Puppeteer (5A)
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This is an Artificer Specialization for 5A.
Dolls and puppets hold a never-ending fascination for many people, the puppeteer goes beyond fascination into the realm of magic. Animating puppets to a lifelike state, the puppeteer uses dolls to fascinate, amuse, and as weapons. Less militant than other artificers, puppeteers usually work on stage, or as adventurers. But there are rumors of underground fighting circuses where puppets fight for their creators' amusement, as well as rumors of feral puppets that form circuses for their own purposes.
Greyhawk: In the cosmopolitan cities of the Common culture, puppetry is a popular form of entertainment and certain puppeteers have discovered magical means of performance. Spreading over the continent, puppeteer troupes travel to spread their art. Practiced by humans, gnomes, and halflings, puppeteering is beneath the notice of the high and mighty, which halfling abolitionists have used to advantage.
Subclass Features
Tool Proficiency
When you adopt this specialization at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with weaver's tools. If you already have this proficiency, you gain proficiency with one set of tools of your choice.
Puppeteer Spells
Starting at 3rd level, you always have certain spells prepared after you reach particular levels in this class, as shown in the Puppeteer Spells table. These spells count as artificer spells for you, but they don’t count against the number of artificer spells you prepare.
| Artificer Level | Spells |
| 3 | Shield, Tasha's Hideous Laughter |
| 5 | Cloud of Daggers, Mirror Image |
| 9 | Enemies Abound, Spirit Guardians |
| 13 | Guardian of Faith, Evard's Black Tentacles |
| 17 | Dominate Person, Hold Monster |
Circus of Puppets
At 3rd level you learn to animate puppets of your own creation. At third level, you can animate one puppet. At level 5 you can animate two puppets, at level 9 you can animate three, and at level 15 you can animate four puppets.
If a puppet died within the last hour, you can use your weaver's tools as an action to revive it, provided you are within 5 feet of it and you expend a spell slot of 1st level or higher. The puppet returns to life after 1 minute with all its hit points restored.
Animated Puppet
Tiny construct
- Armor Class: 13 + PB (natural armor)
- Hit Points: 4 hit points x your level (d4 hit dice equal to your level)
- Speed: 10 ft., fly 30 ft. Can hover.
STR 4 (-3) DEX 15 (+2) CON 12 (+1) INT 10 (+0) WIS 10 (+0) CHA 7 (−2)
- Saving Throws: Dex +2 plus PB
- Skills: Stealth +2 plus PB
- Damage Immunities: poison
- Condition Immunities: exhaustion, poisoned
- Senses: darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 10
- Languages: understands the languages you speak
- Challenge: —
- Proficiency Bonus (PB): equals your bonus
Special Traits
- Evasion. If the puppet is subjected to an effect that allows it to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage, it instead takes no damage if it succeeds on the saving throw, and only half damage if it fails. It can't use this trait if its incapacitated.
- Spooky. The puppet never makes or triggers opportunity attacks.
- Strings. A puppet that starts or ends its turn more than 30 ft. away from you is teleported into your space. This is not an action.
- Circus: When you cast a spell on one of your puppets, it affects all your puppets within 30 feet of you. This allows you to heal or enhance the abilities of all your puppets at once.
- Repairable. You can restore a puppet to full hit points and remove all harmful effects and conditions with 10 minutes of work using weaver's tools. This can be done during a short rest.
Actions
- Poke. Melee Weapon Attack: your spell attack modifier to hit, reach 5 feet, 1d4 + PB force damage.
Reactions
- Channel Magic. The puppet delivers a spell you cast that has a range of touch. The puppet must be within 30 feet of you.
Circus Spellcasting
At 5th level your puppets can form a circus to cast a spell that you have prepared. One or more puppets can use the Help action to help another puppet that uses the Cast a Spell Action to cast a spell of a level up to the number of other puppets that did the Help action. (This use of the Help action has no effect other than to enable spellcasting). The spell has effect as if you had cast it yourself and uses your spell slots. If the spell requires concentration, you must be the one to concentrate. A puppet that does not get the Help of another puppet can cast a cantrip you know this way. This works as above, except that the puppet is considered to be 1st level to determine the effect of the cantrip.
Puppet Sacrifice
At 9th level, as an action, you can order a puppet to sacrifice itself. The puppet moves and either explodes, doing 9d6 fire damage to creatures within 15 ft. (Dexterity saving throw for half damage), or it can ram a single creature for 9d10 force damage on a hit. At level 15 the damage increases to 12 dice. At the end of the action, the puppet is killed.
Puppet Shield
At 15th level, you gain a +2 bonus to Armor Class and Proficiency with Dexterity saving throws. As long as you have a puppet within 30 feet, you also gain the puppet's Evasion ability.
Designer's Notes
Inspired by the character Alice Margatroid from the Touhou Project series as well as numerous other fictional puppets.
Some artificer subclasses are all about pets, and the puppeteer takes this to an extreme, having up tp 4 pets. To streamline this, the pets are all identical. These pets can cast spells instead of the artificer themselves, making up to 3 spells per round possible at 15th level. Four puppets can either cast 4 cantrips (as 1st level casters),2 1st level spells, or a single 3rd level spell.
Circus is the collective noun of puppets.