New Arcane Tradition: Craftsmage (D&D5e)

The world of Eberron is kept running by the Artificers who build the pervasive magic upon which the society is built. The evolution of magic from a wild, unpredictable force to one that is becoming available to the masses is not a thing that happens overnight, and the first step was a tradition which shifted focus from types of spells and schools of magic to a method of applying that magic reliably. Far from being a dead practice that vanished with the evolution of the Artificer, there are still Craftsmages across Khorvaire. Appealing to those with the intellectual rigor but not the physical stamina of the Artificer, many junior craftsmages work providing mystical support in arcane foundries and forges. As they gain experience, talented craftsmages go on to serve as theoreticians as researchers; the more dynamic nature of spell-work providing a flexibility to their arcane research that the process of attempting to create new types of enchanted items sometimes lacks.

The majority of Craftsmages come from the Guild Artisan background. Their training focusing heavily on the use of magic to craft items both mundane and magical. Theoreticians are more likely to have the Sage background. 

Craftsmage Summary

Wizard Level; Feature

2^nd; Infuse Scrolls and Potions, Crafting Savant

6^th; Infuse Weapons and Armor

10^th; Superior Artifice

14^th; Master Artifice

Infuse Scrolls and Potions

Starting at 2nd level, you can produce magic scrolls and potions even in while adventuring. The quick work and lesser materials mean that they can contain the power focused within them only temporarily; if they are not used they expire when you next prepare spells.

You may choose to create a scroll or potion while preparing spells from your spellbook. To prepare a potion, you focus your magic on a vial of mundane water to transform it into the desired potion. You may choose any potion you have sufficient level to create normally. If you choose to create a scroll you spend the time with parchment, quill, and ink to create a spell scroll containing one spell chosen from those you know and can cast.

Crafting Savant

Through the use of their magic, starting at 2nd level a Craftsmage using the Crafting downtime action produces 10gp worth of goods per day, and requires only 25% of the cost in materials. Moreover, if they use the Crafting Magic Items downtime action they reduce the Creation Cost and, by extension, time required by a percentage equal to their level.

Infuse Weapons and Armor

Beginning at 6th level, you can produce magic weapons and armor. As part of a Short or Long Rest you can focus your magic on a mundane weapon, suit of armor, shield, or bundle of twenty pieces of ammunition and infuse it with magical energy. The magic item retains its enhancement for 8 hours, or until used in the case of magic ammunition. You can infuse only one item at a time; if you infuse a second one, the first immediately loses its potency.

At 6^th level you can grant +1 to 20 pieces of ammunition, one weapon, or one shield. At seventh level you can grant +1 to a suit of armor instead. At 9^th level you can grant +2 to a weapon or 20 pieces of ammunition. At 11^th you can grant +2 to a suit of armor or shield. 

Superior Infusion

Starting at 10th level, you can create a second magic weapon, suit of armor, shield, or bundle of ammunition using your Infuse Weapons and Armor ability. Attempting to infuse a third item causes the oldest one to immediately lose its potency.  You can also create one additional potion or scroll using Infuse Scrolls and Potions.

Master of Artifice

On reaching 14th level, your mastery of arcane magic allows you attunement to items beyond the norm. You may either attune one item which you do not normally meet the prerequisite for or attune an additional item beyond their normal limit. Thus, a human Craftsmage would be able to attune a Dwarven Thrower or a Holy Avenger. If the Craftsmage meets the prerequisites for all the items they possess requiring attunement, they could instead attune a fourth item which they also meet the prerequisites for.

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I’ve always loved the Artificer, and understand well the disappointment and anger that met the WotC release of the Artificer “tradition” in their Unearthed Arcana: Eberron.

First, it reduced a class to a magical tradition. In the process it not only demoted the Artificer, but jettisoned much of the feel of the previous editions. Second, even as an implementation of a "crafting tradition" completely unrelated to this beloved and iconic class, it was blatantly sub-par mechanically. Unlike tradition abilities from the core rulebook, where each adds something new that the class can do to enhancing their options or abilities within their specialization, every ability in this would-be “Artificer” tradition required a sacrifice of a core class ability. This might be interesting if the effects were grand or dramatic enough, however they almost uniformly produced an effect less powerful and less interesting for the player than simply using what was sacrificed.

With that in mind, I took the WotC product and hacked into it to create the Craftsmage. While I’d like to create a full Artificer class, and if WotC doesn’t beat me to it I probably will eventually, a full class is substantially more work than a tradition, particularly one where I was able to borrow so much work and simply make it functional. This is both obviously and heavily based on the WotC release, but modeled after the additive nature of the PH specialist traditions rather than taking their "transformative" path that immediately sucks power away from the class at large while trying to give it back in packages that will be mostly useful by making other characters better.
Because I still want a full Artificer class, and just don't see a wizard replacing the hardened, crossbow wielding mage-militant that is an adventuring Artificer, I conceptualized something that would be a half-step between the Wizard and the Artificer. I could see this proliferating in Khorvaire as Wizards specialized in crafting until a “true,” independent, Artificer class arose.  Even with the rise of the Artificer, I would imagine that there are probably still Craftsmages working away, perfectly happy to have their greater proficiency at “traditional” spellcasting at the cost of the front-line ability of the Artificer.