Artificer Gameplay Impressions

A week and a half ago I got a chance to play an Artificer during a one-shot. My usual Adventurer's League Descent into Avernus game wasn't playing the day before Thanksgiving, so those of us who were still in town decided to come into the store anyway and do an all-Warforged party.

We played at level 8, which of course means we didn't get quite all of the big class features. But here's the general sense I got of the class:

I was playing a Battle-Smith, which meant I was doing some pretty standard physical combat. It was nice to be able to use Intelligence for weapon attacks, and it makes me think that the "Hex Warrior" feature that Hexblade Warlocks get really ought to be a part of Pact of the Blade instead (at least the part where you use Charisma for weapon strikes.)

The DM gave us all some magic items to start off with, and I got a Laser Pistol and a +1 shield, sadly relegating the Musket I had built to my bags, but putting my medium-armor-wearing Warforged at a whopping 22 AC (between some +1 Half Plate with +2 - actually +3, but medium armor - Dex, which got me to 18, the Warforged bonus that put me at 19, and the +1 shield bumping it to 22) with a hand free to shoot the pistol, which I then infused with Repeating Shot, so it was a +1 Laser Pistol (which deals 3d6 Radiant on hit.)

Combat-wise, the Artificer has a couple of tricks. One trick I absolutely forgot to use was Flash of Genius, which lets you, as a reaction, give an ally (or yourself) a bonus to a saving throw or... I think ability check or attack roll equal to your Intelligence modifier (mine was 5 by level 8.) As a Battle-Smith, you also have your Steel Defender, which has frightening low AC (15) that can't be boosted, but can attack foes if you use a bonus action to tell it to and also has a reaction that can impose disadvantage when an adjacent ally is attacked - which I did, actually, remember to use.

Because you can use Mending to heal your Defender (as well as your turret if you're an Artillerist,) you can basically assume that if you have a couple minutes between fights you'll always get these guys to full before a fight breaks out. Oh, and they can also heal themselves and other constructs.

The Steel Defender (or Turret) are probably the most notable things for two of the three Artificer subclasses, and Alchemists can take the Homunculus infusion to have their own in-combat pet.

Spell-wise, I had some fun with Heat Metal when we were facing a powerfully-armored Githyanki (it was basically a Spelljammer game,) though it was hard to pass up using my Laser Pistol to attack.

I'd say that in-combat, the class sort of surprised me in how normal it felt.

However, outside of combat, I think Artificers are going to be very exciting for any campaign that makes use of downtime. As a Warforged Artificer with the Izzet Engineer background (not being an AL game I strove to use as many disparate sources as possible) I had proficiency (and thus expertise) in seven different types of artisan's tools.

If ever you wanted to supply your party with armor, weapons, mechanical contraptions, and potions, holy crap is this the class for you. Hell, an Artificer NPC could be a huge ally to the party even if they don't get into the fight, as you can infuse items with various magical enchantments. I imagine that the more traditional, permanent enchantments would also be something they can do with downtime, but the relative ease of making any weapon into, say, a +1 magic weapon, is pretty damn useful while on the road. (Especially because if your Fighter finds a magic sword, you can just end the infusion on their old one and infuse the Monk's staff instead.)

While I enjoyed playing the class, I actually think this is a class that might be a lot more fun to play over the course of a whole campaign, being the sort of Donatello to your party's Ninja Turtles.

The fact that they're a half-caster means that their spells are not going to get into the crazy stuff that pure casters get. In fact, I think your subclass is going to very dramatically affect your spell choices, not only because each one gets an expanded spell list of always-prepared spells (kind of a best-of-both-worlds between Warlocks and Clerics' domain spells.) Artillerists, for instance, will get things like Fireball (though later than Wizards and Sorcerers) while Battle-Smiths will get various smites.

I'll confess that I have less of a strong sense of the Alchemist as a subclass, but it seems like you'll be able to play a fairly effective healer/buffer.

The Artificer is going to fit nicely into any group, a bit like the Bard, and also like the Bard, can fill various roles.