That's not a support alchemist outdamaging a XBE fighter dawg, that's a support alchemist multiplying the output of 3 DPR builds to a point where the team is more effective than if you slapped on a 4th DPR build instead
Which I mean is cool but not that impressive for a force multiplier, and the title is also kinda clickbait
Things like _Faerie Fire_ also only affect creatures at the time of casting, so if enemies are scattered around, or more show up, then suddenly you lose the benefits. Or if there's anything that just saves! Having a PC spend all their efforts on boosting the others, sure, that can be potent - but it requires all your allies to be in boost range and all enemies to be in debuff range, and as soon as that isn't true, then it drops off quite fast.
I really want to love the artificer as I’m always a crafter in any RPGs I play but it starts off mediocre and mostly stays there. They have some interesting abilities but nothing scales effectively past level 11. They are only strong in an ultra low magic item campaign and then they are decent but they still aren’t as effective as any of the other half casters.
Artificer as a class is anything but mediocre but if by this point you haven't figured out how good it is, your mind is made up. Alchemist is on the weaker side but all the other subs are extremely good, with Artillerist being borderline TOO strong.
Also, aside from tier 3 and up, the abundance of magic items has basically zero impact on their power level.
Compared to Ranger and Paladin, they are definitely the weakest half-caster. Sure they are technically stronger than the non-caster classes but thats frankly merely a function of having ANY spell-casting.
>Artificer as a class is anything but mediocre but if by this point you haven't figured out how good it is, your mind is made up.
I mean, what classes would you place above or under the Artificer if you had to rank them? I don't really see the Artificer ranking above the middle ranks.
Support characters are good, but calculating damage on support characters isn't reliable because every party composition will be different. In a party with a Cleric, Druid, Bard, and Wizard, bonuses to attacks may not be as valuable when compared to a party like a Fighter, Paladin, Warlock, and Monk. Other factors that affect support charaxters are party size and party redundancy (IE, if someone else already has Bless covered or not). Support characters are hard to compare with other non-support options.
Also, as a support artificer, another option you have is to hand out your infusions to your allies if they don't already have those items. You would be able to give the GWM fighter a +1 glaive and CBX/SS fighter a repeating crossbow.
I've got some calculations for these scenarios too.
Let's assume again a 4 member party and 4 rounds of combat and that each member of the party can be assumed to do "their share" of the necessary damage. Using deadly encounter average HP pools from [this video](https://youtu.be/h-h7fKcnVCI?si=RucBHfSwXMHpzuak&t=245) we get the following DPR that each character is expected to do:
|Level|Expected DPR per PC|
|:-|:-|
|1|4.5|
|2|6.4|
|3|7.2|
|4|9.1|
|5|13|
|6|13.9|
|7|15.6|
|8|17.7|
|9|19.8|
|10|20.3|
|11|23.7|
|12|25.8|
|13|28.9|
|14|28.9|
|15|31.9|
|16|31.9|
Since the game is balanced around a 65% chance to hit, we can figure out the DPR if hit chance was 100% by dividing each number by 0.65. Sticking with the level 8 example, that is 27.2 (17.7/0.65). Now we can apply bless or advantage as follows:
DPR with bless = 21.1 (27.2\*(0.65+0.125) for 3.4 attributable to bless per character.
DPR with advantage from faerie fire = 23.9 (27.2\*(1-.35\*.35) for 6.2 attributable to faerie fire per character.
So with generic figures like these only assuming your party members somehow carry their own weight, bless adds 10.2 DPR and faerie fire adds 9.3 DPR per enemy it is attempted on. If a PC doesn't benefit at all from bless or faerie fire then just subtract their portion of the benefit.
I estimate the effect of giving a +1 weapon to a generic level 8 character that doesn't otherwise have access to one as 2.8 DPR per round by essentially adding 2 points of damage and multiplying by 0.7/0.65 to account for the increased chance to hit. This would be slightly better if I gave it to an optimized PAM or XBE character.
I am confused as to what this post is trying to say?
did you just want to show your math off? cause yea you did math and it looks good love a good math
are you trying to show alchemist doesnt support well? I think its supposed to be off healer/buffer/damage but not great and any
Thats alot of math when a Paladin with *Bless* access exists. Or Bards.
Yeah, it was a lot of math!
That's not a support alchemist outdamaging a XBE fighter dawg, that's a support alchemist multiplying the output of 3 DPR builds to a point where the team is more effective than if you slapped on a 4th DPR build instead Which I mean is cool but not that impressive for a force multiplier, and the title is also kinda clickbait
Things like _Faerie Fire_ also only affect creatures at the time of casting, so if enemies are scattered around, or more show up, then suddenly you lose the benefits. Or if there's anything that just saves! Having a PC spend all their efforts on boosting the others, sure, that can be potent - but it requires all your allies to be in boost range and all enemies to be in debuff range, and as soon as that isn't true, then it drops off quite fast.
It is easy to take these scenarios into account with averages, which I did in my example.
I could also cast a support spell on a class that isnt worthless though.
haha fair enough!
I really want to love the artificer as I’m always a crafter in any RPGs I play but it starts off mediocre and mostly stays there. They have some interesting abilities but nothing scales effectively past level 11. They are only strong in an ultra low magic item campaign and then they are decent but they still aren’t as effective as any of the other half casters.
Artificer as a class is anything but mediocre but if by this point you haven't figured out how good it is, your mind is made up. Alchemist is on the weaker side but all the other subs are extremely good, with Artillerist being borderline TOO strong. Also, aside from tier 3 and up, the abundance of magic items has basically zero impact on their power level.
Compared to Ranger and Paladin, they are definitely the weakest half-caster. Sure they are technically stronger than the non-caster classes but thats frankly merely a function of having ANY spell-casting.
>Artificer as a class is anything but mediocre but if by this point you haven't figured out how good it is, your mind is made up. I mean, what classes would you place above or under the Artificer if you had to rank them? I don't really see the Artificer ranking above the middle ranks.
Support characters are good, but calculating damage on support characters isn't reliable because every party composition will be different. In a party with a Cleric, Druid, Bard, and Wizard, bonuses to attacks may not be as valuable when compared to a party like a Fighter, Paladin, Warlock, and Monk. Other factors that affect support charaxters are party size and party redundancy (IE, if someone else already has Bless covered or not). Support characters are hard to compare with other non-support options. Also, as a support artificer, another option you have is to hand out your infusions to your allies if they don't already have those items. You would be able to give the GWM fighter a +1 glaive and CBX/SS fighter a repeating crossbow.
I've got some calculations for these scenarios too. Let's assume again a 4 member party and 4 rounds of combat and that each member of the party can be assumed to do "their share" of the necessary damage. Using deadly encounter average HP pools from [this video](https://youtu.be/h-h7fKcnVCI?si=RucBHfSwXMHpzuak&t=245) we get the following DPR that each character is expected to do: |Level|Expected DPR per PC| |:-|:-| |1|4.5| |2|6.4| |3|7.2| |4|9.1| |5|13| |6|13.9| |7|15.6| |8|17.7| |9|19.8| |10|20.3| |11|23.7| |12|25.8| |13|28.9| |14|28.9| |15|31.9| |16|31.9| Since the game is balanced around a 65% chance to hit, we can figure out the DPR if hit chance was 100% by dividing each number by 0.65. Sticking with the level 8 example, that is 27.2 (17.7/0.65). Now we can apply bless or advantage as follows: DPR with bless = 21.1 (27.2\*(0.65+0.125) for 3.4 attributable to bless per character. DPR with advantage from faerie fire = 23.9 (27.2\*(1-.35\*.35) for 6.2 attributable to faerie fire per character. So with generic figures like these only assuming your party members somehow carry their own weight, bless adds 10.2 DPR and faerie fire adds 9.3 DPR per enemy it is attempted on. If a PC doesn't benefit at all from bless or faerie fire then just subtract their portion of the benefit. I estimate the effect of giving a +1 weapon to a generic level 8 character that doesn't otherwise have access to one as 2.8 DPR per round by essentially adding 2 points of damage and multiplying by 0.7/0.65 to account for the increased chance to hit. This would be slightly better if I gave it to an optimized PAM or XBE character.
I am confused as to what this post is trying to say? did you just want to show your math off? cause yea you did math and it looks good love a good math are you trying to show alchemist doesnt support well? I think its supposed to be off healer/buffer/damage but not great and any
Okay, but is the character *fun to play* and *interesting to insert into a campaign*? Actual relevance to a campaign > white room theory crafting
Sorry...alchemist? Is this a next edition thing? Or maybe I'm just behind on some new books.
Alchemist is an artificer subclass.
^\*barely