#Some Spellwright questions

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

junior eagle
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Heyo, i have 2 questions about the way the spellwright subclass for the mechanist works.
(Pages 59 and 60 of the players guide for easy finding)

First: Can a spellwright imbue the same known spell into multiple different objects, allowing them to have more charges for said spells.

Second, When a spellwright uses rapid augment, gained at level 6, does the newly augmented item come in with full charges.
If so, this basically means a spellwright can replace a spent item with a full one as an action, which feels very impactful, so i want to see if this is intended.

Both these questions will impact how a spellwright plays quite a lot, so i want to make sure i understand these rules right.

compact bison
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those are both very excellent questions

compact bison
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It would make sense for the answer to the first one to be yes. At every level, your number of spells known is >= your number of items you can augment at once. So, whether you augment each item with a different spell or all of them with the same one isn't going to impact your power level, just how that power level is spread out.

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For the second one....I feel like that'd be way too many spells, especially once you get into higher level play

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That's the total number of spells that can be cast with the spellwright using all of their augment slots on imbue spell

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Spellwrite + Rapid assumes a +4 Int up through level 12, then a +5 after that

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And this is also before factoring in short rests

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but who knows, maybe they do want a level 17 Mechanist to be able to cast 72 4th circle spells per day. It is Celeste's baby, afterall. 😛

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hehehe, at level 17, you could spend 7 minutes straight casting fireball over and over again.

junior eagle
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I thought i was a bit insane myself, its quite the insane number of spells.

Even the first question feels a little exploitable, nothing stopping an 11th level spellwright from having 12-16 fireballs easily.
Which i'm not sure if its imbalanced per se, but it feels exploitable to me somehow.

formal relic
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Q1: You can imbue many items with many spells as you can, but can only "cast" as many spells as your PB each day. So you're only casting two spells each day until level 5. Or do i misunderstand something.

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Pg 60, left, sentence before Imbued Spells Known.

compact bison
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My understanding of it is that it's PB casting per augmented item. Otherwise it'd be unbelievably weak.

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and that's how the official module has it programmed in Shard, so if it's wrong, that needs updated

formal relic
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Ah. I see. I now think that imbue spell is just a unique argument, but still has to play by the rules of augments. So at fifth level you can imbue 4 objects with augments. One of those could be a spell. So that's our limit.

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Could use clarification from the kobolds.

compact bison
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All 4 of the augments could be Imbue Spell

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Unless I missed a line, the feature description only limits you to one augment per item, not one item per augment type.

compact kestrel
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correct... you could have 4 Protean aguments active at the same time if you wanted

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though Shard does allow you to agument the same item with different augments

formal relic
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Yes, I think we agree, I didn't talk well. Spellwrite augment is just another augment that the mechanist can use, so they could have, for instance 4 protean augments, or 1 spell and 3 protean, etc. And I'd think the choice of spell on those spellwrite augments could be anything they wish.

However, I think the # of uses per day as your PB is per augment not per that specific spell, even though the wording could be better. So the rapid augment ability is for utility and circumstance, not for raising the base power of the mechanist. IMO

whole ridge
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Bump

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Specifically the second part about does it recharge

compact bison
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The problem I come to is, if it is PB casts per augment + Rapid Augment lets you refill your cast count, it gives you WAAAAY too many casts, but if it is PB casts across all augments, then that gives way too few spellcasts to be worth using, which makes the subclass's core feature super weak.

I feel like the best way to balance the issue is for it to be PB casts per augment, but have Rapid Augment not apply to it, or say that you can only use Rapid Augment to swap the spell that is imbued, but the augment maintains the same remaining casting counts.

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So if you're PB is 4, and you've cast 2 fireballs, you can Rapid Augment to swap the augment to cast lightning bolt instead, but it still only has 2 casts left

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but if you spend an hour re-applying the augment during a short rest, it recharges to 4 casts

cedar ridge
compact bison
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Rapid Augment, 6th level class feature. Lets you augment an item as a bonus action INT Mod times per long rest.

humble heath
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There's nothing in the description of Augment that prevents you from using the same augment power on multiple items. Nothing in Rapid Augment says that its effects are any different from standard augments. So a rapidly imbued item follows the normal rules for augmented items. It can be used (PB) times. So if at 5th level you want to use all four of your augmented items as imbued rings of Shield spell, you can cast 12 shield spells per day. Rapid augment doesn't change that limit, it just lets you not use all your augments when you start the day and instead hold some of them back for quick on the fly decisions. All of this looks pretty plain from the text; I don't see any ambiguity.

compact bison
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Rapid augment would allow you to cast more spells per day, though, because the limit on augments is how many items can be augmented at one time, not how many times you can augment items per day. Until you get Rapid Augment, the only real limit on how many times you can have augmented in a day is that it takes 1 hour to imbue an item with an augment

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With Rapid Augment, you can drop one augment and immediately use your bonus action to re-apply the same augment, INT times per day

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So if you are level 6 spellwright starts the day with 4 items augmented with Imbue Spell, that's the 12, but then if you have an +4 INT, then you can cast all 4 of those spells, drop the augment on the items, and use bonus actions to re-apply the same Imbue Spell augments to the items to get another 12 casts

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Actually....I just realized we might all be reading it wrong.

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"You can use an imbued spell a number of times equal to your PB, regaining expended uses when you complete a long rest"

The augment is named Imbue Spell, and the spells they know are named Imbued Spells, and this could potentially mean either one. We've been interpreting it as "each application of the Imbue Spell augment" and it might mean "Each Imbued Spell you know", so if you know Shield, Fireball, and Magic Missile, you can imbue items with each spell and cast each spell PB times per day, but even if you imbue multiple items with the same spell, that one spell can still only be cast a total of PB times per day

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That would set a much more reasonable limit

formal relic
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I've been back and forth on this a couple of times. The amount of discussion here really warrants an official ruling from the scaled ones. But ultimately, I think it's per spell you know. Rapid is extremely useful for the spellwrite, but again, the circle of spells you know is low so it's really more of a bump in utility.

twin estuary
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Think it's as Grim says... each spell pb times. But if you have max items imbued and use up says 4 castings of fireball it's gonna take an action to end it's augment and bonus action to slap on a different spell... but.... all of that doesn't really matter when you forget one detail that I just noticed.

AUGMENT: IMBUE SPELL3rd-Level Spellwright FeatureYou gain the following unique effect for your Augmentfeature. This effect can’t be replaced

It can't be replaced... so would think once that shield or whatever has that spell... then it's not switching and once it's out of charges it'll need you to take a LR for it.

So in otherwords... I don't think you can switch the spell or end the augment on it.

compact bison
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we all missed it

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darned good catch

twin estuary
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Granted raises some other questions... if it can't be replaced and you can only have so many items augmented... can you kinda get stuck with a set of augments basically making it where you can't even end one and use rapid augment?

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Or is it more like it's made inactive but you can't stick some other augment on that item after you spell imbued it?

junior eagle
twin estuary
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Oh...there another question where they talking about replacing augments... ok so they mean you can't switch you know that augment for another...

junior eagle
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see i assumed that was what it meant

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though taking a look at the class, i am not seeing a way for the mechanist to do that in the first place?

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i swear i saw that rule somewhere, but the augment feature is offering no way to replace known augments as i'm reading it

twin estuary
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Yeah they mention that 8n that question also cuz can replace Invocations and other things similiar for other classes so think that's another errata they gotta add.

junior eagle
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that would explain why i'm not seeing it

twin estuary
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Ok.. then think its just if go by raw pb # of casts per that spell... unless they say its rai you imbue fireball get pb spell casts take a turn action deactivate bonus action rapid imbue it again with same spell and get more casts...

junior eagle
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my issue is that the wording itself is ambiguous to me, coule be either technically, which makes RAI hard for me to determine

twin estuary
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But even if you could cast fireball all day long not really gonna be any different then having excess spell slots as any caster when adventuring. Just not always gonna need to do that many. Plus when you having to deactivate and use bonus action for rapid... that's a turn you are doing 0 damage.

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Unless you just always going around with one less augment imbued then your maximum.

junior eagle
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it depends heavily on the playstyle of the table, for me the big question is whether they can essentially replenish their spell slots between fights or not.

And i'm pretty sure it maths out to more fireball damage overall than a high level caster if you allow the recharges as well, assuming enough turns and enough fights.

Its definetly way more spells than any other thirdcaster gets if you allow recharges.

twin estuary
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"Yes! The design intention was for the augments to be something you can swap out when you gain a level. However, you cannot use this to replace any augments you gain from your subclass. Those augments are typically very specific to those subclasses and are permanent choices.

This clarification is definitely something we will need to fix in errata and future printings. Thank you for bringing it to our attention!"

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That's what they answered about switching augments

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Well considering the amount of castings thinking its that spell pb amount so would need a different spell for the rapid imbue ... so yeah would think you could have 4 spells in items use them up between fights have 4 different spells imbued and cast them pb amounts... which means DM probably gonna start adjusting battles accordingly to that.

formal relic
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Another thing to keep in mind is that mechanists don't get 3rd circle spells until 13th level. So 5 uses of it isn't OP by any means, even with rapid. Wizards access 7th level by then. So spellwrite can certainly be strong, but not maybe not overly so.

ionic stratus
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level 13 spellwright
PB: +5
INT assumed: +4 (18)
Augmented items: 6

Assumptions:
Imbue spell can be removed with an Action (Augment Feature)
Imbue spell can be added to an item with a Bonus Action (Rapid Augment Feature)
Imbue spell cannot be replaced with itself using Rapid Augment (Augment: Imbue Spell Feature)

Imbue spell = PB castings per augmented item = 6x5= 30
One of these can be replaced INT times = 4x5 = 20 additional
total fireballs if you only augment imbue spell = 50
total fireballs if you augment only 1 item = (initial + INT) x PB = 5x5= 25

At 13th level, 25-50 fireballs is effectively infinite fireballs. Yeah sure, its "only" fireball when wizard can cast fire storm... but wizard can only do that once.
At 13th level wizard can cast 10 fireballs, 7 of which are upcast for a minor boost in damage (1d6 per upcast circle is not a good use of spell slots but hey)
At 13th level sorcerer can cast 3 3rd circle, 7 upcast, and 2 from converted sorcery points for 12 total
At 13th level fiend warlock can cast 2 pact fireball, 3 3rd circle, and 1 upcast for 5 total. If we assume 2 short rests per day, this increases to 11 total.

With the added bonus that spellwright can change their imbued spell with an action + bonus action (Augment + Rapid Augment) where a wizard's Rote spell needs a long rest to change if fireball is their Rote 3rd circle for this comparison. Pact spells are even more limited.

red arch
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I have always read that the text at the beginning of the Imbue Spell Augment is talking about augment effects and augment effects known and that you can't replace the subclass specific augment effect with another one when you level up (as the ability to swap augments is getting errata'd in at some point, if I remember correctly). This is doubly cemented for me because the other subclass augments also share the exact same wording and the wording is not part of the augment's described effect.

Example: Bo, the Mechanist, is going from level 3 to 4, they have 3 augment effects known (Detecting, Protean, and Repellant) from Mechanist and an additional augment effect (Imbue Spell) from their subclass Spellwright that doesn't count against their augment effects known. Upon leveling up to 4, they want to learn Empowered but they don't get another augment known. So, they can replace Detecting, Protean, or Repellant. They cannot replace Imbue Spell, because "this (augment) effect can't be replaced".

Text up for debate:
"You gain the following unique effect for your Augment feature. This effect can’t be replaced and doesn’t count against the number of effects that you know, as shown in the Augment Effects Known column of the Mechanist Progression table."

I think that will be much clearer when the augments known and replacing them is properly errata'd in.

Now, this doesn't help at all with Rapid Augment and how many spell is the Spellwright meant to be able to imbue throughout a day. Hopefully we can get an errata on this soon.

ionic stratus
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That is also likely to be the case, in which case the problem is even worse as it allows for recharging in combat. A notable balance problem, but not as bad as just... 25 fireballs

ionic stratus
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@slim patio this is a somewhat old topic with no input yet from KP, do you think someone in charge of errata could take a look next week?

compact kestrel
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Tagging staff, even Zach is frowned on, Meagan will be around at some point to comment on it.

solid plover
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The team has had some discussions around these questions, and we have some answers. Thank you all for your patience as we deliberated on how to resolve these issues.

Question 1: Can a Spellwright imbue the same known spell into multiple different objects, allowing them to have more charges for said spells?
**Answer: **Yes, you can imbue a specific spell in more than one item at a time.

Question 2: When a Spellwright uses Rapid Augment, does the newly augmented item come with full "charges" if it is augmented with Imbue Spell?
**Answer: **As currently written, yes. However, that was not the design intention, as evidenced by the PB limit noted in the Imbue Spell augment. We have put together some errata to resolve this issue and bring this aspect of the Spellwright in line with its original design intention.

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So that you don't have to wait until Q1 of 2026 for that errata, here it is:

Replace the last sentence of the Imbue Spell augment with: "The Spellwright Progression table shows how many spells you can cast from imbued items at a given level, regardless of the number of items imbued with spells. You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest."

Add a new column to the Spellwright progression table:

Mechanist Spells Per
Level Long Rest
3rd 3
4th 4
5th 5
6th 6
7th 7
8th 7
9th 8
10th 9
11th 10
12th 10
13th 11
14th 11
15th 12
16th 12
17th 13
18th 14
19th 14
20th 15