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View Full Version : Why are Artificers Broken?



raptor1056
2009-06-16, 01:51 AM
I have seen numerous references to the cheesiness of the Artificer class, from Eberron Campaign Setting. However, upon review of the class stat block and description, I see no inherent brokenness. Could someone spell this ojne out for me?

Salt_Crow
2009-06-16, 01:54 AM
Well, being able to stack as many metamagic feats as they know on top of a spell (w/ wand) makes them almost unparalleled when it comes down to blasty-blasting. I'd say they could comfortably dish out 1k damage with proper feats and items.

Of course, at the cost of, say, 10k gp or something XD

half eaten oreo
2009-06-16, 02:02 AM
Mostly because of metamagic feat abuse with wands, and beings able to create and utilize spells (wands/scrolls) from classes with non-standard spell lists like Adepts, Assassins, Trapsmiths, etc. Without these, and if the game follows WBL, I believe artificers are powerful, but not overly so.

sonofzeal
2009-06-16, 02:02 AM
I'm playing an Artificer right now. They're not nearly living up to their reputation. They do reward encyclopedic knowledge of the rules and a deep library of books to draw on, more than any other class. On the other hand, they're far more dependent on monetary inflow than any other class. If you start getting too powerful, the DM just has to scale back treasure until whatever you're doing becomes economically infeasible (and that usually doesn't take much). Their advantage is their ability to "nova" by blowing through consumables rapidly, and they can get some darn good numbers when they do that. But on a day to day basis, they're quite reasonable in play.

Myrmex
2009-06-16, 02:21 AM
Access to spells at lower levels is probably their biggest power, outside of metamagic blasting their way through all their wealth.

Wand of Holy Sword at fifth level? Ho ho ho!

Coidzor
2009-06-16, 02:26 AM
Well, one complaint is that they increase the party's effective WBL if they do their crafting intelligently, especially if the party helps foot the XP cost.

I've never really seen many arguments that show how this can be a real problem though. It's only about 1.3-1.5 unless something explicitly cheesy is going on, in which case that's on the DM's head for allowing them a very profitable way to increase their wealth and power without earning it.

Zen Master
2009-06-16, 02:48 AM
Artificers have a 'do anything' mechanic - they can basically replace and often exceed any and all classes in the game. Which some might call overpowered.

Then there's the whole meta magic, dual-wand wielder, blow everything in sight to Kingdom Come thing which has been mentioned.

They truly are pretty hard to contain.

Eldariel
2009-06-16, 03:28 AM
Artificer is broken because:
-A party with an Artificer generally has 3-4 times the WPL of a normal party.
-...yeah, that WPL? 3-4x is a pretty big deal.
-No, I mean, a really big deal.
-If I didn't make myself clear yet, it's really a really big deal.
-Oh, they get Trapfinding, 6th level Infusions (including übercheap superhealing in Greater Healing Armor, Metamagic Item for Persistent buffs for free from Eternal Wands, etc.) and so on. And they can replicate any spell in the game should they so desire.
-Yeah, I guess the ability to make that thing that really bugs you go away almost invariably is pretty big too.


The biggest weaknesses are the potential lack of downtime (you can have that Dedicated Wright in your Bag of Holding crafting for you while you adventure, yes, but it still gets only so much done per day), and indeed, lack of Gold. 'cause Artificers' power is making items, if you can't afford to make items, the Artificer is gonna be mediocre.

If your WPL is 100gp on level 20, having 4xWPL isn't exactly too beneficial. At that point an Artificer is mostly a Bard who has Trapmonkey skills instead of Facery, and item boost magic instead of personal boosts. Not bad, mind you (on the contrary, getting CL 20 Magic Weapons and Armor and all that in such a campaign must be a blessing from above), but a lot of their mojo will still be gone.

AslanCross
2009-06-16, 05:18 AM
I think they're far more likely to become broken over the course of a long campaign with lots of downtime. I've played one before, and although she did give some pretty awesome support, she never had time to craft.

In the game I'm DMing, the artificer died before she did anything brokenly awesome. Her access to a scroll of ray of enfeeblement and her wand of entangle were always quite annoying, though.

mostlyharmful
2009-06-16, 06:06 AM
Make a portable hole, a few dedicated Wrights and take the feats to reduce the cost (XP and Gold) to make items. shove them together into a hole and combine what gets pumped out of your pocket factory and apply free metatmagics (persist) to out buff even the DMM cleric.

you can also burn through gold faster than you'd believe if your DM doesn#t let you take a little down time to make your start up stuff.

There's also the thing that since they can make them so cheap and so early through Scrolls they can use the higher level stuff first, so anything a potential batman can do chances are an artifacers going to be able to pull it two+ levels earlier.

Duke of URL
2009-06-16, 06:10 AM
Make a portable hole, a few dedicated Wrights and take the feats to reduce the cost (XP and Gold) to make items. shove them together into a hole and combine what gets pumped out of your pocket factory and apply free metatmagics (persist) to out buff even the DMM cleric.

You can only make one magic item at a time, regardless of whether or not you subcontract the job to a dedicated wright. The only thing multiple wrights will help with is the creation of non-magical items, and there have already been enough discussions on how Craft(xxx) can destroy an economy.

mostlyharmful
2009-06-16, 06:23 AM
You can only make one magic item at a time, regardless of whether or not you subcontract the job to a dedicated wright. The only thing multiple wrights will help with is the creation of non-magical items, and there have already been enough discussions on how Craft(xxx) can destroy an economy.

having just read the dedicated wright's block again I'd say it does exactly that. You set it running and that's your involvement in the process.

'Item Creation (Su): A dedicated wright can perform the daily tasks related to item creation on behalf of its master. The master mush meet (or emulate) all the pre-requisites to create the item normally, and pays the gold and XP cost himself. The only cost a dedicated writht can help with is time. The master spends 1 hour initiating the process, channeling spell prerequisites into the dedicated wright, and paying the XP cost to make the item. He may then leave, allowing the wright to carry the process through to completion.'

You could make a fuss over the the sentence 'the only cost a dedicated wright can help with is time.' but that's exactly what only being able to make one item at a time is limiting and certainly the last sentence says that once you start up the wright you have no further involvment in the process, it chunkers along on it's own and will do so until the items finished unless interrupted no matter what you are doing at the same time.

Bayar
2009-06-16, 06:31 AM
It will still not allow you to create more than one magic item at one time.

mostlyharmful
2009-06-16, 06:35 AM
It will still not allow you to create more than one magic item at one time.

Yup.. no arguing. However, if you interprete the above passage as being that you start it up and from then on it's the one doing the crafting then it doesn't matter how many at a time you yourself can craft since it's not you doing it.

Coidzor
2009-06-16, 06:51 AM
And here I thought you were more limited to a sole homonculus of each type at a time.

Bayar
2009-06-16, 06:58 AM
Nah, you can make as many as you want. Check out the Hordeficier...something that uses 3-4 arbalesters, a pack of iron Defenders and 1 shield/runic guardian.

shadow_archmagi
2009-06-16, 07:46 AM
I played an artificer/sorcerer in a gestalt campiagn and there was a stint wherein we had to fight in some sort of arena. One of the rounds was a pair of ghosts, and I Quickened-Maximized-Fireballed them for 60 damage each, they saved, and died anyway.

The next round was a golem, and I used Solid Fog, Grease, and Black Tentacles and after fifteen rounds and half it's HP it got out, at which point our paladin got to do something for the first time ever and beat it to death.

An Artificer is OP in that he's like a wizard, except his spells known is "all of them ever from all sourcebooks no matter what class their for even if it's divine" and his spells per day is determined by how much gold he has and limited only by how much spare time he has. Plus he then goes ahead and takes all the gold from the rest of the party and turns that into (Crafting items automatically is half price but the artificer gains bonus feats one of which could be a 25% reduction which would lower the price to 1/3rd cost) three times the amount of equipment you thought he had.

Consider:

Party 1, with no artificer: A +2 half-plate!
OR
Party 2, with artificer: A +2 half plate, +1 longsword, and an amulet of +2 constitution.
OR
Party 2, with artificer: +2 half plates for everyone! And I'll go ahead and cast Bulls Strength on all of them!

EDIT: I want to see an artificer that uses druid spells, just for the sheer hilarity of the druid walking into the big city, going into the stinking, smoking workshop at the top of the skyscraper, and seeing the EXACT SAME MAGIC, but in a can and mass produced. "But nature-" he starts to stammer
"BUT ASSEMBLY LINE" replies the gnome.

Doc Roc
2009-06-16, 08:05 AM
I have seen numerous references to the cheesiness of the Artificer class, from Eberron Campaign Setting. However, upon review of the class stat block and description, I see no inherent brokenness. Could someone spell this ojne out for me?

What's not been mentioned is that your UMD check, later on, will determine your caster level. Here, take a look at this:

UMD is funny. (http://forums.gleemax.com/showpost.php?p=18281974&postcount=102)

Indon
2009-06-16, 08:15 AM
As has been mentioned, Artificers, because they can draw from the spell lists of other classes, benefit far more from book creep than any other spellcasting class.

Also, their ability to magnify the power of magical items in the group is extremely potent in and of itself, because of the potency of magic items in the game in general.

Either one of those would make for an exceedingly potent class.

Doc Roc
2009-06-16, 08:17 AM
There's like twelve more reasons than that.
I'm sorry, but you guys really frustrate me sometimes. I don't mean to be sharp, or prickly.

Bonus shuffling?
UMD for Caster Level? (subset of staff abuse)
UMD as a core skill?
Crafting Feats?
Level-cycling abuse of the crafting reserve?
Thoughtbottles?
The Magewright Controversy?
Hommunculus Swarms for Aid Other?
Meta-magic feats?
Wand Recharging?
Staff abuse?
DROPPING THE MOON?!

AstralFire
2009-06-16, 08:24 AM
EDIT: I want to see an artificer that uses druid spells, just for the sheer hilarity of the druid walking into the big city, going into the stinking, smoking workshop at the top of the skyscraper, and seeing the EXACT SAME MAGIC, but in a can and mass produced. "But nature-" he starts to stammer
"BUT ASSEMBLY LINE" replies the gnome.

Bwahahaha. That made me laugh.

Indon
2009-06-16, 08:37 AM
There's like twelve more reasons than that.

Classes that aren't extremely powerful can be built with one or two exploitive features. UMD and diplomancer builds, for instance, do not "break" the Bard class. The ability to throw the Earth in a build does not make... Hulking Hurler, is it?... broken.

The Druid has single class features more powerful than entire classes - but those, at least, aren't very powerful classes. The Artificer has single class features more powerful than other full casters.

Doc Roc
2009-06-16, 08:39 AM
Are you suggesting the hulking hurler isn't broken?
Have you seen the damage numbers on that thing?

Bard is pretty strong, actually.... things like +21d6 sonic damage to all attacks made by the whole party... I'll take that over a monk any day.
:))

I think other than my snarky and abusive commentary, we are actually in agreement here. I apologize for my rough nature.

woodenbandman
2009-06-16, 09:49 AM
My favorite artificer trick is Metamagic Item, which basically allows them to craft magic items that are 6 spell levels or more higher than the price they pay for them, for almost no cost (I think it's like 25 xp). Who doesn't want to craft a Staff of Persistent Shapechange for the cost of a normal staff of shapechange? Or a wand of split, twinned, maximized enervation, for the cost of a wand of enervation?

Sinfire Titan
2009-06-16, 10:13 AM
Let's start with their strengths, shall we?



They have access to any spell ever printed.
They get Item Creation feats for free, and can craft items without losing out on levels.
Custom magic items are broken out the wazoo.
Free metamagic on wands. Well, sort of. They make good Wand Blasters, but you burn through that like Monopoly Money.
Able to turn junk magic items into raw XP. This means any item you find has face value.
Crafting magic items is cheaper than buying them, so they effectively double the WBL of the entire party.
Several feats reduce the cost of magic item creation dramatically. When coupled with the above, you get the ability to craft magic items at 13% of their total cost (or less, I don't remember the exact number).
If anyone in your party dies, it's free items for you to work with equal to a player's WBL. You then turn those items into stuff ofr the rest of the party and that player's replacement character if they choose not to get Rezzed.
Item Familiar gives you free XP for your Craft Reserve. An all ready broken feat becomes eve more broken when put to a good use.
Their class features focus on a skill check. Skill checks can be boosted into obscenity easily.




I think that covers the major points. Some people claim Crafting Time as a means of balancing the class, but those people forget Artificers can get Dedicated Wrights to craft for them, and just put them in a Portable Hole to protect the little bastards.

sonofzeal
2009-06-16, 11:32 AM
There's like twelve more reasons than that.
I'm sorry, but you guys really frustrate me sometimes. I don't mean to be sharp, or prickly.

Bonus shuffling?
UMD for Caster Level? (subset of staff abuse)
UMD as a core skill?
Crafting Feats?
Level-cycling abuse of the crafting reserve?
Thoughtbottles?
The Magewright Controversy?
Hommunculus Swarms for Aid Other?
Meta-magic feats?
Wand Recharging?
Staff abuse?
DROPPING THE MOON?!
Bonus shuffling - not sure what you mean by that, explain?

UMD for CL - doesn't actually work, last time I checked. Sounds like it does, but RAW doesn't quiiite go there.

UMD as a core skill - well yeah. Try playing an Artificer without UMD, seriously. You can't do diddlysquat, even the Fighter laughs at you, and then beats you up until you cast one of your few, weak, innate buffs on him.

Crafting Feats - not an Artificer class feature. Anyone can take those feats, and they're just as broken on a Warlock.

Level-cycling - you can't drop levels from crafting, the rules are clear there. This means any method I know of dropping levels drops you the whole level, which isn't really exploitable.

Thoughbottles - Wizards have been exploiting these for a decade. Old news.

Magewright Controversy - not familiar, explain?

Hommunculus Swarms - multi-stacking of "Aid Another" is generally at DM discretion.

Meta-magic feats - ...at the cost of gold and xp, since you burn extra charges. Worth it, but not really broken.

Wand Recharging - where are you getting this from? A lenient DM might let you pay fractional costs to replace charges, but I haven't seen any rule that allows you to recharge wands by RAW.

Staff abuse - a subset of UMD=CL (which doesn't work), isn't it?

Dropping moons - again, a very specific subset of UMD=CL (which again doesn't work).





In general: Artificers are potentially broken when you talk about burst strength, or what they're potentially capable of, but in actual practice they're much more limited. A mid level Artificer can make any wand imaginable, but I've found wands above 1st or 2nd level are rarely worth the massive investment cost. He can apply serial metamagic to kill things fast, but that requires a heavy feat investment and burns through gold like there's no tomorrow.

For example, a mid level artificer (mine is ECL12, so I'll go with that) can make a CL5 Wand of Fireball and apply Empowered and Maximized to it. He's now doing 45 damage, Ref DC 14 half, at the cost of 590.6 gp a pop, assuming he's taken the Artisan feats. He could potentially make a CL10 wand and be doing 90 damage, same DC, at 1191.2 gp a pop. Joy.

I believe one of the classic builds is Wand of Lesser Acid Orb, CL7 (using Wand Mastery to bump that up to 9 and save money), using Twinned + Quickened. We've now invested seven feats into making this work, for those keeping count at home. We get to fire four of these suckers, for 20d8 damage (ave 90), no save, no sr. It's costing us 551 gp a round, which is a lot better than fireball... but even at level 12, that starts hurting fast. Oh, and Acid Resistance applies four times against that.

Let's go crazy here. Assuming your DM allows it, you can do Wand of lesser acid orb CL 7, With Energy Subsitution (electricity) + Born of Three thunders + Twin spell + Energy Admixture + Empower Spell + Quicken Spell + Dual wand + weapon fighting. That's twelve feats for those of you counting at home, after cost reducer feats, so have fun with that. The end result is pretty impressive though, at 60d8 x 1.5 damage (average 405), no save, no SR. By my count, that's 27 charges used per round, for a cost of 1063 gp a shot. Not too shabby! Of course the Leap Attacking Fighter can do about the same for free, all day long, with a much larger effective kill radius. Go you!

...all that, plus Artificers are probably about the easiest class for the DM to reign in. All he has to do is tweak treasure, and that's that. The Fighter improves with treasure and levels, you only improve with treasure and you burn it just keeping pace. Pretty much anything the Artificer can do that's worth doing costs gold, and the more powerful it is the more gold it costs. If what you're doing is too powerful, it's really really easy for the DM to scale back treasure coming in until you stop.