Review of Marsie Vellan's Artificer class

This is a review of a playtest Artificer class (not the official one) for 5e D&D.You can get it here, PWYW.

tl;dr:

Marsie's take on Artificer is less complicated, more open-ended and encouraging of shenanigans-based play than the current Unearthed Arcana playtest Artificer. If artificers in 5e are at all interesting to you, get thus, pay her a nonzero amount, encourage further development. This is a class I would happily allow in my game, and ask 5e DMs if I could play. I also want to start porting it to B/X.

Full Review

So I've found the Unearthed Arcana iterations of the Artificer pretty underwhelming. Here's why:

• Long-winded class features
• Asking players to keep track of a separate spell and infusion list.
• A short list of "replicable magic items" that looks like it's meant to synch up with what you can buy in downtime in Adventurer's League play.
• There's a nice bit of advice about describing your spells as magic items you make (e.g. a tiny mechanical spider that sutures wounds) but this doesn't following the logic of "well can another creature use this item then?". If I'm just refluffing spells, I might as well just play a wizard??

Basically, its class mechanics are designed to lock down any sort of shenanigans-based play, which is the entire point of being an artificer IMO. Marsie apparently agrees with me, because this class encourages the sort of play I relish. Let's unpack it.

You start off with Ardent Crafting, which lets you make items efficiently. You can make one common magic item, two pieces of nonmagical gear, plus one "signature item" which can either be nonmagic (max 25gp value) or from a short list of consumable magic items (e.g. potion of healing). You can make your signature item 1/day for free, but you have to spend gold for the others. You halve the GP requirement, but the time requirement seems to be unspecified. I would say a short rest.

Note your other known magic item can be any common magic item. This automatically makes this class far more interesting than the WotC offering. I'm already dreaming up an artificer who makes pots of awakening, and has a little family of shrubs tending to tasks in a safe haven :3

Importantly, these items only last until your next long rest before degrading. So you could make a tidy profit of at least 25gp per day as a town healer, but you can't stockpile potions this way, unless you take the Alchemist subclass at 3rd level. Otherwise, if you want to make permanent items, you need to spend weeks on it like anyone else.

(so I'll have to check with my DM about that pot of awakening. Maybe my artificer is heavily caffeinated and only benefits from a long rest every month or so)

The instructions for making these items are called "schema", and are kept in your "codex", which is also your spellbook. You can reverse-engineer magic items you possess to write more schema into your spellbook, or find schema as loot just as a wizard might find scrolls or spellbooks. At higher levels, you can learn schema for rarer categories of item.

As a side note, even though Ardent Crafting items degrade, a profit of at least 25gp per day, funneled into making a stockpile of permanent magic items, is nothing to sniff at. DMs, keep this in mind. You can enforce encumbrance rules, make up a threat that creates time pressure, or use common sense about how much money a village can afford to spend on healing potions.

At 2nd level you get spells. Paladin spell slot progression, you learn and prepare spells the same way a wizard does. You can also infuse your spells into objects, making them into one-use magic items. You can give these items to other people, and since they're based on your spells, not some bespoke list of combat-focused "+1 sword", "+1 armor" infusions, you can therefore give your allies neat utility effects.

Like the WotC class, you have to infuse items at the end of a long rest. At 5th level, you can infuse items after a short rest, making you more adaptive to problems encountered during the adventuring day.

The subclasses are Alchemist, Homonculist, and Saboteur.

Alchemist removes the "your items degrade" restriction with Ardent Crafting, as long as it's a consumable item like a potion. You can also convert crafting materials into gold (I assume at 3rd level this means "stable trade goods that are as fungible as gold", not a literal transmutation to gold), and administer potons as a bonus action. See above advice regarding encumbrance and time constraints.

Homonculist is a pet class. Unlike the silly, videogame-like "I summon a turret" subclass of the WotC version, you have to actually figure out how to bring your construct into the dungeon, royal ball, or suspicious village. The customisation options for the construct are interesting without being overwhelming. Note you have to spend your action to command the construct to attack.

Saboteur lets you activate your infused items from up to 60 ft away, and gives you proficiency with thieves' tools. It also gives you advantage at checking for traps, which makes me uncomfortable. Advantage is generally stronger than Expertise, and I don't think any class should be better than Rogue at finding traps. That minor complaint aside, this is my favourite subclass. Simple effects that open up even more shenanigans-based play.

Finally, the spell list. The differences I found notable, compared to the WotC artificer, are:

Lacks:
1st: sanctuary
2nd: alter self, enlarge/reduce, lesser restoration, rope trick
3rd: blink, fly, gaseous form, haste, revivify
4th: stoneskin
5th: greater restoration

Has:
various Xanathar's spells (the WotC class is PHB-only), and some low-level damaging spells (the WotC class requires you to go Artillerist to get magic missile or thunderwave)
1st: feather fall, fog cloud, silent image, snare, Tenser's floating disc
2nd: find traps, knock, Nystul's magic aura, shatter, web
3rd: counterspell, Leomund's tiny hut, magic circle, nondetection, sending, tongues
4th: dimension door, hallucinatory terrain, locate creature
5th: awaken, passwall, scrying, teleportation circle, transmute rock to mud

I don't have strong opinions on which list is better. As a DM I'd be fine combining them to be honest The artificer is so limited in spells/day compared to a full caster that a broad spell list isn't going to make them unbalanced.

Final Thoughts:

This class is in playtest, so some vague wording is to be expected. I would like to see some work on the text to make it more easily understandable. e.g. I had to read over Ardent Crafting a few times to understand what it does, partly because an important aspect of it is in the next class feature. I'd also like to see a curated table of common magic items that are suitable as a starting schema. Apart from that, I have no real complaints. This is a great class, buy it.