It's not underpowered or overpowered. It's just powered. ;-)
Agreed. They're "powered", which means that they can be functional characters in a campaign. That's literally the baseline requirement for something to be a class; for it to be able to function in 5e.
I never felt underpowered on an alchemist. The other subclasses are more efficient but the alchemist does add versatility over them and focuses more on actual healing. Different focus isn't the same thing as underpowered.
I think the problem with the Alchemist is largely a combination of the same problems that the Way of the Four Elements Monk and the Wild Magic Sorcerers have. That being that they have to use their class resource to use their subclass features. Now, Alchemists don't have it as bad as the Four Elements Monks do, because the Alchemist at least gets some free uses of its abilities. However, these "free" uses of their subclass features come at the price of them being randomly determined (much like the Wild Magic Sorcerer), so their base subclass features have the possibility of being outright useless on the average adventuring day.
That's the problem. Imagine if there were 6 different types of Eldritch Cannons that the Artillerist could have, all with various uses, and the Artillerist had to randomly determine which free type of eldritch cannon they got each day. That would suck, and that's what makes the Alchemist suck. They aren't strictly "game-breakingly underpowered", but they are a problem.
If the armor proficiencies are good enough for a ranger then they are good enough for an artificer. I'd argue artificers applying infusions make better use of the armor regardless of who is wearing it, though.
That was kind of my point. That it got even less martial proficiencies and features (Extra Attack, Fighting Style) than other half-casters, and got their Artificer features in exchange for that (Infusions, Cantrips). It's a trade-off, it's not OP, was my point.
Less weapon proficiencies won't matter because subclasses either add proficiencies or the artificer uses cantrips instead. The extra attack is similar in that subclasses add it for that style of character anyway.
Using the fighting style to gain cantrips comes a level later, gives up the actual fighting style, and doesn't add the additional cantrips gained later or ritual casting.
Agreed.
Infusions are not available to paladins or rangers.
I don't think I said they were. The point was a trade-off. Artificers get magic items, but they aren't "free", at least in comparison to what other similar classes get.
I would say the points given show they are different in some respects and not others, but doesn't demonstrate superiority or inferiority.
Agreed. That was kind of my point. They're well-balanced, as all things should be
- Thanos
Artificers are more versatile than paladins. Paladins are better at nova (IME).
Sure. And that versatility comes at a trade-off (normally DPR).
Unique spells aren't more or less powerful than other spells of the same level. That's the point of having spell levels to measure general power. ;-)
They're not "more powerful", but they are a good thing for a class to have. It differentiates them, often giving them something that only they have the ability to do (well, them and Bards, because of stupid Magical Secrets). This point wasn't really about "power", it was more about "Paladins and Rangers get unique spells on their spell lists, many of which are quite good and archetype-defining, and Artificers don't get those things".
IME none of those classes are actually game breaking. Hella useful sometimes but not actually game breaking.
Eh, I've found them situationally game-breaking. Maybe "game-breaking" wasn't the right term to use there. "More powerful, and in more circumstances" would probably be more accurate.
Challenge accepted, but I'm not sure we're disagreeing. I think we both don't find artificers OP or weaksauce.
I don't think we really disagree, either. I was responding to
@6ENow! because they were claiming that the Artificer (and Warforged) were game-breakingly overpowered, and I was trying to explain my reasoning why they weren't. They didn't reply (well, they did, but they replied to say that they weren't going to reply), but I'm glad you did.
Artificers are not OP. They are pretty useful in all stages of the game, but more infusions at lower levels would be nice. That feels a bit restrictive.
Agreed. If I could make one simple change to the written Artificer class right now, it would be to give every subclass 1 extra infusion, but specific to that subclass's specialty (So an Armorer could get a special type of Armor upgrade that they could put on themselves or others, Battle Smiths could get Infusions that upgraded their Steel Defender, etc).
