D&D 5E Proficiencies don't make the class. Do they?

[Staffan]

To me that just sounds like a wizard with bonus proficiencies and a special school specialization.
Just add the infusions to the wizard spell list as part of the subclass.

Add some skills, tools, and spells to the wizard base like how the favored soul adds to the sorcerer.. Just don't pick fireball and flight. Pick the spell that turns gloves and shoes magic. The real issue is getting around the one concentration limit.

Like I said before, that lets you make an artificer, but it's a poor substitute for the "real" class. Let me illustrate:

The blue circle is "stuff you can do with the wizard class". The yellow one is "stuff I want the artificer to be". There is some overlap in the green area, which is where a wizard-subclass artificer would live - particularly using "voluntary" limitations (e.g. "don't pick fireball and flight."). That would work for making a single artificer for a one-shot at a convention or something, but not for something I would want as a part of a setting.

The artificer should not be Gandalf, Merlin, or Elminster. He should, at low levels, be MacGyver, and at high levels Tony Stark.

 

[Fralex]

So with the survey result for the Eberron material out, it looks like WotC is taking another look at Artificer. And they probably should - Mearls's perspective that they were "too conservative" seems accurate from where I'm sitting.

But in all the conversations about if the artificer should be its own class or a subclass of something else, a theme keeps recurring that personally drives me a little batty. It comes up in other places too - in discussing psionic classes or warlords. It is some variation on this:

The artificer can't be a wizard subclass because artificers use better weapons and armor. Maybe it should be a cleric/bard/rogue subclass!​

or

The artificer can't be a wizard subclass because artificers have skills like using thieves' tools and artisan's tools!​

or

The artificer can't be a wizard subclass because its spells are about buffs not fireballs!​

It's about the artificer recently, but it's beyond that, too. It happens with psionics when it comes up. It happened with the warlord wars. Every time I see someone make the case that Character Type X can't be part of Class Y because of how Class Y is somehow limited or insufficient or weak in terms of its proficiencies, skills, or spells, a little part of me facepalms hard enough to leave a mark.

Because usually I don't buy it. Or at least, it takes more than that lack to convince me.

I've seen you bring these points up a lot. And I agree with them. But I think you're focusing on them a little too much as proof the artificer doesn't need its own class. I keep feeling like you're not really addressing the other reasons people give for why the artificer is unique. Because if someone were to simply give a class a new archetype that just added some other proficiencies and changed the spell list, I don't think anybody would be happy with that being called an artificer. I'm not totally opposed to it just being a subclass, but there is more to the class than that.

The best argument I've seen for it being a full class of its own is this homebrew version someone invented: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?367999-5e-Homebrew-The-Artificer-(of-Alancia)

Have you played an artificer? What, in your view, made the class fun? What did you do with that class that you couldn't have done otherwise? Why did you choose that class rather than another one? What do you think would make it unique in 5th edition?

 

[Minigiant]

Like I said before, that lets you make an artificer, but it's a poor substitute for the "real" class. Let me illustrate:

The blue circle is "stuff you can do with the wizard class". The yellow one is "stuff I want the artificer to be". There is some overlap in the green area, which is where a wizard-subclass artificer would live - particularly using "voluntary" limitations (e.g. "don't pick fireball and flight."). That would work for making a single artificer for a one-shot at a convention or something, but not for something I would want as a part of a setting.

The artificer should not be Gandalf, Merlin, or Elminster. He should, at low levels, be MacGyver, and at high levels Tony Stark.

I understand this completely. The issue is unique mechanics. A new class needs unique mechanics and unique flavor. Also it needs 20 levels of class features of similar strength or the other classes.

That's why if you made a stand alone diplomat class, it would get extra attacks, sneak attacks, be eventually be able to talk enemies into suicide.

Now an artificer could work as a class off you expanded gnomish tinker to epic levels and magic items. And you'd have to male it big and fat enough to not look weak and belong as a subclass. The issue is creating the powerful mechanic. But proficiencies are not powerful mechanics. And magic items as mechanics is very tricky to not break a game or be over/underpowered.

 

[Staffan]

Now an artificer could work as a class off you expanded gnomish tinker to epic levels and magic items. And you'd have to male it big and fat enough to not look weak and belong as a subclass. The issue is creating the powerful mechanic. But proficiencies are not powerful mechanics. And magic items as mechanics is very tricky to not break a game or be over/underpowered.

And that's why I based my artificer on the bard, but traded out some features for others, reskinned others (e.g. instead of Song of Rest they make alchemical poultices that aid healing during a short rest), and gave them a different spell list (couldn't figure out any existing spells that worked as level 8 or 9 spells though) with spontaneous access to their whole (albeit limited) list.

The changes I did were way more than I could have done as a bardic college (not to mention that a bardic college would have had them as vanilla bards for two levels before going into artifice, which would be a total flavor failure), but it's still fairly recognizable as something based on the bard. Ideally, I'd make a second pass on the class and strip out some features to make room for different artificer subclasses (the current one is semi-balanced against a bard with one of the two colleges) which could add back in those or other features. That would also require me to figure out some potential subclasses, which is more than I can be bothered into doing for now.

 

[I'm A Banana]

So to tease out a few threads...

Party Role might define a class and Artificers have a different role than wizards!​

...I don't buy it. 5e party roles are not set in stone. While the versatility of various classes in meeting various roles is open, the wizard is actually one of the most role-flexible classes in the game (defender, controller, face, sage, explorer, damage dealer....none of that is outside of the wizard's wheelhouse).

Extending this to psions or warlords, the same issue occurs: 5e doesn't have strict roles. "Replacing a cleric" or "replacing a wizard" isn't a thing.

FLAVOR might define a class and Artificers have a different flavor than wizards!​

I call shenanigans. "Flavor" is, at best insanely subjective. Who is to say that eldritch knights and assassins don't have "distinct flavor" but artificers and sorcerers and paladins do? Anyone who makes any call on that is going to be wrong with a lot of people.

Furthermore, artificers, much like psions or warlords, simply don't have remarkably different flavor from a wizard.

Hi, I am a character who relies on magic to do their things, and my magic comes from study and training.

Just because you jam your spells into wands vs. jamming them in your brain isn't a strong distinction. It is not something that comes up in play in any relevant way. It is effectively cosmetic.

There is absolutely NO reason that a wizard can't be Tony Stark or MacGuyver. D&D wizards are closer to billionaire genius inventors than they are to divine emissaries like Gandalf or Merlin anyway (both of those are better off as warlocks or perhaps druids). Nothing stops them except this completely unreasonable characterization of the wizard as some necessarily frail weak little fairy-man.

Well, you could do how far can you change the wizard before it's not really the WIZARD anymore?​

Look, the main thing about the wizard isn't spellcasting or "I am a dork with a spellbook and an old man beard" aesthetics.

The main thing about the wizard is that they study magic.

The PHB wizard is scholarly. An artificer is greasemonkey. But they are both studious. They both learn magic with their brains. They both rely on spell effects to do their jobs. One is simply more "practical magic" than the other.

Have you played an artificer? What, in your view, made the class fun? What did you do with that class that you couldn't have done otherwise? Why did you choose that class rather than another one? What do you think would make it unique in 5th edition?

Yeah, a brief 4e campaign with an dragonmarked gnome artificer from House Sivis (I dug in when presented with an Eberron campaign).

I chose it specifically to explore its role in this setting, to see what the setting added, to see what the setting did differently than other places. It played essentially like a conjurer with healing.

I didn't play an artificer in 3e, and 4e homogenized most of the class experiences, so I'm reluctant to say that my 4e experience was in any way definitive (it did help codify some of my frustrations with the sameness of character options in 4e).

I've sat down to think of how I'd do an artificer in 5e as a unique class and every time I've done it, I've run smack into "well, they should basically cast spells like a wizard only call their spells infusions and maybe let allies activate them....and then have different proficiencies and maybe a slightly different spell list." Which is disappointingly not big. It is not a major choice of how my character is going to play out. It is playing a particular kind of wizard. It isn't very special.

The issue is unique mechanics. A new class needs unique mechanics and unique flavor. Also it needs 20 levels of class features of similar strength or the other classes.

YES GOD YES

Take away the armor, the weapon, the skills, the particular spell list, the "I infuse items, not memorize spells!" non-distinction, on the presumption that none of this really is big enough to make a distinction, and what is left?

With a wizard, you have arcane traditions (non-spell magical abilities and spell enhancers), rituals (non-slot magical abilities) and the spellbook (the most versatile way to gain spells known), in addition to some capstone abilities.

Without considering armor, weapons, skills, the particular spell lists, or the non-difference between using an infusion and casting a spell, what is it that an artificer does?

 

[Minigiant]

And that's why I based my artificer on the bard, but traded out some features for others, reskinned others (e.g. instead of Song of Rest they make alchemical poultices that aid healing during a short rest), and gave them a different spell list (couldn't figure out any existing spells that worked as level 8 or 9 spells though) with spontaneous access to their whole (albeit limited) list.

The changes I did were way more than I could have done as a bardic college (not to mention that a bardic college would have had them as vanilla bards for two levels before going into artifice, which would be a total flavor failure), but it's still fairly recognizable as something based on the bard. Ideally, I'd make a second pass on the class and strip out some features to make room for different artificer subclasses (the current one is semi-balanced against a bard with one of the two colleges) which could add back in those or other features. That would also require me to figure out some potential subclasses, which is more than I can be bothered into doing for now.

But couldn't you do the same with a wizard?

TO BE FAIR, I do have a artificer-like full class in my world I'm working on. But it is called a maven.

But I'd created 3 big class features for it.

Gadgetry This is like the rock gnome tinker racial feature. You create X number of little gadgets.
BrillianceYou spend time make an impromptu item which adds a dice to a specific skill check once per short rest.
And the BIG FEATURE is Modify item.. It lets you modifiy X items to make them better. On weapons it add "damage equal to a Sneak attack of a rogue.". Poison distilled blades. Scopes on crossbows. Exploding arrows. On armor it negates crits or adds bonus HP. On feet you get roller skates and footblades.

The artificer subclass can make modify items to magic items.
The gunsmith subclass can make firearms, explosives, and double modify crossbows.
The chemist subclass can modify liquids and make bombs.

The class has flavor, purpose, mechanics, and power. Sniping an enemy with a scoped, good grip, heavy crossbow, with barbed arrows is brutal.

 

[The Human Target]

Why couldnt you come up with a specific widget class mechanic for artificers?

Is it any harder than coming up with mechanics for any other class?

Couldn't you come up with an entirely unique pirate class?

Or ballerina class?

I don't buy the argument that an artificer is any more or less unique than a sorcerer or a ranger.

Or a cleric.

Or a barbarian.

 

[The Human Target]

What is the artificers big thing?

It uses technology, but magic!

Its the magicpunk class specific to Eberron.

Its much more of a half caster all arounder, making it much more similar to a bard than a wizard.

What is a ranger in 5e?

A fighter who can have a dog and gets the tracking feat for free.

 

[Minigiant]

Why couldnt you come up with a specific widget class mechanic for artificers?

Is it any harder than coming up with mechanics for any other class?

Couldn't you come up with an entirely unique pirate class?

Or ballerina class?

I don't buy the argument that an artificer is any more or less unique than a sorcerer or a ranger.

Or a cleric.

Or a barbarian.

The key to making an new class is

Unique Flavor
Unique Mechanics
Enough Features for 20 levels
Same Power as Others

You can make anything a class if you do those for 4 things. All four.

What is the artificers big thing?

It uses technology, but magic!

Its the magicpunk class specific to Eberron.

Its much more of a half caster all arounder, making it much more similar to a bard than a wizard.

What is a ranger in 5e?

A fighter who can have a dog and gets the tracking feat for free.

The ranger got its own class because of the power and features. Putting spells, Favored Enemy, skills, and either a pet or special attacks on a fighter makes it overpowered. That was the 1e and 2e ranger. And if you weaken the features to get the power in line, you lose the unique mechanics. Same with the paladin and barbarian.

All the artificer or warlord or psion fans have to do is:
Creature enough features with unique mechanics with the same power of other classes.

These classes have flavor. You just have to make an unique class.

 

[I'm A Banana]

What is the artificers big thing?

It uses technology, but magic!

Its the magicpunk class specific to Eberron.

Show, don't tell.

If I have a spell book from which I prepare a certain number of spells in my head and the later release them with spellcasting...

...or if I have a book of recipes from which I craft a few temporary magic items and then later release their energy through item use...

...this isn't actually any different, just with that.

So show, don't tell. Don't say "this is different because it's magitek," show that with a mechanic. In what way is it actually different because it's magitek?

All the artificer or warlord or psion fans have to do is:
Creature enough features with unique mechanics with the same power of other classes.

Yep!

The thing is, the 3e artificer doesn't really have that (it was all unique spell list and item crafting buffs and proficiencies), and the 4e artificer doesn't really have that (it was all leader arcane powers with tech-paint), so this would be a brand new addition. Entirely possible - even welcome! - but notably not about proficiencies and spell lists. In 3e and 4e, proficiencies and spell lists pretty much defined the artificer. That can't stay true in 5e if it wants to earn its own class.