Artificer UA has been released!

[Satyrn]

Ugh. I'm going to be annoyed as $%@# if people start showing up in my group with Artificiers. I wish the sidebar made it explicit that these are intended solely for Eberron. Instead they did the opposite.

What's next, Jedi?

#getoffmylawn

If you were a Jedi, the kids would obey your #jedimindtrick

 

[Remathilis]

Yeah, I'm rather tired of the mentality that "if it didn't exist in 1e, it doesn't belong in Greyhawk".

This seems true of most established D&D settings; ardent fans demand the setting never change from it's first printing and any attempt to widen the field is sacrilege. It creates these arguments that Greyhawk cannot have dragonborn, Dragonlance cannot have warlocks, Dark Sun cannot have tieflings, Mystara cannot have artificers, etc.

Settings adapt or die. Those that cannot adapt to the current rules should be left to gather dust with the edition they were written for.

 

[Blue]

It gets worse as it goes on, and the whole time I'm wondering... why? Why not just give the Artificer their own unique abilities that allow them to manufacture mechanical spiders that bind wounds or produce healing salves? Why make these abilities "spells" and dump all the responsibility of making them cool and flavorful onto the players themselves? Also, what happens when the Artificer enters an anti-magic zone? Do the clockwork spiders suddenly stop working? Or the healing salves? Meh...

They are explicitly tying it into the spell mechanics, which does a lot of the heavy lifting for them. And yes, as makes sense with the fiction, if an artificer walks into an anti-magic zone their magically-powered constructs stop working.

Now, if they should do this is a very valid question. It does mean there's already a lot built up for them, including meaningful multiclassing as opposed to how in some earlier editions you couldn't multiclass out of a "new mechanics" class because unlike spellcasting or melee there were no other classes that would advance your new mechanic.

I wish they'd just make an all-out engineer class (with gunpowder and clockwork inventions a la World of Warcraft) or an all-out magic-item-creation class. Instead, they're trying to kill two birds with one stone and fit both archetypes into a single class. It just doesn't work.

That would be a cool class, but at odds with the already established magic-enchanting artificer that's been around for over a decade. I'd like to see it, but not have them re-interpret the canon Artificer in that direction.

 

[Ash Mantle]

That works great when it's my game, but when I'm not DMing it's somebody else's game.

And even when it *is* my game, I feel like a jerk for telling a player, "No, sorry, you can't have that option just because it doesn't appeal to me aesthetically." So I usually don't.

That's definitely commendable and understandable, and I've been in the situation here before and I appreciate the struggle.

It's ironic that whenever I say, "I hope X doesn't make it into the official game" the response is "Don't be a selfish jerk. You can do whatever you want with the game: if you don't want it in yours just don't include it!"

But the symmetric argument is: "You can do whatever you want with YOUR game, too: if you DO want it, just include UA or homebrew material. You don't need it to be official."

I understand that people are fans of certain options and hope they are in the game. That's find and totally valid. And sometimes I'm not a fan and don't want it in the game. That's neither more nor less valid.

It's just...willfully blind?...to argue that new options, especially new options with dramatically different flavor, don't have to have an impact on those who don't want them. At the very, very least you end up being the bad guy saying "no" to somebody.

However, I also find it ironic that your initial phrasing has always been strongly negative and strongly defensive, and that you've constructed a narrative for yourself.

Ugh. I'm going to be annoyed as $%@# if people start showing up in my group with Artificiers. I wish the sidebar made it explicit that these are intended solely for Eberron. Instead they did the opposite.

What's next, Jedi?

#getoffmylawn

I'd be more ok with genre expansion if it additional classes (and races, subclasses, and even spells) were tied explicitly to different settings. "If you're playing Dark Sun, remove classes A, B, and C, and add classes X, Y, and Z."

I loathe having a jumble of every possible race and class combination in the same setting.

My posting to your response:

I mean that's your prerogative and you're always welcome to play the game however you want and that includes stopping the inclusion of something, but I feel if people have a justifiable reason for the inclusion of an "outside-setting" class or race and can make it work in the campaign, all the more power to them.
This is really where you need a session 0 to discuss the expectations, the tone, and the assumptions of the campaign.
I feel the sidebar as presented gives justifiable reasons to include them in those campaign settings.

I mean it's your narrative

 

[Ash Mantle]

From the strange way it is written. It reads like a trigger, instead of a cost paid in exchange for an effect. "You summon a turret when you expend a spell slot" as in expending a spell slot for any reason fulfills the criteria to summon it with an action, instead of the more standard "You must expend a spell slot to summon a turret as part of an action."

Yeah, that's indeed the cost and effect or trigger and effect, dude. I don't want to be rude, but do you understand how expending a spell slot, rather than casting a spell, to fulfil an effect works?
Check out the paladin divine smiting or the warlock eldritch smiting, it works similarly to those mechanics.

Artificer Revisited UA: You can summon a turret once for free and must finish a long rest before doing so again. You can also summon the turret by expending a spell slot of 1st level or higher.

Paladin Divine Smite: Starting at 2nd level, when you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can expend one spell slot to deal radiant damage to the target

Warlock Eldritch Smite: Once per turn when you hit a creature with your pact weapon, you can expend a warlock spell slot to deal an extra 1d8 force damage to the target

 

[Demetrios1453]

This seems true of most established D&D settings; ardent fans demand the setting never change from it's first printing and any attempt to widen the field is sacrilege. It creates these arguments that Greyhawk cannot have dragonborn, Dragonlance cannot have warlocks, Dark Sun cannot have tieflings, Mystara cannot have artificers, etc.

Settings adapt or die. Those that cannot adapt to the current rules should be left to gather dust with the edition they were written for.

The thing about races in Greyhawk is that, outside the Flanaess and neighboring regions, the setting is largely unexplored, by both us (players and those who wrote for the setting) and its inhabitants. So who's to say there isn't a nation of dragonborn somewhere to far to the west or southwest on the continent of Oerik (or elsewhere)? And those who try to say that Greyhawk shouldn't have any tieflings simply make me shake my head. What have Iuz and the Great Kingdom been doing for decades? There's minimal difficulty with introducing tieflings to the setting given the history we already have!

(Hmm, I may need to backtrack my statements on the artificer for the same reason as dragonborn - there may just be a nation or society of them somewhere out in unexplored parts of the world...)

 

[mcmillan]

Yeah, that's indeed the cost and effect or trigger and effect, dude. I don't want to be rude, but do you understand how expending a spell slot, rather than casting a spell, to fulfil an effect works?
Check out the paladin divine smiting or the warlock eldritch smiting, it works similarly to those mechanics.

Note the phrasing is different, though it obviously has the same intention. The smites are phrased as "when you hit ... you can spend a slot to deal damage". The artificer is phrased as "you summon the turret by expending spell slots". Seramus' point is if someone was being really pendantic they can interpret that phrasing as expending slots to cast a spell will also summon the turret. This kind of phrasing tweaks are in line with the documents itself noting it's "not refined by full game development"

 

[Ash Mantle]

Note the phrasing is different, though it obviously has the same intention. The smites are phrased as "when you hit ... you can spend a slot to deal damage". The artificer is phrased as "you summon the turret by expending spell slots". Seramus' point is if someone was being really pendantic they can interpret that phrasing as expending slots to cast a spell will also summon the turret. This kind of phrasing tweaks are in line with the documents itself noting it's "not refined by full game development"

My reading has been that it functions similarly to previous precedent, that you use up the spell but the spell isn't cast. Note if they intended the expenditure to also include spellcasting they would've said so. Hopefully we can give them this feedback in the class survey and get them to clean up their wording, but it isn't confusing.

Note this stipulation with casting:

When a character casts a spell, he or she expends a slot of that spell's level or higher

 

[Seramus]

Check out the paladin divine smiting or the warlock eldritch smiting, it works similarly to those mechanics.

Notice how there's a distinct difference in the phrasing of the Turret vs the two Smites? That's what I'm talking about. That's certainly not how I'm going to run it in my game, since the intent is pretty clear to me. But it was weird enough that it stood out to me.

Hopefully it gets cleaned up in the final version.

 

[Ash Mantle]

Notice how there's a distinct difference in the phrasing of the Turret vs the two Smites? That's what I'm talking about. That's certainly not how I'm going to run it in my game, since the intent is pretty clear to me. But it was weird enough that it stood out to me.

Hopefully it gets cleaned up in the final version.

As an UA, it'll be excellent for them to clean up and tighten their wording, especially if it's in line with previous precedent. But I'm honestly not seeing an issue, if they were to stipulate you also get to cast a spell by expending the spell slot they would've worded the sentence with that in mind. They didn't do that. Note the phrasing on "Casting a Spell in the PHB".

When a character casts a spell, he or she expends a slot of that spell's level or higher

They never say you also get to cast the spell, only that you expend a spell slot.