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Draco Ignifer
2007-01-13, 04:26 AM
So, just was looking over the Eberron Campaign Guide, and I noticed something that seems like a rather serious error. There are three separate feats within said book which reduce one of the limiting factors on creating magic items by 25% - Exceptional Artisan, which reduces time to create, Extraordinary Artisan, which reduces gold costs, and Legendary Artisan, which reduces GP costs.

Now, these seem rather useful... except that, next to each of them, they have a little 2. On the bottom of the page, it indicates that this 2 means that they can be taken multiple times, with the effects stacking each time. A human Artificer has 12 feats by level 18. If the DM allows flaws, they may have 12 feats by level 15. If I'm interpreting this right, by using those 12 feats, the Artisan may reduce their costs of creating magic items by 100% in each of the three categories. Hence, they may literally generate any magical item craftable at their level plus two from thin air.

So, two questions. First, am I totally missing the mark here? The only limitation I can find on this is that it takes a minimum of one day to create a magic item. Unless there's some sort of errata, it seems like these people have the obscene power of being able to generate any weapon, armor, scroll, miscellaneous magic item, tome of +5 to stats, or the like as they see fit. Second, is there any real way, aside from GM fiat or a plea for sanity's sake, of stopping a level 12 artificer (or level 8 if the GM permits flaws) from taking Exceptional and Legendary artisan four times, and creating a few trillion gold by turning their supplies into magic items, then selling them for twice as many supplies, and lathering, rinsing, and repeating?

tarbrush
2007-01-13, 04:39 AM
I'm not seeing the 2 that you're talking about on my copy.

Hario
2007-01-13, 04:45 AM
They Errata'ed the stacking of this for obvious reason, though I really don't see what is so obsenely horrible about taking each one 3 times, there are more useful things to put your feats on. Also keep in mind a thing that sets back the artificer no matter what is time and that they usually don't have a forge wherever they go so they really can't do EVERYTHING but honestly they are no better (weaker even) than a wizard. People argue having access to every spell 2 levels quicker than everyone else makes it the most broken class ever, in theory yes but the artificer makes 1 time use items like scrolls and those takes time, it takes a wizard 1 day to learn a 9th lvl spell it takes an artificer 7 days to make a scroll to be able to cast it. Also with the abundance of magic items and guilds, if the artificer starts selling items for obscene amounts of money compared to how much he spends, guilds like house cannith would eventually intercede at some point. So it all balances itself out.

Roderick_BR
2007-01-13, 04:59 AM
Well, based on the Forgotten Realms version, I think it applies for each kind of item creation for each time you buy it, i.e.: Brew Potion, Craft Arms and Armors, etc... you can't stack two feats for the same thing, i.e. Exceptional Artisan twice for Craft Arms and Weapons. You can, however, apply different feats for the same kind, as in Exceptional Artisan and Extraordinary Artisan for Craft Arms and Weapons.

Hario
2007-01-13, 05:56 AM
no Roderick they apply to all item creation feats, otherwise it'd be COMPLETELY underpowered, especially when you get to epic levels and you can't make artifacts because you wasted all your feats on extrodinary artisan: scribe scroll. If you need to know more about Artificers there is a whole page on them on the WoTC board in the eberron section.

Ramza00
2007-01-13, 06:19 AM
Eberron
Exceptional Artisan [Item Creation] (Eb p52), Time 25% for all items
Extraordinary Artisan [Item Creation] (Eb p53) Material Cost 25% for all items.
Legendary Artisan [Item Creation] (Eb p56) XP cost 25% for all items.

Faeurn
Magical Artisan [General] (PGF p41) Time, Material, and XP 25% for one type of item (either wands, staffs, armor, scrolls, etc, only one.). Magical Artisan can be taken multiple times each time choose a different item creation feat it affects.

Arbitrarity
2007-01-13, 11:15 AM
No XP cost... and no Gp cost... -_-...

I say it decreases the lower value, i.e. 100%, 75%, 56.25%, etc.

Valairn
2007-01-13, 01:03 PM
Oh no!!! Not 56.25% my math muscles are weak!

PinkysBrain
2007-01-13, 01:22 PM
As Hario said, you can't take them multiple times anymore. It's in the ERRATA.

Ephraim
2007-01-13, 01:26 PM
No XP cost... and no Gp cost... -_-...

I say it decreases the lower value, i.e. 100%, 75%, 56.25%, etc.

This is how I would approach it. Tell the player, "The law of diminishing returns nullifies your attempt at powergaming. The universe is laughing at you." For those of you who are disinclined to find a calculator, the results are as follows:

1 instance of feat: 75%*(1) = 75%
2 instances of feat: 75%*75% = 56%
3 instances of feat: 75%*56% = 42%
4 instances of feat: 75%*42% = 32%

So instead of getting the cost/time/XP down to 0, you get it down to about a third of the original value. Getting the feat twice might still be worthwhile, though, if crafting is going to be your BIG thing.

Ashes
2007-01-13, 01:46 PM
As has already been said, it's been errata'ed. The feats can only be taken once.

Ephraim
2007-01-13, 01:54 PM
As has already been said, it's been errata'ed. The feats can only be taken once.

Errata is WotC exercising developer fiat. The solution that Arbitrarity and I have suggested is just another way of fixing the problem for people who like allowing multiple instances of Exceptional Artisan but who don't want it to be broken.

Douglas
2007-01-13, 03:21 PM
Even without errata, there's the Text Trumps Table rule. That little note on the table is the only mention that any of those feats can be taken multiple times, where in every other instance of stacking feats that I have ever seen it is mentioned in the full text description under a "Special" heading. Said section with a note on taking it multiple times and stacking is completely absent from the text of the feat and its absence overrides anything in the table.

Tor the Fallen
2007-01-13, 03:28 PM
Would Extraordinary and Magical Artisan add (like in the rules) for 1/2 of base price, or multiply, (like real math) for 56.25% of base price?

Ephraim
2007-01-13, 03:38 PM
Would Extraordinary and Magical Artisan add (like in the rules) for 1/2 of base price, or multiply, (like real math) for 56.25% of base price?

If they're both available in your game, I would recommend multiplying them. Generally speaking, I wouldn't allow them in the same game, though. If I understood correctly, Magical Artisan is from a different campaign setting.

Ramza00
2007-01-13, 04:11 PM
Would Extraordinary and Magical Artisan add (like in the rules) for 1/2 of base price, or multiply, (like real math) for 56.25% of base price?
Different Campaign Setting so they both shouldn't be in the same world :smallwink:

SpiderBrigade
2007-01-14, 01:13 AM
What about the idea that "if it's in D&D, there's room for it in Eberron?"

Ephraim
2007-01-14, 01:26 AM
What about the idea that "if it's in D&D, there's room for it in Eberron?"

I'm not arguing that there isn't any room for it, but if including a particular feat is automatically going to raise questions about whether or not that feat needs to be nerfed, then it may be better to just leave it out.

TheOOB
2007-01-14, 01:43 AM
The feats can only be taken once, the feat table has no in game value, it's just a quick reference, the full rules text of the feats take precedense, and theres nothing in the full text that allows those feats to stack.

As for mixing and matching feats from FR and Eberron, no DM should allow that. Artifacer is quite possibly the most overpowered WotC created base class in the game, and making their items take 50% to make makes them twice as powerful. Artifacers can do anything oftentimes just as good or even better then the class their emulating.

AmoDman
2007-01-14, 01:44 AM
This is how I would approach it. Tell the player, "The law of diminishing returns nullifies your attempt at powergaming. The universe is laughing at you." For those of you who are disinclined to find a calculator, the results are as follows:

1 instance of feat: 75%*(1) = 75%
2 instances of feat: 75%*75% = 56%
3 instances of feat: 75%*56% = 42%
4 instances of feat: 75%*42% = 32%

So instead of getting the cost/time/XP down to 0, you get it down to about a third of the original value. Getting the feat twice might still be worthwhile, though, if crafting is going to be your BIG thing.

It's a fix alright, but obviously a "fix," as I'm assuming the description is probably worded something like "%25 less than would normally cost," though it might not be, *shrugs*. I think it's hilarious, actually.

"That man just blinked and 29 Braces of Dexterity appeared!"

"Oh him? He does that."

oriong
2007-01-14, 02:01 AM
imagine pulling that trick with a necklace of fireballs.

Douglas
2007-01-14, 02:03 AM
"Just 29 Bracers of Dexterity? That's nothing. Why, I remember the Luckstone avalanche of '89, knocked down a nasty wizard's castle with him still in it and covered the whole area with tons upon tons of magical gravel, all conjured up out of thin air in the same instant." :smallbiggrin:

Mewtarthio
2007-01-14, 03:34 AM
Hm...

"Woah! Were did that sword come from?"
"I'm an Artificer. I built it."
"But you just pulled the thing from nowhere!"
"I built it really, really quickly."

Ramza00
2007-01-14, 03:56 AM
What about the idea that "if it's in D&D, there's room for it in Eberron?"

Now lets look at the original quote from 2002.

Everything about the Dungeons & Dragons game that you love has a place in the Eberron Campaign Setting. That's because one of the prime mandates about the new campaign world was that it needed to support everything in the three core rulebooks and provide a foundation upon which any supplement could rest. So, all the stuff you're used to playing, fighting, exploring, discovering, creating, and so on is the same stuff you'll be having fun with when you play a campaign set in Eberron. Most of the elements in your existing campaigns can be ported directly over -- a lot of the changes you'll find in the Eberron Campaign Setting are, essentially, cosmetic changes that give the traditional D&D material a particular Eberronian look, feel, or flavor. Check it out:

------------------------------------------------------------------

The word supplement refers to the generic stuff that you can find in Complete Arcane, Dragon Magic, Heroes of Horror, the Races books etc. Not the Players Guide to Faerun. Don't get me wrong some of the stuff in FR should be ported over, but that is a DM decision, the players don't have a general mandate all books apply to Eberron.

SpiderBrigade
2007-01-14, 09:47 AM
Heheh, yeah, I should have smileyed that post :smallwink:
I was mostly poking fun, because it's something you hear a lot from people who want to mix all of their splat books together to make something sick, and see Eberron as a way to do that.

Ephraim
2007-01-14, 01:43 PM
Heheh, yeah, I should have smileyed that post :smallwink:
I was mostly poking fun, because it's something you hear a lot from people who want to mix all of their splat books together to make something sick, and see Eberron as a way to do that.

Oh, sorry. Your avatar shows a dude wielding a spiked chain, so I just assumed you were one of those people.
^_~