The Artificer is the only new class to be published by Wizards of the Coast for 5th Edition D&D after the Player's Handbook brought the twelve core classes. Initially published in Eberron: Rising from the Last War (2019), the class was reprinted with very minor tweaks (mainly removing Eberron-specific magic items from their Replicate Magic Item list) and a fourth subclass (the Armorer) in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything (2020) and making it a broad option for any campaign setting.
Because of its status as the only "new" class added to the game, some had hoped and speculated that the Artificer might be added to the 2024 Player's Handbook, but alas, it was left out in favor of the twelve "core" classes. This might not have seemed so unfair if the Artificer had been one of several classes to be added to the game, but as it stands, they're the odd ones out. Granted, they were introduced halfway through 5E's run so far, so one could make the argument that they've already received the benefits of those first five years of experimentation and iteration on design philosophy.
My fear, as I've expressed several times on this blog, is more about the class being left behind - not getting new subclasses or expanded options (such as new Infusions to choose) because WotC is under no obligation to include more Artificer options in future big rules-expansion updates, and indeed it would likely require them to reprint the entire class in any future "of Everything"-style book in order to make good on the promise that you can make full use of any book published by WotC with only the three core rulebooks.
But let's go to imagination-land. Let's imagine that in some future rulebook, we wind up getting a revision to the Artificer that will allow it to grow and change in ways that the other classes have (you know, except the Ranger *drops mic*).
Now, before we begin, not all of these suggestions will actually be consistent with one another. I can imagine two ways to approach the Artificer, one far, far more radical than the other. Artificers, of course, make use of spellcasting just like most other D&D classes, and are half-casters like Rangers and Paladins, even though two of their four subclasses nevertheless focus primarily on spellcasting in combat.
I have extensive experience DMing for an Artillerist Artificer - we have on in my Ravnica campaign that has been going more than 4 years, and the character, a Changeling Artificer and member of the Izzet League, is now level 17 (and made use of both a reskinned Tome of Clear Thought and an Ioun Stone of Mastery, and so has a +20 on tool-based checks that make use of Intelligence. I did this to me.) The class pumps out a lot of single-target damage that is fairly reliable, and has a lot of utility in basically anything involving the use of tools and a very powerful reaction in Flash of Genius.
I think if there's one philosophical difficulty when looking at the class, it's the prevalence of magic items. If the DM is very stingy with magic items, the Artificer flourishes, being able to replicate most of the basic items you need. If the party has ample access to such items (such as when your DM lets you level up too quickly in the first half of the campaign and then has too much story to tell in the higher levels when you're going through multiple adventure arcs that would in any campaign let you level up at the end of them but now have to be like 1/4 of the level...) the Artificer can sometimes feel like their primary out-of-combat job is being undermined.
I also think that the game really needs to figure out magic item crafting - something that is supposedly addressed in the new DMG, but we'll see how well-considered it is (I'll note that Starfinder, which assigns every item and enchantment a monetary value, other than Starship parts, which have their own system, does make crafting a lot clearer).
But, the Artificer is still potent outside of the workshop, so even if crafting is kind of what the class is supposedly all about, we can still suggest some adjustments regardless of the kind of adventure we're playing.
Spell Components:
It's somewhat easy to miss, but the Artificer is unique in that no matter what spell they cast, they need a spell focus to cast it. This can either be a set of artisan's tools they're proficient with or any object carrying one of their Infusions.
The flavor of this is that they're really generating that spell through a device that they've built or a concoction they've mixed. If I ever played an Alchemist (unlikely, given that it's my least favorite of the four subclasses) I'd flavor many of my spells as tossing bottles of volatile solutions at my foes.
There are two issues with this:
The first is actually a weird ambiguity in the rules themselves - one that I'm given to understand is not addressed even in the new PHB. As written, if you have a spell focus, it will count as the material component for a spell that doesn't consume it, and for which the material component doesn't have a specific cost. So, that bit of bat guano you need for Fireball? You can just hold a Staff.
Another rule says that if a spell has a somatic component (which nearly every spell does) you can perform that component in the hand that is holding the material component.
But the weird ambiguity here is what happens if you have a spell focus in your hand and want to cast a spell that has a somatic component but no material component?
Rules as written, it appears you can't (or at least need to use the other hand) because the spell focus only replaces the material component, and if there isn't one, it's just occupying the hand that has to make the somatic component.
Obviously, I think any sane DM would recognize this oversight and just read it as "a hand carrying a spell focus can also perform the somatic components for a spell." (Weirdly, though, I don't know if anyone has noted that Burning Hands actually specifies the somatic component, which requires both hands. I've never seen this denied, but in theory does this mean you can't cast this spell while wearing a shield?)
The second issue is that it's basically just a pure punishment for the Artificer. In the campaign where I played my Eldritch Knight, we were sucked through a portal into Avernus that also removed all of our gear, dumping us naked onto the hellish plains. Our Monk had zero problem whatsoever (though it meant losing his Cloak of Displacement) but my Fighter, with his +0 to Dex, had to steal a fallen Merrengon's Halberd and do his best to stay out of reach of the devils that cane to attack us.
But an Artificer in that situation would be utterly screwed - unable to cast any of their spells (though an Armorer would theoretically be fine because their armor can't be removed against their will - assuming the DM doesn't make an exception for sticky portals, which would be kind of a nasty move).
An Artificer in that situation wouldn't even be able to cast something like Fire Bolt, because even though it doesn't have a material component, the class requires you to have a spell focus to cast it.
Here's my crazy solution:
Artificers should only have to provide material components. After all, it's not really you casting the spell, but the device you've prepared for the day to do so. The spell is already loaded into the item, and there are very few machines (though I guess more in our era of Alexas and Siris) that require you to make a sound to turn them on.
And this would have some real gameplay benefits - an Artificer would be unimpeded by things like the Silence spell, and could easily cast spells while hidden.
It'll still be clear when they're casting - but rather than waving their arms around and shouting some strange arcane words, they've got that spinning galvanic engine in their hands that is shooting out blue sparks and about to blast some fools with lightning.
Make them All Weapon Users:
While it will be a less exciting thing when the Pistol and Musket are added as standard martial ranged weapon options (though they're going to be freaking expensive and don't come as starting equipment) Artificers do, as an optional rule, gain proficiency with firearms even though they natively only get simple weapons.
But who actually uses them? Basically just the Battle Smith. Alchemists and Artillerists are better-served using cantrips, and Armorers only really want to use the weapons built-in to their suits.
If Artificers are the class that uses tools, it seems to me that they should apply that to their meat-and-potatoes turn in combat and use that particular kind of tool that makes things die called a weapon.
Now, I don't think they should be using just any weapon (other than the Battle Smith). I'd propose instead that the Arcane Firearm an Artillerist creates be treated as a ranged weapon as well as spell focus (which it likely would be anyway given that it's probably infused with something). I'd then also give Alchemists a device that launches chemical substances. I'd leave this vaguely concepted, as it could be anything from a kind of tank-and-hose rig to just some specially-designed throwing flasks - maybe with magic that reconstitutes them in your inventory after they shatter (akin to the cracked pots in Elden Ring).
Then, you'd take the ability to use Intelligence for your attack and damage rolls with your magic weapons from the Battle Smith or armor-based weapons for Armorers and make this instead a broad class feature: from level 2 (maybe) you can use Intelligence instead of Strength or Dexterity whenever using a magic weapon (and again, we can easily make any weapon magical thanks to our infusions). Likewise, we'd take the Extra Attack feature that Battle Smiths and Armorers get at level 5 and make it a class feature. We might need to adjust the Arcane Firearm and Alchemical Savant features to bring them in line now that they'll be affecting a weapon that the character can attack with twice a turn.
Now, you might think that I'd then also recommend that Artificers get access to Weapon Mastery. Perhaps controversially, I'm actually going to lean away from this, and instead suggest that we get more interesting infusions that you could put on your weapons to grant similar (or, hopefully, totally different) effects. Like, say, Caustic Weapon, which causes the weapon to, yes, get a +1 to attack and damage rolls, but also gives the next attacker bonus of 1d6 to their attack, acting similar to but not quite the same as Vex.
Flavorfully, I don't think even Battle Smiths are really masters of the weapons they wield - their mastery is instead in designing a more effective weapon, overcoming foes with ingenuity more than technique.
Scrap Spells:
This one's by far the biggest change, and the one that I, frankly, could never see WotC going with.
As half-casters, Artificers wind up feeling like they need some special oomph to justify bringing one instead of a Wizard or Sorcerer. I've often thought about how Wizards and Artificers might view one another in a fantasy setting, and usually the Wizards are conceived as being more respected and powerful, even if the two might be of precisely the same level of intelligence.
But I think if Artificers' various capabilities were represented primarily not by simply raiding other classes' spell lists (there are no spells that are Artificer-only, which adds to this feeling of being somewhat the odd man out) but by having their own, unique effects and devices that they can create, you might really allow them to carve out their own identity.
I will say that this is highly unlikely, and might ultimately be a bad idea because it cuts off the ways that WotC could choose to expand the class in the future. While I've said that Artificers only get any new options in the books that fully reprint the class, that's not strictly true: in Fizban's Treasure of Dragons, Artificers (along with some other classes) got Ashardalon's Stride, a pretty cool 3rd level spell.
I have some hope that in future big rules-expansion books we might actually see more spells added to the Artificer spell list, even if they don't have room to reprint the entire class.
By contrast, I think if Artificers had a unique set of character options in place of spells, it would be far less likely that WotC would ever expand the list, and even that initial list would probably be smaller than what they currently have. So forget this one.
Spell Points:
There's an alternate rule in the 2014 DMG that replaces the idea of Spell Slots for characters with the Spellcasting feature (this doesn't work for Warlocks). Instead of having Spell Slots, characters instead have a pool of Spell Points. They can then spend these points to cast spells. For example, a 3rd level Wizard normally has four 1st level spell slots and two 2nd level spell slots, but under this system, they'd instead have 8 spell points. This means that they could cast 8 1st level spells in a day, or perhaps four 2nd level spells. They're still limited to spending as many spell points on a single spell to the maximum spell slot they'd normally have (so that 3rd level Wizard isn't going to be casting an 8th level Shatter) but it provides a lot of flexibility.
There are, of course, some problems you might run into at higher levels with this system. A 17th level Sorcerer would have a total of 71 spell points, and could thus cast Meteor Swarm on 7 consecutive rounds if they wanted to.
However, as a half-caster, an Artificer would cap out at 41... still a little much (they could cast 8 5th level spells in a row) but not, I think, utterly overpowered. (A 20th level Cleric could spend 9 turns in a row casting spells of 5th level and higher under the normal spell slot system).
But why, though? Why should they be the exception?
The idea here once again comes to the way they cast their spells. Artificers use devices they have built. Conceptually, the way I imagine this is that they have a power source - one that might be linked to their own soul or spirit or body (so another creature couldn't simply use their stuff) - and that each time they cast a spell, they're drawing on that source. The source would, of course, be left vague to let characters skin them as they wish (I imagine an Alchemist has something like a Philosopher's Stone or a churning brew something akin to a sourdough starter, while an Armorer might have a... ok, an Arc Reactor. Yes, it's the Tony Stark subclass, shut up) that simply needs to recharge with the character as they finish a long rest.
Now, would this complicate things? Sure. It would probably be hell on multiclassing. But it would work, flavorfully. Admittedly, I think this is only slightly more likely to make it through a design process than my "Scrap Spells" suggestion.
I have a special place in my heart for the Artificer. While I'm not remotely handy as a person, and generally bad at building things, my grandfather was a real tinkerer. The laundry room in my grandparents' apartment when I was little was really a workshop, with what looked like thousands of tools arrayed on the walls, and the place was filled with devices that my grandpa had constructed or adjusted (one of the big things he did was adjust anything that made sound to be about ten times louder, because he was nearly deaf - a direction that my dad is going and that I'm expecting will start to kick in when I'm in my later years).
I'm really hoping that the Artificer won't just be kind of left in the rear-view mirror as D&D moves forward into this "5.5" Edition. I'd also be really excited to see some other new classes, and hopefully see them get some continual love moving forward as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment