Artificer & Crafting Tips

[javijuji]

One of my players wants to give the Artificer a try. We are all experienced players but we have stayed away from some books such as eberron, psionics and tome of battle. Mostly cause we felt like we were better off learning to play simpler stuff first. Now that we are integrating eberron and hence artificers I was wondering how to deal with the whole crafting side of it. So far we did not use crafting at all. We simply shopped for most of our equipment. But looking at the crafting formulas it seems to take a very long time to craft even the simplest things. Then there is the alternative Craft Point system. Which looks really good on paper but I ask myself what will happen when my player runs out of Crafting Points. Yes, he could level up to get more. But then what? At lvl 20 he has no more crafting points and no real way of getting any? Is there anyway to modifie Retain Essence to grant crafting points?

How do you deal with these concerns in your games?

[Flickerdart]

The Artificer works best when your campaign has periods of downtime between adventures. After a big score, a party is likely to settle down for a little while and sell what they've looted, and then spend that money on smokes and booze. During this time, the Artificers should be crafting. If there's no downtime like that, the Artificer can use a Dedicated Wright in a Bag of Holding to craft while he's busy adventuring.

[javijuji]

The most downtime we have is 1 or 2 days in cities. After that its back to adventuring. What is a Wright and where can I find it? Would that be avaliable to good aligned players? And what about the very long crafting times. It seems to take years to be able to craft anything worthwile.

[docnessuno]

Actually an artificer can enchant magic items just fine while adventuring, provided your DM isn't incredibly fond of attacking your party during sleep.

By crafting a Dedicated Wright [ECS 285] you will have a little construct that will advance your magical items while the party rests.

Also nothing pre-epic takes "years" to complete. The time needed to enchant a magical item is (usually) one day for every 1.000 gp of it's market price. Also consider that many of the most expansive items are usually crafted in "parts" upgrading it along the way.

As an example:

Crafting a cloak of resistance +1: 1 day
Upgrading it to a cloak of resistance +2: 3 days
Upgrading it to a cloak of resistance +3: 5 days
Upgrading it to a cloak of resistance +4: 7 days
Upgrading it to a cloak of resistance +5: 9 days

[Rubik]

The most downtime we have is 1 or 2 days in cities. After that its back to adventuring. What is a Wright and where can I find it? Would that be avaliable to good aligned players? And what about the very long crafting times. It seems to take years to be able to craft anything worthwile.The dedicated wright in the Eberron Campaign Setting book. It's a construct that crafts for you once you've put in an hour of work and given it all the things it needs to craft (gp and xp). You can run and do other things while it puts in the legwork. It's Neutral, and can be crafted by any character, and used by that character to do its thing.

As far as lowering crafting times, there's a feat for that in the ECS book, and anything that lowers the base price (such as the Craft Dreamgift feat, from Hyperconscious, or the Apprentice [Craftsman] feat, from the DMG II) will lower craft times accordingly.

[edit]


Also nothing pre-epic takes "years" to complete. The time needed to enchant a magical item is (usually) one day for every 1.000 gp of it's market price. Also consider that many of the most expansive items are usually crafted in "parts" upgrading it along the way.To avoid confusion, this isn't 1 day per gp. It's 1 day per 1,000.00 gp.

[javijuji]

Excelent. Seems like it will work out. If an Artificer works in conjunction with the Dedicated Wright would he in fact work twice as fast and enchant things in half the time? Is it better to buy the items and enchant them or to fabricate the items from scratch (Say should I buy a masterwork longsword and then enchant it or craft the longsword and enchant it?)

[Gavinfoxx]

A Dedicated Wright (EbCS), in a workshop in an Enveloping Pit (Magic Item Compendium), means that the artificer can craft while adventuring!

[javijuji]

Is a day of work considered 8-16 or 24 hours of work? In this case since the Dedicated Wright works 24 hours non stop would it be considered to craft at 2 or 3 times the normal speed?

Is there a limit to how many dedicated Wrights you can create?

[Gavinfoxx]

A day of work for purposes of crafting an enchanted item, magically, is 8 hours of work, which can only be done once every 24 hours.

A DM will have to decide about whether or not Dedicated Wrights can work in parallel or not. The decision will potentially have far-reaching implications for your campaign setting.

[Axier]

The BIGGEST thing about Artificers is the bookkeeping. Spreadsheets and calculations abound. An Artificer needs to be ready to take out of game time to prepare his or her in game creations, because of all the bookwork involved in making items, especially when you get into cost reductions and the craft pool, can get really awkward.

Another thing is they need to be ready to make deals for junk. Anything the party can't use, and/or won't likely use is better used a fuel for his or her crafting pool. This also has a play in what the DM uses as loot, and can make your job a little more comlpicated. Artificers thrive in random loots, especially if your party never seems to get anything useful. If left unchecked, the Artificer can draw so much experience from the common chaff, that crafting items will have absolutely no recourse. And if the Artificer ever needs funds, they can also sell this stuff, so you need to sometimes make loot that the party will use outright.

The Artificer also must be cooperative. The Artificer's main point, the creation of items, can drastically benefit the party, giving them access to items they would normally not have, and keep them well armed and armored. Because of his or her role, however, the Artificer must make sure not to become the "anvil jocky", and do nothing but craft for the party. This can be detrimental to the ego, and inflict problems in roleplay, unless they want to be an anvil jocky.

Artificers also have "spells" in the form of infusions. They are lengthy buffs, free and cheap, and have plenty of versitility. Choose wisely.

[javijuji]

Any recommendations on Action Points? I dont think I want to include them Since that would affect all the players and not just the artificer. And most of them dont know what Action points are nor how they work. Would an artificer be nerfed too much without Action points? Any recommendations?

[Gavinfoxx]

No, not nerfed too much -- since, you know... It's possibly the most powerful class in the entire game...

It's certainly arguably the most difficult class to play in the game!

[DaTedinator]

It does hurt, though, if an Artificer isn't able to speed up their infusions. I've seen and used a couple fixes for Artificers without action points.

Option one is to let them hasten their infusions as a +1 metamagic; so a Personal Weapon Augmentation cast in a 2nd level slot takes 1 round instead of 1 minute. This is my preferred fix as long as I'm starting the game with the artificer having access to 2nd level infusions. If they only have first level, then that means they don't get to hasten their infusions at all yet, so I like to use a different option.

Option two is to give them the Rapid Infusion feat for free (letting them hasten one infusion per day). This is kind of free power, but in a world without action points, I don't think it's too bad.

Option three is to slash the duration of the infusion. Let artificers hasten any infusion they want, but the duration drops to 1 round/level. I don't think there are any 1 minute casting time infusions that already have durations measured in rounds, but if they exist, those ones should have their durations cut to 1 round.

[Flickerdart]

There's a 4th level Bard spell called Unfettered Heroism that grants 1 AP per round that expires at the end of the round. Artificers should have no problem getting wands or custom items of this, and if hastening infusions is the only use APs have, then the game balance won't be touched.

[Madcrafter]

There's a 4th level Bard spell called Unfettered Heroism that grants 1 AP per round that expires at the end of the round. Artificers should have no problem getting wands or custom items of this, and if hastening infusions is the only use APs have, then the game balance won't be touched.

My artificer built himself an amulet of that spell. It was glorious (also, totally Iron Man with a glowing blue jewel on your chest that makes you awesome, and mithril fullplate).

Artificers require a lot more work in planning on both the DM and player side of things than basically any other class. You can directly control his power (and by extension the party's) through how much loot you give out. Just remember that doubling everyone's WBL is a class feature, unless you are uncomfortable with that, in which case you can reign it back in.

I think you could easily modify craft points to be affected by retain essence IIRC how they work.

And as for action points, as others have said, it hurts, but it is possible to live without them (though I'm not sure if I'd want to play an artificer without them, especially if the party is not fond of planning things beforehand/ they get in a lot of unexpected encounters).

[javijuji]

They dont run into unexpected encounters but they try to solve them like Grog the Barbarian and tend to die because of it. Yesterday they had no better idea than to fight a beetle swarm in a 5' tunnel. Needless to say half the party died. They also had to fight a flying sphinx and only 2 members of the party (2 rogues, 1 druid, 1 warlock, 1 monk) had ranged attacks.