The Tinkerer

A bespectacled halfling awaits the results of her latest, most greatest invention of all. Towering high above her stands a giant figure. With a, “BEE-OOP! ‘: its red eyes activate, glowing menacingly.

As the enemy army approaches the castle’s gate lowers and a single armored knight emerges. Flames belch from his breastplate and lightning crackles along the length of his sword. Accompanied by the sound of whirring gears and cogs, the dragonborn marches forth into the madness of war.

Seated atop a grassy hill the two humans idly watch birds and kites jitter in the sky. As insight strikes one pauses, then asks, “We could do that.

Couldn’t we, brother?” Sharing a grin and a nod, the two rush for their bicycles, inspired skyward.

Mages master the arts arcane and priests work the essence means of artifice: the ways of the divine for their spells, but magic is a tinkerer. Through their Affect-Engines force not bound by so simple a they bring to life . . 1mpress1ve dichotomy. For the brilliant of mind contraptions, craft incredible devices, and keen of craft, another branch and forge legendary destinies by way grows outward to capture and utilize of a courageous heart and maddening supernatural power through the intellect.

Mad Geniuses

Tinkerers reshape the world around them through mechanical means, but they are far more than mere artisans-their creations subvert and circumvent the barriers of physical laws, fueled by the magical energy that suffuses the planes. All tinkerers craft at unmatched speeds and discover Affect-Engines, machines that consume ambient mystical power and spit out elemental forces. First invented by a master poet tinkerer, the “effect” from the name is said to come from the passion, tension, and frustration enticed by the fire, lightning, and cold they produce.

Tinkerers craft increasingly quickly and can build almost anything but their greatest strength is flexibility-depending on their source of inspiration, they fit among adventurers of all types. Primarily weapons-based casters, tinkerers use magic to empower their weapons or fuel Power Appliances, tending towards singular obsessions that careen to maddening heights in the pursuit of knowledge.

Inspired And Obsessive

True tinkerers are few and far between, marked as unique by their Affect-Engines. There are countless individuals bearing the obsession to beget some marvelous and maddening design, but the ability to actually do so separates tinkerers from those who would only dream. Tinkerers often take up the adventuring life in pursuit of their obsessions searching high and low for materials and inspiration, they brave any risk to be one step closer to their next invention. A tinkerer may be seeking to learn from fabled artifacts and legendary artisans yet where there is great knowledge there are fierce defenders, so to grease the wheels they fight in wars, broker peace deals, or serve the needs of local officials.

Creating a Tinkerer

When you build your tinkerer consider what field of study you’re researching or what scientific achievement you pursue. Perhaps you want to study the construction of automatons, or investigate the nature of portals to other realms? Or maybe you just want to blow things up.

Once you’ve imagined your goal, consider why you are now on the road. Was your access to knowledge at your home insufficient to meet the demands of your designs? Mayhap you were chased out by wary folk who feared your risky engineering.

Or perhaps you were encouraged to seek new frontiers by those who foresaw that your genius could positively impact countless lives.

How do you relate to your peers? Are you eager to share your ideas to anyone who would listen, or do you struggle to find anyone who can understand your brilliance? Is friendship an enigma to decipher, or one of the greatest achievements you can acquire?

Quick Build

You can make a tinkerer quickly by making Intelligence your highest ability score, followed by either Strength or Dexterity. Second, choose the guild artisan background. Third, choose a crowbar to use as a power tool. For skills pick Arcana, Investigation, and Perception.

Tinkerer Spell List

• 1st Level alarm, burning hands, charm person, color spray, create or destroy water, expeditious retreat, floating disk, fog cloud, identify, illusory script, jump, longstrider, silent image, thunderwave, unseen servant
• 2nd Level barkskin, blur, continual flame, darkvision, enthrall, gentle repose, gust of wind, knock, locate animals or plants, locate object, mirror image, ray of enfeeblement, shatter, web
• 3rd Level blink, call lightning, daylight, feign death, fireball, fly, glyph of warding, lightning bolt, stinking cloud, tongues, water breathing, water walk
• 4th Level black tentacles, compulsion, confusion, conjure minor elemental, control water, dimension door, dominate beast, locate creature, stone shape
• 5th Level cloudkill, cone of cold, conjure elemental, dominate person, fabricate, geas, modify memory

Variant: Starting Gold

When you create a tinkerer, you can start with 5d4x10 gp instead of receiving the equipment from your class and background.

New Equipment Pack

Scientist’s Pack (33 gp). Includes a backpack, an empty journal of graph paper, 2 charcoal writing implements, a small box of chalk, a beaker, a pipette, a slide rule, 3 empty glass flasks with cork stoppers, and 5 empty glass vials with cork stoppers.

Class Features

Hit Points

Hit Dice: 1d8 per tinkerer level
Hit Points at 1st Level: 8 + your Constitution modifier
Hit Points at Higher Levels: 1d8 (or 5) + your Constitution modifier per tinkerer level after 1st

Proficiencies

Armor: Light armor, medium armor
Weapons: Simple weapons
Tools: All artisan’s tools
Saving Throws: Constitution, Intelligence
Skills: Choose three from Arcana, History, Insight, Investigation, Medicine, Perception, and Religion

Equipment

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

• (a) leather armor or (b) a chain shirt
• (a) a light crossbow and 20 bolts or (b) any simple weapon
• (a) an explorer’s pack or (b) a scientist’s pack (see sidebar)
• (a) a crowbar or (b) a hammer
• a dagger and 3 artisan’s tools of your choice

Table: Tinkerer

Level	Proficiency Bonus	Features	Construction Rate (gp/hr)	Spell Slots per Level
				1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th
1	+2	Construction Affect-Engine (1)	5	–	–	–	–	–
2	+2	Spellcasting, Affect Discharge, Expertise	0	2	–	–	–	–
3	+2	Field of Study	15	3	–	–	–	–
4	+2	Ability Score Improvement	20	3	–	–	–	–
5	+3	Affect-Engine (2), lnstacraft (1 gp)	30	4	2	–	–	–
6	+3	Switch Function	40	4	2	–	–	–
7	+3	Field of Study, Feature	50	4	3	–	–	–
8	+3	Ability Score Improvement, Improved Affect Discharge	60	4	3	–	–	–
9	+4	–	70	4	3	2	–	–
10	+4	Field of Study Feature, Expertise	80	4	3	2	–	–
11	+4	Affect-Engine (3), lnstacraft (25 gp)	100	4	3	3	–	–
12	+5	Ability Score Improvement	120	4	3	3	–	–
13	+5	–	140	4	3	3	1	–
14	+5	Intense Concentration	160	4	3	3	1	–
15	+5	Field of Study Feature	180	4	3	3	2	–
16	+6	Ability Score Improvement	200	4	3	3	2	–
17	+6	Affect-Engine (4)	250	4	3	3	3	1
18	+6	lnstacraft (100 gp)	300	4	3	3	3	1
19	+6	Ability Score Improvement	350	4	3	3	3	2
20	+6	Field of Study Feature	500	4	3	3	3	2

Multiclassing Prerequisite(s): Intelligence 13

Proficiencies Gained: Light armor, medium armor, simple weapons, 3 artisan’s tools of your choice

Construction

Your sparking genius compels you to build! You gain the ability to craft any mundane non-consumable object at a rate determined by your tinkerer level.

At 1st level, you can craft mundane items at a rate of 5 gp per hour. This rate increases as shown in the Tinkerer table. For example, a 3rd-level tinkerer can craft a 15 gp morningstar in 1 hour. Construction crafting counts as light activity for the purposes of short and long rests.

Rapidly crafting a quality item is wasteful, however. While crafting, you must expend material (such as wood, metal, or glass) with a value equal to the item you want to make. The item can be an exact duplicate of a nonmagical item, such as a copy of a key, if you possess the original during your crafting.

To construct an item you may also need artisan’s tools (such as glassblower’s tools for a spyglass) or a forge (for a metal weapon or armor) but creative use of your Affect-Engine and Power Appliances may suffice. Items you construct that aren’t weapons or armor have hit points determined by the material they are made out of and an AC equal to your spell save DC.

Table: Object Hit Points

Size	Fragile	Resilient
Tiny bottle lock	2 (1d4)	5 (1d4)
Small (chest, lute)	3 (1d6)	10 (3d6)
Medium (barrel, chandelier)	4 (1d8)	18 (4d8)
Large (cart, 10-ft. square window)	5 (1d10)	27 (5d10)

Affect-Engine

You have discovered how to capture ambient magical energy and convert it into elemental output through the Affect-Engine, converting raw evocation magic through the power of science!

At 1st level, you can have only one working Affect Engine at a time. Crafting a new engine causes the old one to fall apart. This number increases by one at sth, 11th, and 17th level.

An Affect-Engine weighs 1 lb. and is the size of your hand. It takes 1 hour to craft an Affect-Engine, and you are able to do so with virtually any materials available so long as the total value of the materials equals or exceeds s gp.

When you complete an Affect-Engine, choose one of these three types of energy: cold (cold engine), fire (flame engine), or lightning (lightning engine).

You can take the Use an Object action to attach or detach an Affect-Engine you are touching against a weapon or object. You can change an Affect-Engine’s type with 1 hour of maintenance during a short or long rest.

Power Appliances

Affect-Engines can be incorporated into your creations, supplying power or performing other tasks. Examples of Power Appliances are detailed on pages 99-100. When an item with an attached Affect-Engine is destroyed, the Affect-Engine is also destroyed.

Spell casting

By 2nd level, you use gizmos and contraptions to tap into the power of ambient magic.

Sparknotes. At 2nd level, you scribe a sheaf of sparknotes containing six !St-level spells of your choice. Your sparknotes contain the results of your research into the tinkerer spells you know.

Preparing and Casting Spells. The Tinkerer table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell’s level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.

You prepare the list of spells that are available for you to cast. To do so, choose a number of spells from your sparknotes equal to your Intelligence modifier + half your tinkerer level rounded down (minimum 1 spell). The spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots.

You can change your list of prepared spells when you finish a long rest. Preparing a new list of spells requires time spent studying your sparknotes and calculating the formulas and equations you must make to cast the spell: at least 1 minute per tinkerer level for each spell on your list.

Spellcasting Ability. Intelligence is your spellcasting ability for your spells, since you innovate through study and inspiration. You use your Intelligence whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Intelligence modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a spell you cast and when making an attack roll with one.

• Spell save DC = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier
• Spell attack modifier = your proficiency bonus + your Intelligence modifier

Ritual Casting. You can cast a tinkerer spell as a ritual if that spell has the ritual tag and you have the spell in your sparknotes. You don’t need to have the spell prepared.

Spellcasting Focus. You craft a scientific instrument, either a refracting prism (crystal), puzzle cube (orb), ruler (rod), meter stick (staff), or pointer (wand). You can use a scientific instrument as a spellcasting focus for your tinkerer spells.

Learning Spells of 1st Level and Higher. Each time you gain a tinkerer level, you can add one spell of your choice to your sparknotes. Each of these spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots, as shown on the Tinkerer table. On your adventures, you might find other spells that you can add to your sparknotes.

Affect Discharge

At 2nd level, when you hit a creature with a weapon attack with an attached Affect-Engine, you can expend one spell slot to deal extra damage to the target. The extra damage is 2d6 for a !St-level spell slot, plus 1d6 for each spell level higher than 1st, to a maximum of 5d6. The damage type is according to the type of Affect-Engine.

Expertise

At 2nd level, choose two of your tool proficiencies or one of your skills and one of your tool proficiencies.

Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of the chosen proficiencies.

At 10th level, you can choose two more of your proficiencies in this same manner to gain this benefit.

Field of Study

When you reach 3rd level, you determine your field of study: Bombardier, Mechanic, or Steam Knight.

Your choice grants you features at 3rd level and again at 7th, 10th, 15th, and 20th level. Those features include genius sparks.

Genius Sparks. Each field of study has a list of associated spells called Genius Sparks. You gain access to these spells at the levels specified in each field of study description. Once you gain access to a spell, you immediately add it to your sparknotes, but you must prepare it as normal. If you gain a spell that does not appear on the spell list, the spell is nonetheless a tinkerer spell for you.

Instacraft

Starting at 5th level, with Construction you can use an action to craft an item with a value of 1 gp or less.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier. You regain expended uses when you finish a long rest.

At 11th level, the value of items you can create with Instacraft increases to 25 gp, and again at 18th level to a value of 100 gp.

Switch Function

At 6th level, a breakthrough increases the flexibility of your Affect-Engines. As an action or bonus action, you can change the elemental type of an Affect Engine you are touching to another type. To use this feature on an Affect-Engine, it must not be performing any task. An Affect-Engine that is attached to an object but is otherwise not doing anything is not considered to be performing a task.

Improved Affect Discharge

At 8th level, you upgrade your Affect-Engines to consistently output bursts of energy. Once per turn whenever you hit using a weapon attack with one or more attached Affect-Engines, you can deal 1d8 energy damage to the target (of the Affect-Engine’s type), in addition to the weapon’s damage.

This damage increases to 2d8 at 14th level.

Additional Affect-Engines do not increase the damage, but you may choose between damage types when you use this feature.

Intense Concentration

By 14th level, attempts to befuddle your mind through brute intellectual force are repulsed. You add your Intelligence modifier to Wisdom and Charisma saving throws.