D&D Releases Playtest for Updated Artificer

Wizards of the Coast has dropped a new Unearthed Arcana Playtest for the Artificer, bringing the often neglected 13th Dungeons & Dragons 5E class into alignment with the 2024 rules update. The playtest was released via D&D Beyond today, with feedback launching on December 24th.

The Artificer gains several new abilities, many of which are designed with an eye to making the class more versatile. For instance, players can now craft low-cost items quickly with a revamped Magical Tinkering ability, while Infuse Item ha been changed to Replicate Magic Item and allows players to replicate magic items of certain rarities and item type. Players can also use the Magic Item Tinker ability to convert a Replicated magic item into a spell slot. The capstone Soul of Artifice ability has also received a buff, with the Artificer no needing a Reaction in order to utilize its ability to skip death saving throws and restoring more health as well.

The subclasses were also updated. For example, the Alchemist's Experimental Elixir producing more elixirs and Chemical Mastery getting a big boost with extra damage, resistance, and the ability to cast Tasha's Bubbling Cauldron. The Armorer has a new Dreadnought option and Armor Modifications was replaced with a new ability called Armor Replication. The Artillerist's Eldritch Cannon can switch between various options instead of being set to one option and the Explosive Cannon ability does more damage and only requires a Reaction to use. Finally, the Battle Smith has received minor adjustments to its Steel Defender construct.

Compared to many other class updates in the 2024 Player's Handbook, the Artificer's changes are much less drastic. There are some obvious updates that bring the class in line with the design updates to other classes, but it didn't receive a major rework like several other classes.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I'm not sure where it was said, but I believe that there's going to be a Tasha's/Xanathar's refresh to 2024 rules. Of which this will be a part.

As far as I know, WotC has never said that officially, but we've all assumed it. They're not going to not update swashbuckler or bladedancer, for instance.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Looking at Wizards' schedule, the other possibility for where this class would fall is the Forgotten Realms Players Guide. But it certainly also could be something not yet announced, like an Eberron release.

After reviewing that PDF, as much as I like the Artificer class, I really don't like that a single class takes about dozen pages to detail out.

 

[Zaukrie]

We do NOT need a new Eberron release (and I own nearly all of what WotC and Keith have put out)......I mean, I love Eberron, but I'd not put out a full book on it.

That said, a book that had "here is what is unique about each of these worlds", and then had a class or two and species and backgrounds for each would work (and I'd make it clear those classes have leaked into other worlds).

That said, I expect a Tasha's replacement, not a world book.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

As someone who thinks the artificer is already solid (my armorer rocked! The battle smith rocks!), I like the new direction. Magical tinkering is what dmfast craft should have been: craft when you need it. Not after a long rest.

I am torn about the alchemist random potions. Those potions are really strong for level 1 slots as they produce effects that would normally require concentration.
I think the temporary hitpoints any potion noe gives (increased quite a bit to artificer level + int modifier) makes any potion good.

In my opinion the alchemist was never as bad as people thought. Same goes for the whole class. If you saw yourself as a wizard or fighter, you did not look at yourself correctly. You are foremost a support character and the alchemist doubles down. And since they very like share their magic items unlike all the other subclasses they were especially helpful.

 

[Remathilis]

Okay followup, enspelled armor and weapon is actually hilarious as an option with multiclassing.

If you dip into wizard you can replicate Enspelled Weapon to create a weapon that allows the wielder to cast find familiar... which you could then spend a day passing around to each party member until everyone has a familiar that doesn't go away. This is already true of just crafting something like an Enspelled Quarterstaff of Find Familiar with 10 days of work and 200gp of materials, but this lets you do it on a much shorter time scale without any real resource expenditure. This is something you could legitimately do with the party with a single day of downtime before/during an adventure, not even a full day.

And at 14th level? Well, you can do this again, but with homunculus servant, giving everyone another permanent extra buddy they can communicate with telepathically from a distance. This also lets you generally get around the component costs of find familiar and homunculus servant.

Artificer 14/wizard 1/paladin 5 could give everyone in the party their own familiar, homunculus, and mount from find steed. [emoji24]

I kinda want to say "so what?" Everyone having a bunch of noncombatant allies isn't any more annoying than one player having them.

But it does show that the issue with player crafting magic is a fundamental problem. 2014 didn't include rules for buying and crafting magic items and that there was nothing to spend gold on. So 5e gives some rather limited crafting rules and the first thing people do is find every exploit and loophole to show how badly the crafting rules break the game. Personally, I think it proves that they were right to make magic purely in the DMs hands, but what can you do?

 

[Pavilon]

I still cant believe that a class entirely built around Crafting does not get a bonus to downtime crafting. If there was ever a class that should be able to craft items faster, cheaper, or with less materials its the Artificer. Wizards seems to just not care about downtime activities period.

 

[GarrettKP]

I still cant believe that a class entirely built around Crafting does not get a bonus to downtime crafting. If there was ever a class that should be able to craft items faster, cheaper, or with less materials its the Artificer. Wizards seems to just not care about downtime activities period.

Literally the first feature of each subclass lets them do this for the item type they specialize in. It’s in there, my guy.

 

[Remathilis]

We do NOT need a new Eberron release (and I own nearly all of what WotC and Keith have put out)......I mean, I love Eberron, but I'd not put out a full book on it.

That said, a book that had "here is what is unique about each of these worlds", and then had a class or two and species and backgrounds for each would work (and I'd make it clear those classes have leaked into other worlds).

That said, I expect a Tasha's replacement, not a world book.

We do need an Eberron update. Warforged and kalshatar are still using the original pre-MotM design rules. Dragonmarks need a whole new system now that subrace has been removed. They need to address the issue with half-orcs and half-elves being marked houses. They could probably stand to explore aasimar and goliaths in the setting too.

That said, I'd rather a Xendrik book over another Khorvaire book, but there are a lot of things that could stand to have an updated version that match current design paradigm.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I hope they try to implement an actual Psion class, keep it simple for DMs and other players: such as using new and existing spells with a twist. Though after the Artificer and Psion I only see there being room for 2 or 3 more classes tops.

 

[Pavilon]

Literally the first feature of each subclass lets them do this for the item type they specialize in. It’s in there, my guy.

please explain then because in the Artillerist i see nothing about a crafting bonus. other than just a wand. I am referring to general crafting