The Artificer returns as a true master of magical invention in Eberron: Forge of the Artificer. With on-the-fly gadgeteering, a streamlined magic item blueprint system, and subclasses tuned for the new rules, the Artificer is more of a wonder-worker than ever.
In this article, we'll cover the key changes to the new Artificer you'll find in Eberron: Forge of the Artificer. If there's a feature we don't cover, it remains unchanged or only saw minor tweaks.
Eberron: Forge of the Artificer Releases December 9!
Preorder Eberron: Forge of the Artificer now to get the updated Artificer, revised subclasses, and a trove of Eberron-centric character options, like Dragonmark feats and the Warforged species, when the book releases.
Master Tier subscribers can access the book two weeks early, on November 25, and Hero Tier subscribers can access the book one week early, on December 2!
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2 |
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3 |
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6 |
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Flash of Genius |
7 |
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Magic Item Adept |
10 |
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11 |
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14 |
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Magic Item Master |
18 |
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19 |
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20 |
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Artificer Class Features Overview
Spellcasting — Level 1
Like other spellcasting classes, the Artificer can now swap a cantrip after a Long Rest. Now, you can even tailor your repertoire of cantrips for what you expect the day ahead holds!
Tinker's Magic — Level 1
This replaces the old Magical Tinkering feature and dramatically expands the possibilities for your Artificer's crafting!
You know Mending and can fabricate practical adventuring gear as a Magic action while holding Tinker's Tools. Items last until your next Long Rest—great for on-demand Ball Bearings, Rope, or a Grappling Hook while you're mid-dungeon crawl.
Uses per Long Rest equal your Intelligence modifier (minimum 1).
Replicate Magic Item — Level 2
One of the cornerstones of the Artificer class, the Infuse Item feature, has been reworked into Replicate Magic Item.
Now, instead of Infusions, you learn plans for magic items by level tier (2+, 6+, 10+, 14+). The end result is a vast expansion of choices. And don't worry—if your Artificer relied on their Boots of the Winding Path or a Light Crossbow with Repeating Shot, these have been added as magic items included in Eberron: Forge of the Artificer that can be created through the Artificer's new Replicate Magic Item feature.
This feature is also still interacted with at higher levels. Not only can you create more powerful items, but you can still store spells in them and utilize their magic to recover from grave injuries.
Artificer Subclass — Level 3
Eberron: Forge of the Artificer adds the Cartographer subclass to complement the updated Alchemist, Armorer, Artillerist, and Battle Smith.
Stay tuned for an in-depth look at the new and revised Artificer subclasses coming over the next couple of weeks.
Magic Item Tinker — Level 6
Magic Item Tinker is a new feature that replaces Tool Expertise and supercharges your Replicate Magic Item feature into a flexible, fine-tunable loadout.
At this level, you gain three benefits for managing your replicated magic items:
- Charge Magic Item: Restore charges in an item by spending a spell slot.
- Drain Magic Item: Dismiss a replicated item and gain a spell slot once per Long Rest.
- Transmute Magic Item: Swap one replicated item for another plan you know.
Together, these options offer untold creative possibilities. The Charge Magic Item and Drain Magic Item let you balance your magic item armaments with spell resources. The Charge Magic Item can also be an incredibly efficient way to utilize your spell slots through magic items.
For instance, you can create Winged Boots with Replicate Magic Item at level 10, and expending 1 charge gives you a Fly Speed of 30 feet for 1 hour.
If you use Charge Magic Item with a level 2 spell slot, you'll gain 2 charges, which is akin to being able to cast the Fly spell for a level 1 spell slot (plus, no Concentration required)!
And that's just the beginning: think of everything you can do with Transmute Magic Item—allowing you to create a vast array of magic items at a moment's notice by using a Magic action.
Spell-Storing Item — Level 11
The new Spell-Storing Item keeps the core fantasy of empowering you and your allies with efficient spellcasting, but expands your flexibility by allowing you to store up to level 3 spells. It remains the same in the sense that any creature holding the item can cast the stored spell with a Magic action using your spellcasting ability, which is an excellent way to hand out borrowed spellcasting to the party.
Keep in mind that this comes with one caveat: The spell now must not require a Material component that is consumed. So, no Revivify, but yes Fireball (as long as you're an Artillerist).
Advanced Artifice — Level 14
Advanced Artifice replaces the old Magic Item Savant and shifts focus away from bypassing magic-item requirements toward enhancing your Flash of Genius ability.
Now, you regain a use of this feature after a Short Rest, further preparing you for any adventuring to come.
You still get to attune to up to five magic items at once with this feature, meaning you'll be a walking, talking, magically-infused war machine at this point.
Epic Boon — Level 19
Epic Boons emerged in the new core rules as a new type of extra potent feat with the prerequisite of being level 19+, ensuring they are only available for heroes reaching the pinnacle of their power. While Artificers can take any Epic Boon, the recommended pick is the Boon of Energy Resistance:
- Boon of Energy Resistance: Gain Resistance to two damage types of your choice from a list of elemental damage types, which you can change after each Long Rest. When you take damage of one of those types, you can use your Reaction to redirect that energy toward a creature you can see within 60 feet. It must succeed on a Dexterity save (DC = 8 + your Constitution modifier + your Proficiency Bonus) or take 2d12 + your Constitution modifier damage of the same type.
Soul of Artifice — Level 20
The new capstone Soul of Artifice feature provides two benefits: Cheat Death and Magical Guidance.
Cheat Death triggers when you would drop to 0 Hit Points. You can disintegrate any number of Uncommon or Rare magic items you made with Replicate Magic Item, and your Hit Points instead become 20 times the number of items destroyed in this way. This turns your own inventions into a massive cushion of emergency healing. The main thing you'll have to keep in mind is, which of your replicated magic items are the most expendable, and how many are you willing to spend each time you go down?
Magical Guidance provides extra survivability to complement your tactical genius. As long as you're attuned to at least one magic item, finishing a Short Rest restores all expended uses of Flash of Genius. That means in any adventuring day with regular Short Rests, you can lean hard on Flash of Genius to turn failed saves and checks into successes. But, if you spend all of your replicated magic items on the Cheat Death benefit, you'll be left hurting!
Forge Your Legend
With Eberron: Forge of the Artificer, it's time to tune up your tools, prep your plans, and step onto the battlefield with creativity as your greatest weapon.
Using the new and updated character options from this book, you can invent a character beyond your wildest dreams. What will you create—a warforged Armorer that melds upgrades into its metal skin? Or a swashbuckling kalashtar Cartographer who sails the skies in an airship? It's up to you to decide!
Mike Bernier is the Content Marketing Manager for D&D Beyond, where he helps bring the worlds of Dungeons & Dragons to life. When he isn't adventuring across the multiverse in search of his next great story, Mike can be found gaming, hiking with his partner, or cooking something delicious while his dog waits for him to drop a bite.
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Posted Nov 25, 2025Manifold Tool, common wondrous item
This tool takes the form of a wrench, a screwdriver, or another basic tool. As a Magic action, you can touch the item and transform it into a type of Artisan's Tools of your choice. Whatever form the tool takes, you have proficiency with it when you use it.
I think the Homunculus is unchanged, AC, HP, to hit all looks the same. Some clarity is needed on Mending to heal though
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Posted Nov 25, 2025Homunculus is mostly the same as the last UA but with a streamline presentation. Still a 2nd level spell, that takes an hour to cast, but no longer consumes the 100GP gem (which is good because it's alarmingly easy to kill for the time and price it takes to summon). Still scales the same based on spell slot used to cast. Not seeing any other differences at a glance.
Manifold Tool appears unchanged since UA.
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Posted Nov 25, 2025Dope. I was hoping for a fix like that. Either lessen the cost to consume or don't consume with that cost. Now I'll just have to homebrew the manifold tool to give arcana proficiency so my homunculus can be a proper crafting partner (unless they retroactively give them that new Deryan spell).
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Posted Nov 26, 2025Umm, repeating shot and winding path boots are available at the same levels as before, no? That’s what I’m seeing at least?
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Posted Nov 26, 2025Sooo, is this RIP bag of holding bomb? Does the rift still happen and people get sucked through, but bag contents appear harmlessly, or is this meant to fully kill the BoH bomb as done by the artificer?
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Posted Nov 26, 2025Before this update, you need two artificers to do this. One Artificer could not infuse/replicate two Bags of Holding.
With this update, if it is on the list of replicatable magic items, then the same applies. You may want to ask in the Rules and Game Mechanics forum for a more in-depth analysis.
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Posted Nov 26, 2025The ability to ignore magic item restrictions was bs and broken.
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Posted Nov 26, 2025Hardly. It was a staple of the class when originally introduced in 3.5. It effectively only allowed bypassing species and class requirements. It does not bypass alignment requirements. There were still items that they could attune but provided minimal or no benefit (for example, a Bloodwell Vial gives a bonus to Sorcerer spells and Sorcery Points but no way to use them; it's an expensive focus and nothing else in the hands of an Artificer). Dragonmarks were subspecies but I don't think the feature was meant to bypass it (the actual attunement requirement is a creature with a mark, not the dragonmarked subspecies).
It did create weird situations like a Human Artificer attuning an Armblade that retracts into their arm (but this is still in line with the original class which had a Prestige class that incorporated warforged components into a non-warforged Artificer's body).
However, the main benefit it provided was allowing the Artificer to be included in future magic items without calling them out specifically.
There is nothing that was broken in the hands of an Artificer that would not be broken in the hands of the character intended to attune it.
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Posted Nov 26, 2025Well, looks like I'll be porting the new subclasses to the 2014 version. The new Artificer overall doesn't seem to be worth it. Making custom magic items was kind of the point of the class.
The Cartographer seems bad, and I hated it at first, but being able to teleport around and the magic maps make line-of-sight completely redundant. Finally, my human support warlock can still target his allies in a dark cave.
Dreadnought will be interesting. Armorer was always in my top 5 favorite subclasses, and adding more options is just great.
Alchemist seems to be the same flavor of mediocre. Playable, but meh. Same with Artillerist.
Battle Smith is actually broken. In any version. My DM nerfed Battle Smith so hard when we played. You had to spend 100 gp per hit die repaired. Being able to just cast Mending on it, while not being combat-applicable, means that you can full heal that metal thing while you're traveling, without having to buy and use spare parts. Ridiculous. Controversial, but ridiculous.
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Posted Nov 27, 2025Ahhhh. My bad. But so if a player wanted to do that they can go for it LOL so it's going to be interesting to see what their spell list is going to be now when it comes out. I know what my players had nothing but negative comments about it saying that it will ruin the game and the survivability feeling to it yet he's the type of player that would exploit a bunch of stuff if he can LOL
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Posted Nov 27, 2025Yeah. Note that as someone else pointed out, Mass Healing Word is not eligible because it is a Bonus Action to cast.
The changes are a mixed bag. It's a lot of negatives for me because I want the crafting class to be good at crafting. The level 1 feature is awful except for the free Mending cantrip. I think the infusions known/plans known need to be increased but there are a lot of options for infusions. Previously, at level 2, you could infuse a +1 shield or +1 armor (likely scale mail) but had to already possess the base item. Now, you can't infuse +1 armor until level 6, but at level 2, you can conjure (via infusions) a +1 shield and a Cast-off/Gleaming/Smoldering Plate for a total AC of 21 at level 2. There is never a reason to choose anything other than the best base item because you no longer have to provide it. At level 6, you can have a +1 shield and +1 plate at the same time (this was not possible previously using just infusions).
Spell Storing Item is potentially busted with a few options, particularly if you can find a way to add spells to the artificer spell list (certain legacy backgrounds do this).
Transmute Magic Item is really limited by how few extra Infusions an Artificer can know.
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Posted Nov 27, 2025This kinda feels like a big nerf to Artificers. And they don’t even get access to spells from other sourcebooks that thematically fits Artificers like Concealed Shot, Conjure Cannonball, Conjure Constructs, Conjure Cover, Dissolution, Emerald Goblet, Emmeline’s Essence Infusion, Intaglio, Jam Weapon, Jethro’s Instant Reload, Wristpocket, etc. Artillerist should have access to more projectile magic. Armorer should have more access to, well…more armor transmutation and abjuration spells. Cartographer should have more divination and mobility spells. Alchemist should have access to more transmutation spells. I don’t think I’m asking too much.
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Posted Nov 27, 2025If I purchase the digital book, will I have access to the new artificer in the Character Creator tool?
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Posted Nov 27, 2025feels like still a good crafting class on their respective field. and Thayan Spell Tattoo with the new Homonculus Servant spell it still be fast crafter. as long as they craft what they specialize with.