I don't think there is a bunker strong enough to endure the fanbase exploding over this.
As a D&D familiar? No, not really. The 0e & AD&D Find Familiar spell didn't deliver a homunculus, rather, a wizard could make a homunculus if he really wanted to. I can't recall if the formula (materials/costs, time & spells) was in Eldritch Wizardry, or the AD&D MM or somewhere else, but it existed.Thats how we got homunculous (sp?) in the first place, right?
Something to consider is the artficer may not be planned for one setting, but two. There have been some pretty persistent rumours about something Lantan related in the pipeline. It may be that artificer with Alchemist and Magewright subclasses is published in an Eberron book, and artificer with Alchemist and Gunsmith subclasses published in a Lantan book
My point is that the thunder cannon is not what the setting proposes as artillery. A wand or Staff specialist artificer would make more sense. And I guess that maybe my problems with it are intensified by the fact that the class, in the last UA, did not represent Eberron at all, so the subclass intensified my dislike of it.
The main reason I don't, and I think this is also one that Keith Baker has opined is that Eberron is a world where magic has taken the place of science. That's why instead of steam engines, we have bound elementals. Guns are a little on the scientific part of the spectrum. There are gun analogues, like Eternal wands of Magic Missile, but they are magic first.
I won't gainsay someone that wants to use firearms in Eberron, but that's why I don't.
I shake my head at the notion the upcoming class will cater mostly to one specific setting.
It will obviously cater chiefly to those playing generic D&D. If it works for Eberron that's nice for sure, but it sure won't be the chief concern.
WotC have been quite ruthless about focusing on a vaguely Realmsian target because they know most of their customers play either in Forgotten Realms or in a homebrew where Realmsian material is at the very least grudgingly accepted.
They won't create a class specific to one small sliver of the customer base. There's way too much talk about Eberron around here. If they didn't feel they could make an Artificer work in their generic game, they would never do one.
Yeah, but unless they surprise us with a separate release of just the finalized class, the only way to get the official, polished version will be to buy the Eberron PDF, because that is where it will be found once the playtesting is done. Why would they put something generic in a specific book like that?
If I may address the issue of "why no guns in Eberron", the point of the setting is magic REPLACES technology. So trains, airships, street lighting all function magically, and so does weaponary. Eberron has no non-magical trains, and no non-magical wands (AKA guns).