[PF] Artificer vs Machinesmith

[Maquise]

I was looking at the Artificer (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/adamant-entertainment/artificer)and Machinesmith (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/louis-porter-jr-design/machinesmith), and noted that they are thematically the same. I found the Artificer to be poorly-written, but was wondering how they actually compared.

[Answerer]

I'm not familiar with the Machinesmith and don't have the time to read it right now. But I have gone through that Artificer before, and this is my take-away:

That Artificer is blatant theft of the one from Eberron Campaign Setting, except that the EbCS Artificer's Infusions (which were relatively well-balanced) were replaced with Weird Science, which is more broken, even, than the extremely powerful Item Creation, Retain Essence (Salvage), and Metamagic Spell Trigger (which this Artificer retains in full).

It's extremely poorly-done; most of what's interesting is just stolen from Keith Baker and most of what's not is horribly over-powered. I strongly recommend you not use it.

Porting the EbCS Artificer directly would be trivial, and better balanced than this is. It is still very powerful (comparable to Cleric or Wizard, whether 3.5 or PF), so you might not want to do that either. The Machinesmith might be a good replacement, or you could try this homebrew Artificer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=146315), which I'm quite partial to.

[grarrrg]

I found the Artificer to be poorly-written

Well...it is the ONLY class I know of with _5_ skills per level...

[Arbane]

Porting the EbCS Artificer directly would be trivial, and better balanced than this is.

Not _quite_ trivial - magic items don't cost XP to make in PF.

[icefractal]

The issue with porting the Artificer directly is that the PF item creation rules basically eat its lunch.

Special XP pool to make items? Items don't cost XP any more.
Make items with a skill check instead of prerequisites? Anyone can do that.
Bonus crafting feats? Still there, but comparatively less useful because everyone gets more feats in PF.

So you're left with Infusions (handy, but not even close to full spellcasting), Wand Metamagic abilities (either fairly minor or broken, depending on how you use them), and some miscellaneous stuff. It doesn't stack up very well to just playing a Wizard and taking item creation feats.


Really, it needs a new significant feature to replace the "craft anything" shtick which is no longer a big factor. Some ideas:
* Craft personal use items for low/no cost (a limited number at once).
* Construct buddy, similar to the Eidolon.
* Beef up Infusions to be more comparable to spellcasting
* Construct-graft augmentation or a mech suit.