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Craftsman (Patreon)

Published:
2016-05-01 07:44:07
Edited:
2024-10-03 21:33:03
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

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Content

The blacksmith swings his hammer, sending sparks sailing through the air. Some adventurers are nothing without their equipment, whereas the craftsman is master of his gear. Endlessly crafting, customizing, and prototyping, the craftsman is the model of the medieval inventor.

Now, this isn't the 'Complete' Craftsman. We're not done tweaking, playtesting, and remixing this class, but we wanted to put it in your hands regardless. I don't think we'll be moving or gutting any major components of this class, but you can expect a changelog to start growing as soon as people start playing it. And, of course, you, our beloved patron, get access to it before anyone else!

The Craftsman includes the brand-new craftsman class, two subclasses, a new system of exotic weapons and armor, and a few new feats!

Changelog: 

1.01 Well-Built Equipment: reworded for clarity

Tempered and Destructive: Bonus is to attack and damage rolls

Immortal Plating: restores HP 

Crafting Sidebar: Progress changed to agree with Smithy feature

1.02: Starting Equipment: Includes armor

Metallurgy: You know all the techniques of a given level when you gain access to that level.

Switch Weapon: reworded

1.03: Bladed: Can apply 1 technique.

Apprentice Craftsman: Can apply beginner techniques to non-well-built equipment

1.04: Weighted and Hollow: wording fixed to be more inclusive to weapons with multiple types of damage dice.

Exotic weapons table: typos fixed

Comments

Mold Goblin

that's just eerie! i was just talking to a friend about making a blacksmith character; 2 minutes later i check my e-mail and lo and behold!

Story Hound (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-29 03:00 It says that you can enchant the blades of the "Bladed Armor" or replace them with any magical sword; does that also mean that you can apply crafting techniques to them?
2016-05-01 08:59

Mage Hand Press

I might have to consult the Palm to make sure, but by RAI, I believe the answer is no, though this might require better phrasing to make perfectly clear (and to make it agree with RAW.) You can replace these with magical blades, or have them enchanted, so the intent is just to allow them to keep pace with other magic weapons. However, because your Well-Built weapons have a magical bonus to attack and damage rolls, they are technically magic weapons, and can be used to replace a blade of your bladed armor. Therefore, by RAW, you totally can put a weapon with techniques there. This raises a couple of questions we need to dig through: what happens if you choose to replace your arm blade with a weapon that has different properties or effects? Do the arm blades change damage type and weapon properties to the weapons that replaces them, or do they merely inherit simple magical bonuses? These questions are as much something I need to question the Palm about as they are up for debate. Everyone should feel free to weigh in on how they think this feature should operate.

Neyd Harlequin

I really like it and think that for the most part the features are well thought out and mechanically balanced...but! What I don't like is the inability to have your allies profit from your techniques. If I imagine a master of craftsmanship travelling with a group of adventurers I see his/her role as someone who pimps their gear. I know that your concerns were probably from a balance standpoint and mine are just "flavour" but nevertheless it would ve awesome to be able to say "hey nice sword you found there, want for it to be even nicer?"

Mage Hand Press

You know what they say: we deliver! Seriously though, I haven't personally playtested this one yet, so I'd be super interested to hear about your experiences with a Craftsman build, if you roll one up.

Mage Hand Press

You know, that's a good point. It's tough to design a class which can more or less permanently buff the entire party's damage output -- as evidenced by some of the shenanigans that the 3.5 artificer class could get up to. So, a big focus of this was getting the features together in a non-gamebreaking way. This makes me wonder where I could put a feature that might accomplish that type of 'gear pimping' without warping the power curve too badly. The Palm knows I'm not a huge fan of the social aspect of the Master Craftsman feature. Maybe some form of weapon or armor buff in that slot might be appropriate. Or perhaps this is something we could incorporate into Exotic Smithing, in the professions. For example, all armor forged by the armiger has +1 AC, and all weapons forged by the weaponsmith deal +1 damage.

Neyd Harlequin

I see your point considering the 3.5 Artificer. How about you allow the specializations to pimp allies' weapons or armor (depending on specialization) with just beginner techniques. These do not seem to be quite as gamebreaking and are a lot more interesting than giving a flat +1 bonus. For example a rogue would be quite thankful for a collapsible weapon I think but it would not really make him/her an overpowered gamebreaking monster.

Altanius

This class is sick! Very cool idea and excellent execution.

Altanius

The crafting sidebar is a bit confusing. It gives a different sum for daily crafting (proficiency x 5 instead of level x 50)

Altanius

As much as I'd like to take credit, I didn't come up with that. The smithy ability (pg. 2) lists their crafting ability as 50 x level. The crafting sidebar(pg. 6) lists it as proficiency x 5, with crafting dc's right boost it. FWIW, I favor the 50 x level, but you might wanna clarify which is correct.

Altanius

Also, with the well balanced weapon/well fitted armor, is the intent that you might have more than one? Or is there supposed to be a limit?

Mage Hand Press

Good catch! 50 times craftsman level is correct! (I realized when I dug through the class what you meant, that it disagreed with the Smithy feature, not that you found a way to simplify the phrasing of the sidebar. Either way, it's a positive change!) It will be fixed when I upload the changes.

Mage Hand Press

That's a great approach! I was considering to allow you to do a temporary buff on your allies weapons are armor (honing weapons and reinforcing armor), which will provide either limited +X magical bonuses, or will improve critical damage/protection, but I legitimately think your approach might be better.

Mage Hand Press

That is the intent, and I agree that the wording can be improved. I'll start working on some new phrasing for that right away

Altanius

'Unless otherwise noted, a given weapon or suit of armor can only have one of each type of technique applied to it.' Does that mean you can have one technique of each level(apprentice, journeyman, etc) applied to every weapon or armor?

Mage Hand Press

Precisely. I think the most potent way to run a craftsman build is to have different fully-customized weapons and sets of armor for different situations.

Altanius

Right. I was just confused. On my first read through, I thought it was one modification, period. Hence the clarification.

Mage Hand Press

No, I did too on mt first read. I've changed the description slightly to hopefully eliminate that confusion.

Altanius

Sorry for the multiposts. Trying to space this out but I keep forgetting to hit shift before I hit enter.

Altanius

Alright, so we had a dungeon crawl today and I playtested a craftsman at 4th level (Weaponsmith). Got some feedback for you. Some of this is playstyle stuff, but most of it is typos/ambiguities and a few suggestions. 1) Starting Equipment (Pg. 4) has no armor of any kind in it. Not sure if that's intentional, but it would make for a really shitty first few adventures until you can craft stuff 2) Weighted Technique (Pg. 7): You might want to specify how this interacts with versatile weapons. Our assumption was it goes up one dice as well, but it's a grey area. 3) You might want to at least lay down ground rules for how shift weapons (Pg. 7) interact with magic weapons, since it's ambiguous right now. 4) The shield property (pg. 16) for weapons comes across as ambiguous as well. Is it a weapon that also acts as a shield, or do you have to pick a property and go with it? 5) For Infernal bloodstone blade (pg. 11), does the next round damage stack? (I.E. does two hits require two saves the next turn?) 6) You've stated "I think the most potent way to run a craftsman build is to have different fully-customized weapons and sets of armor for different situations." However, in practice it doesn't play that way. There's a severe limitation on the number of techniques you can learn, which essentially force you down to having two modded items max (1 weapon and 1 armor, 2 weapons, etc.) Our recommendation would be to do away with that, and have the Craftsmen just know all the ones he's eligible for, or perhaps all those in is specialty, and a limited number off spec. This doesn't seem too broken, but if you've a design decision for why not to do this, please share. 7) If you're looking for content (Either as new weapon mod ideas or maybe craftsman specific magic items/artifacts) you might look at Bloodborne and its collection of trick weapons. Some of them are pretty cool and it would be sweet to see them transferred into D&D. That's all for the moment. We're still going over it though, so I'll be sure to get back to you with anything else we find!

Eldritch Insights

Quick clarification: the Sidebar regarding crafting speed (5×proficiency) is intended to be an alternate General crafting rule. The Craftsman can craft at 50 x level per day, regular folks can craft at 5 x prof per day, because 5gp per day just seems way too slow.

Altanius

While I don't disagree, the sidebar specifically noted itself as rules for craftsman. Additionally it's now been updated to say 50 x level.

Mage Hand Press

Woo! Playtest data! Starting Equipment: Agreed, this needs armor Known Techniques: Also agreed! I've talked it over with the Palm, and we're on the same page with this -- there's already an associated cost in time to use nay technique, so there's no reason to also limit the number known. Weighted, Switch, Shield: I'll work on more precise descriptions of these mechanics over the next couple of days. I can already tell it's going to be a trial getting the wording for something like Switch weapons right for all weapon varieties. Infernal Bloodstone: Damage stacks Bloodborne: I love that game to death (and DS3 was amazing too.) I might end up lifting some trick weapons from it for the next lovecraft update, but I didn't want to flood the Exotic Weapons with them. You'll probably see a couple (or at least the saw-cleaver) in the Complete Craftsman.

Mage Hand Press

Okay, I've implemented some changes, though I'm still working on the problem of how to implement improving your allies' equipment without breaking the game.

Eldritch Insights

...I actually have MOST of the trick weapons from bloodbourne done already, I just haven't uploaded them yet. I'll send them to you when I get a chance.

Eldritch Insights

This is an excellent thing to bring up. This ability was created before I combined the Armiger and the Weaponsmith into a single class, so this wasn't previously an issue. I think that the optimal solution to this would be to allow you to apply crafting techniques to the Arm blades, but not replace them whole cloth with new magic weapons anymore (as that's not really needed any longer.)

Eldritch Insights

I certainly do not think that this would be too overpowered, though there'd need to be wording which states that you can specifically apply Beginner level techniques to gear that isn't "Well-Made".

Patrick van der Linde

awesome class! just want to point out the "Grand Spear" has 1d8/1d0 damage i guess it should be 1d10

Eldritch Insights

No, the damage listing is correct: the weapon is Versatile. the d8 is the one-handed damage, the d10 is the two handed damage.

Patrick van der Linde

yeah i understand this but like i said the versatile damage is a 1d0 meaning no dmg at all, atleast the picture of the exotic weapons say "1d0" I was just pointing out a spelling error :P

Patrick van der Linde

haha dont worry about it, it can happen to the best. No hard feelings :)

Story Hound (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-29 03:00 How do the exotic weapons from this class and the weaponsmith fighter archetype interact with each other? Right now, these don't seem to fit together, having two different greatbows for example.
2016-05-12 11:20

Mage Hand Press

This subclass basically overwrites the Weaponsmith fighter, like a Redux class. You are still more than welcome to use the old fighter weaponsmith, but we think the current slate of exotic weapons, and their associated weapon properties, are more mechanically balanced. (Some of the more unique items might come with the Complete Craftsman)

Mage Hand Press

While that makes some sense, I think that spoils one of the joys of this class. If you're traveling around with a guy who can make awesome weapons and armor, why don't you let him improve your stuff? Requiring a feat for this really makes that tough.

Dathan

Why is it that Sighted is the only ranged technique that can apply to the great bow or crossbows?

Kristopher Scarbrough

Let's say one put Switch on a Longsword and a Battleaxe. If my friend puts Weighted on the Axe, does this hereby increase the damage, and add the Heavy property, to the Longsword as well? Phenomenal class, by the way! He and I are very impressed by the effort and professionalism put into these classes. Edit: Another question came up. The Hollow feature can be used on Heavy weapons and removes said property. Does this include Superheavy? Superheavy description says the property also counts as Heavy, so we feel I may work but we're not sure if the 16 strength requirement would stick around. Edit 2: Are there any upgrades to give to shields? All armor upgrades seem to only affect light, medium, or heavy. Would weapon upgrades be applicable instead?

Mage Hand Press

Switch: When you have a longsword/battleaxe switch weapon, you can add properties to each of the weapons independently. It's basically like carrying two different weapons that you can exchange as a bonus action. Hollow: I don't think the intention was to allow you to remove superheavy, just heavy. By RAW, a superheavy counts as a heavy weapon, but it still /isn't/ one, so hollow doesn't remove it. Shields: There's the Shield property, which can be applied to weapons, but no properties which can be applied to shields. If you want to get into shenanigans with shields, there's a few exotic shields at the end.