool for a specific kind of artificer.
A Ring of Jumping is basically a ring version of the Boots of Striding and Springing. Want a lot of Jumps? The ring of Jumping is here for you.
Rings of Mind Shielding are crazy niche, but can trap your soul and torment your future characters should your artificer die for a few hours. That’s pretty neat. Not great, but neat.
Slippers of Spider Climbing basically function like the Spider Climb spell, which at will is a delightful time. At 10th level, flight and teleportation has been available to most characters for awhile, but as a passive speed, Spider Climb can still feel impactful.
Winged Boots provide said flight for a total of 4 hours a day that recharge during downtime, or up to four hours after finishing a long rest basically. These are a bit more bookkeeping than the slippers, but flight is usually better than Spider Climbing when exploring environments and in combat.

Magic Item Adept

10th level also gives artificers Magic Item Adept, letting them attune to an additional magic item at once and quarters the time and cost to create common and uncommon items.

Spell-Storing Item

Spell-Storing Item is the 11th level feature you get that lets you kind of build your own spell rings, which is busted.

You get twice your Int mod uses of whatever 1st or 2nd level artificer spell you’d like. This can’t include spells from your specialty that aren’t on the artificer spell list, as even though they are considered artificer spells for you, Spell-Storing Item specifies the spell has to be on the artificer spell list.

Still, your options here are pretty sweet. Want ten free uses of Invisibility? You got it. Want near endless Webs? Sure thing! Up to ten uses of Heat Metal, Levitate, or even 1st level effects like Absorb Elements and Jump can feel hugely impactful.

What’s particularly cool about this is other creatures can use it, too. The entire party can pass around your spell focus, casting Invisibility over and over, each concentrating on it on their own. Facing against a giant clad in heavy armor? What if every party member decides suddenly to super heat that armor for 2d8 damage per creature? There is a ton of potential with a single spell you want near at will access to, and Spell-Storing Item gives you exactly that.

The list feels like it was structured in such a way to let this feature exist. I’m a big fan. Spell-Storing items is a lot of bonus spell slots, so long as they’re all on the same spell.

4th Level Spell Recommendations

Summon Construct stands head and shoulders over its competition. For your concentration, which again can be defended with the Mind Sharpener, you have a multi-attacking construct with a good chunk of hit points, an AC of 17, and either a reaction based attack, a vision-based slow, or a personal d10 damaging Fire Shield. This is a powerhouse of a spell that will feel like a major bump in power even at 13th level.
Resilient Sphere normally is just the worst of a bunch of save or die 4th level effects like Polymorph and Banishment. Artificers don’t get access to those, making this odd little invulnerable bubble a fine save or die option if you want a tool to lock down a big creature for a fight.

Beyond these two there aren’t a ton of 4th level options I’m excited to prepare regularly for adventuring, but options like Faithful Hound and Stone Shape can have moments to shine.

4th Level Spells to Avoid

Fabricate, while thematically appropriate, is too mundane an effect to actually have great practical applications magic doesn’t surpass. Sure, you could make a bridge with it, but when the problem is “How do we cross this ravine”, more than a dozen spells of its level or lower will solve that problem. Fabricate is kind of like access to any mundane building items from the Player’s Handbook. Realistically, that just isn’t a good way to spend a 4th level slot.
Freedom of Movement shares a similar problem in that so many other spells and magical effects will server you better in getting out of grapples and restraints. This effect doesn’t do enough for its cast. 4th level spells on half-casters need to make big, splashy impacts to matter while the full-casters are playing around with 6th, 7th, and 8th level effects. Freedom of Movement is nowhere close to that.

14th Level Infusion Options

Level 14 opens up Arcane Propulsion Armor to artificers as the only new artificer-unique infusion which feels like it was built specifically for Armorers, yet doesn’t provide anything better than what the Armorer’s armor already does. +5 speed and a 1d8 20 ft. range gauntlet attack isn’t anything groundbreaking. It will almost always be worse than every characters main attack action, and without boons to AC or other cool abilities, is going to feel like sparkly new toy that doesn’t really work out of the box.

Beyond that, there are thirteen new Replicable Magic Items available.

Amulets of Health offer a wearer a Constitution of 19, which honestly may be the best out of all the Ability Score improving items. Con is a stat frontline characters want to be high, but not more than their main attack attribute. A lot of the time, it’ll be sitting at 14 for most of the game. Getting +2 to that modifier will act like taking the Tough feat alongside adding a bonus +2 to Con saves for a giant bump to their survivability.
The Belt of Hill Giant Strength ups your Strength beyond even the Ogre Gauntlets with a score of 21, making it reasonable on frontline characters needing two or three feats to come online. With a Belt of Hill Giant Strength, they don’t even need to forgo a +5 Strength to get the feats that bring their Great Weapon Master or Sentinel builds together.
Boots of Speed grant you 10 minutes of doubled speed per long rest, which is particularly spicy on already speedy characters. If you’ve got a Tabaxi monk ally sprinting around with a base speed of 110, why not make it 220, then dash a few times?
Bracers of Defense make your monk and barbarian friends able to stack up some bonus AC with the bracers acting as a passive shield that doesn’t even require taking up one of your hands.
Cloak of the Bat is a version of Winged Boots to consider if you’re commonly adventuring in dark environments (or just like hanging out as a bat).
The Gem of Seeing can give you access to 120 ft. Truesight three times a day, which normally would cost you some six level spell slots for True Seeing. It lasts a shorter duration, for sure, but if you want truesight to combat invisible, ethereal, or illusory enemies, you can get it with this.
Horns of Blasting are a rare damaging infusion, giving you a 5d6 to 10d6 thunder damage effect that has a ⅕ chance of exploding horribly in your face. You probably don’t ever want to risk it, but hey, 5d6 damage isn’t nothing.
Rings of Protection stack up more AC on a character. Want an AC 30 paladin? This is how you get an AC 30 paladin.
Ring of the Ram rounds out the magic item replicas you can make with a 3 charge use ranged force smash that deals 2d10 per charge expended. 6d10 damage once ever day or two isn’t amazing, but if you want access to another big, splashy punch that doubles as a tool for breaking into places with tremendous force, Ring of the Ram is a reasonable option.

Magic Item Savant

14th level improves your base relationship with magic items once again, giving you a 5th attunement slot and the ability to use some class restricted magic items should you come across them. If you’re the main source of magic items, five is probably more than enough attunement slots, making this a bit superfluous, but maybe you’re attuning to every single one of your infusions and want to use more DM given magic items. In that case, sure, this is an improvement!

5th Level Spell Recommendations

While its no 9th level spell Animate Objects does hit like a truck. Its definitely an improvement over Summon Construct in most cases, as it can provide a flock of flying knives that can attack a ton of times for a boatload of damage. Of all the options, this is the one closest to feeling good at this stage.
Arcane Hand is second closest on Alchemists and Armorers, as they both have free bonus actions to slap people around with this big ol’ hand. It still suffers from the issue of having watched your wizard pick this up nine levels ago.

5th Level Spells to Avoid

Creation lets you build mundane stuff out of nothing. That’s not doing anything remotely powerful enough to consider using it.

The rest of the 5th level spell are either setting dependent, or not even remotely close to powerful enough to consider regularly, but may have moments here or there where you find you want them. Want to build a wall around a city over a few months, or barricade a small village? Wall of Stone! Plan on uncovering arcane secrets of the universe? Get Skill Empowerment for Arcana Expertise!

Magic Item Master

Attuning to 6 items at once can be powerful if your DM has the party flush with magic items beyond your infusions. If you’re working mainly with your infusions, though, and some party members are using some of them, this is probably a bit overkill.

Soul of Artifice

Soul of Artifice closes out the class with a massive +6 to all your saving throws (one for each attuned item) while turning each of your infusions also into a Death Ward. This can make upper tier artificers able to survive even the most lethal events, but isn’t the kind of capstone feature that will actually make you feel like you’ve got this big, splashy, 20th level thing to do like paladins and the full-casters.

Artificers with the DMG Firearms

The Dungeon Master’s Guide has some rules involving powerful martial weapons: Fireams. They’re broken into three categories: Renaissance, Modern, and Futuristic items. If your DM is using Firearms, chances are they’ll ressemble the Renaissance options. Artificers have optional proficiency in these should that be the case, opening up d10 or d12 ranged loading weapons to every artificer that wants them. Both are massive upgrades over your crossbow alternative, and look and feel great to play with on Artiliterists especially.

Notably, the Modern and Future items are way more powerful than other weapons, and probably won’t play well at every table. Some options, like Shotguns, can be a fun aspirational weapon to build towards, and can make for a progressive reward your artificer builds towards over time.

Multiclassing Artificer

Artificers aren’t quite as frontloaded as warlocks, but share many of the qualities that they do that lends well to mulitclassing. To get the most out of artificer, you really want to get to third level for their specialty, most of which eat your bonus action.

As opposed to going by what classes mingle best with the base artificer, because of how dependent on their subclass artificers are, I’ll mention a few classes that pair great with each specific subclass

Alchemist Multiclass Options

As mentioned prior, Thief rogue lets you toss the acid and alchemist’s fire you craft as just a bonus action while empowering your main hand attack rolls with Sneak Attack damage. It also offers expertise way sooner, and while you probably don’t need the alchemist subclass to bring this specific character concept together, its likely most at home alongside Thief.

Beyond that, having a familiar, accessible from Wizard or Warlock, can help deliver and administer your potions without needing to spend actions on them which is a somewhat meaningful improvement.

Artilierist Multiclass Options

Of the options I’m eager to multiclass, Artilierist is definitely the highest. You have some different routes to explore; first, you can consider getting yourself Extra Attack with 5 levels in a martial class like fighter, ranger, or paladin to get the tools to blast off a barrage of attacks every round alongside your Eldritch Canon.

Warlock mixed with Sorcerer can give you quick, cheap access to extra attacks in the form of Eldtich Blast empowered by Agonizing Blast that are a flavor win alongside the Eldritch Canon while growing your spell repertoire for upper-tier casts of Fireball to better leverage the bonus d8 damage you get from your 9th level feature.

Armorer Multiclass Options

Armorer doesn’t really need nor want other weapon attack options. If the upper tier armorer stuff doesn’t excite you, getting access to features like Actions Surge can be valuable with a couple levels of Fighter which also provides you with Second Wind.

I like Bards a lot after 5 levels in Armorer, as you get something reasonable to do with your bonus actions in Bardic Inspiration when you don’t need your Defensive Field in Guardian model, scale up with faster spell progression than you’d normally get has a half-caster, and have access to some solid subclasses that enhance your out of combat utility otherwise left to your base artificer to cover.

Battle Smith Multiclass Options

Battle Smiths pair great, unsuprisngly, with Paladin. They both do very similar things, and doubling up your attacks with boat Arcane Jolt and Divine Smites can absolutely decimate targets in the upper tiers. It’s not likely going to better than some known powerful paladin multiclass options, but definitely can be a great option to consider, as you’re going to care about the shield and armor proficiencies as well.

Clerics, to, like defensive supportive stuff that can mix well with the Steel Defender/weapon attacking stuff Battle Smiths have going on. Extra full-caster spells will always feel great, but there a few little overlapping issues with some of the more iconic cleric spells like Spiritual Weapon competing with your bonus action Steel Defender commands.

Munchkin Nonsense to Mess Around With

Artificer is a bit unique in that a lot of its munchkin potential is tied to how access to specific magic items affect other classes. Still, there are some build options that can get stupid high numbers on your own character as well.

The Impossible to Hit Armorer

For science, today I’m going to do my best to take an artificer and stick so many defensive augmentations on their heavy armor they’ll be nigh unhittable.

The Canvas

To start, we’re going to need Heavy Armor or a Dexterity of beyond 20, and seeing as the latter is a lot taller of an order, we can go with the Armorer speciality for heavy armor access.

For our base armor that’ll be maxed out as much as possible, we’re going to go with the best heavy armor money can buy: Plate, offering us a starting AC of 18. Respectable in its own right.

Race

Of all the options in the game available, Warforged matter the most, as just for existing they get +1 AC with Integrated Protection. Easy pickup.

We’ll Need a Shield

We need to take a quick dip into fighter for proficiency in shields and access to the Defense Fighting style. As long as we’re in the armor and wielding our shield, our base AC is now 21.

Infusions

We’re going to need Enchanced Defense as a 10th level Artificer for its +2 AC bonus to our armor, which conveniently lets us split our armor up into four different items for the purposes of infusions. This, alongside our shield, means we can have up to five infusions count as our armor piece. We probably don’t need all five, as there are only so many options that boost our AC, and we’ve got other items we’ll need to get, but its nice to know.

Next up, we infuse our shield with the Repulsion Shield, adding +1 more to our AC with a fun reaction knock enemies back. This notably will take up our first Attunement slot.

Replicated Magic Items

With us now having all of the AC boosts available from the other Infusions, its time to start stacking some magic item options to our AC.

10th and 14th level Replicate Magic Item contain the Cloak of Protection (attunment two) and the Ring of Protection (attunment three), each giving us +1 AC and using three of our four attunement slots and four of our five infused items.

Bracers of Defense notably only apply to unarmored creatures; we’re unfortunately heavily armored, so that’s off the table, but ew’ve still got a spare infusion at our disposal. For consistency, we’re going to dedicate it to the Mind Sharpener to defend our concentration, as we’re going to need to be maintaining our conenctraion to keep our AC nice and high.

Spell Support

We only get to concentrate on one thing, and that thing is going to be Haste. This gives us a bonus attack, double our speed, advantage on Dex saves, and critically, +2 additional AC.

What’s more, if anything would hit us, we’re going to need a failsafe. What better option to acquire than the Shield spell? To get it, we’re going to school, specifically to Strixhaven for the Strixhaven Initiate feat which lets us cast a 1st level Wizard spell of our choice once for free (we’re going to go with Shield), and very importantly lets us use our artificer spell slots do cast it. This gives us access to however many spell slots we’ve got after our haste +1 uses of +5 AC should something potentially crack our sturdy exterior.

Totalling

This 15th level character, 1 fighter, 14 artificer, has a base AC from their plate of 18.

Their race adds +1, shield adds +2, Defense adds +1, Enhanced Defense adds +2, Repulsion Shield adds +1, the Cloak of Protection adds +1, the Ring of Protection adds +1, Haste adds +2, and Shield adds a +5 whenever we would be hit, brining out total to:

29 without Shield

34 with Shield.

All done entirely without any magic items provided by the DM.

A creature would need +14 to hit and a natural 20 to match the AC of this 15th level character.

For reference, the CR 20 Pit Fiend only has a +14 to hit, meaning 5% of the time, the CR 20 monster can hit this build. This is with five levels to spare in any other classes you’d like, with zero considerations or concerns about your other ability scores. A lot of characters can take these small group of abilities and be insanely hard to hit by most everything.

Beyond Alchemist, Artificers Rule

When you ignore the single subclass the provides nearly no meaningful power, Artificers can bring a lot to the table. Their magic item creation and infusion system lets them supply themselves and teammates with splashy items that provide unique effects, and each subclass has a ton of flavor baked in with its own core play pattern. When it all comes together, you can comfortably stick with the class for most of the game and be very happy with what you get level to level. It also works great as a multiclass option, as its first three levels are packed full of juicy abilities that work great with other classes play patterns.

There are a ton of potential builds to explore focused around various magic items, subclass interactions, and multiclass divisions that make it a spectacular addition to the game. If you’re in the market for something new and magic item rich, Articiers are a superb choice.

Thank you for visiting!

If you’d like to support this ongoing project, you can do so by buying my books, getting some sweet C&C merch, or joining my Patreon.

The text on this page is Open Game Content, and is licensed for public use under the terms of the Open Game License v1.0a.

‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
and are used according to the terms of the d20 System License version 6.0.
A copy of this License can be found at www.wizards.com/d20.

Artificer 5e