Rules edition: This guide is for the legacy Artificer from the 2014-era rules, using the version in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything and its listed legacy options. It is not the revised 2025 Artificer: that class replaces Infuse Item with Replicate Magic Item and is covered in the 2025 Artificer guide. Choose one class version with your DM and use its features together.
The legacy Artificer is an Intelligence-based half-caster whose tools, prepared spells, subclass, and limited Infusions support a different role each day. A reliable build starts by choosing that role, then spends its ability scores and active Infusions on the tasks the character will actually handle.
Choose Your Artificer’s Job
All four legacy specialists are chosen at Artificer level 3. Their familiar names also appear in the revised class, but the feature text is not interchangeable.
- Alchemist: Experimental Elixir adds healing, mobility, resilience, or other support. The first elixir after a long rest is random; additional elixirs can be made by expending spell slots. Its strength depends on whether your party can use the effects and whether you want a support-focused turn.
- Armorer: Arcane Armor lets you turn a suit of armor into your spellcasting focus and choose Guardian or Infiltrator. Guardian’s Thunder Gauntlets can discourage attacks against allies other than you; Infiltrator’s Lightning Launcher provides a ranged option and grants advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks. The model can be changed when you finish a short or long rest. Choose the model for the encounter and your party’s needs, not an assumed armor category or a flat stealth bonus.
- Artillerist: Eldritch Cannon gives you a choice of a close-range flamethrower, ranged force ballista, or protective temporary hit points. Creating or activating the cannon uses your bonus action, so account for that when planning turns that also use bonus-action spells or features.
- Battle Smith: Steel Defender supports a weapon-focused build. Battle Ready lets you use Intelligence for attack and damage rolls with magic weapons, and the subclass gains Extra Attack at level 5. Directing the Defender to take most actions also uses your bonus action; otherwise it can Dodge. Decide whether that companion command competes with another bonus-action option you rely on.
Set Ability Scores for Your Role
Intelligence is usually the first priority because it sets your spell attack bonus and spell save DC and supports key subclass features. Constitution helps with hit points and maintaining concentration. Dexterity affects initiative and Armor Class when your armor permits a Dexterity contribution. Strength is usually lower unless your concept and equipment need it; Wisdom remains useful for common ability checks and saving throws. The exact order after Intelligence depends on whether you fight at range, hold a front line, or focus on support.
Use your campaign’s permitted ability-score rules. Legacy races may list fixed increases, while the optional origin rules in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything let a table reassign increases. Do not copy an old race’s scores into a 2024 species build, or assume those optional rules are in use without checking.
Prepare Spells for the Day
The 2014-era Artificer prepares a limited number of spells from the Artificer spell list after a long rest: your Intelligence modifier plus half your Artificer level, rounded down (minimum of one). Your specialist spells are always prepared and do not count against that number. Choose a mix that fits the expected adventuring day—such as a concentration option, a defense or recovery tool, and utility—rather than treating one spell as mandatory for every character. Check each spell’s casting time, concentration, range, and components against the version your table uses.
Spend Infusions on Repeated Problems
At level 2, the legacy class knows four Infusions and can keep two infused items active; those are separate limits. The active limit increases at specified Artificer levels. An infused item must meet its Infusion’s object and level requirements, and creating it does not grant permission to ignore the text’s attunement or repetition limits. Allies can use many infused items, but an item given away still uses one of your active slots.
- Enhanced Defense can shore up the armor or shield of a character who is regularly hit.
- Enhanced Weapon is useful when a weapon user makes attacks consistently and lacks a comparable magic weapon.
- Replicate Magic Item can solve a recurring party need, but each choice is limited to the items and prerequisites listed in that Infusion.
- Boots of the Winding Path lets you use a bonus action to teleport up to 15 feet to an unoccupied space you can see that you occupied earlier in the same turn. It is not a general teleport between any two points.
- Repulsion Shield requires Artificer level 6. Its four charges power a reaction after a melee attack hits you, pushing that attacker up to 15 feet away; it regains 1d4 expended charges at dawn.
For the full option list, prerequisites, and active-item limits, see the separate legacy Artificer Infusions guide. Permanent magic-item crafting is a separate downtime system; an Infusion is not an unlimited crafting benefit.
Choose Feats and Species After the Core Build
First decide whether your character needs an ability-score increase or a feat at an Ability Score Improvement. War Caster can help a character who often takes damage while concentrating, but its opportunity-spell option is restricted to a spell with a casting time of one action that targets only the triggering creature. Resilient (Constitution) is another concentration-support option when its ability-score increase and save proficiency fit your character. A feat is a choice, not a class requirement; use the rules your campaign allows.
Choose a race or species for its traits, story, and the version your campaign permits rather than relying on an outdated fixed-score ranking. Rock Gnome, Warforged, and other options can each support different concepts, but their rules come from different books and may use different trait text. Ask which source versions are available, then check the exact feature instead of combining similarly named legacy and revised traits.
Build a Turn Around Your Features
Before a fight, identify the action and bonus action your subclass is likely to use. An Artillerist may need a bonus action to create or command a cannon; a Battle Smith may use one to direct the Steel Defender; an Alchemist may use one to administer an elixir. If you cast a bonus-action spell, the 2014 spellcasting rule also limits other spells you cast that turn to a one-action cantrip. Planning this economy makes the Artificer’s flexibility useful instead of crowded.
Artificers can use thieves’ tools or artisan’s tools as spellcasting focuses for their Artificer spells under the legacy feature. Keep the relevant tool available, and check whether a spell’s material component has a cost or is consumed; a focus does not replace those components.
Related Artificer Guides
- Revised 2025 Artificer build guide — the newer class and its Replicate Magic Item plans.
- 2014 legacy Infusions guide — the older class feature’s choices and limits.
For a character sheet that is easy to run, write the class version beside the subclass, track known Infusions separately from active items, and note which party member carries each item. A Regal Regent ceramic dice set is an optional table accessory for the finished character.
Official Rules Sources
- Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything — legacy Artificer, four specialists, Infusions, and optional origin rules.
- Eberron: Rising from the Last War — original Artificer and legacy class context.
- D&D Basic Rules (2014): combat and spellcasting rules.
- Eberron: Forge of the Artificer (2025) — revised class reference; use its separate features rather than combining them with legacy Infusions.
