Artificers After Level 20

[TheDarkDM]

Hey Playground, i have a question on behalf of a friend. In our current Eberron campaign, we've reached level 27, and he's running out of things to do. He's a Warforged Artificer 20 / Spellcarved Soldier 5 and he wants to take Cannith Wand Adept, but that will only last him to level 28, which we are certainly going to pass. He's played a support role so far, and I'd like to suggest something to him that will let him be more active in combat, but having never played an Artificer I'm unsure what to put forward. And insights you might have would be most appreciated.

Oh, and because it might play a role in your decision making, the rest of the party is:

A Beguiler / Wizard / Swiftblade / Jade Phoenix Mage / Dracolexi who is currently our biggest melee threat

A Dread Necromancer 20 / Shadow Adept 1 / Battle Dancer 1 / Rainbow Servant 4 / Dragon Devotee 1 specializing in SoD's and beefy undead minions (me)

A Psion (Seer) ? / Metamind ? who is our primary scry/magic info/area lockdown guy (level 27, not sure of the distribution)

A Swordsage with other things I can't remember right now who specialized is punching things with Greater Mighty Wallop permanencied (plays second fiddle to the Swiftblade but has more raw damage potential)

And my follower, a Bard 14 / Battle Dancer 1 / Thrall of Malcanthet 9 acting as a diplomancer and source of Dragonfire Inspiration and Inspire Courage

[Madcrafter]

He could just take more levels of artificer (not sure how good the epic progression is on it) and branch out into one of the other roles detailed in the Unofficial Artificer Player's Guide. With a DFI/IC bard in the party he could start churning out minions (of the golem variety) as long as the party doesn't mind more of them. Or just blast the hell out of stuff with some staves. Artificers are one of the most (if not the) versatile classes in the game, so finding him something to do shouldn't be hard.

Edit: If he is already all about buffing, he could just stack a bunch (persisting just the ordinary cleric triad shouldn't be hard) on himself and wade into combat with the rest of the party.

[CockroachTeaParty]

Good lord, aren't you guys done destroying everything in Eberron yet? What's left?

Did you guys go to Xoriat yet?

Also, HOWDY.

[TheDarkDM]

The biggest drawback of the epic Artificer is a lack of craft reserve, which he sees as the only reason to progress in the class. As for minions, my Bard would need some feats she doesn't have room for to effect constructs. One additional wrinkle is that we're significantly behind wealth by level thanks to our DM's lack of familiarity with high level play and his desire to rationally explain where treasure is coming from, so our Artificer can't exploit his versatility to the best of his ability.

And hi there CTP. We're in Xoriat now, to kill a bunch of Daelkyr before returning to Eberron to kill a Rakshasa Rajah. Good times.

[The-Mage-King]

What lack of craft reserve? They get all of the previous level's, plus 1k each time they level up.


So a level 21 Artificer has 6000, a level 22 7000, and so on.



Ref: Player's Guide to Eberron (page 17)

[Madcrafter]

Its true that the only draw to continuing the artificer would be the craft reserve, and additional infusions (though by 20 you might always have enough for a day). It is a little surprising that you are below WBL with an artificer in the party, but stuff in epic is quite expensive if I remember correctly.

Having access to every spell in the game means that he should never really be at a lack of something to do, especially since you don't have much divine casting in your party.