The Artificer's Future

 When the Artificer was released for 5E, it came out in Eberron: Rising from the Last War, marking the class as a part of that idiosyncratic setting. Eberron is a more technological setting than, say, the Forgotten Realms, inspired by pulp adventure novels from the 1930s (though given that Conan the Barbarian was among such pulp novels, so was D&D itself) and a bit of Film Noir from the 40s and 50s.

Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, though, brought us a more-or-less unchanged version of the class, along with several subclasses from other setting books (though it came out too early for the ones in Van Richten's) and gave them a setting-agnostic seal of approval to be part of the overall list of options for 5E characters (not that I had any interest in restricting their use as a DM).

With the 2024 PHB revising the twelve original 5E classes, but leaving out the half-as-old Artificer, I had thought maybe we would be waiting for a long time before getting an update, or really anything, for this class.

But that's not the case:

The Artificer is getting its own 2024 update with this year's Forge of the Artificer, a lighter and less comprehensive Eberron book (that also appears to be coming out at a 30-dollar price point, little over half the cost of your standard D&D book) with a revision along with a fifth subclass (and revisions to the existing four).

Still, while I was excited to see this (though I'm mixed on the revisions they're making to the class,) I had still thought that the Artificer was likely to stagnate as it had in its initial incarnation, due to a principle that, unless the full class was reprinted, they could't really add anything to it.

Now, to be fair, that's not strictly true - a single spell out of Fizban's Treasury of Dragons was designated as available for Artificers.

But I do think that the governing principle with 5E has been that every single book they release should be useable if you only have the three core rulebooks.

However, with the likely release of the Reanimator Artificer in what I assume is going to be a similarly smaller Ravenloft supplement akin to Forge of the Artificer, there's reason to believe that they're going to start treating this class as a full and welcome part of 5th Edition.

I don't know whether WotC plans to have big setting-agnostic rules expansions like Xanathar's or Tasha's for 5.5E, but my hope would be that the Artificer could continue to get supported with other expansions to its subclass and spell options (I'd also, frankly, love to see at least one Artificer-exclusive spell).

Now, there are two routes that might follow from this approach:

The more consistent embrace of the Artificer as a class in 5E, marking it as perhaps last among equals with the 12 from the PHB, might also imply that they're unlikely to add more classes to the game. Rather than building out new full classes, they'll simply keep working on the existing thirteen.

Alternatively, the opposite could be true: having found the right way to approach non-core classes, they might feel emboldened to create more of them.

I do think, though, that it's kind of an interesting question as to what other classes might even exist. The Artificer, at one point, was tested as a Wizard subclass. And actually, I've seen some arguments that the Artificer should have been a full spellcaster, rather than a half-caster (This feels particularly true for the Alchemist, and I think would also probably feel true for the Cartographer and maybe the Reanimator).

D&D's approach to classes is very broad - you go in for more specific flavor with subclasses. You could imagine a game in which a Rune Knight and an Arcane Archer are fully separate classes, and indeed, I think possibly as recently as 4th Edition, the Vengeance Paladin was actually an Avenger, a separate class from the Paladin (though don't quote me on that - I don't really know 4E rules).

Thus, the question becomes: what other broad fantasy archetypes are there to build entire classes around?

One of the first third-party classes available on D&D Beyond (I think for free?) was Matt Mercer's Blood Hunter. In some ways, the class fits that "expert monster hunter" vibe that I wish the Ranger was more like, but even though its subclasses go in pretty wildly different directions (one being a pretty transparent Witcher analogue, though to be fair, it's not like WotC hasn't made subclasses that feel tied to specific IPs - I wasn't aware when it came out, but the Way of the Astral Self is evidently based on Jojo's Bizarre Adventure) I think there's a great deal of specificity to its class flavor that makes it feel not quite as broadly-imagined as the main classes.

Anyway, I'm curious to see what the final version of the new Artificer looks like. I remember being a bit underwhelmed by the most recent UA version, but we'll see.

Nearly Done Everything In COE33

 Naturally, a game with as many hidden secrets and such will always leave you with a sense that there's something left to get. There are also some Gestral Beach minigames that, well, we'll see about (the volleyball one is particularly nasty, though I've only made one or two attempts on the climbing wall - I did finally get up the super-high obstacle course where you climb over random objects).

Anyway, after defeating the monster found in the Painter's Workshops (actually, now I'm wondering if there are three of them - I don't think so, but worth checking out) I've made myself through Renoir's Drafts, and have entered the Abyss zone, hidden within the former, though I haven't tried going further.

I'm still aching a bit from the melancholy ambiguity over what the "good" ending of the game is (while I think I have a decent philosophical defense for my choice, the cutscene that plays sure tinges things with a sense that something terrible has happened) it has been somewhat pleasant to be able to continue engaging with the really fun gameplay in a manner somewhat less couched in existential angst and grief.

That being said, I think I'm reaching a point where I'm ok for it to be over. Make no mistake, this game is incredible, and well worth checking out if you are willing to play a turn-based RPG that nevertheless requires action-like reflexes (the comparisons with souls-likes are not unfounded - there's a very similar feeling of mastery when you finally figure out the timing on a boss's attacks and can effectively parry them - one thing I highly recommend is keeping an ear out for sound effects, which are usually a good queue for when precisely to hit that parry button).

Still, I've been playing this pretty extensively, when my roommate isn't on his own playthrough (I'm waiting for him to get to the Monolith, where the game's biggest plot revelations begin to unfold).

Anyway, I might check out Final Fantasy IX after this, which said roommate had started playing before I got this, and which I've always heard good things about. Might be nice to play a turn-based RPG that is less reflex-driven.

Hunter's Mark and Hex; Spells Are Class Features, But If We Have Options, Let Us Use Them

 Spellcasting is the most common feature across classes in D&D. In 5th Edition, Artificers, Bards, Clerics, Druids, Paladins, Rangers, Sorcerers, and Wizards, along with two subclasses for the Fighter and Rogue, respectively, have this feature (even if it works a bit differently between classes). Warlocks have a similar but distinct system with Pact Magic. Yes, the Monk and the Barbarian are the only classes that will never, without multiclassing or some weird feat, have to worry about a spell slot.

Two classes, one a martial half-caster, and the other a bizarre full caster with an asterisk, have iconic spells that take a bonus action to cast and then allow you to deal an extra d6 of damage when you hit the target, and even allow you to move the spell onto a new target when the old one dies.

In early levels, this is actually quite decent - generally speaking, it's good as a spellcaster to have some spell to concentrate on that you cast on your first turn, and try to keep up over the course of a fight. A Ranger who dual-wields finesse weapons and gets the benefit of the Nick property will effectively turn their shortsword and scimitar into greatswords with this extra damage. And a Warlock get to hit harder with their attacks, such as the Eldritch Blast cantrip.

The spells are decent.

WotC's approach to these spells has been to try to make them central to the class and its subclasses. Rangers have a number of class features that encourage the use of Hunter's Mark, like free castings and other such things. Warlocks have some small mention of Hex (a secondary aspect of the Create Thrall feature for Great Old One Warlocks).

In the recent Horror Subclass Unearthed Arcana testing document, the Ranger and Warlock subclasses (one a brand-new one and the other a revamp of the Hexblade) focus extensively on these respective spells, with all or nearly all of their subclass features tied to the use of the respective spells.

And I think it's a terrible idea.

Again, it's not that these spells are terrible, and indeed, they serve a purpose.

The thing is, no other spellcasters are so tied to any particular spell. Now that Divine Smite is a spell rather than a class feature that is fueled by spell slots, Paladins are encourage to use it, but not in a way that excludes other spells. Indeed, the changes to the alternate smite spells has made it far easier for a Paladin to use the others.

The thing is, both Warlocks and Rangers have a lot of concentration spells. If I'm playing in tier 3 or higher, a likely standard procedure on a warlock would be to use Summon Fiend as a Mystic Arcanum to conjure forth a devil to attack my enemies. That concentration spell is going to, for an hour, bombard my foes with 2d6+9 (if memory serves) three times a round, or an average of 48 extra damage (on hits).

To get that much damage on a turn from Hex, I'd need to be able to make about 14 attacks per round.

Now, I think that WotC's aim has been to make improvements to these spells through class features in order to make them worth casting at higher level.

But why, though?

Gameplay for a class as you level up should feel familiar, but it should also evolve over time. As an example, my Wizard is always going to be looking through his spell list to see what best option for a situation is. But I realized, now at level 8, that even though I had blown through two 3rd level slots to dispel Dominate Monster (I think - it was an 8th level spell) on the Marquis of Port Damali (we have a succubus problem, evidently) I wasn't totally screwed if we got into combat later that day, because 3rd level spells, which were so precious and dear at level 5 and 6, are now a little more expendable.

The negative consequence of class design like this is that you wind up in a situation where gameplay stagnates and doesn't feel that different from low level to high level, but furthermore, you seem to be punished either for following the way the class is designed, or punished with the shutdown of cool features if you dare color outside the lines.

As an example, from this UA, the Hexblade now gets Animate Objects as a patron spell. Flavorful, and a cool spell to boot. But in order to cast this spell, which requires concentration, you can't be concentrating on Hex. And as a result, you more or less don't have a subclass, because the redesign (which, again, is in testing and not final) places nearly (if not truly) everything other than those patron spells onto the Hex spell.

I'm not entirely opposed to having subclass features tied to specific spells. But in most cases in the PHB, we've seen these features make those spells play better with others, not worse. Create Thrall, for the Great Old One subclass, for example, lets us cast Summon Aberration without concentration if we're ok with it only lasting a minute. But this is great, because it gets us to cast this very thematic spell specifically in a way that frees us up to cast other spells.

As I've said many times, I'm mostly quite positive on the changes made in the 2024 PHB. But I think whoever keeps building things around specific spells in this way needs to take a step back and ask themselves what they're trying to achieve.

I could imagine a world in which Hex or Hunter's Mark aren't even spells, but class features, and could thus easily play well with all of the player choices regarding the spells they want to cast.

But I think it'd also be really wise of WotC to create versions of the Ranger and Warlock classes where you truly can pick any spells you like. I think the PHB base classes here aren't so inextricably tied to these spells that you can't make something cool out of them, but the Hollow Warden and Hexblade revamp feel like they're going in the wrong direction.

COE33's Extensive Post-Game

 COE33 is a fascinating synthesis of old and new influences. Its limited-but-ever-refreshing items and the need to carefully read incoming attacks in order to dodge or parry effectively recalls Dark Souls and its ilk, while the turn-based combat was influenced by Final Fantasy, but it also has a lot of original ideas, not least of which is the story and world design.

I'm... still recovering from finishing the main story, and wrestling with the decision I made in the end. I don't know exactly how the other ending plays out, though the one I chose was a weird mix of celebration and utter nightmare, and a decision I based on values that continue to be supported in the post-game.

Still, it's an odd choice that there's so much of this game that is too high-level for a party that is already out-leveling the story's conclusion. On one hand, it's an opportunity to remain in this world and enjoying its satisfying gameplay and mysteries. On the other hand, I wonder why they didn't just build more of this into the Act Three plot.

I just did the Flying Manor, which involves going after several previously-fought bosses (the area said it was too high-level for me, but I didn't really have any trouble) and ends with a fight that requires either very high damage output or near-perfect mastery in dodging and parrying the attacks (the latter of which was my method, which was extra tough when new attacks started getting mixed in about halfway through).

The Manor actually granted a massive number of high-level weapons and pictos, though I still don't have some of the ones associated with some of the builds I've seen online.

Anyway, I've adored this game - it has swiftly made its way onto my list of greatest games of all time list (though where it ranks remains to be seen - we're still in a honeymoon phase here, after all). And so, it's kind of nice to be able to keep playing even after the story has concluded.

On the other hand, there is something good about getting closure on a game. I've been playing WoW for nearly 19 years now, and of course that's a game that doesn't end, by design (though you could argue that finishing the final raid of an expansion leaves you kind of at a good pausing point - indeed, recent expansions have actually kind of made each major patch like a mini-expansion). But I'll also point out that my favorite new game in 2023, Alan Wake II, took me only a weekend to beat, and I played through it once again when the New Game Plus mode was introduced, and while I've been happy to delve into its lore and watch countless hours of YouTube videos about it (check out the Monty Zander one if you have time - a video game video essay that is, itself, an impressive work of art) without playing it again.

So, we'll see if and when I feel the desire to start up NG+ for this one, or, perhaps, if I'll just let the game rest and perhaps come back and play it again in a decade or something.

Sandfall should be very proud of this game - as I'm sure they are. I really hope we see more great things out of them, and I'll be eager to see the influence this game has on the industry.

How WotC Will Approach Expanding 5.5

 If I were to judge purely by internet discourse, I'd think that the 2024 update to Dungeons & Dragon's 5th Edition was unpopular. This surprises me, though, because I've been quite sanguine on most of the changes that have taken place. I have players who haven't wanted to update their existing characters, which I can respect, but I also think that the updates really fixed a lot of longstanding problems with the system.

I'm not saying that they did a 100% good job, to be clear: In some cases, I wish they'd been bolder in their redesigns (the Ranger, for example, feels like it could have used an extra boost) and I think some changes actually introduced problems that will need fixing in the future - my biggest one being the restrictions on ability score bonuses to certain abilities for each background, which feels like it's just going to get a fix similar to what Tasha's did with races (now species).

However, what I'm here to write about in this post is a question of intent and planning.

I, like so many others, had 5E as my introduction to the game. I think I had seen some of Acquisitions Incorporated in the 4th Edition era, but pretty early on I was watching it when they were previewing "D&D Next," which was the playtest name for 5E, similar to how the update was One D&D.

As such, everything from the Thief Rogue to the Rune Knight Fighter were brand-new to me. Visiting Eberron and Ravenloft were also new experiences.

I say this to allow for the fact that not everyone was on board 5E as soon as I was, where I started playing it about a year after its release.

However, I have some reason to be a little concerned:

The Forgotten Realms campaign setting brings several new subclasses (not unlike how SCAG brought some,) and most of those are new, with only two repeats. The new UA, which almost certainly will mean a new Ravenloft sourcebook of some sort, inverts this, bringing two new subclasses, but mostly revised versions of existing subclasses.

Which raises the question: how soon is too soon for a revamp?

The 2024 PHB brought some newer subclasses in for a second coat of paint - while the Zealot Barbarian was in Xanathar's Guide to Everything, which came out 8 years ago, the Soul Knife Rogue came out with Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, which was five years ago. And two of the subclasses getting revamped in the new UA are from Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, which came out four years ago.

I don't know how most other players are, but I tend to play in long campaigns, and so among the subclasses I'm interested in playing from these books, I still have several I've never actually gotten a chance to play, and it's strange to think that there will be revamps to some of them before I've really gotten a chance to play them (I was able to play an Undead Warlock for two sessions, which was fun - I'm honestly kind of drowning in Warlock character concepts. I want to play my original Great Old One Warlock in a big campaign, but I'd also love an Undead one, and possibly a Genie one as well).

Here's the thing:

I think it would be a real misstep to just run through the same settings and concepts we've seen in the past decade all over again in the coming decade (or however long before there's a true 6th edition or whatever). Obviously, D&D has been revisiting existing stuff for a long time - outside of Wildemount from Critical Role, there hasn't been a single brand-new campaign setting published by WotC in 5th Edition, unless you count the Radiant Citadel, which isn't so much a campaign setting itself (though it maybe could be) as a hub for a series of original adventures. Ravnica and Theros are new to D&D, but they were both established already for Magic the Gathering (as will the upcoming Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, which MTG hasn't revisited since their first sets that came out when I was in college).

We're getting Forge of the Artificer, which will bring a new Artificer subclass, which is great, and an expedited update for the Artificer class, which is one that I've always loved conceptually.

But as much as I want to see all my favorite character options updated for the rules revisions, I find myself asking:

Will we actually get new stuff? Or are we just going to be on a decade-long cycle of coming back to the same ideas again and again?

This might be needlessly alarmist, and I hope it is. We really don't yet have a model for how the publishing schedule and strategy will work in the coming years, and likely, WotC is trying out some new things. I believe Forge of the Artificer is going to be shorter, but also at a lower price point than previous sourcebooks (I believe only 30 bucks).

Perhaps these horror subclasses will come in a quick Ravenloft player-pack of a similar scale, and maybe smaller, cheaper, but still impactful products could be great for the game, and a good way to serve the various campaign settings/product lines that have struggled to get extensive support in 5E's "one big book" model.

Frankly, I'm surprised that they haven't pushed for more digital-only sourcebooks, though I also imagine that there's a vocal part of the playerbase who really wants to have everything physical and printed.

Anyway, we'll have to see what things look like in the coming months and years.

The End of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

 I don't want to give away spoilers before the cut, but I don't think anyone who played through COE33's prologue could expect that the ending would be a neat and tidy happy conclusion. Fundamentally, after the final boss, you have a choice for a short kind of epilogue boss fight, which determines what happens in the end.

When I was in college, "morality systems" in video games started to become popular. Bioshock asked you to choose whether to save or harvest the Little Sisters, for example. The thing is, there wasn't really any ambiguity over which one was the "right" and "wrong" choice there, and the game even seemed to second-guess the choice by making the good choice actually more rewarding anyway. Later, Fallout 3 would present you with choices like "do nuke this town of innocent wastelanders" or "maybe don't do that."

There is a moral choice at the end of this game - a choice that has profound consequences - but where I think the debate over its "correctness" and which is the "good one" is open to interpretation. And while I naturally only got to see one of them, I think both will be utter emotional gut-punches.

The rest is spoilers, along with some spoiler-filled thoughts on the game as a whole.

UA: Undead Patron

 The UA's second Warlock subclass and the second subclass from Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft to get a revamp, the Undead Patron is a subclass so obvious, so inevitable, that I was kind of surprised it didn't make it into the Player's Handbook. I generally consider this one to be among the Warlock's best subclass options, if not necessarily the best (though which one actually takes that title is up for debate,) so I'm curious to see how they intend to alter it.

I have actually played a very little bit of this subclass (the Van Richten's version), though only with the first features. Let's check it out!

Undead Patron Spells:

1st: False Life, Ray of Sickness

2nd: Blindness/Deafness, Phantasmal Force

3rd: Speak with Dead, Vampiric Touch

4th: Death Ward, Phantasmal Killer

5th: Antilife Shell, Cloudkill

    So, the changes here from the old expanded spell list are the following: Ray of Sickness replaces Bane, Vampiric Touch replaces Phantom Steed, and Phantasmal Killer replaces Greater Invisibility. Obviously, though, Patron spells are better than an expanded spell list, because you automatically get all these spells.

3rd Level:

Form of Dread lets you use a bonus action to transform into a dreadful form that is linked to your patron, which you can do a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier per long rest, and which lasts a minute or until you're incapacitated. While transformed, you have the following benefits:

Facsimile of Life says that when you transform, you gain Temp HP equal to 1d10 plus your Warlock level (I believe these don't go away when the form ends).

Frightful Avatar gives you immunity to being frightened and once per turn, you can force a creature you hit with an attack roll, you can force them to make a Wisdom saving throw, and on a failure, they are frightened until the end of your next turn.

    The only distinction here from the 2021 version is how many uses you have: your Charisma modifier rather than your Proficiency Bonus. This is a buff up until you get into late tier 3, and becomes a bit of a nerf in tier 4, but I think that's probably fine.

6th level:

Grave Touched has the following sub-features:

Arcane Necrosis allows the Necrotic damage of your attacks to ignore resistance to Necrotic damage. Remember that Pact of the Blade can now have you deal Necrotic damage with your weapon. Additionally, once per turn when you cast a spell that deals damage while in Form of Dread, you can change the spell's damage to Necrotic.

    Now, Necrotic is a good damage type that works against most creatures, even a lot of undead, though incorporeal undead tend to be fully immune. That said, the spells we cast are likely to be things like Eldritch Blast, which are even less likely to be resisted given that they're Force damage. However, if we cast things like Ray of Sickness, swapping from Poison to Necrotic is a huge upgrade (sadly, because it has to be an attack, this won't work on Cloudkill). I don't know that there are a ton of creatures that are resistant, but not immune to necrotic damage. I think vampires?

    However, compared with the old version of this, we're getting a slight nerf: the old version allowed you to roll one additional die of damage when replacing the attack's damage type, meaning you could effectively turn one of your Eldrtich Blasts into a crit. There's no actual damage boost from this feature. In fact, looking at this overall, I don't know that you really get much out of this feature at all, except maybe making Ray of Sickness better.

Undead Endurance causes you to no longer gain exhaustion from dehydration, malnutrition, or suffocation, and you don't need to sleep and can't be put to sleep magically.

    So, this can potentially be useful - if you need to infiltrate somewhere, there's nothing preventing the Rogue from sticking you in a Bag of Holding, where you could last kind of indefinitely. This is the kind of feature that isn't likely to come up much, but can be cool when it does (also will make wilderness survival easier as you don't have to feed yourself.) I do also think this technically means you can keep watch all through a long rest.

10th level:

Necrotic Husk has two sub-features:

Necrotic Resilience gives you Resistance to Necrotic damage, as well immunity to it while in Form of Dread. Necrotic immunity is potentially huge if fighting Dracoliches and Shadow Dragons, or any other creature that can do massive Necrotic damage.

Unholy Resuscitation causes your body to erupt with energy when you hit 0 hit points, forcing creatures of your choice within 30 feet to make a Con save or take 2d10 plus your Warlock level Necrotic damage on a failure or half as much on a success, and then your HP becomes 10 times your Charisma modifier and you gain a level of Exhaustion. You can use this once per short or long rest.

    This is similar but greatly buffed from the old version: the old one let you use it again only after 1d4 long rests - one of the few features that doesn't necessarily recharge on after a long rest. Exhaustion is also not quite as terrible as it used to be, though using this twice in a day would be pretty rough. The other buff is that the HP you are restored to is far, far higher - the old one only putting you at 1 HP. Now, you actually stand a chance of surviving a second hit. I think this counts as a buff in every way.

14th level:

Superior Dread gives three sub-features, enhancing Form of Dread.

Flight gives you a fly speed equal to your speed and the ability to hover while transformed.

Profane Casting lets you cast Conjuration and Necromancy spells without any spell components except costly or consumed material components.

Vitality Siphon lets you regain HP equal to your Charisma modifier once per turn when you deal Necrotic damage.

    This effectively combines the old Spirit Projection with Form of Dread, which does shorten its duration dramatically from an hour to a minute, but you'll get more uses of it. There's also less weirdness of you having your physical body and your spirit floating around, and no longer requires concentration. You lose the damage resistances as well.

    I think there are aspects of this that are both buffs and nerfs, though it's certainly simpler this way.

Overall, I think this subclass is looking fine - it's a mix of buffs and nerfs that probably overall just feel better because of how the Warlock class has been improved. Unlike the new Hexblade, which is weighed down by all being tied to a single concentration spell, the Undead subclass feels more flexible, and both in flavor and in mechanics, is among my favorite Warlock subclasses, both in the old and new versions.

And there we have it! As many have noted, it's strange not to see the Necromancer Wizard represented in this UA. I do wonder if we'll be getting a new Ravenloft supplement (one that I hope doesn't walk back the changes to the setting made in Van Richten's - I'm disappointed how they've done so with aspects of Volo's and Mordenkainen's).

I would prefer that WotC focus more on brand-new options, though. But I'm glad that the Artificer is getting some love here, and just the tweak of letting Undead Warlocks treat their expanded spell list as patron spells is something I'm happy about.