Hopefully one day there will be a new subclass or four that comes out that makes me want to play the class. Fingers crossed, but I am not holding my breath.
I imagine that 2024 will bring the Artificer into the PHB. Since it can then be assumed to be available to the player, subclasses for it will be a viable goody to put in books.
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If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Hopefully one day there will be a new subclass or four that comes out that makes me want to play the class. Fingers crossed, but I am not holding my breath.
I imagine that 2024 will bring the Artificer into the PHB. Since it can then be assumed to be available to the player, subclasses for it will be a viable goody to put in books.
D&D settings basically define what is typical. Also, Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, and Greyhawk are as bog standard as anything imaginable, and Raveloft is only very slightly off in that it has a shade deeper shadows than most. Dark Sun is darker, like Ravenloft, but otherwise differs only in climate. Planescape isn't official these days, which really only leaves Spelljammer, and Eberron.
Planescape is official, it has (sparse) rules in the DMG to play in it.
Ravenloft is a horrror-fantasy setting. Definitely not "typical fantasy". Dark Sun is a magical climate-change created wasteland with psychic bug people as one of the main races on a planet ruled by fascist, genocidal dragon sorcerers. Also not "typical fantasy". I'm not going to argue on Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, or Greyhawk, but those are just 3 settings and the "not typical" settings (Eberron, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Planescape, Spelljammer) outnumber them.
And, even if the Forgotten Realms is "typical fantasy", that doesn't mean that Artificers are out of place in it (which was the point I was addressing in the part of my post you were quoting). Lantan is a giant island that's basically all you need to justify why you're playing an Artificer in the Forgotten Realms. "Hey, you know that giant island filled with gnomes and humans that worship Gond, create magical gunpowder, and have magical submarines? Yeah, I come from there, so that's why I am a magical crafter."
Anyways, on the artificer thing: The artificer matches a particular niche in storytelling. The one ring was crafted by Sauron, Mjøner was crafed by the dwarves, Narsil was forged by Telchar - and so on. I don't know all RPG's, but I know quite a few, and the crafting of magic items has always been kept carefully controlled - and mostly away from players. Or, alternatively, utterly broken.
So the artificer isn't just a natural fit for any setting. If you want your legendary magic items to be legendary - rather than made by that guy down the street - you cannot have artificers in a setting. And conversely, if you feel magic is best served by being common as muck, basically a fantasy equivalent of electricity, then yes, artificers are great.
You know that there's no rules in the Artificer class that make them any better at making magic items higher in rarity than uncommon than anyone else, right? They're better at making common and uncommon magic items than any other class, but they don't get any features that make them better at designing/crafting rare magic items, much less Legendary, or sentient magic items, or Artifacts. You can definitely have Artificers in a world without legendary magic items becoming more mundane/common or less "legendary".
Whether you find that 'sci-fi'-ish or not is semantics.
No, it's not. "Sci-Fi" is one genre, "Magitek fantasy" is another. Confusing the two would be like calling Spelljammer a Grimdark-Horror setting or calling Twilight a Romantic Comedy.
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Well - that's debatable. I'll say sure, not necessarily. But I'd argue that while a wizard needs quite a bit of experience and work to begin making real money from crafting, an artificer can make a fortune starting at level 1.
And that's different. You cannot really have a setting with artificers, and still argue that magic is rare. It's selfcontradictory. I mean you could, but I for one wouldn't be convinced.
Well, you've just made it very clear that you haven't even read the class. Artificers don't get to make magic items at level 1. At least, they don't get any features that would make them better/more likely to become rich from making magic items at level 1 than Wizards or any other class.
And, no, you can absolutely have a setting with artificers and argue that magic is rare.
Question for you: Is magic rare in Middle Earth?
Yes, it is.
However, Sauron would probably be closest to an Artificer in D&D terms.
Therefore, it is possible for there to be a character in a world that can create magic items while still having magic be rare in the world.
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Well - that's debatable. I'll say sure, not necessarily. But I'd argue that while a wizard needs quite a bit of experience and work to begin making real money from crafting, an artificer can make a fortune starting at level 1.
And that's different. You cannot really have a setting with artificers, and still argue that magic is rare. It's selfcontradictory. I mean you could, but I for one wouldn't be convinced.
Well, you've just made it very clear that you haven't even read the class. Artificers don't get to make magic items at level 1. At least, they don't get any features that would make them better/more likely to become rich from making magic items at level 1 than Wizards or any other class.
And, no, you can absolutely have a setting with artificers and argue that magic is rare.
Question for you: Is magic rare in Middle Earth?
Yes, it is.
However, Sauron would probably be closest to an Artificer in D&D terms.
Therefore, it is possible for there to be a character in a world that can create magic items while still having magic be rare in the world.
I'd like to add Celebrimbor and the elves of the Grey Havens to the mix. All artificers, only they mainly make boats with their crafting prowess.
Hopefully one day there will be a new subclass or four that comes out that makes me want to play the class. Fingers crossed, but I am not holding my breath.
I imagine that 2024 will bring the Artificer into the PHB. Since it can then be assumed to be available to the player, subclasses for it will be a viable goody to put in books.
I think adding it to the PHB is a good idea, but I am not as certain that is likely to happen, but we can hope.
Well - that's debatable. I'll say sure, not necessarily. But I'd argue that while a wizard needs quite a bit of experience and work to begin making real money from crafting, an artificer can make a fortune starting at level 1.
And that's different. You cannot really have a setting with artificers, and still argue that magic is rare. It's selfcontradictory. I mean you could, but I for one wouldn't be convinced.
Well, you've just made it very clear that you haven't even read the class. Artificers don't get to make magic items at level 1. At least, they don't get any features that would make them better/more likely to become rich from making magic items at level 1 than Wizards or any other class.
And, no, you can absolutely have a setting with artificers and argue that magic is rare.
Question for you: Is magic rare in Middle Earth?
Yes, it is.
However, Sauron would probably be closest to an Artificer in D&D terms.
Therefore, it is possible for there to be a character in a world that can create magic items while still having magic be rare in the world.
I'd like to add Celebrimbor and the elves of the Grey Havens to the mix. All artificers, only they mainly make boats with their crafting prowess.
I'd also like to add Fëanor and Aulë. Fëanor in particular created both the Silmarils and the Palantiri. In the case of the Palantiri, I think of it as an example of having magic items in your world just lying around, but not knowing at first where they came from until you trace it back to someone, and that someone is an artificer.
I think it's more accurate to say that Planescape right now is scattered into pieces. We get pieces of it sprinkled in the DMG, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (and Monsters of the Multiverse by extension), Descent into Avernus, and other sources, but we don't have anything consolidated into a setting yet. But from the looks of it, we're going to get something in the future if the UA is anything to go by.
If after twenty years it has not been added to the PHB why should it be added now?
Because 5e is the only edition in the history of the game that's afraid of adding new classes. No one could have predicted at the start of 5e that after 8 years we only would have gotten one additional class. And because the 5e PHB is getting a major revision in two years, so the single class that has been added to this edition since the original PHB being added to that book makes sense.
I would keep artificers in the settings they were created for and leave them out of the rest of the other settings? The same with tinker gnomes.
Again, read the OP, people. There is no reason why the "magical crafter" class should not exist in any other setting that has magical crafters. And tinker gnomes are only in two settings (Spelljammer and Dragonlance).
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If it can not stand without a subclass then maybe some of the subs abilities need to be added to the base class.
Or it would be better off as a subclass of something else.
I have always felt that with time and added abilities subclasses eventually become their own class. Which then need to be replaced in the old main class and the new main class needs subclasses eventually. All to keep balance.
Complexity always grows. Grows like weeds and inevitably they need cleared out, cut away.
A) So, most settings, as I demonstrated in the OP. It makes sense in literally every official setting in D&D 5e to include Artificers. All of them. Read the OP before you respond to the thread, please.
B) That's entirely table dependent and, as I demonstrated already, it's really hard to find official settings where Artificers don't fit.
[REDACTED]
[REDACTED] It is my opinion that many if not all of your examples that "totally fit" would work better and make more sense if they weren't shoehorning in an unnecessary gratuitously "I'm different!" class. The same goes for your own broad blanket generalist statements about "artificers are awesome and you have to be narrow minded fun hating idiot to think otherwise."
[REDACTED] I maintain my opinion that the primary raison d'etre of the artificer class is as a delivery vessel for flavor and lore that I have no desire to have in most games I want to play. As D&D is, per WotC's frequently repeated official policy, subjective and customizable to the individual players, that means they absolutely do not fit in any setting I choose play in.
Notes: Please remain civil and avoid in engaging in personal attacks
I was hesitant to even bother wasting time responding to an obvious "fight me" post coming from an evangelist on a soapbox and this validates my concern. I'm only going to say this very bluntly once, and then I'm not going to read this thread again so you might as well not bother responding (though I suspect you will anyways).
You are presenting subjective opinions as objective fact. I do not share your opinion. It is my opinion that many if not all of your examples that "totally fit" would work better and make more sense if they weren't shoehorning in an unnecessary gratuitously "I'm different!" class. The same goes for your own broad blanket generalist statements about "artificers are awesome and you have to be narrow minded fun hating idiot to think otherwise."
I'm not going to convince you and vice versa. I maintain my opinion that the primary raison d'etre of the artificer class is as a delivery vessel for flavor and lore that I have no desire to have in most games I want to play. As D&D is, per WotC's frequently repeated official policy, subjective and customizable to the individual players, that means they absolutely do not fit in any setting I choose play in.
I made it very clear from the beginning that I was absolutely fine with people not liking the class. I am fine if you don't include it as an option in your campaigns or settings. So this whole "I'm being persecuted for my opinion"-thing you've decided to whine about in this post is complete nonsense. Yes, I do think artificers are awesome. I have never said anything along the lines of "you have to be a narrow minded fun hating idiot to think otherwise" and you taking this post to that extreme is the most egregious strawman I've seen in quite some time. And you've also engaged in several ad hominems when I have done nothing in this thread to provoke them.
"I don't like this class" is indeed subjective. I have no problem with that. However, what is objective is whether or not a character concept similar to the Artificer's niche of "arcane/magical crafter" exists in the setting. Lantan is an island in the forgotten realms filled with magical crafters and tinkerers that make magical submarines and magic guns. There is a race of purple space giants in Spelljammer that make magical space ships in Spelljammer. Gary Gygax's homebrew world had an arcane warlord that made a giant mech suit and a gnome inventor that made a lobster submarine. Alchemists exist in practically all D&D campaign settings. Therefore, artificers make sense in the Forgotten Realms, Spelljammer, Greyhawk, and any world that has Alchemists.
The fact that Eberron is not the only world that Artificers make sense in is supported by the lore of multiple different worlds, the owners/creators of the current edition of the game, and the archetypes that the class can fill. You don't have to like them, you don't have to include them in your worlds or allow your players to be one, and you don't have to respond, but you're objectively in the wrong about your "opinion" that magical crafters only belong in a single setting.
Well - that's debatable. I'll say sure, not necessarily. But I'd argue that while a wizard needs quite a bit of experience and work to begin making real money from crafting, an artificer can make a fortune starting at level 1.
And that's different. You cannot really have a setting with artificers, and still argue that magic is rare. It's selfcontradictory. I mean you could, but I for one wouldn't be convinced.
Well, you've just made it very clear that you haven't even read the class. Artificers don't get to make magic items at level 1. At least, they don't get any features that would make them better/more likely to become rich from making magic items at level 1 than Wizards or any other class.
And, no, you can absolutely have a setting with artificers and argue that magic is rare.
Question for you: Is magic rare in Middle Earth?
Yes, it is.
However, Sauron would probably be closest to an Artificer in D&D terms.
Therefore, it is possible for there to be a character in a world that can create magic items while still having magic be rare in the world.
Well - you're absolutely right, I haven't. That's how little interest I have in the class. But I played one in Eberron 3.5, and they do get magic items from level 1. Just not permanent ones.
Anyway, my dude, Sauron is a god. Not an artificer. He's just an example, but not an example of an artificer - he's an example of the rarity of legendary magic items.
Is magic rare in Middle Earth? Well hell yes - to my knowledge, a single magic item is (re)created in the entire age of man, or whatever you call the age the books take place in. Anduril, as far as I know, is the only magic item that comes into existance for thousands of years, and it's quite, quite possibly the last. Men cannot do that shit. Elves barely so.
Anyways, who cares about ME. My point is just that artificers have magic items spewing out of their caboose, and you cannot have that in any sort of magic is rare-to-limited world. It only makes sense if legendary magic items are made in all the shops down on Legendary Magic Item Lane.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Well - that's debatable. I'll say sure, not necessarily. But I'd argue that while a wizard needs quite a bit of experience and work to begin making real money from crafting, an artificer can make a fortune starting at level 1.
And that's different. You cannot really have a setting with artificers, and still argue that magic is rare. It's selfcontradictory. I mean you could, but I for one wouldn't be convinced.
Well, you've just made it very clear that you haven't even read the class. Artificers don't get to make magic items at level 1. At least, they don't get any features that would make them better/more likely to become rich from making magic items at level 1 than Wizards or any other class.
And, no, you can absolutely have a setting with artificers and argue that magic is rare.
Question for you: Is magic rare in Middle Earth?
Yes, it is.
However, Sauron would probably be closest to an Artificer in D&D terms.
Therefore, it is possible for there to be a character in a world that can create magic items while still having magic be rare in the world.
Well - you're absolutely right, I haven't. That's how little interest I have in the class. But I played one in Eberron 3.5, and they do get magic items from level 1. Just not permanent ones.
Anyway, my dude, Sauron is a god. Not an artificer. He's just an example, but not an example of an artificer - he's an example of the rarity of legendary magic items.
Is magic rare in Middle Earth? Well hell yes - to my knowledge, a single magic item is (re)created in the entire age of man, or whatever you call the age the books take place in. Anduril, as far as I know, is the only magic item that comes into existance for thousands of years, and it's quite, quite possibly the last. Men cannot do that shit. Elves barely so.
Anyways, who cares about ME. My point is just that artificers have magic items spewing out of their caboose, and you cannot have that in any sort of magic is rare-to-limited world. It only makes sense if legendary magic items are made in all the shops down on Legendary Magic Item Lane.
Sauron is not a god. He's more comparable to an angel like a solar at most.
And I already mentioned Fëanor, who is definitely not a god, and still played a crucial role in the events of Middle Earth with his inventions. Sure no-one in the Third Age was creating rings of power or Silmarils or palantiri or any of that stuff, but they do exist, and a hypothetical campaign set in Middle Earth in the Third Age could have an artificer character be one of the few who's bothered to try to learn how to re-create these things. I'd even have said character make deals with Sauron or get in touch with Aulë somehow if that's what it took.
Also artificers as a class cannot make legendary magic items any easier than anyone else. At most, they get discounts for making permanent uncommon magic items without using their infusions, and that's at 10th level. And their infusions only allow them to instantly make magic items up to rare, and you don't get those infusions until 14th level. And uncommon magic items are, from my observation, pretty ubiquitous in many campaigns. Even in a low-magic setting, the artificer can be that rare individual who actually bothers to observe how magic works around them and puts it to use in making crazy inventions the world has rarely if ever seen. Intelligence is the class's primary stat for a reason, and that's because the character with the class is presumed to be an extraordinary thinker.
On another note, what I do think is missing (and tends to get overlooked a lot by WoTC) is the ability to craft nonmagical items.
Artificers are noticeably lacking in any features that specifically create mundane items, especially things that can be made from combining multiple mundane components together, like complex machinery. No matter which civilization you're looking at, there's always been that person who took the time to invent stuff like that.
Anyone with the right tool proficiencies can potentially do this (especially tinker's tools, which artificers do get right off the bat), of course, but you'd think the inventor class (so to speak) would at least get some kind of discount for mundane item crafting too or some list of possible interesting mundane items they can create that you don't see in the Player's Handbook. I don't know.
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I imagine that 2024 will bring the Artificer into the PHB. Since it can then be assumed to be available to the player, subclasses for it will be a viable goody to put in books.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Only if they update the SRD.
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No, it's not. "Sci-Fi" is one genre, "Magitek fantasy" is another. Confusing the two would be like calling Spelljammer a Grimdark-Horror setting or calling Twilight a Romantic Comedy.
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Well, you've just made it very clear that you haven't even read the class. Artificers don't get to make magic items at level 1. At least, they don't get any features that would make them better/more likely to become rich from making magic items at level 1 than Wizards or any other class.
And, no, you can absolutely have a setting with artificers and argue that magic is rare.
Question for you: Is magic rare in Middle Earth?
Yes, it is.
However, Sauron would probably be closest to an Artificer in D&D terms.
Therefore, it is possible for there to be a character in a world that can create magic items while still having magic be rare in the world.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I'd like to add Celebrimbor and the elves of the Grey Havens to the mix. All artificers, only they mainly make boats with their crafting prowess.
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I think adding it to the PHB is a good idea, but I am not as certain that is likely to happen, but we can hope.
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I'd also like to add Fëanor and Aulë. Fëanor in particular created both the Silmarils and the Palantiri. In the case of the Palantiri, I think of it as an example of having magic items in your world just lying around, but not knowing at first where they came from until you trace it back to someone, and that someone is an artificer.
I think it's more accurate to say that Planescape right now is scattered into pieces. We get pieces of it sprinkled in the DMG, Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (and Monsters of the Multiverse by extension), Descent into Avernus, and other sources, but we don't have anything consolidated into a setting yet. But from the looks of it, we're going to get something in the future if the UA is anything to go by.
Why not just give full magic using Characters the same infusion ability as artificers?
If after twenty years it has not been added to the PHB why should it be added now?
I would keep artificers in the settings they were created for and leave them out of the rest of the other settings? The same with tinker gnomes.
Because things change. Tieflings, dragonborn, and drow weren't in the PHB 20 years ago, either.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Because 5e is the only edition in the history of the game that's afraid of adding new classes. No one could have predicted at the start of 5e that after 8 years we only would have gotten one additional class. And because the 5e PHB is getting a major revision in two years, so the single class that has been added to this edition since the original PHB being added to that book makes sense.
Again, read the OP, people. There is no reason why the "magical crafter" class should not exist in any other setting that has magical crafters. And tinker gnomes are only in two settings (Spelljammer and Dragonlance).
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I suspect the reason 5e has been hesitant to add new classes is due to its greater focus on simplicity than other editions.
And its focus on subclasses.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
If it can not stand without a subclass then maybe some of the subs abilities need to be added to the base class.
Or it would be better off as a subclass of something else.
I have always felt that with time and added abilities subclasses eventually become their own class. Which then need to be replaced in the old main class and the new main class needs subclasses eventually. All to keep balance.
Complexity always grows. Grows like weeds and inevitably they need cleared out, cut away.
[REDACTED]
[REDACTED] It is my opinion that many if not all of your examples that "totally fit" would work better and make more sense if they weren't shoehorning in an unnecessary gratuitously "I'm different!" class. The same goes for your own broad blanket generalist statements about "artificers are awesome and you have to be narrow minded fun hating idiot to think otherwise."
[REDACTED] I maintain my opinion that the primary raison d'etre of the artificer class is as a delivery vessel for flavor and lore that I have no desire to have in most games I want to play. As D&D is, per WotC's frequently repeated official policy, subjective and customizable to the individual players, that means they absolutely do not fit in any setting I choose play in.
I made it very clear from the beginning that I was absolutely fine with people not liking the class. I am fine if you don't include it as an option in your campaigns or settings. So this whole "I'm being persecuted for my opinion"-thing you've decided to whine about in this post is complete nonsense. Yes, I do think artificers are awesome. I have never said anything along the lines of "you have to be a narrow minded fun hating idiot to think otherwise" and you taking this post to that extreme is the most egregious strawman I've seen in quite some time. And you've also engaged in several ad hominems when I have done nothing in this thread to provoke them.
"I don't like this class" is indeed subjective. I have no problem with that. However, what is objective is whether or not a character concept similar to the Artificer's niche of "arcane/magical crafter" exists in the setting. Lantan is an island in the forgotten realms filled with magical crafters and tinkerers that make magical submarines and magic guns. There is a race of purple space giants in Spelljammer that make magical space ships in Spelljammer. Gary Gygax's homebrew world had an arcane warlord that made a giant mech suit and a gnome inventor that made a lobster submarine. Alchemists exist in practically all D&D campaign settings. Therefore, artificers make sense in the Forgotten Realms, Spelljammer, Greyhawk, and any world that has Alchemists.
The fact that Eberron is not the only world that Artificers make sense in is supported by the lore of multiple different worlds, the owners/creators of the current edition of the game, and the archetypes that the class can fill. You don't have to like them, you don't have to include them in your worlds or allow your players to be one, and you don't have to respond, but you're objectively in the wrong about your "opinion" that magical crafters only belong in a single setting.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
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Well - you're absolutely right, I haven't. That's how little interest I have in the class. But I played one in Eberron 3.5, and they do get magic items from level 1. Just not permanent ones.
Anyway, my dude, Sauron is a god. Not an artificer. He's just an example, but not an example of an artificer - he's an example of the rarity of legendary magic items.
Is magic rare in Middle Earth? Well hell yes - to my knowledge, a single magic item is (re)created in the entire age of man, or whatever you call the age the books take place in. Anduril, as far as I know, is the only magic item that comes into existance for thousands of years, and it's quite, quite possibly the last. Men cannot do that shit. Elves barely so.
Anyways, who cares about ME. My point is just that artificers have magic items spewing out of their caboose, and you cannot have that in any sort of magic is rare-to-limited world. It only makes sense if legendary magic items are made in all the shops down on Legendary Magic Item Lane.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Sauron is not a god. He's more comparable to an angel like a solar at most.
And I already mentioned Fëanor, who is definitely not a god, and still played a crucial role in the events of Middle Earth with his inventions. Sure no-one in the Third Age was creating rings of power or Silmarils or palantiri or any of that stuff, but they do exist, and a hypothetical campaign set in Middle Earth in the Third Age could have an artificer character be one of the few who's bothered to try to learn how to re-create these things. I'd even have said character make deals with Sauron or get in touch with Aulë somehow if that's what it took.
Also artificers as a class cannot make legendary magic items any easier than anyone else. At most, they get discounts for making permanent uncommon magic items without using their infusions, and that's at 10th level. And their infusions only allow them to instantly make magic items up to rare, and you don't get those infusions until 14th level. And uncommon magic items are, from my observation, pretty ubiquitous in many campaigns. Even in a low-magic setting, the artificer can be that rare individual who actually bothers to observe how magic works around them and puts it to use in making crazy inventions the world has rarely if ever seen. Intelligence is the class's primary stat for a reason, and that's because the character with the class is presumed to be an extraordinary thinker.
On another note, what I do think is missing (and tends to get overlooked a lot by WoTC) is the ability to craft nonmagical items.
Artificers are noticeably lacking in any features that specifically create mundane items, especially things that can be made from combining multiple mundane components together, like complex machinery. No matter which civilization you're looking at, there's always been that person who took the time to invent stuff like that.
Anyone with the right tool proficiencies can potentially do this (especially tinker's tools, which artificers do get right off the bat), of course, but you'd think the inventor class (so to speak) would at least get some kind of discount for mundane item crafting too or some list of possible interesting mundane items they can create that you don't see in the Player's Handbook. I don't know.