Eberron: Force of the Artificer seemingly gives an unneeded nerf to its titular D&D class' worse subclass, and I'm still struggling to understand why. Yes, it's still much, much better than it was in 5th edition, but it seems unnecessary to take the subclass down a peg from the playtest version. Were people saying the new Alchemist was too strong?
In 5e, the Alchemist was always considered the most inferior option you could pick for the D&D Artificer. It's the support Artificer, basically, and the core idea behind it is you can buff or heal your party with a constant supply of unpredictable but helpful potions.
The major problems were the inflexibility and randomness of this core feature, combined with its poor integration with the D&D ruleset. Potions were rolled randomly, giving you less control over the buffs, they took an entire action to drink, and there was no efficient method for shuffling them between party members during combat.
Given D&D's action economy, you pretty much had to chug your drinks before entering the fray, and this gave the alchemist less fun stuff to do in battle. With no unique damage-dealing abilities, the subclass was left feeling passive and pretty anemic.
Fortunately, the 2024 Unearthed Arcana fixed a lot of its problems. Potions could now be glugged for a bonus action and administered to a nearby creature for the same (previously you had to spend a whole standard action feeding someone a potion, and could only do it if they were incapacitated). The potion rolling table was made a little less random, and at level 9 your pals got temporary hitpoints every time they imbibed, so you were always helping your party stay in the fight.
Better still, the Alchemist's combat effectiveness was buffed. Now the level 15 ability chemical mastery was no longer just about resistances, it could also add bonus damage to acid, fire, necrotic, or poison attacks.
Early access for Eberron: Force of the Artificer dropped on November 25, 2025 for master tier D&D Beyond subscribers, a week before the book's proper launch on December 1. And it seems like, after letting the Alchemist off the leash, Wizards of the Coast is reigning it in a bit.
For starters, the bonus damage from chemical mastery doesn't apply to necrotic effects now - admittedly a small change. The real doozy though is that the temporary hitpoints are gone! This seems like a real blow - as it was one of the biggest upgrades the class had received.
So what do you get instead? Well the new Alchemist has potions that scale with your level, with an upgrade at levels 9 and 15. It only matters for some of the potions, as some don't actually get better they just last longer, but notably you now can heal 4d8 at level 15 - not bad!
Perhaps Wizards' plan here wasn't to reduce the Alchemist's power level but to focus it more on what the subclass is supposed to be about - the potions themselves. But I think many fans are going to be as confused as me at first, the logic being: why would you take anything away from a class in need of as many buffs as possible?
What do you think of the new Artificer changes? Join the conversation over at the Wargamer Discord.