I am the author of the Tinkerer and can address your concerns.

In base class terms, the Tinkerer mixes mechanics from the Cleric, the Wizard, and the Paladin, especially with regard to its spellcasting and average damage output. One of my design goals for this class was to diverge from the typical Extra Attack at 5th level. I wanted a "slow", hard-hitting class that strikes with singular heavy blows. So I began the class design with a Cleric base, utilizing the Cleric's 8th level Divine Strike ability. However, I knew that the Cleric had fullcasting and level scaling cantrips to compensate for the slow weapon damage progression, so I needed to find a means to compensate. I also knew that I wanted my Tinkerer to be a halfcaster as opposed to a fullcaster. So I needed a significant way to improve the base class' average damage output while still fitting the theme of the slow heavy hitter. That's when the Paladin's Divine Smite came in. Of course, even that is not enough to bring the class damage to parity, so like both the Fighter and the Ranger, I also ensured that every Tinkerer subclass at 3rd level also contributed a significant means by which to add to average damage expectations, e.g. the Steam Knight's Affect Armor.

In losing fullcasting, cantrips, and Extra Attack, we gain elemental Divine Strike, Divine Smite, and significant average damage boosts from subclass levels.

However, I was careful to not allow for the potential to exceed the average damage output of Rangers and Paladins, because I knew that the Tinkerer's primary power lies elsewhere. I did what I needed to do to meet minimum average damage expectations, i.e. what is required to keep up in combat, because I wanted sufficient room for the class' primary mechanics: Construction and Affect Engines.

Something I hope you will bear in mind is that my original Tinkerer, including all 3 subclasses and full example list and guide for Power Appliances, was nearly 10000 characters. For this publication, I was required to reduce all of that to 6500, 4000~ of which you see in the Basic Tinkerer document. So in terms of things you can do with at early levels with Affect Engines and Construction a lot was lost in transition.

Construction was modeled after the UA Forge Cleric's Channel Divinity. I was very wary of the potential abuse of anything that lets you craft mundane objects at an accelerated rate. The most important limiting factor to observe is the fact that you must consume material of equivalent value, so there is a net-zero in raw value exchanged. You either need to buy the materials or find it yourself.

The Tinkerer gets 6 1st level spells in their sparknotes, like a Wizard. They prepare the same number of spells Paladins do and add additional spells to their sparknotes at half the rate of Wizards, but also learn additional spells from their subclasses at half the rate of Paladins.

Like the Wizard, a Tinkerer's strength is its flexibility and access to options.

You get a d8 hit die, no fighting style, no cantrips, 2/3rds the daily spells of a fullcaster (you do know that a fullcaster has 3 1st level slots at 2nd level while a halfcaster has 2 1st level slots?), no sneak attack (but also no Rage or Bardic Inspiration, Action Surge, and so on, but come on, what is the Tinkerer supposed to be, an entirely different class with its own set of strengths and weaknesses distinct from the other classes?) and in exchange you get

1. 1st level Wizard's spells known, 2. variant Expertise feature 3. Paladin # of prepared spells and 4. Elemental Smites with changeable damage types 5. that work with Ranged Attacks, 6. class-scaling accelerated crafting, and 7. the ability to combine mundane objects with Affect Engines to create entirely unique "magic items" limited only by your creativity and the number of engines you have access to. One of my goals with this class was for it to enable you to build rocket-propelled vehicles, which it does.

The Tinkerer is better at spells than any other halfcaster, able to learn spells like a Wizard.

In terms of average damage numbers at 1st and 2nd level, there is largely insignificant variance between a Fighter wielding a great sword and using a Fighting Style, a Rogue sneak-attacking with bow or rapier, a Wizard launching firebolts and the occasional burning hands, a Paladin occasionally smiting, and a Tinkerer occasionally Affect Striking. More importantly, the 1st two levels tend to be exceptionally quick, taking on average no more than three 2-4 hour sessions to reach 3rd level. No one is supposed to spend a lot of time at 1st and 2nd level.

At 1st level, you can make Power Appliances , be it a power torch, an enhanced crowbar, anything that wouldn't require a spell slot to function. Though this is the curse of having to adhere to a strict word limit. Working with your DM to come up with new Power Appliances is something I strongly encourage and even expect. I wrote a guide on how to design and balance Power Appliances which obviously couldn't fit into the character limit. I'll post it here, though some aspects will be outdated due to the significant changes made to some Power Appliances as a result of trying to reduce their character count. GMBinder Link. Google Drive PDF Link.

At 2nd level, you can start Elemental Smiting as well as spend spell slots on stronger Power Appliances.

Extra Affect Engines at 5th, 11th, and 17th means stronger and more variable Power Appliances, from a magical home brewery to a rocket-propelled aircraft.

Average damage expectations are met through elemental smites, subclass features, and Cleric weapon damage scaling.

The Steam Knight

Let's not forget **Power Appliances**.

No you do not. Normally, to use your 2nd level Affect Discharge ability (i.e. elemental smite), you need to attach your engine to the weapon you are wielding. The Steam Knight's ability allows them to substitute that with the engine they have attached to their armor. This way they don't need two engines, 1 for their armor, 1 for their weapon. It is merely a quality-of-life blurb.

The intent is that you're an off-tank, similar to that of a Cleric. You can take some punishment and dish the punishment back out, but you shouldn't stay for too long.

It scales at 8th level and 14th level through Cleric-inspired weapon damage scaling.

Why compare to a dual-wielding anybody? The Steam Knight does not grant a bonus action attack. It deals auto-damage to anyone who hits the Steam Knight at melee range. It triggers on every hit, so if a creature hits the Steam Knight 4 times in a round, the attacking creature takes 4d4 + 4xINT damage.

This is a feature I have long struggled with, as the day-long average damage expectancy is difficult to gauge on an ability that trades hits with auto-damage. I've even been mulling over a significant upgrade at 15th level, adding the ability to deal auto-damage to every creature of your choice within 5 feet of whenever you are hit by a melee attack. I'm awaiting En5ider playtesting to reveal the efficacy of the hit/auto-damage trade-off.

How many sources of extra damage do other halfcasters and subclasses get at levels higher than 5th? Rangers and Paladins both get something at 11th level, and that's it. Meanwhile, the Tinkerer gets something at 8th and 14th level.

You get Power Appliances. The primary in-and-out-of-combat capacity of a Tinkerer is in its Power Appliances. You can't gauge this class while ignoring it.

Is "bonus damage" your way of hand-waving away elemental smites? Because smites are considerably the lion's share of the Paladin's average damage output. You get d6s instead of d8s because you can use ranged weapons and can choose between damage types. More importantly, a Valor Bard doesn't get a means of regular average damage boost at 3rd level. A Valor Bard can neither smite nor does it gain consistent additional damage at 3rd level and a Valor Bard's AC will be on average lower than a Steam Knight's.

Considering elemental smites and auto-damage to every melee attack per attack, it is unlikely for a Valor Bard to outperform the Steam Knight in terms of average damage numbers.

Your next damage upgrade is at 8th. And then at 14th.

Several things to break down about the designs of the Ranger and Paladin.

Paladins do not get direct damage upgrades at 3rd level from their subclass because they have Smites.

Rangers do get direct damage upgrades at 3rd level from their subclass because they do not have Smites.

A Steam Knight gets both Smites and subclass damage upgrades at 3rd level because they do not get Extra Attack. They don't get 11th level damage upgrades like Ranger and Paladin do because they gain damage upgrades at 8th and 14th instead. Elemental smites are d6 instead of d8 because A) you can change the damage type, and B) you can use ranged weapons.

You're still not doing more damage than the Ranger or Paladin, because you are much more powerful than the Ranger and Paladin in the Interaction and Exploration pillars of the game through Construction and Power Appliances. And you could also ram a creature with a Rocket-powered Vehicle.

I hope that you can see that there is a lot more going for the Tinkerer than when you wrote your review. The average damage calculations meet basic expectations if you're capable of seeing the strength of an ability that deals automatic damage with no limit on the number of occurrences per round. A Ranger's Colossus Slayer is consistent, but it only works once per turn. The average value of a 1d4 + INT exceeds the average value of a 1d8, and has no limit on the frequency of occurrences per round. A monster could kill itself by attacking a Steam Knight.

More important than these damage calculations is the fact that the Tinkerer should not be judged solely as vehicle for damage output. A Monk does not stand out in terms of average damage among other martials, and it doesn't need to. It has other compensating strengths, namely maneuverability, disabling capacity, and circumvention of environmental and interactive limitations.

A Tinkerer's strengths is its interactivity and creativity. It enables you to build pseudo-magical-technological devices at a rate that is actually feasible in the average day to adventuring day campaign. I in fact had another 6th level feature that would let you craft during long rests while still gaining the benefits of a long rest for a number of consecutive days equal to a CON-mod based calculation, but that got stripped for merely character count restrictions.

There are many things that I question about your judgment, such as your assertion that a halfcaster has only 1 spell at 2nd level, which was not a simple typo due to you later asserting that a halfcaster at 2nd level has 1/3rd the spellcasting of a fullcaster. At 2nd level, a fullcaster has 3 1st level slots. A halfcaster has 2 1st level slots. There is a reason we call halfcasters "half". They have half the rate of a fullcaster's spellcasting, not 1/3rd.

You entirely missed or ignored Power Appliances and was completely unaware of your 6 1st level spells known at 2nd level and Wizard's method of learning additional spells, a set of features considered one of the Wizard's significant strengths. Compare this to the Ranger and most fullcasters, even the Bard, who are stuck at only knowing 2 to 4 spells when they gain spellcasting.

You judged a fish on its ability to climb a tree and compared that to a monkey's ability. And even then, the Tinkerer's ability to deal damage is not half bad. It does what it needs to do to be competent in combat. You frequently lamented how the Steam Knight gets a damage boost only at 3rd and then again at 15th, not mentioning the 8th and 14th level base class upgrades until you make damage calculations without comparisons.

You wrote

And then, instead of providing comparative numbers from another class/subclass, asserted "Put simply you're a fighting class that is crap at fighting".

Does 3d8+MOD + occasional 2-5d6 smite + 2d8+MOD auto-damage per enemy attack sound insufficient to you? Assuming you get hit once per round and you do not use any smites, a Steam Knight deals an average 32.5. A 15th level Rogue (rapier, 8d6 sneak attack - the average Rogue subclass does not provide a consistent form of improved average damage, including the Assassin whose Assassinate is too circumstantial and consequently infrequent to be considered consistent) meanwhile deals an average 37.5 damage. On a class that has a 180 gp/hr crafting rate, you are off by 5 points of average damage when not using a significant spell slot resource. You take more hits in a round, or you smite, you easily deal more average damage than the Rogue does. But that's OK, cause you're expending resources to do it, and you can craft at 180 gp/hr and build rocket-powered carriages. I suspect you did not do your due diligence in determining the actual comparative values of each class' average damage output.

For your assistance, I'll do both Paladin and Ranger as well.

15th level Paladin: 2 x (2d8+5+2), no smites = 32. Paladin subclasses do not grant consistent average damage bonuses. Additional adventuring day avg damage via all slots expended on smites = 4x2d8 + 3x3d8 +3x4d8 + 2x5d8 = 175.5.

15th level Ranger: 2 x (1d8+5+2) + 1d8(Colossus Slayer) + the occasional Whirlwind Attack? Difficult to judge Whirlwind Attack, no spell slots expended = 27.5 + whatever Whirlwind Attack is. It's supposed to be generally equivalent to the Fighter's 2nd Extra Attack, so let's say on avg it deals damage like Extra Attack. So 23.5 + (1d8+5+2) = 39. How well do we judge Hunter's Mark? It's a significant part of the Ranger's chassis, but requires concentration. For the benefit of the doubt, let's just add it to all attacks except Whirlwind Attack, cuz that requires you to target a different creature. So 39 + 2d6 = 46.

15 level Steam Knight: No spell slots, 32.5. Paladin has 32, Ranger has 39. All slots for smites = 4x2d6 + 3x3d6 + 3x4d6 + 2x5d6 = 136.5.

However, taking 1 hit per round is not as sustainable as Paladin and Ranger options, so the real numbers are going to be slightly lower, but in this theorycrafting space, the Steam Knight's 32.5 - X is relatively on par with the Paladin's 32 and the Ranger's 39/46, and average Smite damage is 136.5 vs 175.5, a respectable 39 point difference considering the Paladin is supposed to be the king of on-demand sudden spike damage, whereas the Tinkerer only needs enough to get by.

Suffice to say, if you actually do the math, the Steam Knight comes right underneath the Paladin and Ranger, capable of but not consistently exceeding them.

I do not differentiate between subclasses that are good at combat and subclasses that aren't. All of the subclasses I design are relatively equally capable in combat. Only the manner by which they approach combat differs. A Steam Knight tends to directly confront combat in melee. Other subclasses tend to not. I believe all classes and subclasses should be competent in combat. How they approach combat should be the difference seen.

I wrote a Guide to Balancing (and Judging the Balance of) Homebrew Classes. I hope it may be of assistance to you on your future reviewing endeavors.

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