Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana Introduces The Artifcer

Jester David said:

This is a concept test. They want to see how people feel about the pet now, before they fine tune the balance.

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Sorry, that doesn't fly. They already have feedback on non-scaling pets. There was so much backlash that they redid a PHB class, whihc they really really really were trying to avoid according to a lot of what they put out.

So NO, it doesn't get a free pass of "They intentionally went against two years of feedback and an admitted mistake 'just to see' if perhaps people changed their mind". That's insane.

occam said:

I agree that it'd be best to hand off a healing draught to someone prior to combat so that you can save that action cost. However, you can only hand off one; you can't provide healing draughts to everybody in the party, at least not at the same time.

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But if you hand off a healing draught you can't use ANY off your other alchemist powers until it's used, because you can only have one item out. And that means you can't use any of your offensive powers. So that doesn't work.

Now, if you could have one of each it would make more sense, but two actions in combat are too high a burden.

TwoSix said:

You'll have to rip the mechanical rhino from my mounted combatant gnome gunslinger's cold, dead hands.

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Then make it scale - making it useful is my preferred choice.

What is this concern about the Artificer losing her created magic items? I mean, for one, how often does anyone actually lose a magic item in game, and for two, what kind of DM steals a magic item but doesn't allow the PC to try and get it back? Seems like the idea fits hand in hand with the Rival concept from the fluff, basically trying to set up a constant back and forth stealing of magic items between the PC and her rival.

Other random thoughts

I think this class is cool as heck, and that's coming from someone who had very limited interest in the class prior to the UA write up.

Can't stop thinking about the cops from the novel Snowcrash, with all their gear dangling off them for every situation.

Love, love, love the fact that none of the permanent items you can create are weapons

WotC isn't messing around with the Big Book of Crunch expansion. From the looks of it this thing is going to have everything, and I'm betting we are seeing less than half of the sub-classes that will be a part of it in the UA write ups.

I'm still betting that the fall AP will be a Fate of the Multiverse story that is going to see the PCs travel from FR to 7 or 8 locations. One chapter for each location would allow for Feywild, Shadowfell, Sigul, Eberron, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, and Dragonlance and could include notes to the DM on running campaigns in each. Perhaps they even stretch it out over two releases like ToD and finally take a campaign all the way up to level 20 with the 2018 Spring release skipping across the planes.

Don't really have any interest in this class at all. But I love that it gives us a template for a spellcasting class that uses only up to 4th level spells and doesn't gain spells until 3rd level.

The Mechanical Servant works as a feature if you consider it to be a mount or vehicle instead of a combat helper.
Granted the name "Servant" and the reaction to melee attacks implies differently. A name change to something like "Clockwork Steed" would be in order.

Blue said:

But if you hand off a healing draught you can't use ANY off your other alchemist powers until it's used, because you can only have one item out.

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I think you are misreading this, because I can't find wording to suggest that anywhere.

Unless somehow you didn't see the word "this":

Healing Draught said:

If not used, the vial and its contents disappear after 1 hour. While the vial exists, you can’t use this formula.

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Emphasis added.

I like it.

I want a 'martial' archetype (Bladebound/ Mage smith with a black blade) that gets martial weapons, extra attack at 6th instead of the golem, and some nifty boosts to his sword.

Think Elof from 'Anvil in the Ice' and similar.

Demetrios1453 said:

I'm beginning to wonder if our upcoming Big Book of Crunch is actually going to specifically update important mechanics for the various settings, considering how much of the UAs seem dedicated towards that end. Perhaps we'll get a lot of mechanical options, and then a chapter dedicated to each of the main settings (outside of FR which already has SCAG, and Planescape which will probably get its own Manual of the Planes-type book) to update them and their particular peculiarities for 5e, with references to all the updated crunch from the rest of the book. That way we could get all these new classes, racial options for warforged, thri-kreen, kender (I heard you all groan there), and the like, and a small bestiary with setting-specific creatures like draconians. With WotC wanting to take the route of multi-purpose books, it would be a good idea to combine the common requests for more player options and for setting-specific stuff to be updated to 5e....

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So, what we seem to be getting is a PHB 2/DMG 2 (Mearls is talking alot about alternative rules for downtime, economy, mass combat, etc...): I could see something like Volo's Guide, with a DM section on rule modules and setting modifications ("take Eberron for example..."), and a player section chock full of various options that a FM can allow to customize a world...very exciting.

As a class by itself, it's fairly blah. I'm not a Pathfinder player, but their alchemist and engineer type characters are much cooler. Someone also made a 5e Homebrewer engineer that blows this thing out of the water.

As a take on the Eberron artificer, it stinks. Doesn't feel "magitek" enough.

Blue said:

Sorry, that doesn't fly. They already have feedback on non-scaling pets. There was so much backlash that they redid a PHB class, whihc they really really really were trying to avoid according to a lot of what they put out.

So NO, it doesn't get a free pass of "They intentionally went against two years of feedback and an admitted mistake 'just to see' if perhaps people changed their mind". That's insane.

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It doesn't fly for *combat* pets. This is basically a Large familiar, which also don't scale. (And ranger pets DID scale... just not well.)

They want feedback on how people feel about pets in the base artificer, but likely don't want it to greatly affect the power level of the base class for testing and don't want to spend too much time fine tuning the scaling balance for a mechanic they might not end up keeping.
If people hate the idea of baked in pets they can move it to a subclass. If they hate robo-pets in general, they can dump the idea.

Balance doesn't ended into this. It's not really a playtest - the name to the contrary - this a concept test, this is gathering feedback on the execution and ideas.