Is the artificer considered the most powerful class?

[Hackulator]

Seems clearly so, is there anything that can really compete?

[Zanos]

An Erudite or Psion getting spells transformed into powers is probably better.

[Zombulian]

Seems clearly so, is there anything that can really compete?

Well see... the thing is, Artificer is good precisely *because* of the classes that would be able to compete. Tier 1 casters and their spell lists are the only thing that comes close, and the Artificer can emulate everything they do because of their spell lists. Ya dig?

[Calthropstu]

Artificer is NOT the "most powerful class." It suffers from often debilitating drawbacks, and in a time crunch is seriously screwed. He also suffers from severe weaknesses... a well timed disjunction spell will send him off crying for example.
An Artificer has potential to match a wizard or cleric but in actual play rarely does.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Even more than the Wizard, the Artificer is basically the Batman of 3.5-- they can do anything with sufficient resources, foresight, and prep time. The class' power is pretty much directly proportional to your ability to provide those.

[noob]

It is similar to other T1 classes not miraculously more or less powerful.

[Hackulator]

An Erudite or Psion getting spells transformed into powers is probably better.

You think? Without even much optimizing a 6th level artificer can keep insane levels of permabuffs up on the party. I will admit that there are some insane things you can do with an epic Psion (hey look there are two of me and we are immune to everything and have infinite power points) but at most points I feel like the artificer would be better.


Artificer is NOT the "most powerful class." It suffers from often debilitating drawbacks, and in a time crunch is seriously screwed. He also suffers from severe weaknesses... a well timed disjunction spell will send him off crying for example.
An Artificer has potential to match a wizard or cleric but in actual play rarely does.

Not sure what the debilitating drawbacks are, but usually when people discuss "most powerful" here they seem to be talking about situations where the character has had time to prepare.

[Zombulian]

An Erudite or Psion getting spells transformed into powers is probably better.

That's why most consider the Psionic Artificer to be the most powerful :smallwink:

[noob]

Obviously then the psionic omniscifer artificer then use a rock of fusion on pun pun and then is all T1 classes and all T1 classes live happy forever together?

[Zanos]

You think? Without even much optimizing a 6th level artificer can keep insane levels of permabuffs up on the party. I will admit that there are some insane things you can do with an epic Psion (hey look there are two of me and we are immune to everything and have infinite power points) but at most points I feel like the artificer would be better.
I'm not 100% on all my psion optimization, but I believe that RAW powers can be turned into supernatural abilities with supernatural transformation, and there's at least 1 super low effort trick to getting infinite power points on a psion with spells.

So you can have every power or spell in the game at whatever the highest CL you can manage is pretty much at will and can ignore all components for them. And they can't be dispelled.

[Coretron03]

Artificer is NOT the "most powerful class." It suffers from often debilitating drawbacks, and in a time crunch is seriously screwed. He also suffers from severe weaknesses... a well timed disjunction spell will send him off crying for example.
An Artificer has potential to match a wizard or cleric but in actual play rarely does.

I'm not sure whether or not a artificer is the most powerful class, but you can use dedicated wrights to craft while you adventure (They are constructs and you can choose it as a bonus feat) and a single second level spell (wings of cover) can protect you from disjunction, plus a bunch of other things. Its pretty cheap on a wand for the power it gives and according to MIC (IIRC) can be activated as a immediate action on a wand.

Also, Disjunction is a 9th level spell, so the lowest level you could reasonably run into a spell caster that can cast it is level 13. If your fighting a 17th level caster at level 13, you have other problems.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'm not 100% on all my psion optimization, but I believe that RAW powers can be turned into supernatural abilities with supernatural transformation, and there's at least 1 super low effort trick to getting infinite power points on a psion with spells.

So you can have every power or spell in the game at whatever the highest CL you can manage is pretty much at will and can ignore all components for them. And they can't be dispelled.
Psions are about the scariest things you can run into in terms of a head-to-head fight, but without a lot of very specific coincidences (read: a pet spell-to-power Erudite who himself has the pet casters needed to know all the spells he wants) their strategic game is fairly weak, at least compared to Wizards and Clerics. The Artificer has the best strategic-magic game of any of the Tier 1s, but probably has the weakest direct-combat powers. Still, at a certain optimization point every T1/T2 caster turns into a "all spells ever, all the time" monster, so... <shrug>

[Godskook]

My answer the last time a question like this came up:


Druids are the easy answer for "most powerful, least support". Eventually, "most powerful, most support" goes to Paladin, of all classes cause in a race to be Pun-pun, the first to say Pazuzu wins. Somewhere in the middle, at step-wise-RAI levels of support(meaning, each increment/step of power is completely and legitimately RAI), its probably Wizard, but maybe (Psionic) Artificer. There's a lot of in-between steps on this journey from Druid to Paladin, and lots of great contenders at every stage, but those are the three points I can identify.

[Forrestfire]

Personally, I think that the normal artificer is a bit stronger than the psionic artificer, mainly because the psionic artificer has significantly less support and some of its class features being very difficult to use.

Slightly higher ceiling (inasmuch as there is one for the artificer), but the base artificer starts way better than the psionic one.

[Twurps]

'I have rats in my kitchen, what will kill them better: A hydrogen atomic bomb? or a uranium atomic bomb?'

[Gildedragon]

'I have rats in my kitchen, what will kill them better: A hydrogen atomic bomb? or a uranium atomic bomb?'
Uranium leaves the kitchen with that pine fresh green glow

Also something that sets standard artificer above psi: Craft Contingent Spell

[ExLibrisMortis]

Artificers with Chameleon Crafting can get all powers and spells, and it only takes the one feat. You can even create dorjes of ninth-level spells. Artificers are nuts.

You need prep time, but at sufficiently high optimization levels, you can create your own prep time, too.

[Gildedragon]

Artificers with Chameleon Crafting can get all powers and spells, and it only takes the one feat. You can even create dorjes of ninth-level spells. Artificers are nuts.

You need prep time, but at sufficiently high optimization levels, you can create your own prep time, too.

How's that work. Iirc you can only chamaleon craft spells or powers one can cast/manifest and artificers do neither

[Gruftzwerg]

When we are already on the lvl of TO builds, I would like to put Wizard X/ Void Disciple 4/ Wyrm Wizard 2/ Y (aka BoBaFeat (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?503665-quot-TO-BoBaFeat-quot-Body-outside-Body-amp-Moment-of-Clarity)) into the race. Pun-Pun lvl of infinite power.

The problem with this kind of questions is, you need to narrow/set the cheese lvl under which the question is asked. Otherwise it will always end into pun-pun & bobafeat = wizard.

You need to put some limits like "no infinite loops" and define how to apply WBL rules (if at all). Is breaking the WBL allowed? (I recommend not). And which lvl? 1, 10, 20, epic or overall?

It would be better to refine the entry question. Otherwise the thread will end here imho.

[noob]

I already said that all the T1 classes are the same: if the wizard decide to have solutions of the Z kind(for example he decide to release the prisoners of a prison by teleporting and making a circle of teleportation or one of its variants) the cleric and the artificer and the druid can too do the same thing.

[Soranar]

I would say no for the following reasons:

-an artificer is still limited by WBL (even with all the crafting feats and xp pool). Instead of having Power points per day or spell slots per day you have wealth and xp per level, it's a very different resource management style. And every time you level up you need to update all your stuff while other tier 1 just rest 8 hours

-due to the sheer amount of options, it's also one of the hardest classes to play

IMO a spell to power erudite (since he can cast psionic powers, arcane and divine spells) is the most powerful

[ExLibrisMortis]

How's that work. Iirc you can only chamaleon craft spells or powers one can cast/manifest and artificers do neither
You need the ability to manifest first-level spells and powers to qualify (I did forget about that, slight balancing factor). Other than that, artificers can make UMD checks to bypass spell/power requirements, and you can craft items using other people's powers, or even temporary magic items. I don't read Chameleon Crafting as imposing any special restrictions on the spells/powers you can use. It's just letting you switch around power sources.