Povertyficer

[Flickerdart]

Been thinking. A character with Vow of Poverty is explicitly allowed to beg for expensive material components from his party. So it seems reasonable to extend that to the crafting of magic items - so long as an artificer isn't crafting for himself, he can have any amount of gold pass through his hands. If the DM allows the "1xp = 5gp" thing to work here, even better, since the Artificer has crafting XP in spades, and can McGyver magic items literally out of nothing.

While VoP is an obvious nerf to everything it touches, this is still a T1 class, so it should be possible to mitigate the usual VoP problems into nonexistence. I haven't done much work with Artificers, but from what I understand, the traditional Artificer fights by burning through wand charges like there's no tomorrow. But couldn't he infuse his mundane weapon with fancy powers and then wade into combat? Or command some constructs (which might be owned by someone else, but as their creator, he still has the admin access) to punch faces.

So, Playground. If an Artificer can't be Tony Stark, what other options do they have?

[Tvtyrant]

Well, grafts do not count as items so the Graftificer route is open. If you took Thri-kreen for the race you could get a lot of strength bonuses out of replacing your limbs, and then beat the heck out of people.

Making items for others would, as you said, work as normal. That makes you a bonus to the party in the same way that a buffing bard is. I think it would be horrifically boring to concentrate on that, but such is life. One of the problems with the Buffificer is that without wands you cannot get the area effect persisted spells that grant your party fast healing and other benefits.

[shadow_archmagi]

Hmm. Without the ability to use metamagic with wands, the Artificer loses a lot of its combat capability.

Infusions would still be nice, and infusions alone put it on par with some of the lesser classes- I'd still rate a VoP Artificer over a monk.

[metabolicjosh]

No it doesn't work... Because it's awesomeness blinds me!

Nice idea

[Flickerdart]

Well, grafts do not count as items so the Graftificer route is open. If you took Thri-kreen for the race you could get a lot of strength bonuses out of replacing your limbs, and then beat the heck out of people.
I've heard the "load up on grafts before you take the vow" exploit, but surely sticking the graft to yourself counts as owning the item?

[Tvtyrant]

I've heard the "load up on grafts before you take the vow" exploit, but surely sticking the graft to yourself counts as owning the item?

It says explicitly that they are not magic items, but they do count as an item in that they need an item creation feat.You can always attach them to your friends though, although that removes a lot of the benefit..

I was going to say you could use the Fusion power and merge with someone else, but then I realized that they would be effected by your vow and either you would lose the vow or they would have to donate their stuff. :C

Edit: Since VoP prohibits expendable items, you are correct. However the Pathfinder version actually allows you to make them for your friends, and have your friends give them back as a single use item.

[Flickerdart]

It says explicitly that they are not magic items, but they do count as an item in that they need an item creation feat.You can always attach them to your friends though, although that removes a lot of the benefit..
Sadly VoP prohibits owning even nonmagical expensive items, so I guess the real question here is whether they're "not [magic items]" or "not [magic] items". Are there no grafts that provide an aura or some such?


I was going to say you could use the Fusion power and merge with someone else, but then I realized that they would be effected by your vow and either you would lose the vow or they would have to donate their stuff. :C
Well, that's a great way to do a charity donation drive, at least.

[Tvtyrant]

Sadly VoP prohibits owning even nonmagical expensive items, so I guess the real question here is whether they're "not [magic items]" or "not [magic] items". Are there no grafts that provide an aura or some such?

I don't think there are any aura grafts. That would be pretty cool actually. Fast heal 2 for everyone in return for grafting 6 sets of elf ears on or something.

[Answerer]

Meleeficers can certainly be done, but you'd be relying on your Infusions almost exclusively. Personal Weapon Augment is certainly interesting when applied to a mundane quarterstaff, but it's not a particularly good weapon.

You'd probably be almost as useful to your party out of combat as any Artificer ever is (and that's very useful), but in combat you'd probably have little option but to try to avoid getting in harm's way while slowly buffing your allies with the "quicker" Infusions. Or burning through a ton of Action Points.