I’ve talked about the history of one of my favorite characters in this post, but in this one, I thought I’d take a look at how I actually built Seth for 5e in the game I played him in (which is to say, Campaign 1 of Plus 5 to Hit) and how I would build him today if given the chance to pick him up again. Campaign 1 of Plus 5 did have to end a bit early for various reasons, so we never got above level 6. To keep this post from being abnormally long, I’m going to do the same here
Race
You might think this is easy, we need to go Human, right? The original Seth used the Mark of Making human from Eberron as it mechanically and flavorwise fit him quite well. However, new Seth will actually be taking the ever popular Variant Human instead. You might wonder why, as Variant Humans only get to add a +1 to two different stats, not a +1 and a +2. The answer is that we want that bonus Feat, and you’ll see why in a moment.
Using the standard array, we’ll put the 15 score down for both their Intelligence scores, and with their associated bonus, old Seth’s int is at 17, new Seth is at 16. Both of their modifiers are still +3, so it doesn’t make a mechanical difference.
Class
Old Seth was a Battlesmith Artificer. It will probably not shock you to learn that new Seth is going to be using Kibs’ Inventor class, specifically the Golemsmith subclass. We’ll take a look at the detailed differences in the level-by-level breakdown, but suffice it to say we want an additional upgrade, and we’re going to get it from our level 1 Feat.
Now let’s go Level-by-Level and compare what we’ve got
Level 1
Level 1 is an odd place for old Seth. We have no infusions, no robot pet, all we have is a couple of cantrips and spellslots. Luckily one of the cantrips happened to be Fire Bolt, so we have a reliable attack. Artificers can re-prepare spells every day, so we can change up to utility as much as we need. I was lucky enough not to start out at this level in Plus 5 to Hit.
The Golemsmith has things a bit better, as they start out with their pet right away. To keep the theme of a spider-crab-esque pet, we’re going to go with the quadrapedal model. That does make him large sized, but also gives him a +3 Strength and Con modifier inherently, and we’re going to use our level 1 feat to pick up the Systematic Strength upgrade to boost that Strength Score to +4.
Our golem now has a 1d10+4 piercing damage attack with a +6 to hit. We won’t have much in the way of things we can do to help him, we don’t even get spellcasting yet, but it’s level 1, it happens. We’ll also have to be careful as our Golem starts out with a mere 13 hp and we can’t heal it with Mending like our Battlesmith counterpart.
Level 2
At this point, old Seth unlocks infusions. When I played him, he had Repeating Shot and Enhanced Defense, as well as a couple of magic items he could replicate (the Goggles of Night and the Bag of Holding). Honestly the way Infusions work, the Bag of Holding seemed like it was a waste, because if he wanted to keep using it, it was a permanent tax on his infused items. I almost never bothered with it, preferring to keep his Crossbow infused and either the goggles if I needed the Darkvision or keep someone else’s armor enhanced.
At this point, new Seth unlocks spells. Inventors do not get cantrips, and their spells are more utilitarian, plus the Inventor doesn’t prepare, they’re a spells known caster. Our class gives us Identify and Detect Magic for free, so we’ll add Arcane Weapon, Arcane Ablation, and Sanctuary to that list for some extra support we can toss on our allies
Level 3
Old Seth finally gets his specialization, and it is here that we start to see some examples of how the Battlesmith can break the action economy at this level and thus might seem incredibly strong compared to the Golemsmith. Battlesmiths can now order their golem to make an attack using the Battlesmith’s bonus action, getting an extra 1d8+3 force damage, and then getting to attack themselves. Inventors, by contrast, cannot do this.
Inventors DO get the ability to use the Help action on their golem as a bonus action, however, and can do so from 30 feet away. Only one attack, but essentially permanent advantage on said attack, is not necessarily a bad trade off.
Let’s compare pet stats. The Steel Defender starts off with an AC of 15, 20 HP, Immunity to poison damage, and the ability to add our proficiency bonus to Dex and Con saves. At this level, new Seth gets another upgrade, and we’re taking Structural Constitution, which adds +2 to our con, taking our bonus to +4, and giving it proficiency at con saves. Taking all that into account, our Golem has an AC of 16, 32 HP, immunity to poison AND psychic damage, but only con save proficiency. The upgrade also gives us advantage on Death saves since we increased the Golem’s con to 18.
So nearly across the board, the golem has better stats, but we cannot yet attack on the same turn as it, and old Seth can cast Mending on his Steel Defender to heal it practically endlessly out of combat. New Seth can only heal a golem during a short or long rest. (The mending trick was something Kibbles purposely avoided, as was the ability to command the golem as a bonus action, as it’s one of the ways a lower level Battlesmith can break the action economy and essentially have far more hit points than a typical third level character should, especially when as a pet class, the Battlesmith already has a second HP pool)
New Seth also gets another known spell here, so let’s take Feather Fall, for it’s obvious uses.
Level 4
Only thing we’re getting here is the same thing every character that hits level 4 in a class gets: an ability score increase or a feat. These are fairly straightforward. Old Seth is going to take a hybrid fear that offers +1 to his intelligence (taking it up to 18) and another benefit. Skill Expert is our best bet here, allowing him to get expertise in Arcana and proficiency in another skill.
New Seth is still sitting at 16 int, so we’re just going to take a +2 there and also get up to 18.
These increases will take old Seth’s pet up to 26 HP, but the golem for new Seth is now sitting at 41. New Seth is still only able to heal his golem during short rests, however, where the old Seth can take a much shorter downtime to cast Mending on his Steel Defender to regain HP.
Level 5
Level 5 is a big one for both versions of Seth. Old Seth gets extra attack, which means he can now fire off 2 attacks with his heavy crossbow, thanks to the Repeating Shot infusion allowing him to ignore the loading property, each doing 1d10+4. Then as a bonus action, he can order the Steel Defender to attack for 1d8+3. That’s a fair amount of damage on one turn.
New Seth now gets Autonomous Action, which means he no longer has to spend an action to command the golem. However, he has no means to use his Intelligence to attack with, so assuming he has a heavy crossbow of his own. he’s going to be relying on Dexterity to make that shot, which will be probably at a +2. However, he still has the ability to make use of his bonus action to grant advantage to his golem’s attack. Also said golem attack now counts as magical for damage reduction purposes.
Speaking of the golem, however, new Seth has another upgrade to pick up, and for this level we’re going to take Heavy Armor Plating. Hopefully at this level we can buy some plate armor, which would then up our golem’s AC to 18, and the new level puts our golem at 50 hp.
Both versions also get access to 2nd level spells, but as before, new Seth has to pick a known spell. We’re going to grab the Imbue Luck spell, both to help our allies out a bit and maybe to help make our own crossbow attack more reliable.
Level 6
For our final level (for this post, anyway), Old Set gets 2 additional infusions known, and the ability to have another infusion active. We’ll grab the Spell-Refueling Ring and Resistive armor. The former will help us recover a spell slot once a day, the latter will give us some additional utility to protect an ally with, especially if we know we’ll be encountering enemies with a particular damage type.
Level 6 has new Seth coming online in a very big way. Inventors get Cross-Disciplinary Knowledge, allowing them to pick an item from a list across various different inventor subclasses. The two we care most about are Blasting Rod and Infused Weapon, both from the Infusionsmith. The latter would allow us to Infuse our Heavy Crossbow, upgrading its damage die by 1 step (up to a d12) and use our Intelligence modifier for attack and damage rolls. It does nothing about the Loading property, but as we never get extra attack, we don’t actually care about that too much.
Blasting Rod, by contrast, allows us to pick a single cantrip that is both on the Wizard Spell list and is in the school of evocation, and cast it using the rod. Per the rules of how the Infusionsmith uses this feature, you can change the cantrip in the Rod on a long rest, so we’re not entirely locked into our single choice. This is good, as we run the risk of running into something immune or resistance to the elemental damage of the cantrip, since we can’t get something like Eldritch Blast or Sacred Flame, which have more reliable damage types, since they aren’t wizard spells. Assuming we have access to Kibbles’ additional spells (and considering we’re using one of his classes, I think it’s an easier sell), I think our best bet for a go-to cantrip is going to be Electric Arc. It’s a d8 lightning damage that can chain to a second target. Firebolt and Frostbite can be our backups if we think we’ll need their specific elements for any reason.
That’s assuming we choose Blasting Rod over Infused Weapon, of course. A d12 + int is nothing to sneeze at, but it will never scale beyond that. By contrast, at this level an Electric Arc powered Blasting Rod is doing 2d8+4 damage, and another 2d4 to a secondary target. At level 11, that goes up again to 3d8+5 (because we’ll be upping our Int at level 8 again) and 3d4 to another target. It’s risky, because none of that will matter if the target is immune to lightning (or whatever spell our Rod has), but the potential damage is much higher. I think we’ll take that option.
We also get another big helpful feature for new Seth. He can now learn Cure Wounds and cast it on the golem! We also get Mending, but it still doesn’t work on our golem.
Speaking of the Golem, let’s do a final comparison of stats on both old and new Seth’s pets. The Steel Defender is rocking 36 HP with an AC 15. By contrast, our Golem has 59 HP and an AC of 18. Both have a +7 to their particular attacks, with the Defender doing a d8+3, and the Golem hitting for a d10+4, and doing so reliably with advantage. Old Seth is shooting a 1d10+4 heavy crossbow twice, new Seth has a 2d8+4 cantrip to launch.
On a typical turn, old Seth is doing 9.5 average damage twice and 7.5 as a bonus action, for a total of 26.5 average damage. New Seth is firing off an average of 13 from his blasting rod, and the golem hitting for 9.5 for 22.5. That damage gap is narrowing, and it will be thoroughly eclipsed by level 11 when the cantrip will scale up to three damage dice and we take the Multiattack Protocol upgrade, so our golem can attack twice. Old Seth, aside from magic items, won’t scale beyond that level of damage
Your Quest Log is Full 