Watch On
The D&D supplement that sees the most use at my table is Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, which gets referenced more often than the Dungeon Master’s Guide thanks to its variety of player options—wacky subclasses like the college of creation bard and astral self monk, and a class themed around crafting magical objects, the artificer. (Though the artificer previously appeared in Eberron: Rising from the Last War, a setting book detailing a pulp fantasy magitech world that I skipped because it includes halflings who ride dinosaurs and one of my players flat-out vetoed that as “just too silly”.)
When D&D’s 5th edition got its big rules update last year, the 2024 Player’s Handbook included revised versions of all the RPG’s base classes—your fighters and wizards and so on—but not the artificer. The one class that’s all about giving you cool things to do that aren’t themed around directly taking hit points away from bad guys will get its turn though in Eberron: Forge of the Artificer, a new supplement coming out in August.
Forge of the Artificer will include four updated subclasses for the artificer, plus a whole new one: the cartographer, who uses magical maps to keep track of what’s going on around them, and can use those maps to target characters who are hidden or beyond their normal range. With scouting and exploration as its focuses, the cartographer sounds a bit like a cross between an artificer and a ranger in the same way that other subclasses let you borrow a little bit of another class without becoming a full multiclassing sicko—like the way the arcane trickster gets to be a rogue who is also a bit of a wizard.
The supplement will also include updated rules for player options like being one of the mechanical warpforged, 28 feats including ones representing the Dragonmarks that are another unique bit of Eberron Lore, 18 backgrounds, 20 monsters, and a bunch of spells, magic items, and bastions using the new rules from the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide.
Eberron: Forge of the Artificer will be out on August 19 and is up for preorder now in physical and digital versions, with a bundle that includes both as well as a set of artificer-themed digital dice to use in DND Beyond.
