The least-played character class will now cost you an extra $20 to play in D&D 2024
According to D&D Beyond—that's the official Dungeons & Dragons website where you can build characters, etc.—the Artificer is the least-chosen character class across all character classes. From most popular to least popular it goes:
- Fighter
- Rogue
- Barbarian
- Wizard
- Paladin
- Warlock
- Cleric
- Ranger
- Bard
- Druid
- Sorcerer
- Monk
- Artificer
Among a million other reasons, this could be because the Artificer is only available to play if you (or your Dungeon Master) has purchased Eberron: Rising from the Last War or Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron. That's because the Artificer was originally a class unique to the Eberron game world.
While Artificers are no longer unique to Eberron in D&D 5e, Artificers were still excluded from the 2024 D&D Player's Handbook. You can find all the classes listed above, but for the Core Rulebooks commemorating D&D's 50th Anniversary, Artificer was once again not included.
All of this leads to the economic irony that it will now cost you $19.99 to play the least-played character class in D&D 5e.
Its starting-at-$20 price tag is about to raise the value of this shunned class in the Eberron: Forge of the Artificer Rules Expansion. "Rules Expansion" is newish terminology, but it will operate similar to expanded rules like Tasha's Guide to Everything, Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, or even the new Miyazaki-inspired Obojima: Tales from the Tall Grass.
Here's what will be in Eberron: Forge of the Artificer:
- 4 revised Artificer subclasses and 1 new subclass: the Cartographer
- 5 revised species, 17 backgrounds, and 28 feats
- New spells, bastions, and 9 magic items
- 3 distinct, genre-based campaign templates and 1 map for building fantasy noir, political thriller, and pulp adventure campaigns in the world of Eberron
- 25 new monsters, each inspired by a campaign model
Forge of the Artificer is available for pre-order now, with a release date of August 19, 2025. But as with all things on D&D Beyond these last couple years, pre-ordering will probably get you a week or two of early access before it hit the open market.
