Artificer UA to be released in February

I don't think there is a bunker strong enough to endure the fanbase exploding over this.

 

[Bill Winski]

Meh.

 

[Parmandur]

First, I apologize that my previous comment came off a bit wrong (can quite put into words at the moment). Anyway, my point is that it may not have the sales reach they want for a print product. I really think it is a test bed for future setting content. It will be successful enough to push them to release PDF and print on demand products this way, but not successful enough to full print versions. But that is just my guess.

In the Spoilers & Swag, Stewart said that Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica had proven the market is there for setting products lof a similar nature: I reckon we will see an Eberron book like Ravnica, with monsters and other important bits.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

ok, it is not astounding.
It is only 5,000 copies over the boats thing and, most important to me, 100+ 5-stars ratings above.

Maybe. Captains and Cannons, a non-WoTC supplement, is ranked #21 right now on DMs Guild (compared to the #4 of Wayfinder's Guide). This is a 41 page supplement that is ALL about ships.

So yeah, draw your own conclusion but I suppose it seems both are in demand right now.

 

[André Soares]

Maybe. Captains and Cannons, a non-WoTC supplement, is ranked #21 right now on DMs Guild (compared to the #4 of Wayfinder's Guide). This is a 41 page supplement that is ALL about ships whereas Wayfinder's Guide only has a few pages dedicated to the artificer.

Everyone buying Captains and Cannons is interested in utilizing ships in their campaigns. I don't think that one can definitively say that everyone buying Wayfinder's Guide is interested in the artificer.

So yeah, draw your own conclusion but I suppose it seems both are in demand right now.

Wayfinder's Guide has nothing dedicated to the artificer (yet). But I don't know what's the point in this discussion on the priority of ships against boats. Both are wanted and both are coming. Does it really matter that one came 2-3 months earliers?

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Wayfinder's Guide has nothing dedicated to the artificer (yet). But I don't know what's the point in this discussion on the priority of ships against boats. Both are wanted and both are coming. Does it really matter that one came 2-3 months earliers?

Ooops - I missed the boat on that one!

 

[dave2008]

Meh.

Moo!

 

[Aiden_Keller_]

In Sword Coast D&D 5e....wouldn't this essentially be a wizard that has proficiency with Smith Tools?

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I liked the Artificer that appeared in UA, I felt it just needed a couple more archetypes and some fixes to it's companion feature (hopefully regulated to a subclass). I was completely fine with it's "sort of like sneak attack" features the subclasses got. It felt different enough from other classes, which is what I felt was great.

And I liked the Gunsmith, it was never meant to be a gunslinger and I saw it as more of a prototype weapon designer, as it was implied that a Gunsmith Artificer might be the only people in the world using guns. I also didn't feel that Artificers need to adhere to what's in Eberron. Artificers shouldn't be exclusive to Eberron as there are many out there who have homebrew campaigns, where they can pick and choose what they want.

 

[NaturalZero]

Most definitely. One of the problems of the previous Artificer, IMO, was that it tried to be too many other concrete things all at once: Eberron artificer, a generic alchemist, a gunslinger, a mechanical rogue, etc. I personally think that WotC should give up the concept of Artificer as gunslinger/gunsmith since Matt Mercer's gunslinger largely fills that role already.

The Artificer in Eberron was more akin to a guild artisan that would develop from within a magical setting. They looked across the spectrum of magical traditions, regardless of categories like "divine" or "arcane" magic, in a desire to distill and transfer the essence of magic into objects. And through infusions (and crafting), Artificers had a tremendous degree of flexibility in their use and creation of magical items. This magical economy was most definitely rooted in its original 3e context, but also to its benefit, a 5e Artificer will be spared the cumbersomeness of 3e magical crafting rules. So a 5e Artificer provides the opportunity to present something more streamlined and simple.

One of my most memorable characters in 3.5 was an artificer, and I enjoyed what it was at the time, but it definitely felt like it was more of a mechanical byproduct of the specific rules of 3e than a archetypal concept with rules created to match. There was no strong build for an alchemist, a mechanical tinkerer, a robot builder, or any of the other concepts you see in popular visions of the fantasy inventor. It played around with XP costs and pushed around crafting budgets but, for the most part, it didn't really do anything that different from other spellcasters in 3.5. It could buff armor and weapons, but so could the wizard or cleric. It could stack metamagic onto wands but other classes were doing mechanically identical things by stacking metamagic onto spell slots. Once you strip away effects that other classes are already doing, what was really left?

As a concept, the artificer would really benefit from being a legit alchemist, gunsmith, golemancer, arcance macguyver, et al. I want to see it doing stuff that no other class in 5e is doing, instead of trying to emulate what it did in 3.5, which was essentially wrapping the class features of other classes into new packages. The way these things manifest could, and should, involve magical crafting, but, as you point out, the artificer will be spared the cumbersomeness of 3e magical crafting rules.

 

[Mistwell]

Meh.

I rebut your retort with a critique of your retort:

Meh.