James Gasik
We don't talk about Pun-Pun
My D&D group mentioned the Deck of Many Things, so I threatened them with "House of Cards", from Dungeon #19. : )
While I concur that it doesn't fully fit the original concept of the class, I would like to note that in isolation I found the Artificer a very fun and capable class that I played from 1 to 20. It still has some of the vestiges of its origins (such as buffing magic items), and could be made to feel a bit more like it if you think of its powers coming from crafted items. (Myself, I'd refluffed it as a Dwarven Runecrafer, carving sigils and runes on items and his weapons and etc and activating them, or breaking runic tablets, to perform his magic.)Nor has the Artificer ever been the same (YMMV on how bad a thing that is).
I don't have any beef with people who like the current Artificer, it's likely far more balanced. I never had to deal with the nightmare of a high-level Artificer in 3.5, but I'm well aware of the shenanigans they could get up to, with breaking wealth by level and having wands and scrolls for every conceivable spell.While I concur that it doesn't fully fit the original concept of the class, I would like to note that in isolation I found the Artificer a very fun and capable class that I played from 1 to 20. It still has some of the vestiges of its origins (such as buffing magic items), and could be made to feel a bit more like it if you think of its powers coming from crafted items. (Myself, I'd refluffed it as a Dwarven Runecrafer, carving sigils and runes on items and his weapons and etc and activating them, or breaking runic tablets, to perform his magic.)