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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6460551" data-attributes="member: 2067">It's not about balance, it's about purpose. Whipping up an Apparatus of Kwalish isn't overpowered, it's just not right for a class feature -- square peg in a round hole. An artificer shouldn't rely on the DMG's magic item list as a source of their every-day powers, I think, ESPECIALLY if those powers are supposed to be reliable and given. I don't like the idea of an Eberron DM who wants to allow artificers also de facto allowing an artificer whipping up Manuals of Bodily Health every day and jacking the whole party's CON to 20, or whatever. It's also not that unique. An Apparatus is a few buffs and some aquatic movement when boiled down to its essential function. It's fun as a goofy thing to find in a dragon's hoard, but as a reliable thing that the party can always have access to, it's adventuring function is "now I get to fight and explore underwater," which isn't anything that magic spells can't already do. It's new, it's big, it's just not a good thing in play. We can do better! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> All of those distinctions -- arbitrary as they may be in story -- are supported with mechanics in 5e. The artificer could be, too. If the artificer is to be a distinct class, it needs that mechanical distinction. What might that mechanical distinction look like? Because the 3e artificer and the 4e artificer don't have that strong of a distinction. A cosmetic change ("I use cantrips from a book" / "I use cantrips from a wand!") doesn't feel strong enough. And "I can mine the DMG for magic items to craft" is trying to make two distinct rules elements kiss and make horrific monster babies. It's a nightmare. That way lies madness. There is a better way. That's fair. I'm not saying it has to be one or the other. Here is what I am saying:In 3e and 4e, the artificer class was not very distinct. It was a cosmetic distinction. Item creation wasn't a unique niche, and neither was "non-scholarly spellcaster." The 3e and 4e classes both had some interesting mechanical fobs (infusions, armor, item crafting), but those fobs are small and easily fit into subclass features. Those fobs are too small to hang a whole friggin' 5e class on. If the artificer follows the pattern from 3e and 4e, it should be a subclass. Bard subclass, cleric subclass, wizard subclass, whatever. Item crafting, proficiencies, and infusions can fit in subclasses. If that's all an artificer is, then it needs to be a subclass. It's a specific kind of spellcaster, one with a little niche that it does well, and that's cool, but it doesn't need a 5-page spread to support that. If the artificer is to be a full class, it needs to be a more meaningful chioce, mechanically and narratively. It needs to support a variety of character types from the world under its umbrella (the idea of mining PrCs for this is a good call!). It needs to support that with distinct mechanics. I don't know what those mechanics would look like. They wouldn't be the same mechanics from 3e or 4e (which are small variations on proficiencies and spellcasting). They would have to be more significant.There's precedence of 5e doing this -- the Sorcerer is more distinct now than it was in 3e or 4e, too, with a fairly novel mechanic.  I can accept an artificer class, I just don't see what its version of "sorcery points" much actually look like. "I get to make items from the DMG reliably" isn't viable, but something crafting-based probably would be.It's Paradox of Choice stuff: The decision point at the level of class is BIG. If an artificer class is what we want, it needs to be BIG, as big as the other classes.</blockquote>

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