Still a Rogue is a better crafter then a Artificier will ever be which is sad. Atleast they could have given them Reliable Talent for tools

I’m really excited for the book and to create some artificer characters. I had the idea for a House Tharashk bounty hunter who’s an orc artillerist, just seems like it would be a ton of fun to play.

And to everyone saying the thief rogue is better at creating magic items than the artificer, I respectfully disagree. Thief is built around being like a Bilbo Baggins who finds something magic and can use it, not creating anything. No spellcasting, no Arcana proficiency, no bonuses to crafting, and certainly no instant magic items like Replicate Magic Item. You can maybe cast some level 1 spells if from your species/feats, but that’s it. I see the grievances, but I think the argument is comparable to saying the Eldritch Knight is a better spellcaster than the Wizard because they can do one or two things the Wizard can’t.

I’m also really curious about the games everyone seems to be playing, where it seems like you have just unlimited time and resources in the city to craft items. Creating a rare item takes 50 days and 2,000+ gold pieces. Do you just have months of downtime between adventures?

Edits: Changed my tone to be less inflammatory. People are making valid points, so I don’t mean to start a comment war. I’m really excited for this Artificer and it genuinely does fix my issues with the previous version (infusions always felt limiting and a little convoluted to me), but I see how this isn’t for every table.

In every feedback survey I really pushed for this class to get ANY form of Expertise. Even if it was the choice of just ONE class skill and that was it I'd be thankful, but I see the surveys failed again. It's just baffling how the mechanics don't meet the theme of being a master of complex arcane science and crafting... but the wizard and even rogue are better at it. Of course they might have put this in the subclasses, which is an odd choice as at 3rd level this class gets three features already, so unless they stick it into the Tool Proficiency feature they'd have to tack on a fourth feature. Or push it back to 5th level in tier 2 play which is also kinda silly. They really should have added it to Tinker's Magic and called it a day. It's a borderline ribbon feature anyway - Mending and a few mundane items each day isn't exactly straining the balance of level 1 in 2024 D&D. 

Edit: I just remembered in the original promotional cycle they showed off level 3 of Battle Smith and it definitely didn't have Expertise. Just proficiency in a tool and 1/2 the time to craft weapons (magical or non magical) 

Quote from jacksondstone >>

And to everyone saying the thief rogue is better at creating magic items than the artificer…? Are you nuts? Thief is built around being like a Bilbo Baggins who finds something magic and can use it, not creating anything. No spellcasting, no Arcana proficiency, no bonuses to crafting, and certainly no instant magic items like Replicate Magic Item.

1. Arcana proficiency isn't an issue.
   1. A Thief does can become proficient in Arcana by selecting the Sage Background in the 2024 PHB. There are additional options in earlier (legacy titles) and more recent titles (The new Forgotten Realms book has 2). There will likely be at least 1 option in Forge of the Artificer but we haven't seen any of the Backgrounds previewed.
   2. A Thief can take a feat to become proficient in it.
   3. A few Species provide it as well (Astral Elf, Custom Lineage, Githyanki, Half-Elf, Hexblood, Human, Kenku, Kobold, Vedalken, and Warforged). Some of these may lose their proficiency if updated (Astral Elf), some probably won't be updated (including the Astral Elf), but most will keep them.
2. Spellcasting only matters for magic items that cast spells.
3. A more limiting factor is tool proficiency. When crafting outside of their specialty, this is the only advantage an Artificer has over other potential magic item crafters.
   1. However, note that Forge of the Artificer is expected to bring Manifold Tool as a common magic item which requires attunement but can turn into any Artisan's Tool and you are proficient with that tool. It requires attunement but anyone can attune it and you can attune it before a crafting session and attune something else after, making the attunement requirement a non-issue.
   2. Based on the Unearthed Arcana play test, that only leaves the time reduction for the Artisan's specialty (Armor for the Armorer, Weapons for the Battle Smith, Potions for the Alchemist, Wands for the Artillerist, and Scrolls for the Cartographer).

A Mythalkeeper (Forgotten Realms) Thief has both proficiency with Jeweler's Supplies and Arcana. They are exactly as capable, no better and no worse, at crafting rings that do not cast spells than any artificer. If a ring can cast a spell, the Artificer can craft it only if the spell is on the Artificer spell list. If not, there is no way inherent to the class that they can craft it. A Thayan Spell Tattoo can get around this restriction for both the Artificer and the Thief.

In 3.5, crafting magic items cost experience and Artificers had a reservoir to use first. In 2017, they instead received a time and GP reduction in certain cases. At level 10, common and uncommon items cost half the normal gold. With the Unearthed Arcana play test, this was reduced to only halving the time for a subclass's specialty (Armorers craft armor in half the time) with no gold reduction. This article says that the time and cost reduction is folding into Tinker's Magic (is this supposed to be Tinkerer's Magic?) but Tinker's Magic just describes summoning general store junk so I think WotC is being dishonest about this nerf. It could be that, like the play test, subclasses get a benefit to crafting items from their specialty, and that feature modifies Tinker's Magic, but, if so, that should have been called out in the article.

Quote from jacksondstone >>

I’m also really curious about the games everyone seems to be playing, where it seems like you have just unlimited time and resources in the city to craft items. Creating a rare item takes 50 days and 2,000+ gold pieces. Do you just have months of downtime between adventures?

Yes. The campaign my wife and I are playing in explicitly has a month or so between adventures. Between that and Bastions (DMG 2024), crafting magic items isn't that hard, regardless of class. If you are a player and don't know about Bastions, as your DM about it, particularly if your character is level 5+.

• An Arcane Study, Sacristy, Smithy, and Workshop at Character Level 9+ can craft a common or uncommon magic in the normal time and the hirelings provides the Arcana and tool proficiencies but not any spell requirements.
• A Greenhouse (Character Level 9+) can craft a Healing Potion (Greater).
• A Scriptorium (Character Level 9+) can craft a Cleric or Wizard spell scroll of level 3 or lower for the normal time and cost. The hireling takes care of all proficiencies.

These Bastion crafting actions can happen while you are adventuring normally. It is no longer an either adventure or craft. Crafting in 2024 requires far less investment than it did in prior editions making the almost complete lack of perks for crafting in the Artificers insulting.

Quote from jacksondstone >>

No spellcasting, no Arcana proficiency, no bonuses to crafting, and certainly no instant magic items like Replicate Magic Item.

• For 21 years, the Artificers were the best at using magic items. In 3.5 they had to spoof requirements to create magic items and that made them better at spoofing magic items to use (everyone could ignore certain magic item requirements with a high enough Use Magic Device but an Artificer was significantly better at it and could attune extra rings).
  • This function was preserved in 5e only for the Thief subclass and the Artificer Class. Now, a core feature of the Artificer is gone (from both classes). It was arguably a signature ability of the 3.5 Bard and Rogue but it was not core to how the class functioned like the Artificer (both in terms of how the class created items and used the items it created).
• I'm ignoring 4e because that should never have been an edition of D&D. It would have been more successful if they made it a different game. It was fine as a Boardgame System and could have worked to replicate an MMO, but not as D&D.
• 5e significantly downplayed crafting compared to 3.5 and 2017's Artificer had crafting perks but only if your DM allowed it. Buying, selling, and crafting was expressly discouraged in the 2014 DMG (the game assumes that even uncommon magic items are hard to craft). Essentially, the item crafting bonuses are class features dependent on the DM using optional, not recommended rules.
• The Forge of the Artificer update guts item crafting even further and turns the Artificer into an item conjurer. Remember that when craft a magic item, you have to possess the base item or craft it and then enchant magic in it. The 2017 Infusions were more in line with quick enchantments. This new mechanic is bunk. The artificer takes a nap in the forest and in the morning, hits his smithy hammer against a log and has a +1 suit of armor?

WotC is just doing crafting dirty again and Artificers have always been a crafting-focused class.

As an Artificer main in my group, this new version is a 75% nerf to the usability and power, not to mention the fantasy of playing an artificer.  There are only two really good points, that I think everyone has skipped.

1: It's still a powerful class in Adventure League, 5 attuned magic items in T3, and you can pick which ones you get.  Since magic items crafting other then artificers is banned in AL.

2: If you playing homebrew, you and your DM can override or change anything of the class that's needed.

These two points make senses if you remember that the 2024/2025 rule-reboot was supposed to coincide with an payed online AL service.

I'm a little upset at all of this. First, they delayed the book because of "printing" issues. Yet in the same time they released a bunch of books. Second, they could have released the material digitally so we had it until the book was fixed. Third, it appears they didn't release in digital because  this isn't living up to the other class upgrades and they didn't want to affect the physical sales. 

So they delayed everything because they knew it was bad, yet they did nothing to fix it in the meantime. 

>:( to you

 What will really cement my opinion about how the class is handled in 2025 is what they do with the Alchemist.

Time and time again, people have cried out about how weak the subclass is, and especially the problems with the Experimental Elixirs feature. If nothing meaningful was done to buff this subclass from the playtest, then that would not be a good look imo.

Quote from kaelnovar1987 >>

2: If you playing homebrew, you and your DM can override or change anything of the class that's needed.

I have a running list of planned Artificer changes for my home game (we have 2 artificers and have been playing them since 3.5).

It's part of my rulings and house rules post if you are interested.

Quote from SkorVoltag >>

Ugh.  Creativity and quality of content has gone severely downhill.

 Yeah, nothing new, but the old stuff has been upgraded far beyond the point where it's balanced. This is just forced power creep. They make new stuff with more powerful versions of classic D&D stuff for people to buy, then they make stuff with more powerful monsters for people to buy when DMs can't adequately challenge their parties of power fantasy main characters. It's a really sleazy tactic.

Quote from jacksondstone >>

And to everyone saying the thief rogue is better at creating magic items than the artificer, I respectfully disagree. Thief is built around being like a Bilbo Baggins who finds something magic and can use it, not creating anything. No spellcasting, no Arcana proficiency, no bonuses to crafting, 

[...]

I’m also really curious about the games everyone seems to be playing, where it seems like you have just unlimited time and resources in the city to craft items. Creating a rare item takes 50 days and 2,000+ gold pieces. Do you just have months of downtime between adventures?

Edits: Changed my tone to be less inflammatory. People are making valid points, so I don’t mean to start a comment war. I’m really excited for this Artificer and it genuinely does fix my issues with the previous version (infusions always felt limiting and a little convoluted to me), but I see how this isn’t for every table.

My human Thief rogue is like a internal security agent at an arcane academy in the Spelljammer setting. At lvl1 he took the skilled feat and one of his choices was Arcana proficiency. Not because he could cast any spell, but it seemed a valid choice - he has basic knowledge about how magic works.

My Armorer Artificer's first campaign were Waterdeep Dragon Heist. At the end we acquired a hefty sum of money - and before the next campaign we had 2-3 month of downtime. Guess what? My Artificer made a lot of magic items, every party member received something before we were tricked to make a visit to a place called Barovia. 

Infusions were not the most elegant solution but it worked. You could augment non-magical stuff into magical which were very inline with the basic fantasy of artificer: make something useful from a boring item.

You can make useless garbage, not useful items. Rope? Seriously? 

And you could make things before, and you got to get better at doing so at later levels. Now you can conjure some crap 99 percent of groups ignore, and they disappear when you take a nap. 

So they straight up nerfed the class and took all the fun out of it. I was waiting for the alt cover book to go with all my others, but honestly, I think I'll skip this one. They've killed the class. 2014 was a great class, albeit the spell list was lacking, but these changes... no one asked for these. No one wants these. Delay the book again and fix this!

I don't know what's going on at Wizard's at the moment, but they don't seem to understand the changes they're making. Some are fantastic, but the ones that aren't, really aren't. Artificer was my go to class and I played the hell out of it as support, enabling all kinds of epic moments for my party members. This is just heart breaking. 

Normally not one to add onto the negative reception, especially since I already posted once, but on top of expertise and being weaker at all the things we should be good at like crafting and support etc... I also just realized unless I'm mistaken we lost ritual casting... We can't even be a good detect magic/identify spam until we hit high enough level for Spell Storing Item, and honestly who is going to use it for that when you may need to give your party haste for the day or something. WoTC... We beg of you,, look at the comments, pick a handful of adjustments and just Errata this, we want to love it, we want to be excited for your new material! I've bought almost every Eberron book there is... I can't justify this one. Help us help you, make the class shine in the more powerful 2024 edition of 5e while keeping the flavor and excitement... not string, a vial, and a 10ft pole per long rest. 

Quote from Nullcade >>

I also just realized unless I'm mistaken we lost ritual casting...  

This is a general change in 2024. All spellcasters can cast any ritual spells they have prepared. Only the Wizard has a special feature to cast ritual spells out of their spellbook.

See Casting without Slots.

Quote from Nullcade >>

Normally not one to add onto the negative reception, especially since I already posted once, but on top of expertise and being weaker at all the things we should be good at like crafting and support etc... I also just realized unless I'm mistaken we lost ritual casting... We can't even be a good detect magic/identify spam until we hit high enough level for Spell Storing Item, and honestly who is going to use it for that when you may need to give your party haste for the day or something. WoTC... We beg of you,, look at the comments, pick a handful of adjustments just Errata, we want to love it, we want to be excited for your new material! I've bought almost every Eberron book there is... I can't justify this one. Help us help you, make the class shine in the more powerful 2024 edition of 5e while keeping the flavor and excitement... not string, a vial, and a 10ft pole per long rest. 

In 2024, if you have any spell with the Ritual tag prepared, you can cast it as a Ritual. You don't need a special feature to ritual cast spells anymore.

As far as I'm aware, Wizards are still the only spellcasting class in 2024 D&D that can ritual cast its ritual spells without needing to have them prepared. But everyone, including Artificers, can ritual cast all their ritual spells as long as those spells are prepared.

There are some interesting and welcome changes to the class, but a lot of missed opportunity as well. It bothers me greatly that they leaned more into the Artificer creating objects out of nothing instantly (i.e. conjuring them) rather than creating them out of base items or components with their tools.  They still cannot use a Manual of Golems until level 17.  A Reliable Talent like feature could have been added for skill checks made with tools, such as "Whenever you make an ability check using Thieves' Tools or Artisan's tools you are proficient with, treat any roll of 9 or lower on the d20 as a 10."  I would have also liked to have seen a level 18+ Replicate Magic item table that included +3 weapons and shields and Very Rare wondrous items and their spell list expanded to include Tensor's Floating Disk, Nystul's Magic Aura, Fog Cloud, Stinking Cloud and Teleportation Circle.

How does nerfing every single ability the artificer had improve the class? Genuine question?

this looks exactly like the last UA build which can still be accessed we can get a pretty good idea of what the subclasses will be capable of and unless they completely remade all the subclasses from the ground up since then. That will simply not be the case. Thief rogue will be leagues above an artificer. Artificer is hands down the Worst class in 2024 unless they made MAJOR changes since the UA. Ranger is way more useful and everyone hates them.

Quote from jacksondstone >>

I’m really excited for the book and to create some artificer characters. I had the idea for a House Tharashk bounty hunter who’s an orc artillerist, just seems like it would be a ton of fun to play.

And to everyone saying the thief rogue is better at creating magic items than the artificer, I respectfully disagree. Thief is built around being like a Bilbo Baggins who finds something magic and can use it, not creating anything. No spellcasting, no Arcana proficiency, no bonuses to crafting, and certainly no instant magic items like Replicate Magic Item. You can maybe cast some level 1 spells if from your species/feats, but that’s it. I see the grievances, but I think the argument is comparable to saying the Eldritch Knight is a better spellcaster than the Wizard because they can do one or two things the Wizard can’t.

I’m also really curious about the games everyone seems to be playing, where it seems like you have just unlimited time and resources in the city to craft items. Creating a rare item takes 50 days and 2,000+ gold pieces. Do you just have months of downtime between adventures?

Edits: Changed my tone to be less inflammatory. People are making valid points, so I don’t mean to start a comment war. I’m really excited for this Artificer and it genuinely does fix my issues with the previous version (infusions always felt limiting and a little convoluted to me), but I see how this isn’t for every table.

 If you didn't like infusions because they were limiting, How does removing half your choices and limiting the slots you have to choose from fix that? I had a similar complaint with tasha artificer but it definetly seems like they made the problem worse. they also removed magical tinkering which was actually useful beyond level 2. for tinker's magic which doesn't even make sense it should be "Tinkerer's magic" and also only allows you to make shit you can buy for literal pennies. by level 2 you have a bag of holding making that feature completely useless as soon as you get it. The only plus is the spell storing ring which you dont get access to until level 11 and simply does not justify choosing an entire class for. I was really excited too but the artificer as it stands now is just a shitty wizard.