The biggest sources of power creep I've seen are Eberron's take on racial spells (radically more powerful than racial spells from not Eberron) and Ravnica's background spells. Both are location-specific - not sure if that it makes it ok, since every DM I've ever personally had has allowed location-specific content regardless of location. If you make an Eberron dragonmarked character with a Ravnica background, the potential impact on your spell list is insane - and, not for nothing, the dragonmarked races (and Ravnica's Vedalken) get additive bonuses to ability checks, and that's where things are seriously getting out of control, since Tasha's exacerbated the problem with Wild Magic Barbarians and Peace Clerics (Eloquence Bards and Star Druids getting early access to reliable talent has also radically cut down on the level investment you need to reach nonsensical ability check levels). Ability checks keep leaving bounded accuracy farther and farther behind.
The biggest sources of power creep I've seen are Eberron's take on racial spells (radically more powerful than racial spells from not Eberron) and Ravnica's background spells. Both are location-specific - not sure if that it makes it ok, since every DM I've ever personally had has allowed location-specific content regardless of location. If you make an Eberron dragonmarked character with a Ravnica background, the potential impact on your spell list is insane - and, not for nothing, the dragonmarked races (and Ravnica's Vedalken) get additive bonuses to ability checks, and that's where things are seriously getting out of control, since Tasha's exacerbated the problem with Wild Magic Barbarians and Peace Clerics (Eloquence Bards and Star Druids getting early access to reliable talent has also radically cut down on the level investment you need to reach nonsensical ability check levels). Ability checks keep leaving bounded accuracy farther and farther behind.
Artificers were found in Eberron because that is a high magic setting. They operated at a reasonable level in that setting. But as soon as you pull them into a normal game, that class goes completely off the rails. Yet another reason the book that shall not be named will see my table. Yes, I play at tables with Artificers, and in low magic settings, they are indeed wildly OP. The addition of them to the pantheon of classes was a poorly thought out decision.
Is there anything more scary than taxes? Now *that* is creepy! I do everything in my power to avoid dealing with taxes. Death can be an end to things, but taxes are forever. If the IRS is after you, and you die, they go after your descendants.
The thing about 5e is that they pulled back the power significantly from previous editions. So, in part, power creep can be expected as veteran players want to bring back the power levels they were accustomed to in 3.5e and before. Also, keep in mind that one reason Pathfinder took off (aside from filling the vacuum left by the-edition-which-shall-not-be-named) was because it increased power beyond even what 3.5e allowed. Players want power.
Then, you also face the problem of after-balancing. If an imbalance presents itself in an MMORPG, it's possible to nerf powers for balance. But in a TTRPG, once something is out there, it's basically impossible to pull it back, so the only way to address imbalance is to increase powers. Power creep is just in the nature of the medium, and there's little you can do about it.
For the sake of maintaining balance (and restricting power creep), you need to be able to keep the game simple, allow the fewest possible variables. But (a) that is not very satisfying for players, who want to make their characters unique, and (b) it is not profitable to the developers who want to sell you expansions. In fact, the less players get to customize their characters using the core material, the more profitable it becomes to publish new source books, especially if there's some new shiny (power) available in the expansions. As soon as I read the quick rules for 5e, I started referring to it as 2.2e, because it seems obvious that they are implementing the same business plan used in 2e, where there was pressure to buy every supplement in order to "keep up with the Joneses." Give it a few years, and I'm sure there will be a new version of the Players Option books for 5e, too, in order to satisfy the demand for customized characters. Then the whole game breaks and we move on to 6e, which will be a retooled version of 3e.
(I might be jaded. But this is also a cycle that appears in a number of industries, especially in the IT world.)
Power creep is definitely inevitable with D&D's usual publishing strategy --- and "mitigate power creep" is probably the single most important long-run feature of bounded accuracy.
I think WotC has done a decent-if-not-perfect job at avoiding power creep so far, with 5e. They've mostly gone broader-not-deeper with new crunch. Probably the biggest risk is with multiclassing (which is likely one of the reasons the PHB labels it as entirely optional), given all the subclass bloat. There's also a good deal of risk with the constant stream of new races and subraces.
The biggest sources of power creep I've seen are Eberron's take on racial spells (radically more powerful than racial spells from not Eberron) and Ravnica's background spells. Both are location-specific - not sure if that it makes it ok, since every DM I've ever personally had has allowed location-specific content regardless of location. If you make an Eberron dragonmarked character with a Ravnica background, the potential impact on your spell list is insane - and, not for nothing, the dragonmarked races (and Ravnica's Vedalken) get additive bonuses to ability checks, and that's where things are seriously getting out of control, since Tasha's exacerbated the problem with Wild Magic Barbarians and Peace Clerics (Eloquence Bards and Star Druids getting early access to reliable talent has also radically cut down on the level investment you need to reach nonsensical ability check levels). Ability checks keep leaving bounded accuracy farther and farther behind.
Artificers were found in Eberron because that is a high magic setting. They operated at a reasonable level in that setting. But as soon as you pull them into a normal game, that class goes completely off the rails. Yet another reason the book that shall not be named will see my table. Yes, I play at tables with Artificers, and in low magic settings, they are indeed wildly OP. The addition of them to the pantheon of classes was a poorly thought out decision.
Correction: Eberron is widemagic, nothighmagic. High magic means that high-level magic is a big part of the world, where in Eberron magic is widespread but is almost all very low level and mundane magics, like magical stones that can cast prestidigitation and crystals that count as spellbooks.
Also, no. You're completely incorrect. Artificers are not broken in other worlds. I have run artificers in Exandria, the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and my homebrew world (which is actually high-magic). None of them have broken the campaign or balance of the game. If they broke the balance of your game, you're doing something completely different that is likely the minority situation in 5e campaigns.
Edit: And the reason I included Eberron in the campaigns that I have had artificer players in is because, IME, artificers are actually more potent and powerful there than in the other settings (mostly because of Dragonshards, the magitek that they can access through the inventions of House Cannith, and docents). Artificers have much more power in a world where they can reverse-engineer a Warforged Colossus's Incineration Beam than one where they're quite literally the only artificer within a 100-mile-radius.
As an Adventure League DM, with the dropping of PHB +1 book rule, yes there is power creep in Tier 2 and above. But it is build and module depended. I finished Icewind Dale with two Gloomstalkers. They were pumping out Tier 2 damage during the tier 1 parts of book. Around 50 hp of damage in the opening round but the group was avoiding combat if possible during the 6 hours of dim Daylight. So far I am not seeing a must build pc.
The biggest sources of power creep I've seen are Eberron's take on racial spells (radically more powerful than racial spells from not Eberron) and Ravnica's background spells. Both are location-specific - not sure if that it makes it ok, since every DM I've ever personally had has allowed location-specific content regardless of location. If you make an Eberron dragonmarked character with a Ravnica background, the potential impact on your spell list is insane - and, not for nothing, the dragonmarked races (and Ravnica's Vedalken) get additive bonuses to ability checks, and that's where things are seriously getting out of control, since Tasha's exacerbated the problem with Wild Magic Barbarians and Peace Clerics (Eloquence Bards and Star Druids getting early access to reliable talent has also radically cut down on the level investment you need to reach nonsensical ability check levels). Ability checks keep leaving bounded accuracy farther and farther behind.
Artificers were found in Eberron because that is a high magic setting. They operated at a reasonable level in that setting. But as soon as you pull them into a normal game, that class goes completely off the rails. Yet another reason the book that shall not be named will see my table. Yes, I play at tables with Artificers, and in low magic settings, they are indeed wildly OP. The addition of them to the pantheon of classes was a poorly thought out decision.
Correction: Eberron is widemagic, nothighmagic. High magic means that high-level magic is a big part of the world, where in Eberron magic is widespread but is almost all very low level and mundane magics, like magical stones that can cast prestidigitation and crystals that count as spellbooks.
Also, no. You're completely incorrect. Artificers are not broken in other worlds. I have run artificers in Exandria, the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and my homebrew world (which is actually high-magic). None of them have broken the campaign or balance of the game. If they broke the balance of your game, you're doing something completely different that is likely the minority situation in 5e campaigns.
Edit: And the reason I included Eberron in the campaigns that I have had artificer players in is because, IME, artificers are actually more potent and powerful there than in the other settings (mostly because of Dragonshards, the magitek that they can access through the inventions of House Cannith, and docents). Artificers have much more power in a world where they can reverse-engineer a Warforged Colossus's Incineration Beam than one where they're quite literally the only artificer within a 100-mile-radius.
In a low magic setting Artificers are broken. Period.
And the book that shall not be named does not qualify that fact. There is no disclaimer about them. So unsuspecting players (and DM's) spin them up in a low magic game, or any game where players are not handed Uncommon items out of the gate, and this class can wreck a game. That is the definition of power creep.
In a low magic setting Artificers are broken. Period.
This is a blanket statement. I have run low magic settings with artificers. They have not been broken. Therefore, your statement is incorrect. Period. (Unless you choose to decide that my low magic campaigns don't qualify as low magic, in which case you would be committing a No True Scotsman fallacy.)
And the book that shall not be named does not qualify that fact. There is no disclaimer about them. So unsuspecting players (and DM's) spin them up in a low magic game, or any game where players are not handed Uncommon items out of the gate, and this class can wreck a game. That is the definition of power creep.
Oh, come on. Get off your high horse and refer to Tasha's Cauldron of Everything by name. It's not Voldemort. It can't find and hurt you if you say its name. The only thing you're proving by refusing to say its name is that you have an immature superstition to saying the name of a book for a fantasy roleplaying game.
There doesn't need to be a disclaimer, because the vast majority of campaigns aren't whatever you define as "low magic". This is like complaining that they don't provide a disclaimer on the Barbarian class because you're playing in a Magical-Academy campaign where everyone is supposed to be a spellcaster, or that they don't provide a disclaimer on the Paladin class for being a good damage dealer in a campaign where players focus on not dealing damage. WotC doesn't provide disclaimers for class mechanics.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
In a low magic setting Artificers are broken. Period.
This is a blanket statement. I have run low magic settings with artificers. They have not been broken. Therefore, your statement is incorrect. Period. (Unless you choose to decide that my low magic campaigns don't qualify as low magic, in which case you would be committing a No True Scotsman fallacy.)
And the book that shall not be named does not qualify that fact. There is no disclaimer about them. So unsuspecting players (and DM's) spin them up in a low magic game, or any game where players are not handed Uncommon items out of the gate, and this class can wreck a game. That is the definition of power creep.
Oh, come on. Get off your high horse and refer to Tasha's Cauldron of Everything by name. It's not Voldemort. It can't find and hurt you if you say its name. The only thing you're proving by refusing to say its name is that you have an immature superstition to saying the name of a book for a fantasy roleplaying game.
There doesn't need to be a disclaimer, because the vast majority of campaigns aren't whatever you define as "low magic". This is like complaining that they don't provide a disclaimer on the Barbarian class because you're playing in a Magical-Academy campaign where everyone is supposed to be a spellcaster, or that they don't provide a disclaimer on the Paladin class for being a good damage dealer in a campaign where players focus on not dealing damage. WotC doesn't provide disclaimers for class mechanics.
When a 2nd level char can create Rare items, or the equivalent, that is broken. The book that shall not be named facilitates this.
Keep in mind that the ability to create magic items is compensating for being a restricted caster. It is not in addition to what an equivalent level full caster can do at the same level.
Boots that can teleport you backward 15ft is not very impressive compared to chucking fireballs every day.
An Artificer in a Low Magic campaign is like a Cleric or Paladin in an Undead-themed campaign. It's not "OP", just campaign-optimized. That's never going to go away.
When a 2nd level char can create Rare items, or the equivalent, that is broken. The book that shall not be named facilitates this.
. . . Artificers cannot create rare magic items at level 2. Their Replicate Magic Item Infusion Option lets them only create common magic items or a small list of uncommon magic items, all of which are temporary magic items that depend on the artificer to exist. Artificers also can only replicate uncommon magic items at level 6 and level 10, and finally get the ability to replicate certain rare magic items at level 14. (At level 10 they can replicate the equivalent of rare magic items by their Enhanced Arcane Focus/Enhanced Weapons becoming +2).
Oh. . . I think I just found the oneitem that you're referring to. Enhanced Defense makes the equivalent of +1 armor or a +1 shield, and +1 armor (not +1 shields) is considered rare in the DMG. Keep in mind, they can only create one item this way at a time (refuting your "can create Rare items" statement), and this is the only rare magic item equivalent that artificers can make at level 2. (Also, I personally think that +1 armor being rare is a very strange design choice, especially when +1 shields, weapons, and wands of the war mage are uncommon.)
If you're losing your mind about the balance of the artificers because they can create +1 armor at level two, I will point you to the Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger classes that all can get a +1 bonus to AC while wearing armor through the Defense Fighting Style. Artificers basically get that, but they can give the armor to allies to help them in combat.
Artificers are not broken. Also, you didn't respond to any of my points in either of my previous two posts, which is a major sign of bad-faith debate.
When a 2nd level char can create Rare items, or the equivalent, that is broken. The book that shall not be named facilitates this.
. . . Artificers cannot create rare magic items at level 2. Their Replicate Magic Item Infusion Option lets them only create common magic items or a small list of uncommon magic items, all of which are temporary magic items that depend on the artificer to exist. Artificers also can only replicate uncommon magic items at level 6 and level 10, and finally get the ability to replicate certain rare magic items at level 14. (At level 10 they can replicate the equivalent of rare magic items by their Enhanced Arcane Focus/Enhanced Weapons becoming +2).
Oh. . . I think I just found the oneitem that you're referring to. Enhanced Defense makes the equivalent of +1 armor or a +1 shield, and +1 armor (not +1 shields) is considered rare in the DMG. Keep in mind, they can only create one item this way at a time (refuting your "can create Rare items" statement), and this is the only rare magic item equivalent that artificers can make at level 2. (Also, I personally think that +1 armor being rare is a very strange design choice, especially when +1 shields, weapons, and wands of the war mage are uncommon.)
If you're losing your mind about the balance of the artificers because they can create +1 armor at level two, I will point you to the Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger classes that all can get a +1 bonus to AC while wearing armor through the Defense Fighting Style. Artificers basically get that, but they can give the armor to allies to help them in combat.
Artificers are not broken. Also, you didn't respond to any of my points in either of my previous two posts, which is a major sign of bad-faith debate.
You engaged me. I don't need to deal with every point. And Repeating Shot ranged weapon that is +1, auto-reload, and needs no ammo...uh yeah, AT LEAST Rare.
I don't think 5e suffers from power creep at all! The devs are CONSTANTLY making erratas and balance changes to old classes and subclasses, just look at the recent changes made with Tashas!
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“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
You engaged me. I don't need to deal with every point.
The fact that I engaged doesn't mean that you get to make any claim you want without responding to any of mine. That's not how good-faith arguments work.
And Repeating Shot ranged weapon that is +1, auto-reload, and needs no ammo...uh yeah, AT LEAST Rare.
. . . Is ammo a balancing factor of ranged weapons? I don't think it is, I just think that's a part that WotC chose to add to D&D to make that part of the game realistic. That's a minor benefit that doesn't have to deal with the balance of the game. Auto-reload is a benefit that is equivalent to about 1/3rd of the Crossbow Expert feat. The +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls with the weapon is just a standard +1 uncommon weapon.
Furthermore, Repeating Shot requires attunement, while enhanced weapon and normal +1 weapons don't. The two features on top of the +1 weapon makes the magic item the equivalent of an uncommon magic item attunement for balance purposes, but doesn't make it equivalent to a rare magic item with attunement. If the infusion didn't require attunement? Sure, then it would probably be the equivalent of a rare magic item, but it does require attunement, which keeps it the equivalent to an uncommon magic item.
Also, you have not refuted (or even responded to) any of my points in my previous post, just brought up more red-herrings and misdirections to make it appear as if you aren't losing the debate. You're bad faith debating, so I will cease to try to have a good-faith discussion with you.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
[...] XGTE might be accused of power creep because of Hexblade, which should never be allowed in an MC'ed char, because it is just that good. [...]
Really? I'm willing to debate that.
In reality, this affects paladins the most, and in that sense it's not that big a deal. All it does is solve MADness, but not as much as one would hope. You can't dump STR to 8, as multiclass requires 13 in STR for paladin. They also get a neat ranged option with EB, but it's not that big a deal if they don't take a second level to get agonizing blast. Even then, their SADness is limited to one handed weapons, unless they get to lvl 3 and take pact of the blade. Until then, unless they have warcaster, they're stuck in this weird limbo where you can't cast many spells if they're using a sword-n-board set up-- you're being incentivized to use two-handed weapons, but your SADness doesn't cover it. They'd be forced to use a one-handed sword without a shield to use their spells like EB, and not everyone starts or wants to use variant human just to start with war caster. It's not "just that good."
Bard also greatly benefits, but in reality, bard would benefit from any warlock subclass as it just desperately needs EB+agonizing blast to have a decent, sustainable, scaling damage option.
Power creep is bound to happen simply due to introducing more options your bound to step into something stronger than anticipated. For instance Yuan-ti playable characters or Hexblade Paladins.
Also some creep has come out simply as means to lift some of the classes up, look at the new sorcerer sub classes and the bloodwell vial.
Most the power creep thankfully has been creep vs leaps and bounds improvements at least but it exists, I wouldn't exactly say its a bad thing overall as long as it something doesn't simply dwarf everything else
I don't think 5e suffers from power creep at all! The devs are CONSTANTLY making erratas and balance changes to old classes and subclasses, just look at the recent changes made with Tashas!
Are they?
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The biggest sources of power creep I've seen are Eberron's take on racial spells (radically more powerful than racial spells from not Eberron) and Ravnica's background spells. Both are location-specific - not sure if that it makes it ok, since every DM I've ever personally had has allowed location-specific content regardless of location. If you make an Eberron dragonmarked character with a Ravnica background, the potential impact on your spell list is insane - and, not for nothing, the dragonmarked races (and Ravnica's Vedalken) get additive bonuses to ability checks, and that's where things are seriously getting out of control, since Tasha's exacerbated the problem with Wild Magic Barbarians and Peace Clerics (Eloquence Bards and Star Druids getting early access to reliable talent has also radically cut down on the level investment you need to reach nonsensical ability check levels). Ability checks keep leaving bounded accuracy farther and farther behind.
Artificers were found in Eberron because that is a high magic setting. They operated at a reasonable level in that setting. But as soon as you pull them into a normal game, that class goes completely off the rails. Yet another reason the book that shall not be named will see my table. Yes, I play at tables with Artificers, and in low magic settings, they are indeed wildly OP. The addition of them to the pantheon of classes was a poorly thought out decision.
Beats nerf creeping, or just adding less and less exciting content as you go. Next UA Class: the Accountant, proficient in rolls involving tax law.
Is there anything more scary than taxes? Now *that* is creepy! I do everything in my power to avoid dealing with taxes. Death can be an end to things, but taxes are forever. If the IRS is after you, and you die, they go after your descendants.
<Insert clever signature here>
The thing about 5e is that they pulled back the power significantly from previous editions. So, in part, power creep can be expected as veteran players want to bring back the power levels they were accustomed to in 3.5e and before. Also, keep in mind that one reason Pathfinder took off (aside from filling the vacuum left by the-edition-which-shall-not-be-named) was because it increased power beyond even what 3.5e allowed. Players want power.
Then, you also face the problem of after-balancing. If an imbalance presents itself in an MMORPG, it's possible to nerf powers for balance. But in a TTRPG, once something is out there, it's basically impossible to pull it back, so the only way to address imbalance is to increase powers. Power creep is just in the nature of the medium, and there's little you can do about it.
For the sake of maintaining balance (and restricting power creep), you need to be able to keep the game simple, allow the fewest possible variables. But (a) that is not very satisfying for players, who want to make their characters unique, and (b) it is not profitable to the developers who want to sell you expansions. In fact, the less players get to customize their characters using the core material, the more profitable it becomes to publish new source books, especially if there's some new shiny (power) available in the expansions. As soon as I read the quick rules for 5e, I started referring to it as 2.2e, because it seems obvious that they are implementing the same business plan used in 2e, where there was pressure to buy every supplement in order to "keep up with the Joneses." Give it a few years, and I'm sure there will be a new version of the Players Option books for 5e, too, in order to satisfy the demand for customized characters. Then the whole game breaks and we move on to 6e, which will be a retooled version of 3e.
(I might be jaded. But this is also a cycle that appears in a number of industries, especially in the IT world.)
Power creep is definitely inevitable with D&D's usual publishing strategy --- and "mitigate power creep" is probably the single most important long-run feature of bounded accuracy.
I think WotC has done a decent-if-not-perfect job at avoiding power creep so far, with 5e. They've mostly gone broader-not-deeper with new crunch. Probably the biggest risk is with multiclassing (which is likely one of the reasons the PHB labels it as entirely optional), given all the subclass bloat. There's also a good deal of risk with the constant stream of new races and subraces.
Correction: Eberron is wide magic, not high magic. High magic means that high-level magic is a big part of the world, where in Eberron magic is widespread but is almost all very low level and mundane magics, like magical stones that can cast prestidigitation and crystals that count as spellbooks.
Also, no. You're completely incorrect. Artificers are not broken in other worlds. I have run artificers in Exandria, the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and my homebrew world (which is actually high-magic). None of them have broken the campaign or balance of the game. If they broke the balance of your game, you're doing something completely different that is likely the minority situation in 5e campaigns.
Edit: And the reason I included Eberron in the campaigns that I have had artificer players in is because, IME, artificers are actually more potent and powerful there than in the other settings (mostly because of Dragonshards, the magitek that they can access through the inventions of House Cannith, and docents). Artificers have much more power in a world where they can reverse-engineer a Warforged Colossus's Incineration Beam than one where they're quite literally the only artificer within a 100-mile-radius.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
As an Adventure League DM, with the dropping of PHB +1 book rule, yes there is power creep in Tier 2 and above. But it is build and module depended. I finished Icewind Dale with two Gloomstalkers. They were pumping out Tier 2 damage during the tier 1 parts of book. Around 50 hp of damage in the opening round but the group was avoiding combat if possible during the 6 hours of dim Daylight. So far I am not seeing a must build pc.
No Gaming is Better than Bad Gaming.
In a low magic setting Artificers are broken. Period.
And the book that shall not be named does not qualify that fact. There is no disclaimer about them. So unsuspecting players (and DM's) spin them up in a low magic game, or any game where players are not handed Uncommon items out of the gate, and this class can wreck a game. That is the definition of power creep.
This is a blanket statement. I have run low magic settings with artificers. They have not been broken. Therefore, your statement is incorrect. Period. (Unless you choose to decide that my low magic campaigns don't qualify as low magic, in which case you would be committing a No True Scotsman fallacy.)
Oh, come on. Get off your high horse and refer to Tasha's Cauldron of Everything by name. It's not Voldemort. It can't find and hurt you if you say its name. The only thing you're proving by refusing to say its name is that you have an immature superstition to saying the name of a book for a fantasy roleplaying game.
There doesn't need to be a disclaimer, because the vast majority of campaigns aren't whatever you define as "low magic". This is like complaining that they don't provide a disclaimer on the Barbarian class because you're playing in a Magical-Academy campaign where everyone is supposed to be a spellcaster, or that they don't provide a disclaimer on the Paladin class for being a good damage dealer in a campaign where players focus on not dealing damage. WotC doesn't provide disclaimers for class mechanics.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
When a 2nd level char can create Rare items, or the equivalent, that is broken. The book that shall not be named facilitates this.
Keep in mind that the ability to create magic items is compensating for being a restricted caster. It is not in addition to what an equivalent level full caster can do at the same level.
Boots that can teleport you backward 15ft is not very impressive compared to chucking fireballs every day.
An Artificer in a Low Magic campaign is like a Cleric or Paladin in an Undead-themed campaign. It's not "OP", just campaign-optimized. That's never going to go away.
. . . Artificers cannot create rare magic items at level 2. Their Replicate Magic Item Infusion Option lets them only create common magic items or a small list of uncommon magic items, all of which are temporary magic items that depend on the artificer to exist. Artificers also can only replicate uncommon magic items at level 6 and level 10, and finally get the ability to replicate certain rare magic items at level 14. (At level 10 they can replicate the equivalent of rare magic items by their Enhanced Arcane Focus/Enhanced Weapons becoming +2).
Oh. . . I think I just found the one item that you're referring to. Enhanced Defense makes the equivalent of +1 armor or a +1 shield, and +1 armor (not +1 shields) is considered rare in the DMG. Keep in mind, they can only create one item this way at a time (refuting your "can create Rare items" statement), and this is the only rare magic item equivalent that artificers can make at level 2. (Also, I personally think that +1 armor being rare is a very strange design choice, especially when +1 shields, weapons, and wands of the war mage are uncommon.)
If you're losing your mind about the balance of the artificers because they can create +1 armor at level two, I will point you to the Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger classes that all can get a +1 bonus to AC while wearing armor through the Defense Fighting Style. Artificers basically get that, but they can give the armor to allies to help them in combat.
Artificers are not broken. Also, you didn't respond to any of my points in either of my previous two posts, which is a major sign of bad-faith debate.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Forge cleric is looking around the room thinking: "I wish someone would call me broken"
You engaged me. I don't need to deal with every point. And Repeating Shot ranged weapon that is +1, auto-reload, and needs no ammo...uh yeah, AT LEAST Rare.
I don't think 5e suffers from power creep at all! The devs are CONSTANTLY making erratas and balance changes to old classes and subclasses, just look at the recent changes made with Tashas!
“I will take responsibility for what I have done. [...] If must fall, I will rise each time a better man.” ― Brandon Sanderson, Oathbringer.
The fact that I engaged doesn't mean that you get to make any claim you want without responding to any of mine. That's not how good-faith arguments work.
. . . Is ammo a balancing factor of ranged weapons? I don't think it is, I just think that's a part that WotC chose to add to D&D to make that part of the game realistic. That's a minor benefit that doesn't have to deal with the balance of the game. Auto-reload is a benefit that is equivalent to about 1/3rd of the Crossbow Expert feat. The +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls with the weapon is just a standard +1 uncommon weapon.
Furthermore, Repeating Shot requires attunement, while enhanced weapon and normal +1 weapons don't. The two features on top of the +1 weapon makes the magic item the equivalent of an uncommon magic item attunement for balance purposes, but doesn't make it equivalent to a rare magic item with attunement. If the infusion didn't require attunement? Sure, then it would probably be the equivalent of a rare magic item, but it does require attunement, which keeps it the equivalent to an uncommon magic item.
Also, you have not refuted (or even responded to) any of my points in my previous post, just brought up more red-herrings and misdirections to make it appear as if you aren't losing the debate. You're bad faith debating, so I will cease to try to have a good-faith discussion with you.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Really? I'm willing to debate that.
In reality, this affects paladins the most, and in that sense it's not that big a deal. All it does is solve MADness, but not as much as one would hope. You can't dump STR to 8, as multiclass requires 13 in STR for paladin. They also get a neat ranged option with EB, but it's not that big a deal if they don't take a second level to get agonizing blast. Even then, their SADness is limited to one handed weapons, unless they get to lvl 3 and take pact of the blade. Until then, unless they have warcaster, they're stuck in this weird limbo where you can't cast many spells if they're using a sword-n-board set up-- you're being incentivized to use two-handed weapons, but your SADness doesn't cover it. They'd be forced to use a one-handed sword without a shield to use their spells like EB, and not everyone starts or wants to use variant human just to start with war caster. It's not "just that good."
Bard also greatly benefits, but in reality, bard would benefit from any warlock subclass as it just desperately needs EB+agonizing blast to have a decent, sustainable, scaling damage option.
Power creep is bound to happen simply due to introducing more options your bound to step into something stronger than anticipated. For instance Yuan-ti playable characters or Hexblade Paladins.
Also some creep has come out simply as means to lift some of the classes up, look at the new sorcerer sub classes and the bloodwell vial.
Most the power creep thankfully has been creep vs leaps and bounds improvements at least but it exists, I wouldn't exactly say its a bad thing overall as long as it something doesn't simply dwarf everything else
Are they?