Are you satisfied enough with the Artificer to publish it?

CapnZapp · May 17, 2019

Giltonio_Santos said:
Just a semirant/off-topic note: I wish they were putting all that energy to deliver a solid psion.

I hear you.

Maybe in five years time...

Fenris-77 · May 17, 2019

Yaarel said:
Yeah. I get that half-casters can be powerful, and it shores up the mundane aspects.

At the same time, someone who makes magic items needs to excel at magic, including high-level spellcasting for high-level magic items.

At the very least, I want to see a high level feature that can access high level spells, even if like the way a Warlock does.

It's always an exchange. If the Artificer also had access to high level spells he'd need to have less something else. That's not an impossible task, but I think that having more class abilities and infusions and whatnot with the corollary of less high level spells does a good job separating the Artificer from the Wizard. If you were to give access to high level spells what would you be willing to remove from the class as its written now? 10 will get you 20 that the answer from a lot of folks will be "the pet", which is fine, but at that point why not just write a wizard subclass that specializes in magic item creation? Just my two cents...

Tales and Chronicles · May 17, 2019

Fenris-77 said:
It's always an exchange. If the Artificer also had access to high level spells he'd need to have less something else. That's not an impossible task, but I think that having more class abilities and infusions and whatnot with the corollary of less high level spells does a good job separating the Artificer from the Wizard. If you were to give access to high level spells what would you be willing to remove from the class as its written now? 10 will get you 20 that the answer from a lot of folks will be "the pet", which is fine, but at that point why not just write a wizard subclass that specializes in magic item creation? Just my two cents...

Depending on the final proposition by WotC, I may just do that instead:

Wizard: Magewright
2: Infuse Item (1 known/active less than the UA)
2: Arcane Artisan: Choose 2 Tools or 1 tool and crossbows, can be used as focus, expertise with those and 25% less cost and time when crafting with those.

6: Alchemical Caster: Resistance to Acid and Poison. Summoned creatures can have the construct subtype.

10: Spell storing item

14: Soul of Artifice: At the end of a short rest, gain 5 THP per attuned items. Attune to 6 items.

New Infusion:
Staff of Defense: +1 AC, as a reaction enemies that it in melee are pushed 10'.
Wand of Accuracy: Ignore 1/2 and 3/4 cover with wands. Once per SR, add Dex mod to a spell attack roll.
Orb of Imposition: Force a re-roll when an enemy succeed a save within 30', Wis mod/day.
Potion of restoration lvl 8: Cast lesser restoration Int mod/day
Potion of healing: Cast Cure wound Int mod/day
Greater restoration lvl 16: Cast greater restoration 2/day

Fenris-77 · May 17, 2019

I think that's a better fix to the "but I want high level items" problem than revamping the Artificer. IMO the Artificer does a pretty job job as is, maybe with a minor tweak or two to some of the subclasses, at playing the skill monkey/ half-caster support role that it is pretty obviously designed to fill.

TwoSix · May 17, 2019

DEFCON 1 said:
In all seriousness, I actually do not care if/when they publish it, as I believe KibbleTasty's Alternate Artificer (currently on v1.7) already is a better version than what WotC has continued on with and it is all I will ever want or need in an Artificer. The seven subclasses it has for it cover conceivable archetype I might ever want, and my Eberron campaigns have already benefited from its existence.

Unless your only option is playing Adventurer's League and thus HAVE to use the WotC version... I don't know why anyone would go with theirs over KibbleTasty's.

Yea, agreed. The WotC Artificer is fine, it's not like I would turn it away if someone wanted to play it, but I'd show them Kibbletasty's first and recommend it as the superior option.

gyor · May 17, 2019

Looking at the poll the top option is publish it with minor adjustments and that second highest is yes, with nearly 70% between them. If WotC's, Survey resembles this I think they will make a few adjustments, and then they will publish the Artificer to Wayer's Guide to Eberron. Especially since they likely don't want to keep dragging development out forever on top of that.

It's popular, won't take much to refine it (no more Artificer UAs for just minor tweaks), and they can now focus on the Psion and other projects more.

Stalker0 · May 17, 2019

DEFCON 1 said:
In all seriousness, I actually do not care if/when they publish it, as I believe KibbleTasty's Alternate Artificer (currently on v1.7) already is a better version than what WotC has continued on with and it is all I will ever want or need in an Artificer. The seven subclasses it has for it cover conceivable archetype I might ever want, and my Eberron campaigns have already benefited from its existence.

Unless your only option is playing Adventurer's League and thus HAVE to use the WotC version... I don't know why anyone would go with theirs over KibbleTasty's.

I took a look at KTs. I can see the appeal, there is a lot of good stuff there. But on the other hand....the class by itself probably takes up as many pages as all of the core classes (seriously, its huge). So its good, but WOTC would never spend that much page space on a single class.

DEFCON 1 · May 17, 2019

Stalker0 said:
I took a look at KTs. I can see the appeal, there is a lot of good stuff there. But on the other hand....the class by itself probably takes up as many pages as all of the core classes (seriously, its huge). So its good, but WOTC would never spend that much page space on a single class.

Oh, of course not. Nor should they. But for a class whose formatting is based on the Warlocks, I think it is much, much better that each of the seven subclasses has their own list of "invocations" to select from, rather than the Warlock's where there's one single list and all the patrons select from it.

I'd rather have a 20+ page document where all the selections for a particular subclass are fluffed specifically for that subclass, rather than have to strip away fluff from a feature whose name is obviously Great Old One-centric in order for it to be selected for a PC with an Archfey patron (for example.)

And that's what is great about DMs Guild... there are dozens, if not hundreds of character features, subclasses, classes, archetypes etc. written specifically for whatever crazy idea you might have for a character already in existence, you just need to go find them. And then of course not get so hung up on "Oh, it has to be official WotC product, otherwise it's no good."

Blue · May 17, 2019

Prakriti said:
Since the release of Xanathar's Guide, I've lost all faith in the developers' ability to design new classes and sub-classes. At this point, anything they add to the game is just another thing I have to tell my players they can't use because it's awful and poorly designed (and I hate having to do that).

For the good of the game, I wish the developers would give up on creating new crunch and just focus on settings, adventures, and monsters instead. At least they're good at that stuff.

Player crunch sells books.

You don't have to worry about going out to your players to deny it - I believe this will be embedded in the Eberron sourcebook they are selling, not a general expansion like XGtE.

(As a side note, I'm actually happy with the XGtE subclasses I've seen hit the table in the games I play. I don't want to derail this, I personally had more problems with the races in Volo's but even there is was inconsistant, not universally banned.)

Blue · May 17, 2019

Kyvin said:
My issue with the Artillerist is that the 6th level wand ability seems useless to me. Why would this subclass want to use cantrips? You have the options of:

Attacking with your heavy crossbow twice for 1d10+dex+1d6(from arcane weapon) & 1d10+dex+1d6(arcane weapon) vs a firebolt with Int bonus for like 2d10+3. And if you take Sharpshooter, then forget about it. The wand stuff needs to go.

I read it and came to 100% the opposite conclusion than you. This is a subclass that will support how I want to play it.

Want to be DEX based, it can do that, use my limited slots on arcane weapon, and be a crossbow-wielding hunk. But Arcane Weapon takes concentration, which locks you out of a bunch of options.

Want to be INT based, it can do that. Don't need slots, cast scaling, boosted cantrips from your wand. Heck, you don't even need to dedicate one of your very limited cantrip known slots, and it's changable every time you enchant the wand it if you have some clue what you will be facing that day. You do less damage but can get useful riders and don't need to spend you slots nor Concentration on Arcane Weapon.

The cleric domain Divine Strike / Potent spellcasting at 8th that locked you into cantrip or weapons when that didn't always fit with my concept always struck me as bad design, locking you in.