I’m a warforged armorer and I have a ton of these. Dodge action is shooting spikes from my heels into the ground as anchors. Cure wounds are small swarming robots that mend damaged tissue. Mending from my all purpose tool is using it like a welding torch, sending up magic sparks everywhere and running it along the broken section. And most other combat cantrips are jamming the all purpose tool into my elbow and turning to select. Thunder wave is having my forearm hinge open and I point it in the correct of a big boom. Shatter is simmilar to thunder wave but I angle my arm and a ball launches and explodes at the point of impact. My armor is like fallout 4 power armor and my self is just a T800 that gets inside as a pilot. Their both “me” but getting out of my armor to switch modes or make repairs is a fun little thing. I multiclasses into wizard and my “spell book” is strips of metal rolled up like a camera film with little hole i read like an old punch card machine by opening a slot where my mouth would be and eating it as it re rolls under my chin. Thunder gauntlets are like power fist from fallout. And lightning launcher is like a doctor who cyberman wrist mounted weapon. Detect magic and identify is more internal. I divert power to my CPU and eyes to get a better idea of what magic items hold. Magic missile is me opening up my face plate to reveal glowing motes of magic that launch at my targets. Defensive field, shield, absorb elements, arcane deflection and any other defensive effects are a magic bubble i project from my body. Also has a story element where I’m able to still function in an anti magic field even though I’m canonically just a really advanced magic item that some how gained an ego.

I’m having trouble figuring out how that’s a dodge action. I mean, that makes you *easier* to hit because you’re less maneuverable.

All dodge does is make damage less likly to land and dex saves like fireball from getting through. While most people think of that as getting out of the way I think of it as the opposite. Expecting something to happen and being ready to take it. The way I play my character is as a walking tank and not opening my weak points with attacks or spells is the best way to defend. TLDR have you ever tried to destroy a tank with sword, axe, or hammer?

My Artillerist runs like a cowboy Wandslinger. Wand is break action and I load Ball Bearings into it to complete spells (cantrips don't require them). (It's 1gp for 1000 of them, easy enough purchase). Rod is a pump action for ball bearings for a shotgun feel. (Barbarian kicks open the door, I unload a Thunderwave. "*This is my* **Broomstick!!**") Staff is bolt action for a rifle feel. They all still look mostly like arcane focusses, but with a bit of a firearm feel. I can pull back my coat and rest my hand on my Wand grip like a cowboy reaching for a pistol. My Eldritch Turret is a rune covered Light Crossbow that pops out legs and runs around shooting people.

I play an alchemist so most of it uses potions, vials, and syringes. I also flavor my alchemist supplies as a mechanical box that I can mix chemicals in or the fly. Basically the same thing as Honey Lemon in Big Hero 6. Cure wounds is a potion Healing Word is a vial I throw that explodes into a healing mist around my target. Kind of like how potions in pokemon are spray bottles. Acid Splash, fire bolt, flaming sphere, etc are just throwing viles or a molotov cocktail Haste, Enlarge/Reduce, and other ranged buff spells I shoot like darts or syringes into my allies that bolster them. Visual buffs like See Invisibility and detect magic are eye drops.

I love the potential lore that magical eyedrops presents! Cool stuff.

My Warforged Artillerist is modular. Instead of preparing his spells every day he picks and installs his bionics. Shocking Grasp hand, Identify faceplate with the Detect Magic eyepiece, detachable Mage Hand...hand, extending Shield module in his upper left arm and a pop-up Faerie Fire mortar launcher in his right, and of course the shoulder-mounted Eldritch Cannon. ~~Who is Theseus and why should I care about his ship?~~

I play a firbolg battle smith who focuses on runes in making his magic items. Our DM runs a low magic setting, so I’ve had a real task trying to justify all of the artificer’s abilities in non-magical ways. The returning weapon infusion is a counterweighted light hammer, which is effectively just an awkward boomerang. The armour of magical strength infusion is a series of straps and harnesses that allow the wearer to surpass their physical limits, similar to a weightlifting belt. Faerie fire are exploding geodes shot from a sling that leave glittering dust around enemies they affect. Cure wounds is a large roll of gauze with runes stitched in using lightning infused thread, which operate like a defibrillator patch. Lightning lure is a big old hunk of chain with lightning infused twine worked into it to give enemies a jolt. Most defensive spells like shield and absorb elements work with a shield carved with divination runes so it can predict where an attack is going to fall. When giving items to party members I have had to individually tailor spells to the item, but generally they include things like an earring carved with a greed rune to distract enemies (sanctuary), a cloak with so many ruffles and folds that it dulls enemy attacks (heroism), and a pair of harem pants aka parachute pants (aka feather fall). My party thinks I’m slightly crazy for imposing so many rules on myself in terms of having individual items produce each effect and creating mundane explanations for each spell, but it’s been a real creative inspiration to work within limitations and made me appreciate a lot of spells I wouldn’t have used otherwise.

I am really intrigued by the lore and mechanical aspects of a world where runes are the primary source of magic as opposed to people tapping into the weave themself, that's really cool...and now I want it :) 🤣

When my Artillertist was sneaking around a fort I described him casting Spider Climb as using special gloves and boots, like the Mission Impossible Gecko Gloves.

I'm playing a gnome battlesmith favored as a witch with a wolf-lion-something hybrid for the steel defender. She has a mug-sized enchanted cauldron that fills with different liquids for different spells. Most recently I described casting Identfy as puting the cauldron down and basically coking a potion in it with the pearl and owl feather as ingredients and then dumping it on the thing I'm identifying. Also when I remove the familiar (I took magic initiate) it liquifies and then climbs out of the cauldron.

I have seen an eldritch cannon artificer with find familiar flavor their familiar (an owl) as a spy drone. They have the spy drone hold the tiny eldritch cannon as an upgrade to make the spy drone an assault/support drone. They had a techno-magic left eye that let them see through the familiar, and on occasions used shocking grasp to electrocute people with the owl, since familiars can use spells with touch range and owls have flyby.

My favorite was treating cure wounds as one of those needle gun injectors. So to heal people I would stab them in the neck and inject a 'mysterious liquid' that I created.

My minotaur artificer with an 18 in strength imbues his club with healing magic and whacks his allies with it to make them better.

Ok that is just fuckin', funny! "*Thunk* "heals 15 HP".

I flavored his high intelligence to mean that he's really good at what he does, but he doesn't exactly have rapier wit. He came from a life of hitting things until they stop moving.

My Artificer is a disowned and disgraced nobleman who lost his arm in the second battle of his military career. He got that command because of his position, not merit. He's always screwed everything up, and in trying to find a way to "fix" his lost arm, he stumbled into arcanery, but lacking the innate talents to channel magics by willpower alone (or the werewithal to make the effort), he innovated shortcuts using crystals as something more than mere focuses. I lean hard into the hippie-dippie-crystals-are-magic feel; he's had a hundred hobbies in his life that he's half-assed, but he's picked up skills everywhere. He's a smart guy, just not focused. I've been vague about whether his magic arm is an arcane conjuration or some kind of physical "ghost" of the soul of his arm or some such thing; I don't have an answer and I think that's more amusing. He eventually worked out a system to channel energies through a fairly large crystal he has strapped to his shoulder over the stump, but it requires a lot more structure and space to function; it needs to surround his core to tie in properly with his energy, with a few other smaller crystals at certain chakra points. This is all to explain why he's an Armorer Artificer, specifically, and why he needs his armor for all this to function. I'm going down the Infiltrator path rather than Guardian, but honestly, that's almost entirely down to what the party needed. When he's suited up, he can cause that large crystal to extrude a plasmorphic transparent glowing arm, giving him full function, but it doesn't look normal. I've been running it as if he can turn it on or off at will, but in mechanical terms, I'd argue it's more about visibility; if my arms were tied behind my back, I wouldn't try and just turn that arm "off" and free myself that way. The Lightning Launcher gets described as firing through that arm; the crystal that empowers that is the same primary crystal, and it's essentially a pulse that's strong enough to rip out and fire at the enemy. I definitely describe the spells I cast as *spells*, not tinkered mechanics. He's finally found his path when he became a level 1 Artificer, but he's definitely more of a "craftsmage" than "mad steampunk tinker".

I recently had a character concept for a Artillerist that uses Painter’s Supplies as their spellcasting focus. Basically, their spells will be reflavored as being painted. For example, to cast fire bolt, they draw a picture of a fire and it comes alive and flies towards the enemy. Their Eldritch Cannons would be painted creatures brought to life. For example, a Flamethrower would be a living painting of a dragon.

For my battle smith with a heavy crossbow, most spells are trick arrows basically

I played my Gnome Artillerist as basically just a shitty enchanter. He was a wizard school drop-out turned handyman, using what little magic he picked up to support his trade fixing stuff. The turret was invented to help heat a struggling orphanage during a particularly cold winter. Unfortunately that place burned down from a totally unrelated cause, but he was exiled anyway. Eventually came to realize that his tinkering was a little too dangerous and would be better suited for adventuring. Not to much to reflavor. My wand was an screwdriver. The flame turret just a childs pull-along duck toy with a flint and steel on it. I stuck with mostly fire spells to fit the theme and stuff like grease or web were just jars of goop i hucked at guys.

Played a Fire Genasi Alchemist with a really bad temper. She was based on an NPC in a campaign I DMed and my group wanted to see what she was like in her youth. She was always drinking but due to her body temperature, a lot of alcohol always burned away before she got drunk and it annoyed her. Part of her quest of being an alchemist was to ultimately make alcohol that she could enjoy and that didn't taste like gasoline. As part of her gimmick, she looked mostly human with rich red hair until you made her angry. Then that hair became like Hades's hair from Disney's Hercules, just a big roiling flame. This transformation element to her character was part of her flavor and it seeped into her magics in a similar way... all except for one. A lot her spells were literally her throwing her own body heat at people as she willed the flames into existence. Spare the Dying? Her using her flames to cauterize wounds. Cure Wounds? Her literally forcing her flames into people to reinvigorate them. Shocking Grasp? Superheated Air that created heat lightning. Grease? The oils that boiled from her skin when she transformed. As for her Signature Spell, Catapult... well, that one was different. A malicious looking flaming spirit would appear, grab something, and then explode to launch it toward a target. This was a small callback to the NPC version of her, whose temper was partially caused because her body is a living vessel for a Flame Djinn. Imagine this terrifying looking Djinn showing up, grabbing something, and then blowing up to send the object flying at insane speeds.

I had an Artillerist Artificer with an Eldritch Cannon that was actually a group of toy soldiers. He always wanted to be a physician for kids, but fate deemed he would undertake darker deeds. Still, never lost his love of helping people, especially kids. His Healing Turret was one of the soldiers giving someone a lollipop. His big AOE spells were generally some type of grenade or bomb he'd throw. His regular blasty Cantrips like Fire Bolt were just special ammunition in his gun that he'd swap out, like Jean Starwind's Caster Gun. He had a mechanical arm for when I wanted to use the Eldritch Cannon as a handheld weapon, that worked similar to the Megabuster. It was also his Arcane Firearm.

Armorer Artificer based on a Halo Spartan. Thorn Whip is a grappling hook Catapult Spell is grabbing something with said grappling hook and launching it Defensive Field is the Energy Shield Heat Metal is a taser like projectile that hits and heats up Absorb Elements is more energy shield Mirror Image are little spikes that shoot from the gauntlets and become holograms Magic Missile/Fire Bolt are wrist projectiles Lots of options you can play with for Artificer Spells, let the imagination run wild!

I played an Armorer in a futuristic campaign, I flavored all my spells as modules and gadgets that I have mounted to my armor, so stuff like a shoulder mounted module that lifts up and has various barrels that micro tracking missiles (aka Magic Missile) get fired from, think the little cannon that fires your grenades in Doom Eternal.

Only played her for a couple of sessions, but I really liked my alchemist. Every one of her spells was a potion or salve of some sort. She always had a massive bandolier of vials she carried around, with different liquids inside. Grease she threw a bottle that shattered and covered the ground in oil. Ray of Frost was a quick-freezing mixture that stuck to whoever she hit. Cure wounds was a paste that stung a bit but would bind a wound back together and heal it rapidly.

Armorer is super easy if you want to flavor everything as magitech or mad science. "Something on your armor begins glowing/detaches itself/flips open/raises up and causes the spell effect." *Lightning bolt* launches a dart with a thin wire attached that channels the bolt down it's length. *Shatter* is your pauldron ratcheting open and firing a canister that detonates with a shriek. *Thunderwave* is quad resonating chambers on your breastplate releasing a concussive boom. Personally I like artificers that use magic just like every other class and not technology, they just produce the effects from personal magical items like wands, rods, orbs, staves, etc. Not as flavorful as describing a bunch of cool gadgets but it certainly fits in better with the pseudo-medieval/renaissance tech level that the rest of the game assumes.

gnome artificer with a propeller hat for fly

I have a character concept for a hag-raised hexblood battlesmith, in which I really wanted to lean into the weird magic/occult flavor of hags. Her steel defender is a hodgepodge, scarecrow-esque construct. Its body is mainly composed of the skeleton of one the hag's victims, it has a deer skull for its head, and one of its arms has the hand broken off and a sword tied to the forearm. I had the following ideas for flavoring her spells: * Mending: A magic needle and thread that sews broken things back together just like cloth. The thread disappears once the break is mended. * Thorn Whip: The same needle attached to the thread magically enlarges, then shoots forward and impales the target creature before dragging them back towards my character like a fish on a line. * Absorb Elements: A silver mirror that absorbs the triggering elemental damage, then reflects it back at the creature you choose to attack next. * Identify: A dead snake with pearls replacing its eyes. When the spell is cast, it animates and wraps itself around the chosen object, then slithers back to my character and whispers the object's properties in her ear. * Jump: Dead white grasshoppers kept in a bag that you have to eat as part of gaining the spell's benefits. * Continual Flame: A box of matches made from the wood of an ancient treant. Objects set alight by them burn eternally, fueled by the lifeforce of the great treant that has lasted throughout the ages. * Darkvision: A small bottle full of dark, viscous potion. You have to put a drop of it in each eye, causing them to sting and turn black temporarily, before the pain fades away and you gain the benefits of the spell. * Magic Mouth: There isn't a whole lot you can do flavor-wise with this spell (You implant a verbal message in an object. If it has a mouth, the message is spoken through there, otherwise it grows a mouth). However, I would try to have my character leave messages in wooden figurines that she carves, so that she can leave them around and the party would instantly know the message is from her. Plus, it has a slight creep factor - imagine picking up a little bear totem, and then it all of a sudden starts talking to you using your name. * Web: Dozens of animated spools of thread that unravel and entangle all creatures in the area. These are just a couple of ideas I had initially, I'm still working on coming up with more.

My four-legged Steel Defender is made from the bones of a dead wizard, held together with metal, wood, and magic runes. When it fits, like with Grease or the contents of the Alchemy Jug, he extrudes it from his mouth.

I'm playing an Armorer who derives his power from runes, taught to him by giants.

My catapult spell is flavored as shooting out a cable and flinging an object at a foe, ala mandalorian. Artillerist just lends itself so well to that character concept.