DND's Artificers have a problem with support! 

Love the Artificer, it's missing a crafting system but with the new system added in 5.5e I am excited for what can be improved on this class. Because that was its bread and butter when it was created in 3.5e.

The artillerist gets you close to being a magical gunslinger, totally dig the painter idea . And basing subclasses of tools is great, like doing a subclass based off of mason tools petrifying enemies could be really cool, obviously it would need heavy balancing to insure you get to do your cool stuff and con saves but it's an interesting thought experiment.

You know what would be a fun Artificer theme? Cursed Items. The ability to curse an enemy's gear, or maybe to pass cursed items onto them, or even just the ability to ignore the downside of cursed items you encounter. Or heck, have a list of special infusions you can make that have extra bonuses but inflict penalties on the wielder, so you're still creating something powerful it just comes with a steep cost. There's all sorts of ways you could take a cursed item themed artificer.

Incredible work on the history lesson & homebrew. The greatest flavor of the Artificer's is their Tools Required. Between Artificer's Infusion, Replicate Magic Item, & Artisan Tools (& Theives' Tool), there are 184 flavors your Spells can take, not including all the Common Magic Weapons & Armors. Also, there's two extra "Artisan Tool" an Artificer can grab and thats the Forgery Kit & Disguise Kit in the OGL 5.1 SRD. Listed under Artisan Tool, you can have an Artificer Cosplayer.

Order of Scribes should have been absolutely been an artificer sub-class. TBH I think one reason is the adventure league. Most adventure legues I been apart of allow for core rulebook + one additional rule book for character customization. So artificers are *locked* to Tasha's cauldron if they want to even play the class. Wizards wants to release new Adveture league legal artificer content? Gotta print the whole class again in the next book!

i love the archetype of the artificer, but i feel Wizards complete missed the point because they still try to see the artificer as a Wizard-Subclass. i feel the core of the artificer is "crafting" is the class that use magic in a indirect way, is the magic tool class. and i feel that is the mistake, Wizard created Artificer to be a Wizard-Subclass, and after people dislike the idea they try to make it a full class, but forget to start for zero. i think the best idea to fully make a good artificer is to forget about wizards and forget about Eberron, start with a clean sheet, forget the whole SteamPunk flavor, and think "how i make a magic crafter ". I believe you are right about the crafting tools. We start with the Crafting tools, and to start we need a official list of all the basic items someone can craft with each tools, no need to be a big list, like 10 common itens each tools can create. ( the whole big issue is that the Artificer will require a lot of support material) like a completely separated "Spell list" that is in reality a "crafting list" and split it in categories/school the same way that spells work item A is part of the construct specialization, item B is part of the alchemy specialization, item C is part of the Wand specialization. and just like spells some items have specific requirements from levels, components and cost. You can even play around with something similar to the Wizard's spell book, but is more like a recipe book with schematics and blueprints for each item, and allows the artificer to learn new recipes on how to manufacture each item. so the more tools you have proficience with the more diverse you crafting list will be. You can have subclasses about amking potions, about making golems, about making wands, making scrolls, making magic clothes, magic weapons, magic accessories like rings and necklaces, magic runes, about turning your body in a magic tool. just forget about " Artificer are tech wizards" forget about spells, yes cantrips are ok, but remember Artificer acess magic by magic items, they dont cast spells by themselves, Artificer don cast "Fly" they make flying carpts, or magic wings, or special flying runes

Grim Hollow made a free PDF with lots of options that make all Artificers better, and 2 more cool Subclass options (Reanimator, and Machine Cultist). By far the best Artificer 3rd party thing I've seen, and it's free!

Just my anecdotal evidence from playing an armorer artificer in a shady campaign with plenty of intrigue, the class eclipses others in sheer consistency. You allow an artificer downtime, and very soon the entire party will have laser focused solutions to whatever challenges that they're facing. The main issue with this unique niche is that the number of infusions known is not enough to give you a sufficiently broad toolbox, but permanently crafting common/uncommon items *fast*, and for cheap offsets it.

One concept I haven't seen is a gardener style of Artificer, where you grow your magic items, or possibly harvest your items from a magic tree. Give them a few Druid cantrips and spells just to give it some nature flavor.

Artificer are my favourite class and my go to class when we need a intelligence for a group. The problem is that it ties way to heavily on the steampunk, magitech ebberon aesthetic when I think of artificers they are craftsmen and a person who deal with magical items. I really love your painter subclass I do have a concent of it back at the files and don't know how to implement the paint aspect of it, mostly inspired by famous artist van goth, Picasso. The name is alright would have like it based on artistic terms. I want to try my best to create a Artificer based on mathematics, astronomy or perotic table a bit to science-y for dnd but it's a cool concept I'm sure they exist in "medieval" dnd setting

I think people are too fixated on the steam punk flavor which could be reflavored easily enough. make the battle smith a golem crafting wizard, or give the artillerist a magic staff which can cast damage spells.

I like the idea of an alcoholic artificer that uses brewer's supplies. It could be called an Aletificer!

I would also recommend Dread Metrol by Keith Baker. It includes the Mastermaker subclass, which focuses on magical prosthetics.

Artificer isn't a go-to class for me, but learning all this I realize Artificers do feel lackluster with the lack of a proper crafting system in 5e. For class fantasy, I've always felt like artificers would be better off as craftsmen and engineers of items and technology whether magical or not. I'm not a fan of shoe boxing artificers into strictly being magical tinkerers

I liked the artificer from 3.5 eberron, where you could spend more charges to add metamagic to the spells from items, scrolls ecc. Would be nice to have a subclass for it. I would call it the Metamechanist

Artificer doesn’t have limited fantasy, people just have limited imaginations. The lack of a crafting system does suck though. I had to argue down the price of crafting components with the GM today, so I’m sure imma get the old boulder dumped on my head come Sunday.

One reason you don't see a lot of 3rd party Artificer support is legal. The artificer is not in the SRD, and is therefore not protected by OGL, even though under fair use they should be able to legally publish original subclasses, (provided they don't reprint any specific mechanics). Ask every major kickstarter project why they don't have artificers. The answer isn't, "we had no ideas," the answer is, "We're afraid Hasbro's lawyers will destroy us in legal purgatory."

Toolkit exploits is a great design space. I'll definitely credit this when/if I explore it further. :)

People who say the game needs a crafting system or the Artificer needs an built in way to create magical items forgets that any crafting is ultimately up to the DM. I'm sure there are plenty of DM's who are down to including crafting but I also know there are many who don't want that in their games. Creating magic items or potions beyond what the DM intends to hand out or offer can throw off the balance and just add more work.

In my opinion, the best way to build an Artificer(in general) is to use the “Rock” Gnome race and the “Izzet Engineer” background from Ravnica. Plus, you could use the “Simic Scientist” background as well, the Izzet League and Simic Combine are both very good examples of Fantasy Inventors.

I feel the infusion system is confusing to learn and works in a weird way. To me and my friends at least. I honestly think the Artificer needed to be more about being a carftsman, than a magical engineer, but to do that (like you said) a crafting system was needed, and after that the subclasses needed to be built around tool's proficiency as you did with your own.

I'm currently playing a rock gnome Artillerist Artificer in Curse of Strahd. I definitely have complaints. The class blurb paints us as being pretty flexible, but we have very slow cantrip progression and round over round of combat feeling the same. I use my Arcane Firearm (in my case, a wand with red runes I crafted) to fire Firebolt and then use my bonus action to fire my Eldritch Cannon (I use the handheld version of the Force Ballista). I have infused my party members' weapons and created a bag of holding, but I kind of feel bored.

I flavored an Armorer as summoning etherial armor. My character clashed enchanted bracelets together, and either a glimmering (Guardian) or shadowy (Infiltrator) suit would form around her. Beyond that, I didn't have to change anything. Artificers are mechanically casters, so i cast spells from the armor. That's actually lazier than coming up with gadgets to represent the spells, but oh well. I had a blast punching things and being a tank! DM allowed it, so long as I still spent the money for new armor on "materials" to upgrade the bracelets. So it still cost me 1200 for Plate. All the subclasses are easy to reflavor as magical, I don't know why people get hung up on the steampunk. An Artilerist can make their cannon a literal staff they shove in the ground that shoots arcane bolts. A Battlesmith can make their companion a golem or an animated wooden puppet.

Artificer has a ton of fantasy, just needs more subclasses.

My problem with an artificer is that it makes light of magic items. It works very well in Eberron because that's part of that world's lore, people making magic items as rote. But in standard settings you don't have magic item industries that trivialize their existence. Magic items are rare and hard to find, so having an artificer who can just make magic items with just a long rest... no, I don't agree with that. It needs more than just that. Pulling things out of thin air, like tools and constructs, or take a mundane item and turning it into a magic item that's permanent as long as they want it to be... with no special materials or anything expended in the process just does not feel right to me. My solution to this would be to require not just tools but also a component pouch with the component pouch consumed in the process of creating a single magic item. I'd also require 'Right Tool for the Job' to have tools as a component as you're not pulling them out of thin air but modifying existing tools. But this is a largely unpopular opinion as I've been in a number of arguments over my views on artificers and magic items.

Gotta say, I think it's kinda BS that Artificer's have a "limited fantasy". I am currently playing a campaign where I'm an Artificer Artillerist that's actually a shaman that uses his totems to burn his enemies or call the spirits to protect his allies. I think people ironically have a creativity problem with the class.

The Painter looks like a fun concept. Personally, I think a rune magic focused subclass could be nice. Like you have the ability to craft powerful runes and you prepare different ones. You get access to stronger effects as the class levels up. You can call it the Rune Priest or something like that.

I could give you an honorable Mention via Valda's Spire of Secrets: which lets you have the Craftsman as a True artificer

Artificer doesn't have to be steampunk per se. I like just having enchanted robes & runes on staffs etc. You could make regular armor but add more ornate decorations, jewels, and add like a signature stamp that shows you made it, kinda like gunmakers in the past.

Artificer are without fantasy? Are you insane? They are the most customaseble classes in the whole game. Magitek, runes cravers, gem souls, tatoos makers, potion brewers, golems.

Always a pleasure to watch your videos!

I made a goblin artificer that was more of a hag than a wizard or a genius full on poisons and his method of casting was weird magic I also did a blood hunter multiclass and played it a bit like Jekyll and Hyde

Artificer Alchemist fits the time period other things like plate armor or Rapier were created in so I personally think that subclass fits rather well into the high fantasy settings where other similar appropriate elements exists, the rest however are basically just iron man.

No one will ever convince me that giants and their rune magic is not a form of artificer magic.

There's also the "Mastermaker Artificer" in the Dread Metrol adventure.

A merchant Artificer that gets to add its intelligence modifier to charisma rolls

Artificer is my favorite class, conceptually. But while I love the idea of them being capable of dabbling in practically any role of the party (a proper utility belt / swiss army knife), I feel it causes them to be stretched too thin to actually enjoy any particular part. Though I haven't had the chance to actually play much D&D (let alone this specific class), so my thoughts are limited to assumptions. For half the game you only have 2 cantrips, 2-3 active infusions, and just got 3rd level spells. Not to mention issues like alchemist needing precious spell slots for their elixirs, when none of the other artificer subclasses use slots as a resource. Heck, infusions are supposed to be the core feature, and yet they have no ties to the subclasses whatsoever. At least give us a free infusion for each subclass (not counting against our active infusions). An easier way to craft magic items would of course be the best fix (hopefully the new 2024 books will help this aspect). The infusions could count as prototypes and cut the craft time to a reasonable amount. Then the small pool of infusions isn't so bad. And you can actually use your capstone fully, without feeling bad for hoarding all 6 infusions to yourself for the attunements (though even that assumes all your infusions are attuneable and not a bag of holding/etc.) But honestly, just giving us more cantrips known would be a massive fix. Like a cantrip savant feature that gives more cantrips known and can swap them more regularly. It fits the vibe of them being "on the fly" inventors, even as half-casters. And since the other half-casters are half-martials, giving us more cantrips to fill the void would be good. And it doesn't even need to be giving cantrips from other lists. Artificers have a great selection of thematic options. We just can't use them.

I don’t think the reasons why the artificer didn’t get new subclasses given in the video are correct, because we have to look at where the artificer comes from, not the players hand book but two separate buyable books, and the one time we got a new subclass in Tasha’s we also again got the entire artificer. So for wotc to sell something artificer related like a subclass they can either make a book or source that contains just the new subclass but than they have the problem of what do people do who don’t own Tasha’s or eberron or they have to print the entire class again and make those people who already own the artificer mad that they again just got the 2nd reprint of the artificer they need to pay for to get just one or two more subclasseses.

I honestly despise how much the artificer is left behind each and every time. Even for DnD 2024, who bites the dust? having them from the start would fix the problem of being too otherworldly imo. for the subclasses: artificer ist my favorite class to homebrew for. Just choose a tool (ANY tool) and go nuts. You can go medivial barber w/ magic hair and scissors, or be an origami-paper bombs extraordinaire, a deep sea diver focussing on chests and treasure, some drukard who brews the best moonshine you'll ever taste, or how bout combining different planes? What would a feywild artificer look like? What would he craft? simply said: the class has monstrous versatility. It's a shame that it's treated like leftovers. the class is by no means an "11/10 super perfect, do not touch", so changes are surely welcome. Many creators already made their own version to improve on this. most well known is prob. the inventor from kibblestasty and the gallore of subclasses done by laserllama (as well as an alternative class structure). honestly dunno why WotC is so hesistant to spread the attention. as if any inch they'd give the artificer class will diminish the wizard class in some way. edit: @6:20: good summary - give magic tool makers magic tools to, well, make magic. problem solved.

I mean, artificer is pretty good for Eberron, but for other settings it can be kind of weird, since mages are the ones that deal with magic items. But for me, the crafting, and the flavor stuff like magical tinkering is the only thing that needs change. I loved the artillerist and alchemist. I also loved the unearthed arcana spell for adding elemental damage to strikes, maybe like the new ranger this needs to be a feature, and not a spell.

one fantasy i think is a bit unexplored i have seen cool 3d party support for. What about a artificer specialising in cursed magic items? You know the fantasy of traveling around of looking for cursed artefacts so they cant hurt anyone else. Though official dnd has awfully few cursed magic items but I still really like the idea.

Artificer to me is a great awesome solo build. I the alchemist should scale in some form. Inventor wise the Kibble intro is awesome. Feels balanced to me but given the lack of quality from wotc I trust fans 100% over "official," releases.

I was "playing annartificer" in 5e before the class was ever released, and I think this is more core to the class' identity problem than anything else. The unofficial artificers I played were usually based on Warlocks, and relied 100% on reskinning versus new mechanics. That's right, I always used 100% RAW mechanics. EB was a blaster gun. Misty Images was a holographic projector. My Tome was a bunch of formulas and schematics. I chose spells specifically for the ability to describe their effects as tech vs magic. ...and as you'd expect, my artificers were (drum roll pls) exactly as strong and functional as a Warlock, which is to say decent but not dominating. Now take the current official Artificer (both base class and subclasses) and strip away the descriptive text, examining the mechanics. You've got a half caster without any of the martial tools that the other half casters get to augment their magic. Instead they're given magic items... that are so weak and irrelevant that they essentially irrelevant. That's the Artificer problem. The flavor text is irrelevant if it isn't wrapped around functional mechanics. When imaginative reskinning of another class (without altering any rules) makes a better artificer than the official class, the problem is mechanical rather than descriptive.

What does Blue and Green do because it looked like there was an error and what they do was left out?

the "Blue" and "Green" entries for the color palette are just the Color Palette rules again.

So since we know there’s a crafting system in the 2024 PHB, doesn’t this solve the problem?

The Artificer should take a page out of both the Alchemist and Inventor classes from PF2e.

Question: Why try fixing a broken, overprized game instead of going for cheaper/free games with working artificers and functional crafting systems?

The fact that it's not being added to one DND is sad and a clear sign they have bailed on the class

limited fantasy just feels like its an imaginary problem

Needs to be a wizard Sub school

It doesn't work well. The Alchemist is awful; no alchemist ever tanked around in Scale Mail, it just doesn't fit with the rest of the class. Both Warlock and Artificer are missing transportation specialists. I'm thinking a Pact of the Steed (based on Zelazny's Dilvish) and an Artificer that makes vehicles or even flying machines. I suspect these ideas are missing because they are campaign-altering in too strong a way.

I absolutely hate the artificer class. I don’t want magic tech in my games

Such a simple fix is to just play pathfinder