I'd been planning to take the Crusher feat for a Small melee-focused Battle Smith artificer who had already taken the Gift of the Gem Dragon feat. However, I then noticed the size limitation on the Crusher feat's key benefit (TCoE, p. 79):
Once per turn, when you hit a creature with an attack that deals bludgeoning damage, you can move it 5 feet to an unoccupied space, provided the target is no more than one size larger than you.
Since my character is Small in size, this means he won't be able to maneuver Large creatures in the way that a Medium-sized character would.
Does this reduce the Crusher feat's benefits enough that it doesn't make sense to take it? For example, even though this is a melee character, would the bonus-action shove from Telekinetic (TCoE, p. 81) be a better choice?
As a bonus action, you can try to telekinetically shove one creature you can see within 30 feet of you. When you do so, the target must succeed on a Strength saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + the ability modifier of the score increased by this feat) or be moved 5 feet toward you or away from you. A creature can willingly fail this save.
(I know that Shield Master (PHB, p. 170) isn't a good option because it uses Strength for its shove rather than Intelligence.)
Is there ever a time when Crusher makes sense for a Small character?
@Xavon_Wrentaile made an excellent point in the comments that can augment the answers submitted so far: my character can use the Enlarge/Reduce spell. Artificers get access to this at 5th level, so any time from then on that my Small artificer is battling predominantly Large enemies, he can cast this to access all the benefits of Crusher — in addition to the spell's other perks.
Best Answer
Even if you can only use Crusher on Medium or smaller creatures, that still covers a lot of ground. Certainly it's a less useful feat for a Small creature, but it's not that much worse; there are plenty of Medium and Small creatures all the way up the CR chart, and even if the big nasty boss monsters start getting pretty big along the way, they almost always have Medium or Small minions around. The fact that the movement has no save is the real point of the feat.
Telekinetic is almost always a fantastic feat even for melee characters, if you don't already have an obvious turn-by-turn use for your bonus action. Being able to move your allies around with a bonus action is worthwhile even if you don't have a high enough save DC to make the offensive uses particularly viable.
But that's a big if up there. For a fighter, this would be a difficult choice, but as a Battle Smith artificer, your bonus action is almost always going to be consumed to command your Steel Defender (when you aren't using it for spellcasting purposes). I don't see Telekinetic as particularly viable for this build just because it's going to conflict so badly with your primary subclass feature.