It just doesn't fly. Maybe it should have!

— NewbieDM (@newbiedm) November 18, 2020

Artificers have access to the fly spell, and can infuse boots of flying, if you want your zoomy Iron Man. 🙂 Apologies, "winged boots." The artificer is appearing as a class, correct?

In Tasha’s.

Yes, the artificer class originally appeared
in book ‘Eberron: Rising from the Last War”

Partly because the artificer class is such
a big part of that world’s story, but we realized

that enough people want to play the artificer
and there are enough artificers in other D&D

worlds.

A fact we even point out in the Eberron book

We decided to include the class in its entirety,
in Tasha’s Cauldron, so that even people who

don’t have the Eberron book have access to
this class to use in any D&D setting

and in addition to taking the class and reprinting
it here, we’ve also included a whole new subclass

‘The Armorer’ and we’ve also included new
infusions so new things that the artificer

can make.

We’ve also changed some of the framing story
text in the class to make it so that it’s

not Eberron specific, although we include
very purposefully still some nods to Eberron,

because Eberron is very much a part of the
class’s identity for many people.

So it’s here for everyone’s convenience and
also in this book the artificer gets some

new spells, so I think overall the package
that artificers are getting in this book is

very juicy.

There is also new artificer art here.

I think only one of the artificer paintings
from the Eberron book reappears here and the

rest is all new art.

So you get to see an entirely different artillerist,
you know a totally different battlesmith with

a different kind of steel defender.

In this case rather than looking like the
mastiff that we had in the Eberron book this

time we show a bear steel defender, with a
little gnome battle smith whose steel defender

looks bigger than the artificer.

This time around we also have really delightful
art of different homunculus servants for the

artificer, probably the cutest art in the
book honestly.

We describe some of them in the original write
up of the artificer, but now you actually

get to see them.

Including one of the things we described previously
was this little winged cauldron and we of

course had to include that in a book called
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.

So now you actually get to see that in the
book, again, along with the armorer and the

new infusions.

So you are getting all the subclasses that
appeared in the Eberron book?

Yes!

Exactly, you get the artillerist, the alchemist,
the battle smith and then those three are

joined by the armorer.

Okay, wow that’s huge.

This is a complete artificer package all in
this book.

How was the armorer received?

I can tell you by me playing it quite a bit
I’m a tough guy to take down.

People have really loved the armorer which
is why it made it into this book just like

when people saw the armorer in unearthed arcana
you get to choose if you have the guardian

model of the armor or the infiltrator model
and there is a cool piece of art to showing

armorers in each of those suits and it shows
them using the powers that those suits of

armor give them

and this subclass really fills a nice niche
that the other three artificer subclasses

don’t fill because this is really about the
artificer themself being amazingly resilient.

Whereas the other three have different emphasis,
you know with the battle smith with the metallic

companion, the alchemist being a bit of a
healer but also having a lot of other magical

capabilities and then of course the artillerist
who is all about blowing things up.

Here the armorer is about taking your inventiveness
as an artificer and creating essentially a

second skin for yourself, which you’ve gotten
to experience in play that can make you very

difficult to kill, can speed you up, you know
if you’re using the infiltrator option you’re

hurling lightning from it, you know you can
have a defensive field if you took the guardian

model.

Some really fun things for anyone who wants
to delve into sort of a magic power armor

kind of fantasy for their artificer.

It has a lot of like, you know, obviously
the first thing that comes to mind for people

is Iron Man, but I also like I’m tempted very
much by more steampunky things like the Dishonored

series or you know like just that kinda…

Because the infiltrator mode is interesting.

It’s one that took me a little bit longer
to wrap my brain around but listen if you’re

about to like, still be very stealthy but
also still wear plate mail under your shirt

where no one can tell…that’s very tricky
– and you can shoot lightning!

That comparison to Iron Man is definitely
apt, but we also had definitely steampunk

aesthetics in mind and we also had other characters
from pop culture who wear different types

of power armor in mind, because to use another
Marvel example, remember Ant-man and also

the Wasp.

They’re both also wearing power armor and
so we actually had a number of inspirations

that we could draw on, and it’s because of
the variations in our inspirations that we

wanted to make sure that there was variation
in the subclass itself.

We didn’t want to just have the sort of magical
steampunk version of Iron Man.

We know we wanted you to be able to take this
and use it to imagine a variety of different

people walking around in their suit of armor
powered by your own magic.

Because that’s the other cool thing about
it, is many characters in D&D if they get

a magic suit of armor, can be walking around
in magic armor.

The difference of course here is that you
made this as an artificer and it’s also not

something that can pass around.

This is almost like a part of you -yeah- you
are becoming almost a bit of a fantasy super

hero because of what you’ve done in your lab
to create this second skin.

Pre-order Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything on
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— Dan Dillon (@Dan_Dillon_1) November 18, 2020

@JeremyECrawford so can the Psi Warrior psionic strike be used with unharmed attacks? Wondering if the unharmed fighting style can be paired with that subclass.

— Joselin, Joselin, every day. (@Udelious) December 3, 2020

The Psi Warrior's Psionic Strike feature works with weapons only. In D&D, an unarmed strike is an attack made unarmed—meaning without a weapon. So unarmed strikes don't work with Psionic Strike, unless you have a special feature that turns your unarmed strike into a weapon. #DnD https://t.co/s7f6DSehYU

— Jeremy Crawford (@JeremyECrawford) December 3, 2020

European fans – good news! We've cast Haste on our shipments and you will be able to get your copies of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything earlier than expected. Our retailers (online & physical) can now release this book as of November 24th!

— Dungeons & Dragons (@Wizards_DnD) November 19, 2020