Why does no one play an artificer?

[silverwolfer]

I want to take certain points of the conversation before we start



1. Some may not own the book
2.Dm may not allow it



Why is it that artificers often get said to be tier 1 or so, yet so little actually use them it seems for games.

[Bakkan]

In addition to the reasons you mentioned, Artificers require a large amount of OOC bookkeeping, which can get tedious, especially if the player is inexperienced with the class. Also, being Tier 1, and a on-core Tier 1 at that, can make experienced players and DMs a little wary about using or playing one for fear that it will break the game, either intentionally or accidentally.

[Callyn]

I'm not sure that your assumption is valid. I have played an Artificer and I'm sure plenty of other people have as well. It's possible that they are only unpopular in your games.

On the other hand, people might not play them because they are complex as hell. They require a lot more bookkeeping than even a Wizard, so that's a good reason people might not play them.

[LTwerewolf]

I've found that it's hard to make a balanced artificer. Either it's high op, or it's very low op, and I haven't been able to make an in-between.

[silverwolfer]

I tend to play in internet forums, not physical games, so what am exposed to can be vast.

I am actualy looking at doing a delkary half-blood artificer and try that out.

[Kelb_Panthera]

It's the book-keeping and concerns about whether or not the DM will give him enough down-time.

If you don't want to fiddle with the immense book-keeping or your DM keeps things fairly fast-paced then artificer is a poor choice. If these aren't going to stand in your way though, there's almost nothing an artificer can't do.

I recently saw a handbook where all the various means of getting discounts for the creation of magic items were compiled. An artificer that sets himself up right can get everything he wants for 4% of the normal gp cost and will never pay a single xp out of pocket. Combined with any of the infinite wealth tricks, this means that an artificer can produce whatever magic he wants if given time to produce the items.

[Hunter Noventa]

The biggest issue is that most campaigns don't have the downtime necessary to create magical items en masse. Sure there's a feat to reduce the time, but it's not by very much, and during that time the rest of the party gets to sit around doing nothing.

[toapat]

Combined with any of the infinite wealth tricks, this means that an artificer can produce whatever magic he wants if given time to produce the items.

You are failing to see half the beauty of crafting for 1/25th (3.8% if you are willing to take the rather horrible Kaorti race as your base race, 4.3 if not) the price:

You craft a magic item, for 4.3% of its market value

you sell that item for 50% of it's market value

[Tvtyrant]

The crafting time issue is dealt with by a Bag of Holding + Dedicated Wright. It just crafts while you are off conquering the world.

I found that the easiest way to deal with the balance issue was to concentrate most of my efforts on my teammates. I used Dual Wand Wielder + Metamagic Wand of Fell Drain Sonic Snap for my primary attack; -2 levels on any opponent each turn and I wan't likely to go broke. If I wanted to do melee I used a wand of Aspect of the Earth Hunter to become a bullet, and go claw things four times.

[eggs]

I'm not sure that no one plays an artificer, but I don't like playing the class for a couple reasons:

Low levels and 1-minute casting times are a pain in the ass.

Campaign/DM reliance for crafting time and wealth (yeah, crafting can multiply wealth, but it relies on a reasonable amount of income to multiply, which is an assumption that's screwed some of my Artificers in the past; and even homonculi have time limits).

I don't think I've ever played in a published setting, but I have played with groups that find materials published with other settings off-putting.

In my experience, more groups seem to have heard horror stories and exploits regarding the artificer than have actually read the class or seen it in play.

The paperwork's just a pain.

Plus, most artificers can basically do exactly the same things. That's not a fault in the class, but it wrankles my personal preferences, which would take a class with a lot of variance in abilities (eg. Sorcerer or Feat Rogue) over classes where most builds do the same things (eg. Druid or Factotum).

[molten_dragon]

We've got a guy playing one in the campaign I'm in right now, and the amount of bookkeeping he has to do to keep track of the character (which is only level 7 right now) has kind of turned me off to the idea of playing one in the future.

Although my Archvist isn't a whole lot better.

[Wise Green Bean]

How many wands do you have?
Now how many charges are on each wand?
How about scrolls?
Golems?
What are the stats and abilities of said golems?
What percent of gold and experience are you paying per item?
How much is left in your experience pool?
Is it enough to cover your next item?

We have now scraped the tip of the iceberg that is the artificer. Ready your calculator and spread sheet.

[Twilightwyrm]

The Artificer strikes me as the sort of class that is theoretically Tier 1, but in practice is more of a pain in the ass to play that most people enjoy. It has vast amounts of potential, but assumes a lot of downtime for crafting, an index of all magic items in existence, and while you can be prepared for most any challenge with your vast access to magic items, and the spells of most every class, but doing so is like trying to make sure you gather up every looting item in a game like Oblivion and going back, so you can maximize the amount of money you get back, and so you can therefore maximize your advantage against monsters you might face in the game. Sure, you CAN do everything to maximize your advantage, but you'll end up with 5% of the game being the actual fun, and the other 95% on long, repetitious accounting in between.

[Snowbluff]

I am just not fond of the class. When all you do is make stuff, and then use it, it does not appeal to me.

Also, they are T1 the same way a level 12 Warlock is. If being able to make an item to cast any spell makes you T1, why aren't Warlocks up there? Other than Reserves, obviously.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I am just not fond of the class. When all you do is make stuff, and then use it, it does not appeal to me.

Also, they are T1 the same way a level 12 Warlock is. If being able to make an item to cast any spell makes you T1, why aren't Warlocks up there? Other than Reserves, obviously.

It's not just being able to make any magic item. It's being able to make any magic item for a fraction of the financial cost and at no xp or opportunity cost. There's also the fact that the artificer can actually use those items better than anybody else, since he can take feats like metamagic spell-trigger and dual wand-wielder without having to sink half his feats into it.

Warlock is a solid and fun class, but it's not an artificer by quite a long way.

[Answerer]

I am just not fond of the class. When all you do is make stuff, and then use it, it does not appeal to me.

Also, they are T1 the same way a level 12 Warlock is. If being able to make an item to cast any spell makes you T1, why aren't Warlocks up there? Other than Reserves, obviously.
Craft Reserve, huge number of free feats, and the ability to start from level 1.

For the Warlock, either you have to take feats you cannot use while you're working your way to 12, or you only have one to three Item Crafting feats anyway. Plus, lots of games don't even reach 12th level. Mostly, though, it's that the Tiers are supposed to account for all 20 levels, but that's hard to do for some classes that have such singularly-big levels like that.

[Wookie-ranger]

I have never played an Artificer before so i have to ask.
why is there so much book keeping?
I like to play a Dread Necromancer, so keeping track of more minions then the DM has monster is nothing new. Why is this one worse? Seams to me that you basically have a character that can craft for cheap and is bases on item usage. doesn't sound much worse then a UMD focused warlock.

As i said, i have never played one before, nor seen one in game. but i have read over it a few times. so this may sound a little 'ignorant'.
BTW:
how does the crafting xp work? is that an amount of xp he gets at each level for crafting or is that a 'free' amount of xp per item crafted?

[Snowbluff]

Craft Reserve, huge number of free feats, and the ability to start from level 1.

For the Warlock, either you have to take feats you cannot use while you're working your way to 12, or you only have one to three Item Crafting feats anyway. Plus, lots of games don't even reach 12th level. Mostly, though, it's that the Tiers are supposed to account for all 20 levels, but that's hard to do for some classes that have such singularly-big levels like that.

Somebody doesn't read the white text. :smallamused:

Yeah, I can see the Tier system is supposed to work for all levels, but it's casting things like Shapechange and Timestop that makes Wizards T1. Warlocks can do that, but when you tack a XP tag on that, you get stuck on the butt end of the Tier list. :smallconfused:

Also, a thing a lot of Crafterlock types like to is take a dip into Chameleon, which floats them a feat. Supposedly something like this should not be able to make you 'OMG +3 Tiers!', but Warlock should be given a T3 at least.

@Kelb_Panthera I would not consider it uncommon for a Lock to take MM Spell Trigger or Two Wand Wielder, either. They are explicitly designed for better than average Spell Trigger use, and the common use of Hellfire Warlock Solidifies that. Still, it does take a lot of feats, so it's not Artificer-good.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I have never played an Artificer before so i have to ask.
why is there so much book keeping?
I like to play a Dread Necromancer, so keeping track of more minions then the DM has monster is nothing new. Why is this one worse? Seams to me that you basically have a character that can craft for cheap and is bases on item usage. doesn't sound much worse then a UMD focused warlock.

As i said, i have never played one before, nor seen one in game. but i have read over it a few times. so this may sound a little 'ignorant'.
BTW:
how does the crafting xp work? is that an amount of xp he gets at each level for crafting or is that a 'free' amount of xp per item crafted?

Dread Necro minion-master is a fair amount of book keeping, but it's still a bit less than a straight-up wizard, which is a bit less than a straight-up artificer. It might be a little bit of a stretch, but you could probably handle it, especially if you frequently make use of many different kinds of minions.

The craft reserve is pretty simple. You don't get the listed value for use with each item you craft, though.

Upon reaching a new level your reserve's current value of xp resets to whatever's on the table.

The xp in the reserve is used in place of your actuall xp for the purpose of crafting magic items.

The real beauty of the craft reserve doesn't come until 5th level though. At that level you gain the ability to disjoin magic items and absorb half the xp that was used in the crafting of that item and add that value to your reserve. At 10th level this ability improves such that you get the same xp as was spent crafting the disjoined item.

[Answerer]

Yeah, I can see the Tier system is supposed to work for all levels, but it's casting things like Shapechange and Timestop that makes Wizards T1.
False, actually. If Wizards were just 9th-level spells, they wouldn't be Tier 1 (they'd be very hard to tier at all, actually; kind of like the Truenamer in that regard). Wizards are Tier-1 because they can have "win buttons" every day, at every level.

Warlocks can have win buttons, for the levels after 12, if they're very careful and know a lot about what they're going to face in the future. They don't have the stockpile at that point that an Artificer does, and they can't change daily as a Wizard does.

[eggs]

I have never played an Artificer before so i have to ask.
why is there so much book keeping?
Besides just having a ton of stuff to carry around and easy access to robot mooks (which is often already enough for the number-tracking to get obnoxious), the Artificer takes a lot of things that would normally be treated as constants and turns them into variables that need to be recorded and recognized individually to adjudicate their effects (caster levels on items, item bonus types, Spell-Storing Item's spell preparation that only lasts a couple hours).

Plus most elements of the class hugely reward extensive foresight (minute-long casting times and frequently limited durations on the artificers infusions mean anticipating both what and when the party will encounter beforehand; item prep that lasts days gives a lot to regret when you spend 3 weeks building a wand of Enervation to abuse, only to find the dungeon you're going to dive is hosting the Lihc King's Zombie Class Reunion Bash), which really exaggerate the necessity of intricate scouting/divining before going anywhere.

And its class ability list basically spans every book with either spells or magic items in it. Endless book-diving is very strongly rewarded.

That's not to say the paperwork is insurmountable, but compared to a Sorcerer, who only has a couple dozen abilities to track and whose items and spells rarely work differently than they're described in their entries, the Artificer is just a lot more work.

[Snowbluff]

False, actually. If Wizards were just 9th-level spells, they wouldn't be Tier 1 (they'd be very hard to tier at all, actually; kind of like the Truenamer in that regard). Wizards are Tier-1 because they can have "win buttons" every day, at every level.

Warlocks can have win buttons, for the levels after 12, if they're very careful and know a lot about what they're going to face in the future. They don't have the stockpile at that point that an Artificer does, and they can't change daily as a Wizard does.

The problem is how leveling factors into this (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards). A lucky Invocation pick can really hurt some encounters the same way having the right spell prepared does. Then, after level 12, around where wizards get a lot better, Warlocks can get themselves ANY spell they want.

Warlocks suffer from optimization, as well. If they dip out of Warlock, they get weaker, since they lose their best ability. This is backward when compared to Wizard (PrC fast!). Taking Crafting Feats makes the best Warlock, or just get a floating one with a Chameleon Dip. High OP Warlocks can even make a Though Bottle as their first item.

I will stop arguing at this point since. You do have good arguments. To be honest, this is where the Tier System starts falling apart. And I like the Tier system, but this is my one problem with it. Sorry! :smallfrown:

[Urpriest]

A large part of an artificer's power comes from infusions, the most powerful of which allow spontaneous access to every spell 1-4 (Spell Storing Item), and to the full list of weapon and armor enhancements (the Armor Enhancement line, the Weapon Augmentation line). These are powerful because of wide access to vast lists of abilities, but you can't leverage that sort of thing without extensive notes and documentation, so that you are just as aware of your breadth of options as your character is.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Why do I not play Artificer?

1) Because it's just playing Rocket Tag. Either I win hard, or I lose hard.

2) Because it's a royal pain to do all the bookkeeping

3) Because I don't like playing with God Mode enabled. Sure, iddqd/idkfa is good for a chuckle or two... but you don't get a sense of achievement out of it.

[Wookie-ranger]

[cut for length]

thanks for your quick answer and the explanation about the crafting xp reserve. the Level 5 and 10 class abilities do make this a neat calss indeed!

Why is it more book keeping though? sorry to be a little dense about this, but i still don't see why it would be so difficult. Keeping track of items, a few golems/effigies here and there and some class abilities; what else?
I am sorry if I sound ignorant and I don't mean to sound condescending towards anyone. As I have never played this class i know little about it.

btw, I find Wizards to be relatively easy to play and to keep track of. I mean, there is little else to do with a wizard, other then having a well organized spell book and to know what your MM feats do.
That being said, I usually don't optimize my Chars a whole lot, my usual group is more RP then hack'n'slash/number crunching and we rarely play beyond level 12-14 (if we want to keep playing with those chars we sometimes even trade xp for gold/items to not become too powerful too fast. kind of E12ish)

[Kelb_Panthera]

thanks for your quick answer and the explanation about the crafting xp reserve. the Level 5 and 10 class abilities do make this a neat calss indeed!

Why is it more book keeping though? sorry to be a little dense about this, but i still don't see why it would be so difficult. Keeping track of items, a few golems/effigies here and there and some class abilities; what else?
I am sorry if I sound ignorant and I don't mean to sound condescending towards anyone. As I have never played this class i know little about it.

btw, I find Wizards to be relatively easy to play and to keep track of. I mean, there is little else to do with a wizard, other then having a well organized spell book and to know what your MM feats do.
That being said, I usually don't optimize my Chars a whole lot, my usual group is more RP then hack'n'slash/number crunching and we rarely play beyond level 12-14 (if we want to keep playing with those chars we sometimes even trade xp for gold/items to not become too powerful too fast. kind of E12ish)
Bolded for emphasis.

You'll be able to handle an artificer just fine if the bolded statement is true. An artificer has a little more book-keeping than a wizard, but not that much.

It basically comes down to what eggs and ur-priest said in their last posts.

Unlike a wizard, all of your options are in item form. This means variation in caster levels, needing to keep track of charges, and having a relatively massive inventory, in addition to having your infusion list to keep track of. Then there are the infusions that have 100's of options available from level one in the weapon and armor ability lines.

There's a lot to keep track of if you want to bring about the artificer's full power, and you have to know about what you'll need in advance by at least a little bit or you're liable to get rolled by what should've been a relatively weak encounter.

[Morithias]

It's really DM dependant is the main reason no one in my group does. It doesn't matter if you can make stuff for 25% cost, if you only get 25% of the treasure.

Plus like most people have said, you basically need a spreadsheet to keep track of everything. The business rules are easier to understand, at least there it's all addition and subtraction rather than multiplication.

Of course I personally love the artificer, but some people in the group also don't like sitting on their butts for weeks when the artificer cranks out their gear.

[Arcanist]

It's really DM dependant is the main reason no one in my group does. It doesn't matter if you can make stuff for 25% cost, if you only get 25% of the treasure.

Plus like most people have said, you basically need a spreadsheet to keep track of everything. The business rules are easier to understand, at least there it's all addition and subtraction rather than multiplication.

Of course I personally love the artificer, but some people in the group also don't like sitting on their butts for weeks when the artificer cranks out their gear.

I actually want to play an Artificer that obtains most of his money for research through business rules (kind of like Tony Stark).

OT: As has been previously stated (I believe at least once in every comment) you need a spreadsheet, notes and most of all a plan if you're going to play an Artificer. In my experience your reserves are not nearly enough to sustain you as an Artificer so you need to find an alternative for XP so you're not burning actual levels just so you can make a friken ring.

Homebrew items can certainly help you on this problem since you can at most decrease the entire cost by 65% (?) just from the item creation rules, but most DM's won't let that fly... Despite all of this Artificers are still my favorite class to play in a Low magic setting (I've convinced DMs of greater things!).

[Kelb_Panthera]

It's really DM dependant is the main reason no one in my group does. It doesn't matter if you can make stuff for 25% cost, if you only get 25% of the treasure.

Plus like most people have said, you basically need a spreadsheet to keep track of everything. The business rules are easier to understand, at least there it's all addition and subtraction rather than multiplication.

Of course I personally love the artificer, but some people in the group also don't like sitting on their butts for weeks when the artificer cranks out their gear.

This is something I've never understood. You're not actually sitting around at the gaming table for any kind of proportional period of time during those in-game weeks. A typical conversation with an NPC usually lasts longer in real-time.

It makes sense in a time-sensitive campaign. In a more episodic campaign, though, what does it matter if there's a few weeks between adventures?

[Aharon]

A large part of an artificer's power comes from infusions, the most powerful of which allow spontaneous access to every spell 1-4 (Spell Storing Item), and to the full list of weapon and armor enhancements (the Armor Enhancement line, the Weapon Augmentation line). These are powerful because of wide access to vast lists of abilities, but you can't leverage that sort of thing without extensive notes and documentation, so that you are just as aware of your breadth of options as your character is.

To give an example, that shows what is possible at first level and just what kind of book-delving one would have to do:

Stygian (1 negative level), 3/day, 10 minutes MIC
Everbright weapon Ref DC 14 blindness, 20ft. Radius, 1 round MIC
Stunning Fort DC 13, 1 round, can only be added to bludgeoning ammunition (i.e. Slings) HoB
Torturous Fort DC 12/17, 1 round stun, Ghostwalk
Cursespewing Will DC 15 –4 morale penalty on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks BoVD
Exhausting Fort DC 14 fatigued Shining South
Viper on Huge Dagger => Large Viper Serpent Kingdoms
Smoking 20% Concealment Lords of Darkness
Rusting – metal objects that come into contact with it rust, Shining south

At 3rd level, the broken sets in without creating any items:
(needs one 1st level infusion slot and one 2nd level infusion slot, summons large elemental of appropriate type for 11 rounds)
Shock/Air Elemental Power
Corrosive/Earth Elemental Power
Flaming/Fire Elemental Power
Frost/Water Elemental Power

[HunterOfJello]

I think the main reasons are as follows:

1. It's a lot of bookkeeping

2. It's a Tier 1 class that doesn't operate as a traditional spellcaster. If you want to learn to play an Artificer, you have to take on a sharp learning curve and playstyle that is completely different from all of the other classes.

3. Artificer is a T1 class for people who are alright with a learning curve and don't feel like playing a Wizard, Cleric, Druid, or any other spellcaster.

~

There are probably lots of people who play Artificers, it just isn't a class that would be great for online play or for novice players. Most people who could play an Artificer likely just turn to the a Wizard or Archivist instead.

I've personally been considering playing a Warforged Crusader 4/Cleric 1/RKV 10//Artificer 15 for a game, but I'm very worried that the character will become too complicated to play when I'm not sure about how dependable the DM and game sessions will be.

[Answerer]

Semi-relevant, I really like this artificer remake (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=146315) for toning down both the power and the paperwork of artificers.

[Endarire]

I made an Artificer for a friend who didn't know much about making 3.5 characters. I would up 'playing' that Artificer.

I made spreadsheets.

The GM soon ended that campaign and banned Artificers from that campaign setting.

Downtime and bookkeeping were pains. Big pains. Artificers are an Expert level class. At least Archivists don't usually need to make spreadsheets and crafting queues.

[Ranting Fool]

Book keeping can get a bit much... Hey I like Spread Sheets :smallbiggrin:

I often have them as an NPC class since all your handy shopping needs are done by one guy/girl/thing.

[Axier]

Bookkeeping and spreadsheets are why I WOULD play artificer.

It is a steep learning curve that rewards system mastery. The downside is that you can easily fill ANY role, just by equipping yourself properly. How do you avoid stepping on others toes?

First, you need to do all your major bookkeeping completely out of the game, and ensure that you are not hindering the flow of the game. Make every action deliberate, and ahead of time. You always have to be planning.

Second, pick something that the party needs, and focus on it. Personally, I perfer making everyone else better, making items for them. The two to focus on are either Universal Item or Magical Weapons and Armor, depending on what will be more useful for your party. If you have a diverse groupe, Universal Item is better, while Magical Weapons and Armor are more appropriate for melee and ranged combatants. Another thing you can do is fill the role of caster, if you wish, but you must remember to play A role, not ALL of them. Your party want to enjoy the game too.

Third, don't break it. Can you?; Yes. Should you?; Technically yes. Keep a win button handy, but NEVER use it unless you can tell that the DM is about to accidently TPK you.

In short, be a team player, don't piss off the DM, and make your PARTY stronger, not yourself. This, I think is why few play Artificer, because "absolute power corrupts, absolutely." If you are not a power monger, it is a great support class that can work well as a background character instead of "The" Hero.

[Analytica]

Also...

- Artificer came out late in the run for 3.5...
- ... and is technically Eberron-specific.

[Arcanist]

I often keep binders full of magical items for my Artificers :smallbiggrin:

[dascarletm]

I didn't find the bookkeeping that difficult. My companions didn't mind downtime since I had a wight for everyone it meant new items for a fraction of the price.