5th Edition has been highly conservative when it comes to adding classes to the game. To a large extent, this is mitigated by the fairly constant release of subclasses.
Coming into D&D as a World of Warcraft veteran, the idea of subclass was not new to me - in WoW, each class has a number of "specializations" (typically 3) that can change the way you play. WoW has fairly strict group roles, so, for example, the Paladin has the Holy, Protection, and Retribution, which are designed to allow you to be a healer, tank, or damage-dealer, respectively. But other classes, such as the Warlock, for which all three specializations ("specs") are damage-dealers, nevertheless distinguishes each of its specs through a different emphasis and vibe - Affliction is all about using damage-over-time abilities to achieve a death of a thousand cuts, while Demonology is all about summoning a swarm of demonic minions to attack your foes, and Destruction is about landing massive, devastating spells that blast your foes away.
In WoW, they've added a total of three classes over their 18 years (with a fourth new class coming in November with their next expansion). But they don't add new specs to existing classes (the only time they did that was to separate out a single Druid spec that, depending on how you built it, would be either a damage dealer or a tank, but didn't work with a redesign to how specs worked.)
D&D, in 5th Edition, has gone the other route. Generally, they've added new subclasses to the classes, but have only introduced a single brand-new class to the game.
I wonder, though, if they're planning on doing more of that.
The Artificer will, unfortunately, not be showing up in the new PHB (at least that seems to be the current plan, but I wouldn't hold my breath). However, the playtest documents do refer to the Artificer with some of the new tags: They are an Expert class that uses Arcane spells.
If the Bard and Ranger in the new playtest document are anything to judge by, it looks like class spell lists are going away. Instead, we'll be using those three spell lists - Arcane, Divine, and Primal - but certain classes will be limited in what schools of magic they can use.
Thus, we can sort of approximate class lists - the Bard, for example, has always been limited a bit in what kind of spells they can cast (outside of Magical Secrets). They're full casters, but they don't get Fireball, because that's not really what a Bard is meant to be using.
Now, I think you could make an argument that restricting Bards to half the schools of magic is a blunt way of approaching this (not letting them cast Summon Fey seems wrong) but what it does do is it makes it very simple for WotC to add new spells to the game. Xanathar's Guide to Everything (and, to a lesser extent, Tasha's) has pages just listing all the spells that various classes can use - pages that they wouldn't need if each of these spells just has two tags: their school of magic and the type(s) of magic they are.
Fizban's Treasury of Dragons introduces, among other things, a spell that Artificers can use. Thus, it's making a reference to a class that they cannot assume all players have access to. Not the end of the world, to be sure, but slightly inelegant.
But also, this creates a pressure whenever they add new spells to the game - do we give it to the weird class that's not in the PHB? Indeed, what classes do we give it to?
If Artificers were introduced after these changes go into effect, you could probably use some basic rules about their spells: maybe it's Arcane Spells that belong to the Abjuration, Conjuration, Evocation, and Transmutation schools (or whatever). Now, adding spells to the game no longer requires you to consider Artificers specifically - if they fit in those categories, you're golden.
The same applies to feats. If they add more of these to the game, the fact that Artificers are already Experts means that you can just grab any new thing that is given to Experts.
So, let's say that I want to add another class to the game. We'll say Shaman (which is a WoW class). The Shaman would obviously be a Primal spellcaster. Maybe, like the Bard, we'd want to limit them to a certain type of spellcasting to push them into particular group roles. Perhaps not so much Enchantment or Illusion, but they'd have full access to the other Primal spells that a Druid gets.
Side note: I assume that Clerics and Druids, being the only full casters of their respective spell categories, will simply get access to all Divine and Primal spells, respectively. I'd assume that Wizards will get all Arcane spells. What I'm less sure about is if Sorcerers will be limited (perhaps emphasizing things like Evocation over, say, Conjuration) and likewise Warlocks. Notably, the Eldritch Knight Fighter and Arcane Trickster Rogue already kind of work this way, though they use the Wizard spell list rather than the Arcane list (obviously, because it's only now being introduced).
We haven't yet seen new magic items, but in a similar manner, by linking these to class categories rather than, perhaps, specific classes, you can easily make an item that works for any Priest, which means that it'd work for Clerics, Druids, or Paladins, but also our new Shaman, which would probably fall into that category.
This really frees them up to throw out new classes with less infrastructure than you typically need to bring to make them work.
Now, will they actually do that? I don't know. But this at least leaves the option open in a simpler, easier way than they had in the past.
New subclasses could also make use of these. Much as the current Divine Soul Sorcerer gets access to Cleric Spells, that would simply be "Divine Spells" now. You could imagine redesigning the Storm Sorcerer to now have access to Primal Spells (perhaps limited by school).
Oath of the Ancients Paladins could get some Primal spells. A hypothetical "Circle of the Cosmos" Druid might get access to Arcane spells.
The possibilities really open up here, and even though it's jarring to see class spell lists being phased out, I think this is the sort of change that might feel weird now, but wind up being really good for the game.
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