Let me start by saying this is a rant. It's a giant rat-king nest of run on sentences
And easy-to-read formatting to boot
I have had fun playing one in 5e... Solely by the generous permission of the GM to allow it to make and innovate using the item creation system available to any class.
The 5e item creation rules are lacking at best, incoherent (between DMG, ErftLW and Xanatar) at worst. However, if one of the players want, say, to play a ranger with favored enemy undead, I think it's bad form for the GM not to include
any undead in the campaign and not let the player know beforehand. If you have a druid that can shapechange into beasts he knows... but the GM has decided that everything will take place on a small island kingdom were nobody has ever seen a bear, it's worth informing the player as well. I feel it's the same with artificers. I think they perform well either if magic items are totally impossible to acquire (so they are the only source and supremely useful) or if magic item creation rule, with the quarter-of-time-and-hafl-money is a serious class feature of them, allows them to retain their usefulness when regular magic items availability outperforms their magic item replication feature. Since Eberron is a magic-wide setting, I feel the latter is to be expected. Artificer were first designed with 3e ruleset in mind, when magic item creation was much more integrated with the setting, and the GM needs to take that into account (or tell it explicitely so people can choose a class more fitting).
A lot of your comments allude to a situation where everyone gets super cool magic items (and adapted to their playstyle to boo) while the artificer can't craft the exact one he needs to advance the party's goal. That's the exact contrary of the playstyles the Artificer can shine in, which would be both Eberron (magic wide but not very powerful, item creation possible) and the assumed default of not having magic item as they tend to break bounded accurracy (so the artificer is basically the only one with them).
lets take a closer look at the mess that is Battlesmith under the microscope and you will see what I'm complaining about. As an Battlesmith Artificer your support role limited to the spells you know and using your pet's reaction wisely to impose disadvantage on enemy attacks. Compared to the other half casters you lose a fighting style in favor of an admittedly great set of cantrips, but will rarely if ever make use of them in combat due to the clunky requirement of weilding a set of tools or an infusion imbued item to cast those cantrips. Easy enough yeah? This means you have to have a dedicated hand to weilding either tools, or a nonmagical version of an item you have to soup up to end up on a net disadvantage (not -that "disadvantage"-) compared to the items other classes are getting for free as part of their loot from adventuring because your infusions (and primary weapon/item buffing spells) can only be used on non magical targets so if you plan on casting spells all the way through 20th level, you are still stuck holding tools, a mundane shield, or a mundane weapon.
To be honest, I'd say most GM don't look a lot at the number of hands you have. If yours is, he would also want you to have a free hand anyway to perform the somatic part... so no casting with both a weapon and a shield, since you'd be lacking a free hand. So, the point you raise only apply to spells without a somatic component, for which it is totally valid. There are few : lightning lure, sword burst, faerie fire, blur and intellect fortress, plus a few other maybe on your subclass list. That's quite narrow though, and the solution in that case is to fight "normally" with magical sword and board, then, on the round you want to cast, drop your weapon (no action cost), draw the tool hanging from your belt (free as part casting the spell, you only need your now-free hand) then use the free Object interaction to pickup your weapon back. If enemies adjacent to you are readying an action to pickup your weapon in case you drop it to cast a spell, your DM is really out to get you...
But the artificer has firearms proficiency
True, but this won't really help in an Eberron setting were firearms are explicitely nonexistent.
and in theory the battlesmith is the subclass best equipped to make use of them right? Well you are going to take a hit to your ac because you wont be able to weild a shield because your nifty repeating shot infusion may create ammo for your gun but does nothing to get rid of the reload property guns have (which is different from the -loading- property crossbows have) so your second attack is as good as gone if you even pick up a firearm.
That's probably why nobody invented firearms in Eberron. Wandslingers and crossbows are much more powerful ;-) To be more serious, I don't think the firearms proficiency was mentionned to imply that artificers get access to better weapons than Renaissance firearms (the 1d10 one-handed pistol and the 1d12 two-handed musket) both of which have the loading property, like a crossbow.
Modern firearms, if your GM is letting you access them, are better. Yes, you won't be able to infuse them with the repeating shot, but with 15 shots in the 2d6, one-handed automatic pistol, you can reload at the end of the fight. Most of them last around 3 rounds, so that's at most 6 attacks if you only shoot. The only problem would be with the decidedly inferior shotgun (2 shots)... but since it's two handed, you'd have lost your shield anyway. And frankly, you'd do as much damage using a 6-shot revolver one-handed (2d8), so why bother ever picking up a shotgun. It's like fighting melee with a sickle.
You still lag behind the guys with archery fighting style and their likely +1 ranged weapon, sharpshooter etc. Oh and to rub in more salt in the wound, you likely wont ever have the feats to get xbow expert, no less sharpshooter so have fun being at a constant disadvantage in melee. Oh and here's another kicker ; your tailored bonus smite spells are all incompatible with ranged attacks so your special bonus spelllist is useless of you go that route.
I think battlesmith were designed to be pairing with their
clank steel defender in melee more than as ranged fighters. I am not sure I understand your rant about lagging behind other half-casters with a fighting style -- paladins? -- when fighting ranged. The smite (2 spells out of 10) don't make the bonus spell useless as a whole, by the way. I think you might be exagerating a little.
More salt in your wound, you dont get to add your intelligence to your armor class in lieu of dexterity and are still bound to its strength requirements so you may as well do away with that major benefit since dexterity is now nearly as valuable as if you were attacking with it anyway.
Since you're not proficient with heavy armor, the assumption is that you wear medium armor, so you don't need STR for them and DEX is useless above 14. Taking a feat to get heavy armor proficiency doesn't seem optimal given the high AC battlesmith already achieve. It is, actually, the first post I see complaning about them having a problem with AC due to DEX not being replaced by INT.
Your steel guardian is cool but any of the other artificers can make use of the almost equivalent iron guardian.
Care to elaborate? I have no knowledge of this. Do you think of the Homunculus Servant? The rest of your argument is difficult to undestand without reference.
That and a human hireling with a healing Kit easily outclasses your healing abilities in 5e.
I think hireling would be like famliars... the first to die if they showed up in combat after level 3 or so... TBH the fluff about battlesmith being combat medic is quite overdone, though.
Oh and don't bother with two handed weapons because of that earlier mentioned need to have a tool in hand
If dropping weapon is a free action, your DM is really after you if he doesn't allow you to hold a two-handed weapon freely. You only need it to wield it. A staff is a two handed weapon and we often see them held with a single hand outside of hitting people's head.
Each of the Artificers subclasses have awful issues just like this wether it's its the artillerist being outclassed, outgunned, and outsupported by the (anything that can cast fireball 4 levels earlier),
Once that fireball is cast, however, the artillerist is good at damage dealing for the 5 to 7 other fights of the adventuring day. If you're having less, it is going to favour long-rest features. That's a DM problem, not a balance problem (though I feel like you on this because the style of campaign I like makes it a stretch to fit so many fight in a day).
The biggest problem I see with the Artificer was making it's signature ability to use any magic item freely and use them as it's spellcasting niche to 14th level... A level which in a canon eberron game you have would count yourself among the rarest of individuals, the setting Elminsters and Mordenkainens, to have obtained so good luck ever making it there.
It's not harder to get to level 14 in Eberron than anywere else. You won't encounter NPCs that can steal the PCs's limelight by overshadowing, but there is no difficulty to run high-level campaign in Eberron. If you're looking for help on this point, Keith Baker's blog discusses it and has very good ideas.
