Tasha's, Class by Class - Artificer

 Finally, we come to the newest but also alphabetically first class in 5e D&D. Tasha's includes a full reprint (with just a couple changes) from Eberron, Rising from the Last War, which first gave us the Artificer. Given that it's kinda-sorta a new class but also not, there aren't really any big class changes that come with it. I'd have to go through their spell lists in each book to see if there are any changes, other than some spells that are found in Tasha's itself (while nearly all Artificers have some major use for their Bonus Action, I still think Summon Construct would be a lot of fun to play with.)

Notably, some of the Replicate Magic Item infusions have been removed, as they had items found only in the Eberron book (though Prosthetic Limb is reprinted in Tasha's and no longer requires attunement!) I don't believe there are any brand-new infusions, though there might be some subtle changes, for example to the Homunculus Servant, that I haven't caught.

However, there is the new subclass, Armorer, which is printed here along with the established Alchemist, Artillerist, and Battle-Smith (man, you know there are 24 other letters in the alphabet, Artificer subclasses!)

New Subclass:

Armorer:

As I've written about here before, the Armorer is more or less your Iron Man subclass. You get proficiency in heavy armor and smith's tools. You can then work with a set of armor (not just heavy) and turn it, with an action, into a suit of Arcane Armor, which removes its Strength requirement, lets you use it as a spellcasting focus, makes it so the armor can't be removed against your will (though you can retract or deploy the helmet as a bonus action) and the armor also replaces any limbs you're missing with prosthetics of the same functionality, and finally, allows you to doff or don the armor as an action (great if you need to recover hit dice on a long rest but are worried about nighttime fights - just suit up with a single action!

You also get to switch your set of armor between Guardian and Infiltrator mode. The former is tanky, with some special weapons that encourage foes to attack you instead of your allies, while the Infiltrator lets you make ranged lightning attacks and also gives you advantage on Stealth checks.

This is an interesting change from UA, which simply removed the disadvantage on Stealth from certain types of armor (notably all heavy armor.) By giving you advantage instead, on one hand, it means you'll never be able to get true advantage on stealth checks while wearing non-mithril heavy armor, but it also means that you'll never get any sort of disadvantage, and if you use light armor or a breastplate (or have Medium Armor master and use any Medium armor) you'll always be extra-sneaky, which is darned cool. I think overall this probably actually comes out to be a buff.

    The Artificer has been a very well-received addition to the game, and rightly so, and I think the Armorer manages to introduce a new flavor of Artificer that simultaneously feels very on-brand for the class while feeling very distinct from the other subclasses.