Cc/God Artificer help

[Zakier]

In an upcoming campaign I will be playing an artificer.

Here's is my build.


Warforged Artificer lvl 6

Stats

Str 10, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 18, Wis 10, Cha 15

Race Modifiers already applied and the stat point was put in int.



Lvl 1 warforged artificer for infuse self

Lvl 4 tools of war

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Non Combatant: "You are relatively inept at melee combat."

Effect:*You take a -2 penalty on all melee attack rolls.
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Weak Will: "You are highly suggestible and easily duped."

Effect:*You take a -3 penalty on Will saves.
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Individualist: "You are committed to a path that requires complete independence from others."

Effect:*You suffer a -2 penalty on all attack rolls made using weapons that you have not personally crafted. In addition, the armor check penalty of any suit of armor you wear that you did not craft increases by +1.

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(F) = tied to flaw
(B) = bonus from class options
(DM)= a dm given bonus feat from house rules.


(F) jack of all trades
because we are not allowed to craft that type of item if the skill is untrained. dm house rule. this feat means every skill is considered trained. though it doesn't make everything a class skill.

(F) legendary artisan
discount

need 3rd feat from flaw. thinking reach spell meta magic but could go with something else if suggested.

--------
Normal feats

lvl 1 apprentice (craftsman)
for the crafting discount

(DM) extraordinary artisan discount

lvl 3 item familiar (composite armor) dm approved

lvl 4 (B) considering craft construct

the reason I'm only considering this is because of our house rule. As warforged I can craft during the 8 hour downtime and be party night watch. dm has determined that if we are attacked during the night I make no progress. if not then I do make progress.

however he has also house ruled that a dedicated Wright which is essentially a magical construct would complete 3 eight hour sessions per day tripling progress since he believes it makes no sense for this construct specifically designed to craft would refuse to work more than 8 hours.

lvl 6 magical artisan.
applied to either craft wand or craft Wondrous item.



Our group is going to consist of a powerhouse built barbarian who is extreamly well built to do massive dmage and almost always hits because of his strength. A Telflammer Shadow Lord assassin who is exceptionally good at forcing his sneak attack damage almost all the time, and a cleric that understands "Thou art not the party bandaid" and has built themselves to smite their foes as efficiently as possible.

Obviously the party has damage covered but is lacking in utility as the rogue is damage build high Dex.

The kicker is these players (while having excellent builds) are still fairly new and both me and the main DM want them to have a fun experience so I've decided to be this artificer.

The concept behind him is a mixed battlefield control utility artificer.

I plan to do things on par with a crowd control built wizard, a terrain manipulator and party crafter.

I will be manipulating fights to increase the other players effectiveness. Buffs for the barbarian, creating shadows and opportunities to strike for the rogue, healing assistance to back the cleric so they can smite people, I'll handle traps and all the other minutia.

The game is going to start soon nd I've got 13k gold to spend. I'm allowed to spend all of it crafting items and I need some good starting stuff.

I was thinking of making wands to do the things I mentioned above and I've got a couple made.

What I need from you guys is suggestions on the 3rd feat from flaws, if I should take craft construct or choose something else since the only real reason I might take it is for the wright and what other good things to make t this level.


What do you think are some must have spells, Items and adventuring gear that would make my job easier to pull this off?

Suggestions on mundane adventuring gear would also be appreciated.

[cagemarrow]

I don't think you can take craft construct till 6th level, since it requires craft wondrous item and craft arms and armor as prerequisites. Did you give up create humonculous as your alternate class feature? If your DM allows any Forgotten Realms feats applying Magical Artisan to your Legendary Artisan feat can get you another 25% discount on magical crafting. You can even see if it will stack with the other Eberron feats but they end up with diminishing returns.

For gear I recommend lots and lots of shape sand from the sandstorm book. It allows you to reshape it into any mundane tool you can craft with a dc 16 wisdom check. It doesn't specify but a general rule I follow is it requires an equal weight of sand to make an item. Just keep trying until you make the check. It stays in shape as long as it's within 100ft of you.

You'll want an item of at will Unseen Crafter (2nd level spell) and then Fabricate (3rd level Trapsmith spell) asap. Then you can have your Dedicated Wright concentrate on magical items. As the trap finder an at will item of Spontaneous Search is also amazing, full round action to search everything in a 20ft radius.

As a buffer you'll also want to look into extend and persist as meta magics, at 6th level you could persist Mass Lesser Vigor with 2 first and third level infusions to give 6 characters fast healing 1 for the whole day. Specifically Spell Storing Infusion and Meta Magic spell trigger. Ends up being amazing out of combat healing.

For combat utility eternal wands are always a good investment, 2/day arcane spells of any utility spells are great. Knock, sleep, color spray are great ones to have available. If you can find arcane versions snakes swiftness and mass snakes swiftness are also good. Nothing says team player like letting your party damage dealer take another swing on your turn when you don't have anything better to do yourself.

Remember with spell storing infusion you can make a temporary 1 charge wand of any spell with one minute of prep, faster if you burn an action point. The xp cost is almost always worth it. Especially if you can refill your craft pool with retain essence eating any magic traps you come across. They hold a surprising amount as they don't follow the normal xp costs for item creation, see the DMG for specifics.

[Zakier]

Applied magical artisan at level 6 to Wondrous item as my dm vetoed applying it to exceptional/legendary/extraordinary artisan citing that while they are categorized as item creation feats they do not actually allow a specific item creation and applying it as such defeats its original purpose of needing to be taken multiple times to get the discounr on multiple types of creation.

Artificer gets craft Wondrous item at lvl 3 and craft arms and armor at 4 allowing craft construct as your level 4 bonus feat from artificer class if you need it in exchange for craft homunculus being excluded by taking tools of war instead



Beginning at 4th level, a war-forged artificer becomes particularly talented at affecting the tools of war (constructs, living constructs, and magic arms and armor) with his infusions and enhancements. Each time the warforged artificer imbues an infusion on a construct or living construct (including himself) or on a magic weapon, magic shield, or suit of magic armor, he can repair the target object of a number of points of damage equal to his Charisma modifier (minimum 1). This benefit is in addition to the infusion’s normal effect.

In addition, whenever the warforged artificer spends points from his craft reserve to add a magical property to any construct or living construct (including himself), to create a construct, or to create or enhance magic armor, a magic shield, or a magic weapon, each point spent is worth 2 XP. This benefit replaces the standard artificer’s craft homunculus feature.



Really useful for stretching the craft reserve and construct is more versatile than homunculus. Especially as with it you can still make homunculi.


Good suggestion on fabricate and unseen servant. Woo definately make things another in some places though with finding in building some magical artificer tools that might be more useful lol at least more so than argent. Fabricate still useful at high levels. ..



Artificer's Toolkit (CL 10)

This custom made toolkit is the pride of an artificer trade. When using this toolkit the artificer gains a +2 Circumstance to any craft check made with it just like a set of Masterwork Artisan tools.

These tools have been Enchanted to provide a +4 Bonus to Intelligence when actively being used to Craft.

Additionally these tools have a number of Spells that can be activated once per day each during the crafting process and can be activated at the same time for even greater effect.

*Divine Insight (CL 10) 1/day
*Guidance of the Avatar (CL 1) 1/day
*Surge of Fortune (CL 9) 1/day

Requires:
Class must be Artificer,
Cannot be used on any craft skill that is untrained.

Moderate Transmutation, CL 10th, Craft Wonderous Item, Divine Insight, Guidance of the Avatar, Surge of Fortune, Fox's Cunning
Price 56,415gp



Base item:
Masterwork Artisan Kit
+2 Circumstance Bonus to all Craft
55gp

Enhancement Bonus
+4²×1000=16,000(Greater)



Divine Insight (1/day)(cl 6)

(Complete Adventurer, p. 147)*

Divination*
Level:*Cleric 2,*Paladin 2,*
Components:*V,*S,*DF,*
Casting Time:*1 standard action
Range:*Personal
Target:*You
Duration:*1 hour/level or until discharged (D)

When you cast this spell, you invoke the power of your deity to guide your actions. Once during the spell's duration, you can choose to use its effect. This spell grants you an *insight*
bonus equal to 5 + your caster level (maximum bonus of +15) on any single skill check. Activating the effect requires an immediate action. You must choose to use*divine insight*before you make the check you want to modify. Once used, the spell ends.

You can't have more than one*divine insight*effect active on you at the same time.

Also appears in

Spell Compendium

Cost:
((2×10×1800)÷(5÷1))=7200gp




Guidance of the Avatar
Divination
Level:*Clr 2
Components:*V, S
Casting Time:*1 action
Range:*Touch
Target:*Creature touched
Duration:*1 minute or until discharged
Saving Throw:*None
Spell Resistance:*Yes

Your deity's chosen avatar imbues the subject with divine power. The creature gets a +20 competence bonus on a single skill check and must choose to use the bonus before making the roll to which it applies.

1×2×1800/(5/1)=760



*To be added to the item later.


Surge of Fortune(1/day)(cl9)

(Complete Champion, p. 128)*

Transmutation*
Level:*Cleric 5,*
Components:*V,*S,*DF,*
Casting Time:*1 standard action
Range:*Personal
Target:*You
Duration:*1 round/level or until discharged

The power of your deity flows through you, guiding your movements and honing your instincts.

Upon casting this spell, you gain a +2 luck bonus on attack rolls and damage rolls, saving throws, skill checks, ability checks, and spell penetration checks, as well as to Armor Class.

At any point before the spell expires, you can channel some of its remaining power into a single instant of perfect fortune as an immediate action. The result of the next attack roll, saving throw, skill check, ability check, or spell penetration check you attempt is treated as a natural 20, as long as it occurs within 1 round of the time you invoked this power. (If you use it for an attack roll, you must still roll to confirm the critical hit normally). Using this option instantly ends the spell.

Cost:
((5×9×1800)÷(5×1))*2=32,400
(Multiplied it since multiple different ability says higher cost is multiplied by 2)


Final Modifiers and Cost:

Usable only by an artificer.


32400+16000+
7200+760+(base item 55)

Base cost: 56415g


Reductions.
Craft .50
Only usable by Artificer, .70
Mag art .75
Extr art .75
Appr .90
Craft skill restriction .90



Total bonus to craft 2+2+15+20+nat20=59 before stats and ranks.

[cagemarrow]

Nice item. :)

As far as the feats go I thought Artificers got craft humunculous at 4th and arms and armor at 5th normally, don't have my books right now to check though.

The Unseen Crafter at will is amazing until you get fabricate, even after that really for large scale projects. Each casting lasts for 3 days at minimum level and uses your crafting skill. The real trick though is to use multiple castings to Aid Another after your first one to give a stacking +2 to the checks. You can use this to make really fancy items, or increase the DC by increments of 10 to craft faster.

If you're persisting spells don't forget you can reduce the cost of items by using a persisted version as the base spell to use the durations of longer than an hour discount. For example alter self usually has a minute per level duration, using your spell storing and metamagic spell trigger infusions you can provide a 24 hour version of the spell without increasing the spell level. This in turn reduces the overall cost of continuous use items by half. It'll cost you the spell storing xp for the casting though. Well worth it.

Alter self is especially fun as a warfoged because you can choose constructs as your forms, and Animated Objects of small medium or large size become available and you can pretend to be a transformer if you want. Or just literally be the party wagon. :)

[Zakier]

Glad you like the item. Exceptionally useful for crafting and was able to push it's near cheesiness through because its pretty much only usable for crafting unless I wanna take it out during combat for 1 round.

Yes normally at level 4 an artificer gets craft homunculus. U however opted for the alternate class feature for warforged artificer to take tools of war.




Beginning at 4th level, a war-forged artificer becomes particularly talented at affecting the tools of war (constructs, living constructs, and magic arms and armor) with his infusions and enhancements. Each time the warforged artificer imbues an infusion on a construct or living construct (including himself) or on a magic weapon, magic shield, or suit of magic armor, he can repair the target object of a number of points of damage equal to his Charisma modifier (minimum 1). This benefit is in addition to the infusion’s normal effect.

In addition, whenever the warforged artificer spends points from his craft reserve to add a magical property to any construct or living construct (including himself), to create a construct, or to create or enhance magic armor, a magic shield, or a magic weapon, each point spent is worth 2 XP. This benefit replaces the standard artificer’s craft homunculus feature.




Unseen crafter from what I'm reading is meant to continue mundane crafting. While it doesn't say that explicitly it is implied by mentioning "any craft that requires the craft skill" magical crafting does not require any crafts skills unless creating a construct. I believe this was why the dedicated Wright was made in tandem with the artificer class.


Really interesting idea in the persistent version of spells. I see no reason why a scroll couldn't be made to hold the spell, meta magic spell completion applied during crafting and use the scroll instead of UMD when determining the spell to be added. Opens a lot of possibilities.

Creating chained spell scrolls for those buffs then during wand/rod/staff creation you persist it could mean to have single cast full party buffs that last all day without increasing the cost the 6 levels.

[cagemarrow]

Exactly, the main benefit for unseen crafter is large scale construction, like for ships or castles. Fabricate is limited by its 10 cubic ft/caster level. Magic items will still have to be crafted by your dedicated wright.

[Zakier]

Excellent then. Since you appear knowledgeable were startng out with 13k I've got a fair assortment of magical and mundane random gear none ever think to bring . What I need is wands. Any suggestions on those to take between spell level 0 and 4? Based on my above character

[cagemarrow]

Here's what I'd recommend starting out

Normal wands: lesser vigor, for when your persisted one gets dispelled; Lesser restoration, because stat damage always sucks; seeking ray, better than scorching ray and gives bonuses to hit the target; magic missle, just in case; nerve skitter, preferably in a wand chamber in your shield or weapon; and snakes swiftness or snakes swiftness mass, because letting your heavy hitters go again in combat is always a good choice.

Eternal wands: knock, if you need more then 2 per day your rogue sucks; detect magic; detect secret doors; spontaneous search

As you can see I'm a big fan of utility spells and these are just off the top of my head.

I've also had a lot of fun with various summons and the summon gelatinous cube from drow of the underdark is hilarious if you can cast it to appear between your party and any charging enemies for an instant engulf.

Don't forget scrolls can be super useful for the one spell that will save the day but casters never prepare. You have access to all spell lists with a spellcraft check to know about the spells in character. Just check to see what casts it at the lowest level. For example fabricate, lesser globe of invulnerability, and wall of stone are 3rd level spells for a trapsmith.

[Zakier]

I've got decent access to information. I don't know if it is complete but I've got the old Compendium from DnD tool. Between that and complete reference I should have everything. Utility is what I'm going for as my party is built as over powered tier 3:s and me. I don't want to spot light hog so I'm boosting the party and playing the facilitator.

What if scrolls do you think? I'm the only caster ish type. We've got a rogue a barbarian. No idea what the last is going to be. Hoping they choose cleric we will see

[cagemarrow]

Consolidated List of Bargin Bin Spells (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=12661)

Is a great place to start. Scrolls are great for spells that you may need once or twice but not everyday. Anything that may see daily use is better off as a wand or eternal wands.

[Zakier]

Unfortunately my dm has made a calling regarding prestige classes.

For them genus requiring the Cl to be the minimum level a players ECL would be to have access to that spell. For example if the prestige class requires a 6bab then level 7 is the minimum cl 7

[cagemarrow]

So does that boost the classes that star with later casting as well? Say a ranger's 1st level spells start at caster level 5 then? (Or whatever level they first start getting spells) Should still be useful for domain or other class spells that get their spells early.

[Zakier]

The way it works in our gMe is when you pick a class to pull the spell from, lets say assassin prestige. You have to determine the earliest effective character level that spell would be available. In the assassins case ir would be 6. For a level 1 spell. However a wizard could achieve access to the same spell at ECL 3

[cagemarrow]

That sounds like way more work then necessary, just require a spell craft check to know it exists. some of them may still be cheaper but it would be a case by case basis, and what about prcs that allow for early entry? Seems unnecessarily harsh especially if your buffing the rest of the party.

[Zakier]

Maybe, but it reduces the amount of potential cheese. It made sense to me since prestige classes are almost never taken at level 1. Doing it this way one could still gain access to some spells sooner than normal while being able to get cl based effects sooner. Like a fireball spell maxed out earlier than you normally would. (I know you can't was just example of how I see it working) in the end it isn't going to matter to much.


On the other hand I finished filling out my gear list.

[Zakier]

I have not this far decided on any wands just yet but have an amalgamation of extensively useful items to carry with me.