D&D 5E (2024) What's New with the Artificer in Eberron: Forge of the Artificer

[WanderingMystic]

The best way to sum it up is that the core class has nowhere near the amount of power creep some of the other classes get, and only if you pick the right Replicate/Spell-Storing choices do you have any leg up for this. And if you get your Bastion to make the right items for you, because the class identity actively discourages doing any higher-level crafting yourself.

Maybe viable if you pick the Optimizer choices, trash otherwise.

While I have to agree that the core class is still lacking they boost to the subclasses bring the Artificer up to an average class.

 

[mellored]

10th: Magical Item Adept: The loss of the reduced gold cost and time required is another misstep with the new Artificer.

Seems like that was moved to the subclass.

 

[eclair~]

While I have to agree that the core class is still lacking they boost to the subclasses bring the Artificer up to an average class.

Except most of the subclasses have almost zero changes. The only one with any significant upgrade is the Artillerist, and that's divided between "deciding this one subclass doesn't have to choose between its options" and "catering to True Strike optimization".

 

[Zardnaar]

The best way to sum it up is that the core class has nowhere near the amount of power creep some of the other classes get, and only if you pick the right Replicate/Spell-Storing choices do you have any leg up for this. And if you get your Bastion to make the right items for you, because the class identity actively discourages doing any higher-level crafting yourself.

Maybe viable if you pick the Optimizer choices, trash otherwise.

So the okd one with a more generous DM magic item wise might be better?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That would involve too much effort, and 2024 is about minimizing the amount of effort the target audience has to put into optimizing their characters (and effort of the programmers to implement functions on DDB).

I was talking about homebrew my guy. I don't care about the cynical idea that they are designing the game for DDB.

I continue to feel that a good half the complaints about Artificers come from people comparing it to the imaginary Artificer they dreamt up based on the name alone, not the actual class as it's ever existed on paper. It is not and never has presented itself as a "genius inventor" class.

It has always been exactly that. Explicitly.

 

[Kurotowa]

Literally on the front page on DDB this very moment:

I read different connotations to that. It has "magical invention" and "tinkerers", not "genius". And I add that together with my background knowledge that every D&D PC class is focused on going out to do D&D adventurer things, and the picture I get is very different than the one you obviously have.

 

[SkidAce]

Artificer

...

2nd: Replicate Magic Item: This is the major place where I feel that they dropped the ball. The lowering of recipes known from 12 to 8 is a misstep. They need the ability to learn new recipes from either studying magical items themselves of swapping recipes with other Artificers. This would give them a great deal of versatility and ways for the DM to give them extra treasure rewards.

...

Huh. I kinda assumed they could learn new recipes. Welp, that's my 1st house rule.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Seems like that was moved to the subclass.

Technically, sure. If you don't mind it being limited to literally one kind of item. Which isn't actually the same thing at all.

 

[eclair~]

I read different connotations to that. It has "magical invention" and "tinkerers", not "genius". And I add that together with my background knowledge that every D&D PC class is focused on going out to do D&D adventurer things, and the picture I get is very different than the one you obviously have.

And as long as it's your picture that WotC draws exclusively, to the detriment of players who enjoyed the class and didn't demand it to be derailed to suit only the people who didn't like it, that's all that matters.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

They're not even a field medic. They're a stage magician who plays cheap tricks instead of practised illusions. They're the class for people who want to pretend they're genius inventors but not have to roleplay or engage in any sort of work in that regard.

The class would have a more cohesive identify if every one of their features involved little fey doing all of the work for them and slipping things into their pockets at an apt time.

There's literally only one person at the table whose job it is to invent things, and it ain't the artificer; it's the DM. If you wanna invent naughty word, you go on the other side of the screen. PCs are reactive by nature.