It happened. On February 28, 2019, The Artificer Revisited was released to much fanfare.

What did we get? Let’s chew up the crunch. We’ll start with the base class mechanics and move into the subclasses next week, when we build a template for how to homebrew an Artificer subclass.

Base Class

Hit Die (d8). A d8 Hit Die is to be expected. Among half-casters, this puts them in line with Rangers, which feels about right. They’re a little more nerdy than Paladins, so we expect their hardiness to come from their machines, not their constitution.

Saving Throws. Constitution is the strong save. Intelligence is the weak save. This drives the flavor of the hearty tinkerer. Like a dwarf that lives in a garage, or a watchmaker in a foundry. Power-wise, this is a poor save set, but it has sneaky capability.

Constitution saves are the least ubiquitous of the strong…