For my 40th birthday last July, a friend was kind enough to run a D&D One shot for myself and a bunch of my friends who do not live close by. For that game, I played a Gnome Warsmith Inventor by the name of Bilxim Bogglenoggle.
Bogglenoggle was also the last name of a gnome sorcerer I’d considered playing for our Strixhaven interlude on Plus 5 to Hit, and I expanded and revised his story a fair bit to encompass having a brother and a sibling rivalry to go along with it. Bilxim would be said brother.
The one shot was played at level 7, but I’ve built a theoretical version that goes all the way to level 15, so hit the link above to the Inventor class and follow along with me as we discuss the choices I made for Captain Bil!
Our goal is to make a Warsmith that focuses primarily on ranged damage, with all the utility we can get that doesn’t compromise that goal. We’re starting off with a Rock Gnome using the standard array with scores placed as follows
15 in Int
14 in Con
13 in Dex
12 in Wis
11 in Cha
and we’ll make Strength our dumpstat with the 8
We’ll put the +2 in Intelligence and the +1 in Constitution, since we’re gonna favor the heavier armor and mostly use ranged spell attacks, our Dexterity isn’t as valuable for us
For backgrounds, we’ll take the Engineer background from Kibs first book, primarily to get proficiency in Investigation, but also in Nature. For our class skills, we’ll grab Arcana, History, and Religion just to round out having as many int skills as possible.
Now let’s go level by level and talk about our decisions in the character build. Note that I will not be covering every single feature the class or subclass gets, only the ones where a decision point needs to be made. You can read the class yourself to see the rest of the features.
Level 1
Inventor is one of the lucky classes that makes their specialization choice at level 1. We’re obviously going with Warsmith, the one focused on building some high tech (or high magitech) armor, who ironically doesn’t get to build their full suit of armor until level 3. Instead we start off with a Warplate gauntlet, and a single upgrade we get for free to attach to it from the list of Force Blast, Power Fist, or Martial Grip. We’re building a ranged character here, so the choice is obvious, we want Force Blast.
Level 2
Level 2 is where we unlock spellcasting. Like the doc says, our spell list is limited intentionally to mostly spells that create or modify things. We’re also a “Known Spells” class, so we have to pick our spells when we level and don’t get to prepare new ones on the daily.
For Bilxim, I opted to grab a couple of utility spells in the form of Expeditions Retreat and Feather Fall, as well as a new Kibbles spell called Arcane Weapon which we can throw on martial allies. It’s a simple spell that makes a weapon magic, deal force damage, and no longer need reloading if it’s ranged.
Level 3
This is a big level for us. We get a new spell known, we get our first upgrade, and we get our armor. We’ve got 4 choices for our armor to start off with, which primarily determines our AC, but will also enable or cut off certain future upgrades. We’re going to go with the heavy armored Warplate. It gives us 18 AC, and also allows us to change our size to Medium if we’re Small (which we are). We do now take disadvantage on Stealth checks, but the additional AC (and the fantasy of looking like a gnomish Iron Man) is a worthwhile trade-off in my opinion. We do have the option to craft other sets of armor later if we want to make one that’s more stealth focused, but for now, we’ll only account for this one.
For our first upgrade, I initially went with the Lightning Projector. This gives us the Shocking Grasp cantrip and some additional Lightning spells at higher levels. However, upon further consideration, I would not make this same choice again. The first two spells on the list, a pair of new creations of Kibbles called Lightning Tendril and Lightning Charged, are decidedly only effective at shorter ranges or are a support spell. It’s not until level 9, when we can cast third level spells, that we get our first longer ranged spell from this upgrade in the form of Lightning Bolt.
Flame Projector, by contrast, offers us Burning Hands and Scorching Ray for those spell levels, and we get Fireball as our third level spell. Yes, Fire is more commonly resisted than Lightning, but we can fall back on our Force Blasts if we run into that. The longer ranged abilities are more important to us in these early levels. Lightning Projector might be one we toss into another suit if we make one.
For our new spell known, I’m going with a powerful defensive spell in the form of Sanctuary.
Level 4
Only one major decision point here, and it’s one shared by all classes: take an ASI or a Feat. We’re going to grab a feat and take Skill Expert. This will get us a +1 to our Intelligence (taking it up to 18), grant us Expertise in a skill (we’re going with Arcana), and a proficiency in a new skill, which will be Perception.
Level 5
We gain access to level 2 spell slots and a new Spell known here. We also get a new Upgrade, and a new tier of upgrade choices opens up for us. The upgrade we’re going to take is going to be the second synergy in our ranged arcane magic build. There are two upgrades at this tier that allow you to generate charges based on the level of a spell you cast, which you can then spend to do some additional damage in a different way. Initially, I took Force Accumulator, which allows you to accumulate a max number of charges equal to half your int mod to deal an extra 1d6 damage per charge on a successful Force Blast. At our level that’s an additional 2d6 damage we can potentially stack on a 1d8+4 attack
However, upon considering it further, I think I’m going to change this to the other upgrade in this category: Arcane Barrage. Not only can your max charges equal half your inventor level, but when you spend them, you cast Magic Missile, upping the level for every charge you spend on it. At our level, that’s equivalent of casting the spell as a third level spell, doing a total of 5d4+5 damage which automatically hits and can be directed at multiple targets. While the math between the two has them come our to roughly similar damage, I believe this upgrade will ultimately scale better due to it not being dependent on an ability modifier, plus the lack of a needed attack roll for Magic Missile makes it more reliable.
For our new spell, we’re going to grab another new creation for this class: Arcane Infusion. This gets us the effect of a single Upgrade with no level requirements for an hour so long as we meet any other prerequisites it has. There’s a number of Warsmith upgrades that have situational uses that we can’t fit into our build which we can use this to temporarily gain. I love the flexibility of this spell, and we should be using it a fair amount.
Level 6
At level 6 we gain our Cross Disciplinary Knowledge, which allows us to get one of a small number of features from another subclass of Inventor. These options might seem overwhelming to pick from, but it’s easier for us to narrow down.
We don’t want a Stormforged Weapon from Thundersmith, as they require a physical ability score for attack and damage rolls, which we aren’t great at. An Infusionsmith upgrade might be nice, but we have a reliable ranged option in the form of our Force Blast, and we’re not looking to stay in melee range for long. Spellcasting is a better option for us that instance. Either of the Potionsmith’s alchemical items aren’t a bad call, but they’re short range, and we don’t want to stay that close if we don’t need to.
A Gadgetsmith unrestricted upgrade is our best choice here, and there’s a lot choices to pick from. The two I honed in on were the Striding Boots, which increase our Speed by 10 (good because as a small race, we’re only at 25 ft normally) and the Airburst Mine, which gives us a once-per-rest casting of either Shatter or a new spell called Thunderburst Mine. That spell allows us to set a magical trap that detonates for thunder damage based on the proximity of a target. This upgrade will give us another AOE option with a new damage type, so I think we’ll grab that one.
Level 7
Level 7 gets us another spell known, and a new upgrade. For the former, we’re gonna grab Hold Person for some control to help our friends with.
For the latter, we’re gonna grab Sentient Armor. Yes, we’re installing JARVIS into our Warplate, and he’s increasing our current and maximum intelligence by 2 when we wear it. The benefits of having +5 a level early are immense, and we’re gonna up it to +6 next level
Level 8
That’s right, it’s time for an ASI, another +2 to Int, and a +6 ability modifier, keeping us ahead of the curve on the fundamental math, making our spells more accurate or more difficult to resist! Can’t complain here.
Level 9
Oh now, now we’re cooking. We get level 3 spells (including Fireball from our Flame Projector upgrade), a new Spell known, and another upgrade, including a new tier of them now available to us. Here, we’re going to pick up Ether Reactor. This upgrade gives us 6 charges which we can use to cast spells acquired from upgrades that recharge on a long rest, AND it interacts with Arcane Barrage to let us use charges to increase the level of Magic Missile. We can use this on our Flame Projector AND our Airburst Mine from CDK. Extremely versatile and helpful. The charges reset on a long rest, so it’s not limitless, but it gives us an additional resource for our spells.
For our new spell known, we’ve got some good damaging options already, so I think grabbing Sending for the utility communication is a worthwhile pickup.
Level 11
Level 10 gets us nothing that requires a decision point so we’ll skip to Level 11. What we do need to decide is a new spell known and another upgrade. For our spell known, we’re gonna take Dispel Magic unless another full caster in the party has it, in which case we’ll take Prismatic Weapon for the extra support. By this level full casters have 6th level spells, so they’ve got better spell slot economy than we do.
For our upgrade? Yeah we taking Flight. Time to take to the skies with our Arcane artillery!
Level 12
We get another ASI or Feat, and it’s time we took Innovator’s Upgrade to get a free Unrestricted upgrade, and while we have been using our Arcane Infusion spell to make use of a lot of these, Accelerated Movement is one that could be consistently useful, especially now that we can fly.
Alternatively if we’ve been having a lot of problems with fire resistance, Elemental Adept could just as easily go here, but I think the additional speed upgrade is more likely to be useful on the whole.
Level 13
As has been common for the odd numbered levels, at level 13 we gain access to 4th level spells, a new spell known, and another upgrade. Arcane Eye is one of my favorite scouting spells, and I think the utility it grants is a worthwhile addition.
For our upgrade, I’m going to take Lightning Channel. With this, we can add some additional damage to our Force Blasts for when we need some extra damage and can’t do the spell+arcane barrage combo. Our Ether Reactor can help us use this multiple times if we need to and next level we can improve on it.
Level 14
At this level we become extremely flexible. We get another free upgrade, and we can swap upgrades to another of the same level, so long as it isn’t a prerequisite for anther upgrade we have or break any of the other upgrade rules. Suddenly we need that lightning damage? Swap upgrades.
As to our free upgrade, we’ll grab Lightning Rod and cast our free use of Lightning Charged at a higher level! Even more damage to go around!
Level 15
The final level we have planned for, and like every other odd numbered level, we get a new spell known and an upgrade. We’re gonna get Greater Invisibility for our spell and be a flying cloaked cannon of doom.
Oh and speaking of cannon? Our upgrade is gonna be Sun Cannon. We get an equivalent to Iron Man’s uni-beam once a long rest, which we can re-cast again on our turn until the duration ends. And if we really need it, we can do it again with all our charges from the Ether Reactor (assuming we haven’t used any of them, as it takes all 6).
So that is our current build for Bilxim Bogglenoggle, Gnome Warsmith Inventor. What do you think, have I made good on our goals, or did I miss something super obvious? Let me know in the comments, and thank you for reading!
Your Quest Log is Full 