A few errata to correct this week; fortunately, nothing that affects the build/numbers much, but thanks for keeping me honest :) - Longbow is still the champion of long range weapons, with a 600 foot range :) - Telekinetic Movement only works on willing creatures. Duh! (I blame sleep deprivation for that one >.>) - Infiltrator, it turns out, is *not* spelled "Inflitrator." (I blame my editor for that one

Level 1:(see above) [fighter 1, fighting-style & race] Level 2:(see above) [artificer 1] Level 3:(@17:02) [artificer 2] Level 4:(@19:20) [artificer 3 & sub-class] Level 5:(@24:24) [artificer 4 & ASI] Level 6:(@25:37) [artificer 5] Level 7:(@28:35) [artificer 6] Level 8:(@31:04) [artificer 7] Level 9:(@31:42) [artificer 8 & ASI] Level 10:(see above) [artificer 9] Level 11:(@37:57) [artificer 10] Level 12:(@41:28) [artificer 11] Level 13:(@45:23) [rogue 1] Level 14:(see above) [rogue 2] Level 15:(@48:50) [rogue 3 & sub-class] Level 16:(@51:03) [fighter 2] Level 17:(@51:58) [fighter 3 & sub-class] Colby, thank you.

No one realized, the chestnode allows you to have a weapon or shield in both hands while still allowing a sniper shot? 🤯

Dude, this is the worst and best part of my week. These videos make me want to make so many different characters and I have mayyyyybe 6 hours a month to play. Haha. Great video!

Genielock is my preferred infiltration build right now. Start with Actor feat.Pact of the chain, Invocations, mask of many faces, and voice of the chain master. Change your appearance and voice quickly on the fly after scouting a place out with your invisible imp, if needed the invisible imp can fly you hiding in your ring into secure areas. Not much of an investment and you are amazing as a infiltrator. Still have plenty of resources and levels to make sure you have a respectable DPR.

I really enjoyed this build. The Artificer has quickly become one of my favorite classes. It's right up there with Monks for me (). I loved the Psi Warrior at the end, too since that subclass gets a lot of hate and fits really neatly into this build.

This is a neat artificer! I appreciate how many of Colby's builds multiclass with more than just single level dips, in a way that really enhances the character concept.

The familiar/homunculus touch spell method is actually a really strong application of shocking grasp. It allows you to disable enemy reactions from far away to allow your teammates to run away for free or disable held actions.

Wow im actually doing a verion of this build already! However instead of going mostly Artificer, im going mostly psi warrior and then doing a 3-4 level dip in artificer for the armor. Story goes that my character had an encounter with some mind flayers at a young age which gave him psionic abilities. Later he started having visions of weapon designs to build (like the armor). Essentially the Elder Brain of these mind flayers is using my character as a experimental weapons manufactuer.

I usually skip Slidin Into My DMs unless the quick ruling is particularly interesting to me, in which case I'll skip to that to see the result. Idk, I guess it doesn't feel like it's worth investing the time to listen compared to the Optimized videos. The DM topics are more open-ended and nebulous, sometimes the panel all agrees with or repeats itself, and the friendliness between speakers -being much better than if you all hated each other 😅- can lead to side-tracks or people interrupting others to crack jokes or make references to things I'm not really there to listen to. So, while both series can run up to an hour, Optimized feels like that whole hour is packed with useful insights and knowledge, so I find it worthwhile. Slidin Into My DM's has felt like it had too much filler in the past.

Perfect cup-of-tea-and-a-biscuit viewing. Look forward to these each week, and they've helped a lot with my character making. I'm starting a campaign next week and planning on making a warforged fighter/forge cleric tank that's looking to be a ton of fun. Keep it up with Tales of Aneria too! I'm a little behind but loving it so far 😉

I usually don't comment on anything. But these videos have been making my favorite part of the week for the past months, so I decided to comment to help with the algorithm. Never stop please!

Perfect timing! I just hopped onto KZfaq to watch one of your videos and I saw this was just uploaded! Can't wait!

This is precisely the build I was looking for when making my first Warforged character. Great insight!

To answer your question about the Homunculus using the spell focus. RAW it says the Homunculus you create takes it's turn to Dodge action, unless you expend your bonus action. In which case it can use Dash, Disengage, Hide, Help and Search. I would say, since it doesn't list the Use an Object action the Homunculus cannot use the artificer's item to cast a spell. Thanks for the episode. I love your content. Keep up the good work. I appreciate it.

So many Great builds and so little time to play them all. I think this might be the build i requested last week! I am so appreciative! Great work, love the channel.

I love your sliding into DMs. It helps me think about things in DND that I haven't and consider ideas from different perspectivas. I don't miss a one.

I’m going back through some of my favorite builds of yours. I hope you and your family enjoy this time off. Be blessed.

I've struggled trying to justify playing an artificer unless its a suportificer. This sounds like a ton of fun. Keep crankin' em out Colby!!

Cool thing about this build having profesioncy/expertise with artisans tools (carpenter's tools is what I could think of off the top of my head) can suprisingly help you with stealth

I look forward to Sliding into my DMs as much as the Optimized episodes.

I used an Infiltrator build as an enemy NPC and almost TPK the group. They were 6th level so the NPC was 6th level. This one extended "Encounter" lasted multiple sessions. it works for any level 6+. Let me explain: Four levels Artificer (armorer) then as many rogue levels as you can stack to match the party. My NPC i made a Half-Orc, Stealth skill is a must and one of the expertise from rogue needs to go on stealth as well. One Infusion to make the eyes of night. This extends the darkvision to 120' can stay our of vision range for all but drow or the like. Sharpshooter feat is a must. The lightning launcher is a simple ranged weapon. Since it is not a spell attack then sneak attack and sharpshooter works with it. I had him equipped with breastplate armor. Smart orc stays at long range in rougher terrain and attacks at night. With expertise and advantage on stealth he will get surprise. Steps out, Sneak attacks with lightning damage since he is an unseen attacker. Then steps back into cover and hides as a bonus action. Uses left over move to change position while hidden. rinse/repeat. Hit and run harass the players. His +5 speed and spells like blur, invisibility, etc helps him stay out of reach or make him hard to catch. I set this up just like the predator movies so use them for inspiration. The party was a little freaked when the whole party was almost wiped out by someone that was no higher level than any of them.

I started dming recently, talking my good friend I to joining a campaign. He wanted to make an Artificer who is a ranged damage dealer. Yesterday I made almost exactly the same build as you did lol. Way to go!

I like the concept, feels like a special OPS character should. Smart, lethal, and a survivor.

Cool build. The only thing that feels clunky is the fey touched feat. I would honestly just take skill expert for that +1 INT and stealth expertise since level 1 (delaying the stealth expertise so far for an infiltrator is pretty painful). We would lose misty step and bless, but there's already better uses for our concentration (also, let the cleric bless you, it's their thing lol), and if we ever miss misty step that much we can always substitute that with the boots of the winding path infusion

Infiltrator is a great pairing with Battlemaster manuevers. Manuevers , such as trip and disarm, can be done using a ranged weapon and your blaster is considered a simple ranged weapon.

Pretty awesome fresh take, Colby Appreciated

I like seeing psychic warrior, and really look forward to seeing it get its due. I was thinking however how terrifying a echo knight build would be, who can kite at the range of 300'

I love the sliding into my Dms show, I think perhaps I am running out of long form video time slots. So perhaps, people have too much of your content to watch haha. You're by far one of my favourite smaller channels, can't wait for you to explode into the mainstream. Keep making everything you do!

First 10 minutes of the video: "I don't like steampunk in my high fantasy world." Last 10 minutes of the video: "And that's when our handlers give us psionic abilities to go along with our Iron Man armour that shoots bolts of lightning."😄

As a relatively inexperienced D&D player, I haven't gotten into multi- class much yet, as I'd like to experience everything a class / sub-class has to offer before I try to decide when it's better to mix it up like that. But I really like that watching these is giving me more ideas about the advantages of these various class options!

Slidin' into my DMs is really entertaining from a DM side. I like the quick ruling and then deep cut setup a lot. Since it is a zoom setup i think there is not much to improve on the format except maybe more emphasis on a visual summary at the end or during the sections. And if you got time for more content in the show maybe a "spell or feat of the week, and its niche uses" would be something entertaining. if its not overlapping too much with your optimization videos. I always stumble upon weird interactions or new ways of using things during DM prep. Just thinking out loud here....

Idea: Winged Tiefling. You get exactly 1 minute of time to fly straight up into the air and blast lightning from 300ft away. Sure, this can only be done outdoors with some prep time, but overall it’s still pretty powerful. Bonus points if you have a Tempest Cleric and wanna make the enemies truly fear them by getting smote every round. For a one shot, you could even be an imposter god to the party who bestows enchanted magical gifts and smites all who oppose the party whilst giving them a homunculus to act as a vessel for the “god.”

I'm way late to this video but I've been tossing a rogue artificer build around for a while and you got me thinking about it again! Great ideas.

I love this build and glad you used the homunculus servant. It is very underated as a pet. As well as some limited damage, it is great utility with fly, immunity to exhaustion (guarding the camp while you sleep) and providing the help action out of combat. I would love to see a artificer build using the artillerist subclass. I think the cannons could be very useful with a 3 level dip, or dipping other classes with a main class artificer artillerist.

What a freaking fun build! Wow!

😊 ahh feels good to be home! 🤍 These builds

I’m currently playing an aasmiar in one of my campaigns and we ended up having a discussion on whether or not the extra damage you get while Radiant Soul/Radiant Consumption/Necrotic Shroud is active would be added to opportunity attacks. My DM decided that I could apply the extra damage on an opportunity attack OR an attack on my turn but not both. I know this is a common point of discussion when it comes to abilities that work in this way such as a rogues sneak attack and I think it would be an interesting point of discussion for an episode of sliding into my DM’s. Great video, as always👌🏼

love the build. I can definitely salvage some of this for my battlesmith/arcane archer.

Man, having stealth expertise and advantage on stealth checks sounds really awesome. All while doing amazing dpr, having a great support abilities and being tanky as fuck... Amazing, probably one of the most well rounded builds out there.

I think the entire threat of a lightning-immune enemy can be almost nullified by using the Magic Stone cantrip. A sling throwing those stones would benefit from INT modifier to attack, Fighter1 Ranged Weapon fighting style, Sharpshooter feat accuracy and damage, Psi-warrior Psionic powers, Artificer5 additional weapon attack, Haste additional attack... the range would drop to 120 ft instead of 300, and you'd need to use your Bonus Action every other round to enchant 3 more stones. Overall, you'd be losing out on 1d6 per round additional Infiltrator damage and 1d4 every other round for the Homunculus attack. This is significantly less than the damage loss involved in switching over to the Firebolt cantrip (and the 120ft range would still be the same).

I just so happen to need a int based character for this weekend.

Watched, liked, commented - you guys are doing great work, keep it up :D

Hey this is just what I’ve been asking for!

I am currently running a guardian armorer and I use my homunculus as a ranged support or to give the help action mainly. However if a Party member goes down I can use it to cast cure wounds for me without having to move my position

Great video Colby! I'd be really interested to see how a ranged Gloomstalker build would compare to your infiltrator... Maybe using the Dhampir lineage for extra speed and spider climbing!

Love this episode. Also love valdas. I've been loving optimized third party builds, warmage especially.

Haste’s extra action let’s “use an object” too. The spell storing effect can be activated via the “use an object” action since its not actually casting the spell. An armorer could cast haste on themselves as an action, the use the action from haste to use the spell storing item. The armorer could be offensive, but I think activating mirror image on the same turn would be defensively ridiculous.

A Player in a past game had a build very close to this awhile but with an AArakocra and light armor. It was a lot of fun. Outside encounters happened a little less often but the DM was great and let them have their extreme range flying hijinks fun from time to time. When they did, the player did everything possible to keep their reaction saved for feather fall, but when they did have to eat ground did it with dignity knowing they deserved every point of fall damage.

You’re gonna tease us with the Psi Warrior, huh? I’ll remember this. Also, we won’t talk about that movie reference. You know why!

Wanting to try this one soon.

you're allowed to go heavy with the title cards, but be wary of those frequent edits speeding up your voice and applying filters :P part of your draw (for me, at least) is your calming demeanor and presentation, near ASMR-like; don't go mad with your newfound editing powers!

Me: I like this guy. Me: *Sees Rhythm of War on the shelf* Me: I love this guy. Subbed

Idea for the build... Put Shatter on the item you homunculus has. Go arcane trickster and get a familiar so the familiar can cast shatter instead and the homunculus can attack. Of course the familiar can use the help action for an advantage attack, ensuring sneak attack on the first round of combat. Great build regardless!

A build idea I have is Artificer/Fighter Rune Knight. Essentially what you do is you create all these magic items and then inscribe runes on them so you can hand them out to allies, or use them yourself.

Going to be using the core of this build in my current campaign. I needed to roll up a level 5 character to replace my current character(deceased). Now our DM does allow die rolling for stats and I got lucky and got a 17 on one roll, so I am going to War-forged instead. Love the idea of War Machine as an actual machine. My concept is that he became an Artificer in order to eventually procreate by creating a new war-forged. So as such, he is in the Hells seeking out soul gems or soul coins to use in the creation of a new life. Hopefully we don't run into Tiamat, but I know she is there on the first plane.

Your comment at 29:10 could make for a cool series of builds - building [x class] without any levels of that class. I'd definitely be interested in seeing those

Nice well-rounded build. Good at lots of different tasks besides dirt-napping fools.

A build you should try out is a hexblade 12/oathbreaker 8 padlock. Now it comes at the cost of chain hexing, but you get the cha bonus damage of the oath breaker 7th level ability so by level 19 your weapon attacks have a whopping +16 bonus damage per hit normally(reg cha bonus + aura of hate + lifedrinker + improved pact weapon) with PAM, GWM and Elven accuracy the potential damage output is not only staggering but consistent. If you add hex, curse, and GWM all together thats 2d10 + 3d6 + 1d4 + 96 and you could still potentially put smites on that. You can also get high AC with plate which when within darkness or shadow of moil will make you quite hard to hit. Main drawback is it will take a while for the build to really come online, due to requiring feats and multi-class levels.

I watched this video in order to get some ideas for my Fairy Armorer character who wears the armor as a mech suit. Me and the dm house ruled it so that the actual character is always tiny and the armor makes him a medium creature.

I’ve seen bilbron extol magic stone+homunculus. It’s a bonus action spell and if all the little guy (or up to three with upcasting) is doing is attacking then it can scale nicely.

Was listening to this falling asleep in bed. The voice modulation on the Fight Club quote gave the illusion that it was coming from downstairs. Thanks for the heart attack as I jolted awake thinking there was a strange man in my house.

On your spreadsheet, you have the Homunculus plus to hit as 7-11. It looks like you're adding the artificer's INT and PROF bonus, but the Homunculus' attack uses its own DEX. So if I'm not missing something, the plus to hit should be 5-8. I've been playing this sub-class for a while, and I watched this to get some ideas for how to make combat work a little better. Thanks for the content!

I love this concept. I would definately have gone into rogue sooner. When you think about it the extra attack offset is almost balanced by getting the sneak damage. For rogue sub class I probably would have gone Inquisitive. Getting bonuses to insight and perception has a proper feel to the builds intentions and being able to use an insight check for 1 minute of sneak attack helps make that damage consistent regardless of battlefield situation or spell concentration

I realise that it's not "official" material, but Keith Baker (the guy who literally created Ebberon) has released an independent 5e supplement called Exploring Ebberon that has two additional Artificer Subclasses.

My guardian armorer artificer is a Locatha (crab) that has a mecha like "armor" that is a "big green water bubble" with swamp tree that makes the limbs with the trunk being a bigger arm, and the "legs" being made of the roots, it moves like a crab. I describe it as the tree growing from there armor which serves as a medium for it to absorb magic and create the effects like the bubble. The thunder gauntlet is the water floating trough the tree's trunk and being condensed in a smaller bubble that explodes with the pressure in a contact punch that leaves a watery connection with the bigger bubble and it acts as the dampening field. All spells are flavored as being "swamp like", his mending leaves the tree's wood where he repairs, his magic missels are water bubbles that emerge from the armor as a swamp bubble, the faerie fire are swamp will-o'wisp. My dm and I built a custom infusion that is called "Cap of Land Breathing" that does the clear opposite of the "Cap of Water Breathing" because Locatha needs to stay on water every 4 hours, and it justifies the water on the armor.

Humunculus is great if your dm will let it cling to an ally and ride them into battle for easy access to cure that ally's wounds while you are dodging and weaving.

I can feel the artillerist getting closer and closer

My basic infiltrator build is Soulknife rogue 3, Whispers Bard 17. Stack the whispers bard psychic blades on top of soulknife psychic blades and throw on shadowblade for good measure.

If your dm lets your homunculus use spell storing item you should consider a a build with warding bond and an homunculus that hides inside your armour for a lot of resilience.

Can you make a hand crossbow build? I think going full bond would be really cool. Love the vids man, keep it up!

Man, i love your builds. I would like to see an assassin build using rogue assassination.Great work!!

Considering you are using a humonculous which might not have a ton of HP or survivability to fuel your faerie fire engine, having the Psi Warrior's shield to reduce any damage it might be taking (which might kill it or force a concentration check) is fairly useful.

Did tyou mention the extra attack or the debuff you lightning launcher applies to add a d6 of dmg when successfully lands a hit.

I'm about to join a campaign in few days and Artificer was the class that I wanted to play! It happened that our only rogue had drop out at the last minutes so( more fun for me?!) Anyway! I went Artificer at lvl 1, it give me Con saves and 2 proficiencies intelligence base & 1 Artisan tool. At level2 I went fighter to pickup the Archery fighting style.

Nova build. Gloom stalker(3), assassin(3), battle master(11). Using musket. Take gunner, piercer, and sharpshooter. Open with hunters mark and unload 4 attacks (3 multi attack + 1 gloom)x2 with action surge for 8 total shots. Each shot crits for 3d12 + 2d6 + 15 piercing damage. Add x number of d10s where x = 2*number of superiority dice used. Adding 4d8 gloom stalker damage and 4d6 sneak attack and you're destroying something. You can end the build with 4/4/12 and get those nice ASIs.

This was a great build. I have always thought of using magic missile or shatter with spell storing item, but faerie fire is great! I also love the massive amount of healing you can get with spell storing item. 10 free bonus action cure wounds is great!

Except for my very first character I ever made, I always start off first level as fighter. Fighter just compliments so many builds.

I’ve actually been running a build almost exactly like this and it has been very surprising how powerful it feels. We’re only at level 7 and I finally got attacked directly by something for the first time since my character just cowers behind everyone else. The casters I was hiding behind were just like, “You’ve had 22 AC and you’ve been hiding behind me this whole time?” That was a pretty funny discovery for them. I joined the campaign at like level 5 so I didn’t go the entire 7 levels just running away.

Hey im new to d&d and don’t really have anyone to play with but I love ur videos and always learn a lot from them so thanks! COMMENT FOR THE ALGORITHM PEOPLE HE DESERVES IT

Good stuff, bud

Glad to see some RP creations

How would Battle Master would compare with combat utility with attacks to the psi warrior instead? Since you can get very different variety of abilities from there. Love the concept!

Reading the description alone excites me because I was building a gestalt character that was an Arcane Tricker and Armorer due to the flavorful overlap. Yet I noticed Armorer really pulls up classes that need Int to work better. Not counting Wizard because that's too easy. More like Eldritch Knight and Psi Warrior are kinda begging for a 3 level dip at least in "normal" rules or just gestalt them. Even if they're "too powerful" for normal play they're amazing for unique NPCs and BBGs.

Keep up the good work man love the videos

I wonder, if you had a kind DM, whether you could create your own infusion at higher levels called something like 'Energy Converter' where you could calibrate your launcher weapon to be fire or cold damage instead.

Great build! By the way you can change your armor model after a long OR short rest. So even more versatile

You can actually swap out the armors during a *short rest* so you can rest trick the temp hp, long rest take guardian, use the temp hp feature, short rest swap for infiltrator, and still keep the temp hp.

Awesome! I was actually in the proces of building a rogue/armorer multiclass just this week!

I mean as good as free feats and elven accuracy is, have you the sneakiest and bestest race, a Kenku, cause I mean... Kenkus are fun and sorta fit the build very well.

If your campaign is actually supposed to lead up to a Tiamat fight I think the solution for your *magical inventor/engineer* would be, as part of the overall party preparations once they realize they have to fight Tiamat, send your infiltrator on a quest to find the materials to make a "Transmutation Focusing Lens" that fits over the Lightning Launcher converting the Lightning damage to something else. Maybe with a pretty easy transition to radiant damage just focusing the plasma energy into light or using the heat to make a shorter range force pressure bolt but much rarer materials needed to turn Lightning into Cold or something. Make em have to build each type of lens and require a short rest to switch em out. And if your inventor being able to invent a limited way to do other types of damage using the armor that *they* *themselves* *originally* *created* as implied by the flavor text, still seems overpowered for a BBEG fight to you: then just lower the damned range for the special lenses or make them a type of ammunition the player has to construct at some financial cost that break after a day so the player saves it for an important scenario and doesn't just counter your normal monster selections.

So; Magical Tinkering {A static visual effect appears on one of the object’s surfaces. This effect can be a picture, up to 25 words of text, lines and shapes, or a mixture of these elements, as you like} + Theives' Cant = Decoder Ring. Enjoy. 😉😉

I appreciate the direction this is going. But as noted, Lightning damage reliance could be problematic at Tier 3 and Tier 4, notwithstanding issues related to the functioning of the Assassinate ability of the Assassin. Is there an argument for changing the subclasses chosen in this build? What I was initially thinking was the Eldritch Knight subclass for the Fighter, and the Arcane Trickster subclass for the Rogue. This gives the PC access to more Wizard-based cantrips, as well as more level 1 slots, albeit within specialized schools. Even then, however, the schools associated with those subclasses (Evocation/Abjuration for Eldritch Knight, and Illusion/Enchantment for Arcane Trickster) come with some intriguing benefits. For the Eldritch Knight (Abjuration/Evocation), Shield, Absorb Elements, Frost Fingers (from Icewind Dale), Alarm, Protection from Evil and Good, and Mage Armor (for worst case scenarios only) all seem to be good in-school grabs here. For the Arcane Trickster (Illusion/Enchantment), Silvery Barbs, Color Spray, Silent Image, and Sleep seem like good in-school pickups here as well, among other things. From either subclass, Gift of Alacrity, Fog Cloud (especially when paired with the Blindfighting fighting style), Feather Fall, Jump, and a few others, seem to be viable pickup options. But most importantly out of all of those, Find Familiar seems to be the most exceptional pickup here. Going this route also shores up a weakness of ours, which is access to more cantrips; things of which we're both in short supply of, and of which can diversify our damage and utility portfolio. Most especially Mage Hand Ledgermain (from Arcane Trickster), Chill Touch, Shocking Grasp as a melee cantrip, and Mending (if we haven't picked it up yet.) Further, the "Weapon Bond" feature from the Eldritch Knight can also prove to be useful in case we can't cast spells for some odd reason, and we don't have access to our weapons/armor. But best of all, from either subclass pick-up, we get access to Find Familiar, which, when paired with our Homunculus Servant (as an owl, or another creature with the Flyby action), can aid in setting up Bag of Holding ambushes for those untimely "OH S&%Ω" enemy encounter moments where the Lightning Launcher is useless, where we can't run, and we know with a good degree of certainty that we're otherwise toast. This final tactic can be the proverbial cyanide tablet for our field agent spy in case we're compromised. As a final thought, although I can see the appeal of starting off as a Fighter initially, I wonder about the Proficiencies trade-off between two of the three classes used to multiclass; specifically, the artificer and the fighter. Both classes, as per TCoE (page 7-8), have proficiencies that can be swapped out for Tool Proficiencies across the board, and for the same amount as well.

im trying to create the character in Dnd Beyond and you are jumping over categories so chaosly xDD

See the Lightning Launcher kind of like the magic bow on Ezreal’s glove in League of Legends.

I'm currently playing a Tiefling Rogue(Scout)4/Artificer(Armorer)6. He inscribes infernal runes on his gear and charges the runes with hellish energy. So not quite steampunk I think. Rogue by itself was a little boring but now I have Scout mobility and can do things like fire electrical blasts, hurl flame cantrips, throw daggers that return to my hand and have advantage on stealth Rogue+Artificer makes for some very cool possibilities.

Fun build. I guess if you knew you were going to face Tiamat, you could consider changing your armor and perhaps an infusion or two.

Just casually opening up the can of worms on repeating shot freeing up a hand for a shield :P Jokes aside cool build, thanks for sharing as always

If you were really wanting to take plate armor, instead of Fey Touched you could take the skill expert feat. This still lets you bump your int to 18 at level 1, but also lets you get expertise in a skill. Lets say stealth so even though you arent getting your dampening field buff you can still wear plate armor and be sneaky :)

Ayy just in time for brunch.