Artificer UA to be released in February

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

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

If WotC doesn't sell sourcebooks with new classes then it will be published by third party companies, and someone of them are in the SRD now.

My opinion is subclasses are like the same dress with a different color and some fashion accessories but some players want to wear different clothes, like a mark of identity.

Maybe WotC and Dreamscarred press should make an agreement for a new version of magic of incarnum+Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords, and with Radiance House for the vestige pact binder.

 

[DQDesign]

What I especially oppose is the notion that as a fan of a game, I'm only allowed to have wants and needs that align perfectly with maximizing company profits.

the problem is even worse.
there are data which clearly show that non-FR material is very appreaciated by fans. see for example dndBeyond data or enworld reviews about curse of strahd.
there are also data which clearly show that crunch material is very appreciated by fans, see for example the amazing selling performances of xanathar.
so actually publishing something not-FR and crunchy (for example, the Artificer) would clearly maximize wotc profits.
and they instead decide to publish the 'seasickness handbook' and leave the artificer in the fridge for a lot of years. saying that it is for 'playtesting needs'.
moreover, they clearly stated that they will never publish something related to spelljammer or mystara, and they leave both the settings blocked on dmsguild for development. maybe because do they know that non-FR stuff is very appreciated there (see wayfinder eberron)??
anyone here is obviously allowed to consider that a very good approach towards the customers and the community, also basing his appreciation on the simple fact that wotc is 'THE authority'.
but I prefer to consider that a confusingly approach at best, and I think both the community, the brand and the customers would deserve something better.

 

[Parmandur]

And look and behold, that's not what I'm asking for.

Most new subclasses are lazy rehashes of where exactly you gain Advantage.

I'm talking about new classes. This thread is about a new class.

Your post is irrelevant and likely meant only to dismiss my credibility.

A Subclass makes significant mechanical and narrative differences, but yes, is easier to do than a whole Class.

Their stated goal with a new Class is to achieve parity with the satisfaction rates the base Classes (90% approval threshold). That is, make something balanced (difficult) and popular (double the trouble). This takes time and testing, years of it. They are producing crunch that people use, in a way that makes their customers happy. What monsters.

 

[DEFCON 1]

the problem is even worse.
there are data which clearly show that non-FR material is very appreaciated by fans. see for example dndBeyond data or enworld reviews about curse of strahd.
there are also data which clearly show that crunch material is very appreciated by fans, see for example the amazing selling performances of xanathar.
so actually publishing something not-FR and crunchy (for example, the Artificer) would clearly maximize wotc profits.
and they instead decide to publish the 'seasickness handbook' and leave the artificer in the fridge for a lot of years. saying that it is for 'playtesting needs'.
moreover, they clearly stated that they will never publish something related to spelljammer or mystara, and they leave both the settings blocked on dmsguild for development. maybe because do they know that non-FR stuff is very appreciated there (see wayfinder eberron)??
anyone here is obviously allowed to consider that a very good approach towards the customers and the community, also basing his appreciation on the simple fact that wotc is 'THE authority'.
but I prefer to consider that a confusingly approach at best, and I think both the community, the brand and the customers would deserve something better.

Let's not go overboard here though. The reason why the artificer hasn't been released after all this time is entirely based upon when they are ready to release a 5E Eberron setting because that is where the artificer comes from and is primarily meant to be played. Now if you want to argue they should have released Eberron two year ago (and thus we'd receive an artificer two years ago too), fine. But let's not confuse that with this idea that they have deliberately held back making a new class just because they felt like it. They've held back making a new class because they wanted to fit it into a product that actually uses and needs that new class. The same way they've held back on the Psionmystic-- because its primary function has been to enhance Dark Sun. And until they are ready to produce Dark Sun, they have no place to put psionics "just because".

And as far as opening up Spelljammer or Mystara or any other settings to DMs Guild for people to produce their own material... first of all I have no idea why anyone would actually want to make things for those settings right now in the first place. Without the WotC machine producing Spelljammer and Mystara material to promote those settings, just how many copies of a Spelljammer module do you think you can sell? And without the official rules on things *like* how Spelljammers work or the types of monsters and enemies and adventures that Spelljammers deal with... just how useful of things can you really make for publication?

And then secondly of course is that WotC is under no obligation to help other people make money off their stuff. They *are* doing it because it helps keep their current storylines active for a whole heap of people, especially through Adventurer's League. But why would they want people to produce product for things that aren't currently active? How does that help anybody (either themselves, the players, or indeed the content creators?) I'll be honest... I almost think they're doing people a favor by NOT letting them make stuff for settings that practically nobody is playing right now. They're keeping content creators from making a marketing mistake by producing something for which there is legitimately almost no market. Now if you want to argue that it should be up to the creators to determine whether they want to make that mistake by producing items for setting for which there is little to no market... okay, feel free to make that argument. But I suspect you'll find very few people who would go along with you on that thinking that is was a good or smart idea.

Instead... WotC is telling all of us "If you want to make product that people will actually use, make it for the settings that are currently active, *or* make it generic and have faith that if there are small isolated pockets of fandom out there running campaigns in non-active settings, they will know how to take generic material and fit it into their specific setting. But don't waste your time and energy trying to help out a 1% marketshare group and forsake the other 99%."

After all... if we think most DMs Guild product goes flying by unnoticed by most of the gamer population NOW... it'll be even worse when you slap on a "For use with X setting" sticker that'll mean nothing to almost everybody except for a select few.

 

[dave2008]

...moreover, they clearly stated that they will never publish something related to spelljammer or mystara, and they leave both the settings blocked on dmsguild for development.

That is not what they said. They said - "not this year." That is a pretty strong implication that it is planned or in the plans for the future.

 

[Parmandur]

What I especially oppose is the notion that as a fan of a game, I'm only allowed to have wants and needs that align perfectly with maximizing company profits.

Literally nobody has advanced this notion, implicitly or explicitly. What has been said is that people like what they are doing, and their moral obligation is to make fiscally responsible product. Two separate thoughts, which happily align for many of us. WotC isn't under any moral obligation to meet a crunch quota.

 

[Parmandur]

Let's not go overboard here though. The reason why the artificer hasn't been released after all this time is entirely based upon when they are ready to release a 5E Eberron setting because that is where the artificer comes from and is primarily meant to be played. Now if you want to argue they should have released Eberron two year ago (and thus we'd receive an artificer two years ago too), fine. But let's not confuse that with this idea that they have deliberately held back making a new class just because they felt like it. They've held back making a new class because they wanted to fit it into a product that actually uses and needs that new class. The same way they've held back on the Psionmystic-- because its primary function has been to enhance Dark Sun. And until they are ready to produce Dark Sun, they have no place to put psionics "just because".

And as far as opening up Spelljammer or Mystara or any other settings to DMs Guild for people to produce their own material... first of all I have no idea why anyone would actually want to make things for those settings right now in the first place. Without the WotC machine producing Spelljammer and Mystara material to promote those settings, just how many copies of a Spelljammer module do you think you can sell? And without the official rules on things *like* how Spelljammers work or the types of monsters and enemies and adventures that Spelljammers deal with... just how useful of things can you really make for publication?

And then secondly of course is that WotC is under no obligation to help other people make money off their stuff. They *are* doing it because it helps keep their current storylines active for a whole heap of people, especially through Adventurer's League. But why would they want people to produce product for things that aren't currently active? How does that help anybody (either themselves, the players, or indeed the content creators?) I'll be honest... I almost think they're doing people a favor by NOT letting them make stuff for settings that practically nobody is playing right now. They're keeping content creators from making a marketing mistake by producing something for which there is legitimately almost no market. Now if you want to argue that it should be up to the creators to determine whether they want to make that mistake by producing items for setting for which there is little to no market... okay, feel free to make that argument. But I suspect you'll find very few people who would go along with you on that thinking that is was a good or smart idea.

Instead... WotC is telling all of us "If you want to make product that people will actually use, make it for the settings that are currently active, *or* make it generic and have faith that if there are small isolated pockets of fandom out there running campaigns in non-active settings, they will know how to take generic material and fit it into their specific setting. But don't waste your time and energy trying to help out a 1% marketshare group and forsake the other 99%."

After all... if we think most DMs Guild product goes flying by unnoticed by most of the gamer population NOW... it'll be even worse when you slap on a "For use with X setting" sticker that'll mean nothing to almost everybody except for a select few.

Yeah, I think they are withholding settings for legitimate brand managing purposes, which benefit everyone in the long run. That's the key to WotC current strategy: long-term thinking.

 

[DQDesign]

[MENTION=7006]DEFCON 1[/MENTION]

the Artificer does not come from Eberron. it was introduced in 1996 in 'players' options: spells&magic' as a wizard subclass, exactly as done in the first 5E wotc UA related to it. neither the psions were introduced in Dark Sun, they were already present in 1st edition AD&D handbook, so reasoning about those classes being tied to specific settings is pointless. both of them were firstly designed before the settings you cite, so clearly there is another reason because they are not published now, and that reason is not tied to campaign settings.

moreover, remember that wotc takes 50% of every penny gained on dmsguild, so their are not helping only authors making money, they are helping themselves a lot.

 

[DEFCON 1]

[MENTION=7006]DEFCON 1[/MENTION]

the Artificer does not come from Eberron. it was introduced in 1996 in 'players' options: spells&magic' as a wizard subclass, exactly as done in the first 5E wotc UA related to it. neither the psions were introduced in Dark Sun, they were already present in 1st edition AD&D handbook, so reasoning about those classes being tied to specific settings is pointless. both of them were firstly designed before the settings you cite, so clearly there is another reason because they are not published now, and that reason is not tied to campaign settings.

moreover, remember that wotc takes 50% of every penny gained on dmsguild, so their are not helping only authors making money, they are helping themselves a lot.

Oh come on now... let's be real here. The Artificer is a thing because Eberron made it a thing. So why else would WotC find the need to create and re-publish an Artificer if not for the Eberron setting? There have been hundreds of classes made for D&D over the years, in every edition and for countless books and in countless issues of Dragon Magazine. If they are deciding to remake the Artificer for 5E, its because they want it available for Eberron, not just because they decided to randomly choose a 13th class to publish and this just happened to be the selection they drew out of a hat.

And while yes, psionics have been around since AD&D, they were never a focal point of any part of the game until Dark Sun purposefully made it an inherent part of their setting. So again, if WotC was going to choose to publish this new Psion class for 5E and need a book to do it in, the most logical place to have it appear would be in the setting that is most closely aligned to it. Sure they could have just put it in Xanathar's if they wanted to... but what would have been the point? Just to have a 13th class out there for people? I mean, I guess you could do that if you felt any real need to make a 13th class available just because... but personally I don't see it.

Now, would it have bothered me if either the Artificer or the Psion had appeared earlier in just some random book? Nope. I'd look at them and go "Okay, they are now officially available for people. Lovely." But I also have not been put out at all that they haven't appeared. Why? Because quite frankly I've already been using both of them already anyway in their playtest forms. A player of mine used the playtest Mystic in one of my Curse of Strahd games, and another player is currently using kibbletasty's expanded Artificer class based upon the playtest doc in my current Eberron game. And the fact that they aren't "officially released" hasn't mattered one whit.

And it also matters not that WotC gets 50% of any DMs Guild sale, because if just selling lots of material for the cash was really all that mattered to them, they would have already made or opened all kinds of stuff. Besides which, as I said... they aren't really helping themselves by opening up Mystara on the DMs Guild, because 50% of nothing is nothing. And while you may think you have some way of generating sales from settings that practically no one is playing... I suspect WotC would rather just wait on those nickels until such time as they can be fully supported across the entire platform.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I think there is a good reason for a return of Spelljammer: Hasbro toys. In the right hands it can be a blockbuster like the reboot of "My little centauress: cuteness is magic".

Mystara is also "Red Steel" and "Hollow World", but also the setting for the famous 90's arcade of D&D. A good agreement with Capcom and.. voilá!

I miss the vestige binder, and I would like something like a nahualt, a totem shifter/beast warrior with incarnum soumelds.

* If a new class is added, they are in all the settings? For example the warden and the seeker in Dark Sun.