Is the Artificer class broken?

[atemu1234]

It seems broken. At least, at my assessment. Anyone else reach the same conclusion, or am I just crazy?

[Revanmal]

No more broken than wizards or clerics. Without downtime or a Dedicated Wright they're mediocre, since they can't craft. They can certainly power up the rest of the party, so I think that makes them better team players.

[Ansem]

No more broken than wizards or clerics. Without downtime or a Dedicated Wright they're mediocre, since they can't craft. They can certainly power up the rest of the party, so I think that makes them better team players.

You're either a ****ty artificer then or have little knowledge of the spells available.

Artificer is quite broken.
The only thing stopping you is downtime and cash, both which can be fixed with a portable hole and dedicated wrights.
You have Spells/gp instead of Spells/day and you get most spells at a much earlier level (both spell level and caster level) besides the fact you already get +2 earlier levels.
Cure Moderate Wound wands (which is a lvl 1 spell on some lists), same for Haste. Free metamagic..... do I have to say more?

[Oliver Veyrac]

still costs money to make, time to make it (yes we know the dedicated wight trick). Artificers have d6 hit dice, and have to plan way ahead for situations. A well placed sunder attack on an artificer for example is a horrible way to lose an item. I love artificers, but I also plan on my items being destroyed, sundered etc. And I also have purpose no matter what, I am the party trap finder. Most of our infusions take one minute to cast. And if you are in a 0 hero point campaign, rapid infusion once per day, can help. Fabricate the towers ceiling into a statue, so mobs fall down to you. We artificer's don't have climb after all, and why waste a charge for fly.

We are the party buffers. Minor creation + wooden sword + greater magic weapon = fun!

Artificer's are not broken. If you want to talk about broken, tell that to that T-Rex flying around, or that Cleric halfling that is standing on top of the party barbarian, or that frenzied berserker that just killed all of them, and is running in this direction. So, please excuse me, Need to get my rope trick scroll out.

[(Un)Inspired]

still costs money to make, time to make it (yes we know the dedicated wight trick). Artificers have d6 hit dice, and have to plan way ahead for situations. A well placed sunder attack on an artificer for example is a horrible way to lose an item. I love artificers, but I also plan on my items being destroyed, sundered etc. And I also have purpose no matter what, I am the party trap finder. Most of our infusions take one minute to cast. And if you are in a 0 hero point campaign, rapid infusion once per day, can help. Fabricate the towers ceiling into a statue, so mobs fall down to you. We artificer's don't have climb after all, and why waste a charge for fly.

We are the party buffers. Minor creation + wooden sword + greater magic weapon = fun!

Artificer's are not broken. If you want to talk about broken, tell that to that T-Rex flying around, or that Cleric halfling that is standing on top of the party barbarian, or that frenzied berserker that just killed all of them, and is running in this direction. So, please excuse me, Need to get my rope trick scroll out.

Technically being an artificer only costs money and time if you've never played a caster before.

Turning off monetary needs and time constraints is pretty basic stuff.

Beyond that, I think size of HD really only matter for tier 3s and below. I can't imagine how someone could get to a well built artificer to sunder any of his business.

As far as your claim that artificers aren't broken but flying T-Rex's are... Well I can't really seen how a flying dinosaur stacks up to unlimited wishes...

[Ziegander]

It seems broken. At least, at my assessment. Anyone else reach the same conclusion, or am I just crazy?

Yes, Artificers are broken. I can't believe there's more than one person in this thread already trying to claim that they aren't.

[Piggy Knowles]

Is the D&D wealth-by-level system broken (or at least deeply flawed)? If so, then so are artificers.

Artificers get access to any spell, often well before the equivalent full casting class does. Artificers can, in a single minute, cast any 4th-level or below spell in the game without requiring downtime or preparation. Artificers make the WBL chart totally meaningless for any party they are in - not by virtue of silly abuses, like flesh to salt shenanigans, but just by using their class features exactly as intended. Artificers are a cool concept, but they can cause problems in just about any game.

[unseenmage]

Short answer? Yes. But they can still be a lot of fun.

I'm playing both a severely limited Artificer in play by post, low level, no xp tracking, no magic mart (no marts at all really), and serious time constraints. Even the build is limited as he's built to be an Alchemist.

And I'm playing the polar opposite in real life, a high level (though not epic) Artificer with nigh infinite wealth, fast time shenanigans, and who farms multiple Planar Metropolises. Oh and he's Gestalt and Elminster and the Simbul are his bros. And he's met his deity personally.

Both can be fun, but in different ways.

A better question might be; 'Is your DM permissive or not.', as a DMs permissiveness and familiarity with fiat (or lack thereof) are what really make something OP or broken or not.

[The-Mage-King]

Absolutely.


But in the fun way, not the bad way.

[Urpriest]

Yes, which is why they're a Tier 1 class.

[docnessuno]

It seems broken. At least, at my assessment. Anyone else reach the same conclusion, or am I just crazy?

Yes they are.

The answer is the same for any T1 and (to a slightly lower degree) T2 class.

[Shining Wrath]

All Tier 1 classes are broken.
Some are more broken than others.
Given money, the artificer can make every other class in the game significantly better at what they do, using out-of-combat time - that is, they don't need actions to buff you. A lot. A very large lot.
Therefore, I think the Artificer is arguably the most broken class, because not only do you have access to Tier 1 magic, you can also build items usable by others containing said Tier 1 magic.

[Komatik]

All Tier 1 classes are broken.
Some are more broken than others.
Given money, the artificer can make every other class in the game significantly better at what they do, using out-of-combat time - that is, they don't need actions to buff you. A lot. A very large lot.
Therefore, I think the Artificer is arguably the most broken class, because not only do you have access to Tier 1 magic, you can also build items usable by others containing said Tier 1 magic.

StP Erudite says hello. And in some dark, forgotten corner, so does the Arcane Swordsage. :P

[Story]

Yeah, but STP Erudite is a variant of a variant and Arcane Swordsage isn't even fully stated out.

I think Artificer does have the advantage of being able to help out the rest of the party rather than overshadowing them if desired.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Yeah, but STP Erudite is a variant of a variant and Arcane Swordsage isn't even fully stated out.

...I thought Erudite was a base class.

And the fact that WotC even put in that vague but, if you follow it as it is, utterly broken variant of Swordsage says something.

Besides, you can use Artificer to make Iron Man. :smallamused:

[Zetapup]

...I thought Erudite was a base class.

And the fact that WotC even put in that vague but, if you follow it as it is, utterly broken variant of Swordsage says something.

Besides, you can use Artificer to make Iron Man. :smallamused:

Erudite is indeed a base class and the spell to power acf is located here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070629a). It's the same article that gives ardents the dominant ideal acf.

[shadow_archmagi]

"Broken"?

No, the class is fairly well written. It doesn't have that many more weird ambiguities than any other class; it's certainly not a truenamer level of incoherence or poor design.


Unless you meant "Overpowered" which, of course, depends on your group's ideas of "Appropriately Powered." Certainly, my artificers never really disrupted group harmony that much.

[Story]

Erudite is indeed a base class and the spell to power acf is located here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070629a). It's the same article that gives ardents the dominant ideal acf.

Erudite is a variant of the Psion class. In fact, its section is specifically titled "Variant Psion: The Erudite", and it's listed in the back of the book, not with the other base classes.

Anyway, Arcane Swordsage is horribly broken, but to be fair, the section reads more like it's giving suggestions to the DM than actual rules. The way it says that "in general" X spells "are most appropriate" makes it sound like they expected the DM to manually approve the spells and just suggested which ones to look at. Of course even if played like that, it'd probably be broken unless the DM has a lot more system mastery than the authors did.

Then again, it's an offhand mention in an adaptation. You can't expect the same care that went into designing entire base classes like the Monk and Truenamer.

[AnonymousPepper]

Absolutely.

I mean, it's well-written. But it's still freaking broken as all get-out.

I'm looking right now at an Artificer I whipped up for a campaign the other day. It's easily possible to have a well-optimized artificer have 120000GP worth of items at level 7. As a fresh character using WBL guidelines for GP and XP. Said artificer also has good saves, good BAB, and can create magic items two caster levels above his own. I could easily be rocking a +4 weapon with absolutely no problem.

[SinsI]

A class is broken if it takes the fun out of everyone else's play.
Due to the nature of his powers(boosting others), Artificer is an exact opposite of "broken".

[mangosta71]

Artificer's are not broken. If you want to talk about broken, tell that to that T-Rex flying around, or that Cleric halfling that is standing on top of the party barbarian, or that frenzied berserker that just killed all of them, and is running in this direction. So, please excuse me, Need to get my rope trick scroll out.
Waitaminute, are you trying to say that Frenzied Berserker is broken? :smallconfused:

[Shining Wrath]

A class is broken if it takes the fun out of everyone else's play.
Due to the nature of his powers(boosting others), Artificer is an exact opposite of "broken".

There's several definitions of "broken". Truenamer is broken, too, in a different way. Yours is one of the good ones, so I approve of "taking the fun out of everyone else's play" as a definition of "broken", just not the only one.

I myself was taking "broken" to mean "a good optimizer can, without extreme cheese, easily outshine a Tier 3 character", which is why I opined that all Tier 1 classes are "broken". I've played with Artificers who didn't limit themselves to building stuff for the rest of us, they were also firing Maximized Scorching Rays from their wands backed up by rods. It's annoying to be the Warblade and watch the big guy you've been beating down fifty HP a round suddenly vaporize.

[Zetapup]

Erudite is a variant of the Psion class. In fact, its section is specifically titled "Variant Psion: The Erudite", and it's listed in the back of the book, not with the other base classes.

Ah, my bad. For some reason I thought it was in Complete Psionic :smallredface:

[Karnith]

Ah, my bad. For some reason I thought it was in Complete Psionic :smallredface:
It is in Complete Psionic; it's just that it's in the back of the book as a variant, rather than in the first chapter with the other base classes.

[Piggy Knowles]

A class is broken if it takes the fun out of everyone else's play.
Due to the nature of his powers(boosting others), Artificer is an exact opposite of "broken".

That's one way you can play the artificer, sure. That's the way I'd play it. But that doesn't change the fact that the artificer can choose to boost himself instead, or can choose to just shut down the game with broken WBL shenanigans.

Artificers are broken because they completely screw up one of the (admittedly already screwed up) fundamental aspects of balance: appropriate wealth by level. Other characters can do this too, but not nearly as thoroughly.

[Kennisiou]

Artificer, Wizard, and STP Erudite are probably the top of Tier 1, arguably "tier 0" since they can all completely outclass the other Tier 1s if build properly (this is especially true of the psionic artificer variant).

[MadGreenSon]

Artificers can be very broken in a lot of ways. But as the primary DM for my group and one who freely ignores Wealth by Level (partially because my players spend tons on stuff that has no impact on their op-level) I like having a Artificer in the group.

I like it because it makes it easy on me when generating large scale dungeons, locations and huge numbers of powerful foes, I can just random generate treasure for the most part and any magic stuff they don't need, the Artificer will recycle into something useful (or into a Portable Bathhouse and Sauna with built in construct masseuses...long story) and everyone is happy.

Artificers make life as DM easy for me, so their brokeness is welcome at my table!

[SowZ]

There's a reason Artificer, especially Psionic Artificer, is called Tier 0. If you disallow custom magic item rules, it might bring them back down to normal Tier 1 but they're still boss. But like a buffing Wizard, a generous Artificer doesn't break the game in the same was as CoDZilla. He can bring the whole party up in power, so all the DM has to do is scale up the encounters and it's all gravy.

[Telonius]

Artificer has more hoops to jump through both in terms of in-game requirements (like UMD checks and crafting), and out-of-game requirements (like sifting through mountains of spells and math that's a bit more complicated than the typical Wizard or Cleric). But they're just as broken as any of the other Tier 1 classes.

[docnessuno]

That's one way you can play the artificer, sure. That's the way I'd play it. But that doesn't change the fact that the artificer can choose to boost himself instead, or can choose to just shut down the game with broken WBL shenanigans.

Artificers are broken because they completely screw up one of the (admittedly already screwed up) fundamental aspects of balance: appropriate wealth by level. Other characters can do this too, but not nearly as thoroughly.

I could gain infinite gold pretty early using core only if i wanted to.

[unseenmage]

I could gain infinite gold pretty early using core only if i wanted to.

Create Water cast twice plus Water to Acid (St) plus buy/make a bunch if vials or flasks or bottles.

Putting those spells into a Spellsong Nightingale (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070115a) is my personal favorite way to accomplish this.

This combo is really nice because it creates a consumable and so rarely breaks economies. And because it's not truly infinite.

[docnessuno]

Create Water cast twice plus Water to Acid (St) plus buy/make a bunch if vials or flasks or bottles.

Putting those spells into a Spellsong Nightingale (https://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070115a) is my personal favorite way to accomplish this.

This combo is really nice because it creates a consumable and so rarely breaks economies. And because it's not truly infinite.

Or buying ladders and selling poles.

Or just acquiring a candle of invocation, removing even the need to sell your goods (market saturation might be a factor otherwise).