Help me with artificer in PF

[Melnir]

I will play an artificer in a pathfinder campaign. It's my first artificer and I was looking for advices. The race will be gnome, pathfinder point buy 28. One of the other players will be my "bodyguard", so I was thinking mostly on a buffer, but also golem crafter, since it's a steampunk setting with drones. I saw hedge magician as a good trait, exceptional and extraordinary artisan as feats. 2 traits and 2 flaws allowed, all 3.5 material available, as long as we're not creating too powerful or cheasy PC. I will take noble scion as a feat (high charisma, so cha to initiative, also fits perfectly my PC background). Starting at level 5.
Thanks for any advice :)

[Rentaromon]

If your playing the 3rd party pathfinder artificer you might want to rethink that. The class is poorly made and can easily break games.

[Melnir]

If your playing the 3rd party pathfinder artificer you might want to rethink that. The class is poorly made and can easily break games.

I will play an Eberron artificer, with some small changes. I don't care if an artificer can break games (actually I know it very well, never played one but it's not hard to imagine), I won't do it (unless the DM forces me to do that by opposing us too hard challanges for our level).

[Axier]

Since PF doesn't use XP for item creation, I can only imagine that they break items and get the GP value of an item, but as essence that can only be used to enchant new items. The only problem, is how you fluff making new items, do you just use the essence to form raw materials, or can you only use a portion of it for making items?

I think its kinda complicated...

Anywho, just be sure to have some kind of backup win button. If you are going to be the nice "wizard"-like player that won't step on other people's feet, you still want to have a solid backup when stuff hits the fan.

Good luck!

[Alienist]

Pathfinder is an enormously much better system for making an Eberron Artificer than core d20.

As noted, custom magic items tend to breaketh the campaigneth, so avoid those if you can.

My standard advice for low levels is pretty simple: belong to House Cannith, because they get the best level 1 summon in the whole game (by a large margin), in the form of the Dragonmarked Homunculus. As it happens, that might not be available in pathfinder, you might want to find out whether you have infusions or not, and if so which sources are allowed. I'm of the opinion that Artificer would play out perfectly well without infusions (use normal spell lists instead), but your mileage may vary.

Amongst other thing, Pathfinder:
Gives casting classes at-will cantrips
Makes all item creation skill dependent
Gives all item creators the option of ignoring pre-requisites.
Removes XP cost as part of item creation (unless the spell has an XP cost as part of it's material components(?))
Removes all ways of reducing item creation costs (they are abusive)

Given that, a whole bunch of what makes the Artificer special just became redundant.

Here's what I recommend for your conversion (trying to keep things really simple)

TABLES
(1) Use the base tables from the summoner class, but replace the special column (e.g. they are a spontaneous caster with 3/4 BAB, good will saves and topping out at level 6 spells)

Alternately: use the Bard's tables instead, it looks very similar (spontaneous spellcaster capped at level 6 spells, just like the original Artificer) but you get decent reflex saves as well as will saves.

(2) 6+Int skill points per level, but at least 4 skill points per level must be spent on Craft skills and/or UMD.

Comment: this represent a good trade-off between 2+Int which Summoners get, and 6+Int which Bards get. It's not enough to make you a skill monkey like the Bard, but it does make you a crafting-monkey.

FEATS
(3) Give the Artificer a bonus feat every five levels (like a Wizard)
(4) Give the Artificer every item creation feat in the game when they meet the minimum level (including Craft Construct at level 5 and Forge Ring at level 7).

(Possible exception here for Lich's phylacteries (??), though personally I have no problem with Lich Artificers...)

NB: other than Extra Rings, the other Eberron Artificer feats need to die quietly in a fire during the conversion process. Especially the various Artisan feats (but don't worry, the one everyone recommends you take (the XP reducer) is irrelevant in PF anyway)

USE MAGIC DEVICE
(5) Allow the Artificer to take 10 on UMD checks
(6) Allow the Artificer to substitute UMD for any item creation skill check requirement
(7) (more UMD) give the Artificer an "Artificer Knowledge" class feature - similar to the Pathfinder Bard's Bardic Knowledge feature, but specific to UMD. E.g. add half the Artificer's level (round down) as an untyped bonus to any UMD checks. (Alternately: make it a competence bonus)

ITEM CREATION
(8) Allow the Artificer to ignore the general rule about actually having to know the requirements for potions, wands, scrolls etc

E.g. ignore this:

"In addition, you cannot create potions, spell-trigger, or spell-completion magic items without meeting its prerequisites."

And apply this in its place:

"The DC to create a magic item increases by 5 for each prerequisite the caster does not meet. The only exception to this is the requisite item creation feat, which is mandatory."

(and note that Artificers get every item creation feat)

SPELLS/INFUSIONS
(9) For an Artificer spell list, simply allow them to learn any spell from any other class (keeps it simple).

Or alternately for flavour make a distinction between divine artificers and arcane artificers. E.g. an arcane artificer can learn spells from other arcane classes spell lists, but not from divine classes. Obeying normal restrictions.

So if you want to learn Flamestrike, you're best off learning it from the Druid list (so it will count as one of your level 4 spells known), rather than from the Cleric spell list, where it counts as level 5.

Because we're using the summoner chart, they couldn't learn Flamestrike until levels 10 or 13 respectively.

Note on balance: because they are a spontaneous caster like a Sorcerer or Summoner, they don't know all spells from all classes, but can only learn a small handful.

Otherwise you have to port over infusions.

(10) Bonus spells from Charisma, not Int (to align class features with UMD)
Relearn a spell at 5th level and every third level after that (see PF Bards and Summoners)

(11) Import the Repair Light Damage (et al) chain of spells/infusions

(12) Mandatory Cantrips: of the four starting cantrips, probably Detect Magic, Read Magic and Mending should be mandatory choices.

Notes on game balance:
The above as written is effectively a Bard or a Summoner that sacrifices all their cool class features in order to get a little flexibility in spell selection, and also a crapload of free item creation feats.
They have a slightly easier time of it making items with lots of weird requirements than other classes, but nothing overwhelming.

Standard caveats apply: e.g. don't make rings of True Strike, Polymorph and Gate are bad m'kay.

[Melnir]

Thanks for all the advices, but my master found this (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/3rd-party-classes/adamant-entertainment/artificer) and allows me to use it.
Improved metamagic science is something pretty nice, so I will have to boost spellcraft (and make something like divine insight command word item). I can stack item cost reductions (so extraordinary artisan, a trait found somewhere on the srd, skill and class), so I might get quite cheap magic items (since they are difficult to get the party will rely on me for that). For mid-high levels I was thinking on fighting with wands, so quick draw, twf and the feat to fight with two wands. Good or bad choice? Also dazing spell with some decent blast spells is good, isn't it? I'm also the face, so I maxed out diplomacy and bluff.

Advices to max UMD and spellcraft?