Artificer - Retain Essence at first level?

[Scorpions__]

One of my players is requesting to gain Retain Essence at 1st level, instead of at 5th which is usually the case.

He feels that the Craft Reserve is too small.

Should I allow this?






DM[F]R

[Big Fau]

If he is playing a 1st level Artificer, please point out that every magic item he can craft has an XP cost of 1 or 2 XP. I think it would be difficult to run out at that level.


In other words, don't let him. He'll be fine once he starts doing some math.

[DoughGuy]

Also artificers in no way need any help from the DM.

[comzip99]

There is nothing wrong with letting him have it early. As Big Fau has said it's mostly useless anyway. So if it adds flavor for some reason there is no problem that I can see.

[Big Fau]

There is nothing wrong with letting him have it early. As Big Fau has said it's mostly useless anyway. So if it adds flavor for some reason there is no problem that I can see.

Actually, it causes some imbalance. The main point of Retain Essence is that you are able to recycle random treasure and turn it into something more useful. While magic items at levels below 3rd are generally useless, once the Artificer hits 3rd level he can start pumping out Wondrous Items and turn the useless chaff into WBL-breaking equipment.


As stated above, the Artificer does not need buffing in any way. Hell, you could cut it's Infusions entirely and it's still one of the most powerful classes in the game.

[Aemoh87]

Artificer is fantastic and if you give it at one it will just encourage 1 level dips! Make him invest the character levels, the ability is extremely worth it. I recently played an artificer and I continually broke WBL with my group. Plus we had so many consumables were very dangerous in every situation.

[Godskook]

1.Artificers are just fine as is, there's no need to buff them.

2.Retain Essence comes online about the same time that serious crafting does as well. Before level 5, the only thing you can sink any kind of serious points into is wondrous items, but with only CL 5 items, good luck finding much to be worth it.

3.Retain Essence is meant to be an Artificer bonus, not a wizard bonus, and putting it at first level makes it too easy to dip for it, while 5th level practically forces it to be an Artificer only schtick.

4.Craft reserve at level 1 is 20xp. This means he can craft 1st level scrolls at 12.5 gold per pop or 2nd level scrolls at 75 gold per pop. Starting gold is 125 gold, meaning he can only afford to craft 10 1st level scrolls, and that's if he really wants to be an incompetent wizard for his first level. See, at level 1, its not the craft reserve, its his WBL that's holding him back. Level 2 sees him with 900 gold. Let's assume, that for argument's sake, he's spending a solid 75% of his early WBL buying mundane combat gear and supplies, rather than on crafting magical stuffs. That leaves only 225 gold for crafting, which translates into less than 20 scrolls, and at 1xp per pop, we're still not coming near his craft reserve. Levels 3 and 4 are when he can actually start affording to bust through his craft reserve, but here's the thing: The craft reserve isn't meant to make the xp cost of crafting irrelevant, its meant to mitigate some. If it were meant to make it irrelevant, they would've just given the Artificer a class feature that said "Artificers don't spend xp to create items"