The Artificer | Unearthed Arcana | D&D

In this new Unearthed Arcana document, we explore material designed for upcoming books, using rules from the 2024 Player’s Handbook. This playtest document presents a revised Artificer, along with 4 revised subclasses: Alchemist, Armorer, Artillerist, and Battle Smith. It also presents a new spell and a number of new magic items.

This Is Playtest Content
The material in Unearthed Arcana is presented for playtesting and to spark your imagination. These game mechanics are in draft form, usable in your D&D campaign but not refined by final game development. They are not officially part of the game. For these reasons, material in this column is not legal in D&D Adventurers League events.

[OneShotQuips]

Me: Releases 2014 vs 2024 Artificer as a fun joke because there is no 2024 artificer

WOTC: *post this video 3 days later*

Me: you son of a-

[Dinodudematt]

"You can now store a 3rd level Artificer spell with Spell storing item!"

*Artillerists heavy breathing at Fireball*

[DnDDeepDive]

And also: no wonder the video I released at the exact same time is under performing! 😂

[malahkaisle]

For the love of god remove the randomness of the Alchemist Elixirs. It's the main concept of an alchemist and they have zero control. "What do you do?" Alchemist looks up from their various vials, "I'm a master of the ethers, shaper chemist of the magical sciences. I am an Alchemist!" The young boy being rescued by the party looks at the alchemist with burgeoning hero worship, "what kind of potions can you make?!" The light fades from the alchemists eyes as he shrugs and mumbles, "Who knows I guess we'll see in the morning. No matter how long I practice the arcane art the results remain random and nonsensical."

[Nemo]

A couple fixes for Alchemist:
- a bigger table; also, once you've randomly gotten a potion three times, you gain the ability to automatically forgo the random roll and just make that one. It makes the Alchemist more scientific, as they are learning.
- better scaling on the potions, especially if you use spell slots to make them
- give back the free cast of Heal/Greater Restoration at 14th level

[obicortes]

One thing I would like to see added is the battlesmith getting at least one weapon mastery to go with their weapon proficiency.

[blackraspberrypie]

Nice to see Artificer getting some love, but these changes are a mixed bag. I hate that they can't use a Manual of Golems now until level 17 and that they can no longer use infusions as a spell casting focus. Their spell list needs to be expanded as well to include such spells as Tenser's Floating Disk, Find Traps, Knock (especially with the changes to Arcane Lock), Locate Object, Nystul's Magic Aura, Stinking Cloud, and Teleportation Circle to name a few.

[mezcla]

Don't get rid of the saving throw bonus, it's one of the best features of an Artificer. Everything else is awesome so please leave the capstone as is.

[jackwatson]

I can't contain my excitement! I hope alchemist is fully revised it really needs it

Edit. Yeah its not. Side note, if you need to roll to make a potion, you're a pretty bad alchemist. Artillerist though, looks really fun

[Kahuutz]

I think this is mostly good changes, but please don't remove Tool Expertise I've been playing an Armorer Artificer for 3 years now and I have used Tool Expertise so many times in every session to not only succeed really difficult checks and help my party succeed but also the role play options of being so good with your tools that you can do the most impressive things is some of the most fun I've ever had!

I really like the added ability to convert magic items to spell slots but please don't remove Tools Expertise

[jacobhatcher]

Remove the random effects of Magical Elixers, and make them scale with the spell slots used

[WyllBG]

Taking away the ability of using your "infused itens" as a spellcast focus is a weird and horrible decision.
It is so thematic to cast your spells via the itens you create...

[MarkD]

at 20th level, 20hp is still "about to get knocked back out" territory.

[thbroadway]

If I could change one thing, I would keep tool expertise. It was invaluable to me when I was a Battle Smith artificer, especially when we needed to repair things greater than a foot in length, or read a complex map, identify a rare gem (and did not have the Identify spell prepared, ) and many other situations.

[googloocraft]

The level 6 feature of the World tree barbarian is stronger the the level 15 Armorer guardian feature. Barbarian have unlimited usage but Artificer have 5 per day.

[MissGenkiArt]

I feel like the 1 hour limit on magical tinkering really hinders its ability to be good beyond very niche instances. And the fact that Right Tool for the Job now eats up one of its uses AND those tools only last for an hour now because of it makes it feel really clunky. Stuff like a pouch, vial, paper and a bedroll all feel really silly to make when it only lasts an hour.

[DnDDeepDive]

Wait a second… Vi is an artificer, yes, but everyone knows she’s a guardian armorer! Jinx is the artillerist 🤪

[andypaul]

Seeing the artificer improvements makes me happy. It’s my go to class, and because it reminds me of my real life job, this is intriguing news.

[irakhlin]

Magic item savant: The change to Magic Item Savant means artificers can now attune fewer items than any other class in the game. An item with ANY class restriction is not attuneable. This includes many items one would expect the artificer to use like Staff of Fire for an artillerist. The items in the 2024 DMG do not account for the existence of the artificer class. If this is not corrected it will completely undermine the concept of this class connecting its function to the availability of magic items.

[RedhawkFG]

Oh, good. I've got two artificers in my game and we've been holding off cutting over until the artificer gets an update.