Illumian Artificer

[tricktroller]

Ok Folks,
I am once again wanting to make a fun character and this time I thought artificer was the way to go.

First things first, in the group I will be playing in if you roll triples you add three to the result, i.e., an 18 is a 21. You can then take two points off of a stat to bump another stat up by one point to maximum 18 and minimum 10. Allows you to play around with your stats a bit since you keep them in the order you roll them.

Str 21 (18)
Dex 16
Con 13
Int 17
Wis 17
Cha 18 (15)

Stats after changes
Str 18
Dex 16
Con 14
Int 18
Wis 16
Cha 18

A little bit more about the character.

He will be an "Artificial Illumian" hehe, ahem.

So an artificial Illumian who is effectively ageless just for fun purposes. So no he isn't a construct, he is just effectively immortal. No real benefits in game other than he can't be magically aged I suppose.

His feats are
Flaw 1 Extraordinary Artisan
Flaw 2 Mercantile Background (since he is a subrace of human he can take this right?)
1st University(feat from AEG book +8 skill points at 1st +2 per level after)
Art1 Scribe Scroll
Art2 Brew Potion
3rd Enhanced Power Sigils
Art3 Craft Wondrous Item
Art4 Legendary Artisan
Art5 Craft Arms and Armor
6th Craft Construct
Art7 Craft Wand
Art8 ?
9th ?
Art9 Craft Rod
12th ?
Art12 Craft Staff
Art12 Wand Mastery
Art14 Forge Ring
15th ?
Art16 Extra Rings
18th ?
Art20 ?

So at 3rd level with a masterwork UMD tool and a pair of gloves of +5 UMD, he made himself, Mo has a +20 to UMD and a +24 regarding scrolls (from spellcraft and from artificer artisan bonus).


One thing I have been looking for is a magic item creation calculator but I have had no luck finding one so far. Might have to make it excel....

So thoughts, suggestions, or ideas?

[tricktroller]

Ok so I am bumping this with a bit of good news!

I have been creating a rough Crafting Calculator in Excel that will include Extraordinary Artisan as one of the "tables" I created.

So I have prices for scrolls and wands that you plug in what you want and it spits out how much to buy one, another table for crafting one, and another table for crafting one with extraordinary Artisan.

If anyone would like a copy of my little excel document let me know.

[tricktroller]

So I finished my magic item creator calculator if anyone is interested. Link (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=15253094#post15253094)

But also if anyone has any advice for this I would really appreciate it.

[Tvtyrant]

Do you have a planned item spreadsheet? IE what is your focus as an Artificer, which items are you having your dedicated wright make and in what order, etc.

Artificers are basically what they make.

[tricktroller]

actually I don;t I guess I was just planning to make them willy nilly. Do you have any suggestions?

[Tvtyrant]

actually I don;t I guess I was just planning to make them willy nilly. Do you have any suggestions?

Well with craft Scroll being near the top, you probably should find a list of utility spells to make. Identify is one you are going to need at some point, knock, tongues, Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, remove curse, etc.

It doesn't look like you are going wandificer (no support feats for it) so what is your primary goal in combat?

[swankjon]

Now i'll preface this with what I say to my friends whenever they ask about artificer, anything I say means nothing if it pisses off your DM, and trust me when I say a lot of things that make arty especially fun AND cheesy will do just that depending on his attitude.

That being said, if hes cool with you making custom magic items, then taking Magical Artisan attached to craft wonderous item and craft ring (and maybe staff for late game) will let you make things ludicrously cheap.

My current DM ruled that this is applied to the post craft base cost. Meaning time exp and gold are decreased before your ebberon feats hit the table. Making for some huge discounts on things like continuous freedom of movement and greater blink, and activated etheral jaunt.

The larger your party is the more broken this gets, as the amount of versatility from wonderous items dwarfs pretty much every other type of magic item in the game when custom items come into play.

Anyway, good luck in your adventures.

[swankjon]

Well with craft Scroll being near the top, you probably should find a list of utility spells to make. Identify is one you are going to need at some point, knock, tongues, Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, remove curse, etc.

It doesn't look like you are going wandificer (no support feats for it) so what is your primary goal in combat?

To expand on what hes saying, these spells make great canidates for eternal wands or lesser schemas.

[tricktroller]

really I want to make a jack of all items kind of artificer. I want to be the parties primary crafter using dedicated wrights to make all the items in my bag of holding/portable hole while we adventure, provide knowledge of the areas and cast support spells form scrolls wands etc. I want to be the strongest link in the party by shoring up and weakness we might have.

[Tvtyrant]

The more information you give people the better they can help you. What the rest of your party is (roles, classes, level of optimization) will help with the filling in the missing holes.

From what you have so far, there are a few links you should read.

Shax's Indispensable Haversack (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148101)

Zeroficer (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=11474)

Bargain Bin Spells (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=12661)

Just Suck Spells (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=9207.0) (because you can use them off of a scroll and still be effective.)

Mechonomicon (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19870786/Mechonomicon)

The top two are all about utility, the third and fourth are about abilities that the Artificer is particularly skilled at using. Number 5 is a breakdown of constructs you can make, which as an Artificer is effectively all of them (except psionic ones.)

For your open feats, the question of what level of optimization your party is comes into effect.

One of the best tools of the Artificer is the feat Craft: Contingency. Contingencies are rigged to a certain event and are one time use, but you can make contingencies of any spell in existence. If you really wanted to blow through wealth you could set them up to go off when you wave your hand a certain way and use them as free action scrolls. They cost a bit and you can only have as many as you have HD, but they rock.

[tricktroller]

I saw someone write hordeificer, do they mean a horde of constructs? I thin having a horde of magic items would be better in all honesty, though I will have some constructs.

The group is pretty Monty Hall in all honesty (I mean come on 18's on die rolls turn into 21's) so nothing is going to be disallowed as far as I can tell, however, I would prefer to be awesome but not, total cheese sauce.

[Tvtyrant]

Hordeficer's are not very good, but having a shield guardian/runic guardian goes a long ways to making you live longer.

[tricktroller]

I intend to make some constructs but mostly just dedicated wrights so I can craft a bunch of items at the same time. I intend to sell off a lot of items and I will probably sell all items I create to the group for 75% so they save money and I get money. I think that is fair since that is basically what all of my feats are going to.

I guess I just want to have almost every spell available at my fingertips via magic items.

[Waker]

Like all things, you might benefit a bit from dipping in Incarnate or taking the feat Shape Soulmeld: Mage's Spectacles. The soulmeld (Magic of Incarnum) grants a flat +4 bonus to Decipher Script, Spellcraft and Use Magic Device. If you have essentia to invest (from class, feats or whatever) you can increase this by +2 for each point invested, to a maximum of an extra +8 at level 18 (+12 including the initial bonus).

[tricktroller]

haha actually incarnum is the one thing that is not allowed.