Marking 50 years since the game first debuted, 2024 has been a notable year for Dungeons and Dragons. 2024 saw Dungeons and Dragons collaborate with brands like LEGO and Converse as well as video games like Destiny 2 and Dead by Daylight. Besides collabs, D&D also received some major updates to its rules this year. Wizards of the Coast released two new rulebooks this year: the Player’s Handbook and the Dungeon Master’s Guide. As the first in a new wave of books that will continue to release over the course of the next year, these build on D&D‘s 2024 update to the 5th edition ruleset, infusing the game with enhanced features and new mechanics.
Some of the most noticeable changes in the new 2024 rules have come to D&D‘s class system. Each of the game’s 12 core classes — barbarian, bard, cleric, druid, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, warlock, and wizard — were overhauled to better balance play and incorporate fan feedback. Many of these updates have already received praise from players. Besides the dozen classic classes established in 5th edition’s first Player’s Handbook, one supplemental class has also gotten some love in this new rollout. A recently released Unearthed Arcana playtest document made updates to Eberon: Rising From the Last War and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything‘s artificer, which bodes well for the class’ future.
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The Artificer Class in D&D 2024
The Return of Unearthed Arcana
Besides the content included in D&D‘s newest rulebooks, Wizards of the Coast is continuing to supply players with unique character options thanks to Unearthed Arcana — commonly referred to as UA. UA is first party content released online by Wizards of the Coast. Though not in a finalized state, Wizards of the Coast gives anyone interested free access to this material. This way, the company can widely playtest the material — be it new species, classes, spells, or rules — before it gets published in an official book. UA played a major role in 5th edition and is where the artificer class made its first appearance.
Artificers are Intelligence-based spellcasters that were introduced as 5th edition’s 13th playable class. Rather than relying upon traditional casting, artificers can instead infuse mundane objects with arcane energy to create their very own magic items. These include weapons, potions, spell-storing trinkets, and more. Players were disappointed to see that the popular class had been left out of the 2024 Player’s Handbook, but a recent edition of D&D UA provided updated rules and improvements for anyone looking to incorporate an artificer into their upcoming campaign. The changes simplified certain elements of the class while also adding new spells and magic items for players to choose from.
What This Artificer Update Could Mean For D&D
Artificer’s UA arrival is big news for D&D‘s class system. While it took multiple years for artificer to first pop up in D&D 5e, Wizards of the Coast brought the class to D&D 2024 (at least as a first draft) before it released the Monster Manual or even a D&D starter set. This suggests that artificer could appear in supplemental material much sooner than it did in 5e’s initial life cycle, which would allow Wizards of the Coast to provide the class with significantly more official support as this new ruleset expands.
The artificer class has long fascinated D&D players, and after years of playing second fiddle, the class deserves to be given the same level of polish and attention as 5e’s more tenured classes. Not only would this give players more options during character creation, but it would let Wizards of the Coast finally move on from the artificer and give the same treatment to the abandoned mystic class or make entirely new classes that could appear in this next generation of D&D.
Dungeons and Dragons
Created by Gary Gygax, Dungeons & Dragons is a tabletop game in which players craft their own worlds and band together to take on adventures through mysterious realms outlined in companion materials. One of the best role-playing games ever made, it has been adapted into a variety of video games and other media.
- Franchise
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Dungeons & Dragons
- Original Release Date
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1974-00-00
- Designer
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E. Gary Gygax
, Dave Arneson