Solo Artificer Help!

[magicalmagicman]

Due to our group being very busy, it's just going to be me and my DM for a while. So we're gonna do a solo adventure, he's thinking shackled city.

Since artificers are... you know... the most OP class in the game, not only is he going to NOT tone down the encounters, but he's also gonna cut my xp gain by 4 so I don't level like crazy.

So... any tips?XD. I don't want to fail this challenge!

Rules:
1. Gold farming is allowed, as in I can park my ass and craft/sell masterwork items for centuries if I wanted to.
2. No buying. 100% of my items must be crafted. This is how he's going to limit my artificer. I can have all the gold in the world but if I don't have the XP to craft items, then I gotta adventure! No hirelings because of this rule.

So... any thoughts on how to approach this? Especially surviving first few levels. Obviously I'm not gonna adventure until I get a full set of masterwork equipment.

[thethird]

At what level are you starting? Any particular house rule to take into account? What are your sources?

[magicalmagicman]

At what level are you starting? Any particular house rule to take into account? What are your sources?

Level 1. It's going to be a 1-20 adventure.

No house rules.

All 3.5 sources are allowed. All 3.0 sources probably will be allowed. No pathfinder.

I have to be a full 20 artificer though. No dips.

[thethird]

Okay, what I would do then.

Play a warforged. Warforged have several things going for them, first of all they have artificer substitution levels (which are good), they also have several inmunities, can use the repair infusions on themselves, and are functionally immortal (which means you can farm gold for as long as you need).

With that on mind you are going to want to get the best mundane equipment, get most of your points into INT and invest in some craft skills to get yourself some MW items. Can you sell them and use the resulting gold to buy more base materials? I am assuming you cannot buy magical items, but what about crafting material?

Either way at level 1 your item creation feat will be scribe scroll. You also have a craft reserve of 20. Personally I would go with animate dead scrolls (for 1HD creatures), each would take baseline 6xp to craft (plus gold, but gold for you is time, isn't it?). As you kill things you raise them. Without feats you can get 3 zombies or skeletons. You can outfit them by crafting armor for them and weapons (you are an artificer).

For feats I would personally go for Legendary Artisan, Magical Artisan (Legendary Artisan) and either Magical Training or Mercantile Background. Magical Training gets you a spellbook, and you can scribe spells on it, any spell you scribe will no longer require a UMD check to cast. Mercantile Background gets you more gold whenever you sell stuff (which is good because you will need to farm gold for less time).

Legendary Artisan and Magical Artisan (Legendary Artisan) reduce the cost (XP and GP) of your items. Your animate dead scrolls would cost then 6*0.75*0.75 = 4 (or 3 if you round down) that way you can get more undead minions (can't control more than 4 HD). And frees crafting reserve for other castings (scrolls) keep the bargain bin (http://web.archive.org/web/20160801123834/http://brilliantgameologists.com:80/boards/index.php?topic=12661) handy.

[Mike Miller]

Shackled City is meant for 6 PCs. You may want to advise your DM against that particular campaign if he plans to keep encounters as they are. Just as solo BBEGs die so fast due to the party beating it in action economy, you would suffer the same fate alone in that AP.

[magicalmagicman]

Either way at level 1 your item creation feat will be scribe scroll. You also have a craft reserve of 20. Personally I would go with animate dead scrolls (for 1HD creatures), each would take baseline 6xp to craft (plus gold, but gold for you is time, isn't it?). As you kill things you raise them. Without feats you can get 3 zombies or skeletons. You can outfit them by crafting armor for them and weapons (you are an artificer)..

Damn.... if this worked it would've solved all my concerns for level 1.

Animate dead is a level 3 spell. The level 2 version is from Dragon Compendium, and I forgot that Dragon magazine exists, but in any case my DM hates dragon magazine with a passion so no dragon mag or compendium.


Shackled City is meant for 6 PCs. You may want to advise your DM against that particular campaign if he plans to keep encounters as they are. Just as solo BBEGs die so fast due to the party beating it in action economy, you would suffer the same fate alone in that AP.

Artificers have amazing minionmancy and action economy through wand chambers and such right? I will have no problem annihilating the campaign when I reach level 6. It's getting to level 6 that concerns me the most.

[death390]

yeah your biggest hit is going to be lowering XP costs since gold farming is allowed.

ask how many flaws you are allowed to use from Unearthed Arcana. use as many as are allowed in my opinion. (2 is standard for that variant rule-set) i'll second warforged this once since it IS functionally immortal.

if the DM has an issue with the Magical training feat i would suggest a re-skin where your maker taught you basic cantrips to help around the tower :P

magical training will be your bread and butter feat, usually attached to legendary artisan and extraordinary artisan. exceptional is kinda bad since it reduces the time you have to make your checks but if you are ok with an increased chance of failure take it and slap on another magical artisan.

you honestly can't have enough general purpose magical artisan feats if you are using the XP costs (my table did away with xp cost and just went to 3/4 base cost to make items)

as you said your hardest part will be surviving early levels. there is not much that you can do only making your own items at this point, since you are limited to scrolls.

as a note you CAN have more than 1 spell scribed on a scroll at creation. so if you are making partial xp scrolls don't slap enough spells on there that you get just under that 1 xp min. cost (or 1.5 if your DM rounds up/down).

your best bet are scrolls of things like color spray/grease/entangle for CC, then use a crossbow or other ranged weapon for damage since its pretty comparable to CL 1 damaging spells. i don't know of much minionmancy at this point as all summonings i know are round/CL which is 1? round.

[magicalmagicman]

am assuming you cannot buy magical items, but what about crafting material?

I forgot to address this but, yeah, crafting materials are allowed as much as I want since d&d is not designed for a player to gather his own materials.


your best bet are scrolls of things like color spray/grease/entangle for CC, then use a crossbow or other ranged weapon for damage since its pretty comparable to CL 1 damaging spells. i don't know of much minionmancy at this point as all summonings i know are round/CL which is 1? round.

The scroll's save DCs are gonna suck though since you can't boost them in anyway possible. I did not know you could put more than 1 spell on a scroll! Thanks, that is huge.

I will have to ask him about magical training. he doesn't have a problem with regional feats if we're in that region, so I dunno.

[death390]

low DC's can be a problem but its better than nothing. i can't remember but i think there was a way to replace the DC of a wand/scroll with your casting DC's. can't remember if it was a feat or a class specific benefit somewhere.

[Zaq]

It’s tricky to do at low levels (I don’t have a good way to do it, though someone else might), but in the long run, I think a winning strategy is going to be minionmancy. Construct crafting is the obvious thing to do, but you can also get undead minions or bound critters through scrolls (and equivalent). That’ll help a lot with the action economy issue, it’ll give you more bodies on which to place magic items, and since you’re in a solo game, you don’t even have any other players who will gripe about your turns taking forever.

Are you planning on using “fire on all cylinders” levels of cheese, or are you limiting your dairy intake? If you end up going full cheesy, I have an eventual two-word solution to your XP problem, and it rhymes with “bought throttle.” But I’d leave that the hell alone unless you’re really ramping things up.

In the short term, your path to surviving the super early levels is just to be crazy prepared. Don’t be afraid to GTFO and live to fight another day if things go south, too. Low levels are hella swingy, and Artificers aren’t exactly tanky out of the box. Though speaking of “tanky out of the box,” if you take the advice to go warforged, I honestly wouldn’t bat an eye at the choice to blow your level 1 feat on Adamantine Plating. It might not age as well as some of the Artisan feats, but if you’re concerned about making it to, say, level 5+, it’ll be hard to find a single one-and-done low-level feat that’ll do more for your survivability. (Don’t let it make you cocky, though. You’re resistant to damage, but eventually something will come along to show you the difference between resistance and immunity.)

[thethird]

Damn.... if this worked it would've solved all my concerns for level 1.

Animate dead is a level 3 spell. The level 2 version is from Dragon Compendium, and I forgot that Dragon magazine exists, but in any case my DM hates dragon magazine with a passion so no dragon mag or compendium.

Dragon compendium is a first party source for 3.5 but if he hates it he hates it...

Okay infinite time.

Scribe scrolls of guidance of the avatar use them to befriend corrollaxes in monster manual 2, that will be better than scribing scrolls of color spray.

Alternatively see if you can buy wartrained animals (but I am guessing that falls under the no buying rule)

[magicalmagicman]

It’s tricky to do at low levels (I don’t have a good way to do it, though someone else might), but in the long run, I think a winning strategy is going to be minionmancy. Construct crafting is the obvious thing to do, but you can also get undead minions or bound critters through scrolls (and equivalent). That’ll help a lot with the action economy issue, it’ll give you more bodies on which to place magic items, and since you’re in a solo game, you don’t even have any other players who will gripe about your turns taking forever.

Are you planning on using “fire on all cylinders” levels of cheese, or are you limiting your dairy intake? If you end up going full cheesy, I have an eventual two-word solution to your XP problem, and it rhymes with “bought throttle.” But I’d leave that the hell alone unless you’re really ramping things up.

In the short term, your path to surviving the super early levels is just to be crazy prepared. Don’t be afraid to GTFO and live to fight another day if things go south, too. Low levels are hella swingy, and Artificers aren’t exactly tanky out of the box. Though speaking of “tanky out of the box,” if you take the advice to go warforged, I honestly wouldn’t bat an eye at the choice to blow your level 1 feat on Adamantine Plating. It might not age as well as some of the Artisan feats, but if you’re concerned about making it to, say, level 5+, it’ll be hard to find a single one-and-done low-level feat that’ll do more for your survivability. (Don’t let it make you cocky, though. You’re resistant to damage, but eventually something will come along to show you the difference between resistance and immunity.)

Interesting idea. I might do this. The adamantine thing. I am planning on fully utilizing minionmancy. With infinite gp basically I can build max hd homunculi. Just need to survive until level 4 until I can craft one.

As for cheese, my DM is limiting my artificer with crafting XP, so no thought bottles or ambrosia or liquid pain, which is fine, I already have a plan to be ludicrously powerful at level 6+.


Dragon compendium is a first party source for 3.5 but if he hates it he hates it...

Okay infinite time.

Scribe scrolls of guidance of the avatar use them to befriend corrollaxes in monster manual 2, that will be better than scribing scrolls of color spray.

Alternatively see if you can buy wartrained animals (but I am guessing that falls under the no buying rule)

Guidance is web content right? I guess my DM is a little more restrictive than I thought he was :P. Sorry, no web content unless it's an errata or an update.



Are there any crazy combination of level 1 and 2 scrolls an artificer can utilize to cheese through level 1 encounters?

[RoboEmperor]

Park your ass and farm gold until you have a full set of adamantine equipment. No need for feats.

[noob]

Park your ass and farm gold until you have a full set of adamantine equipment. No need for feats.

adamantine equipment helps digging a lot but adamantine armor is generally less cool than mithril armor

[thethird]

Guidance is web content right? I guess my DM is a little more restrictive than I thought he was :P. Sorry, no web content unless it's an errata or an update.

Are there any crazy combination of level 1 and 2 scrolls an artificer can utilize to cheese through level 1 encounters?

Maybe diplomance those animated goalposts :P

There are some really good spells at level 1 or 2 that an artificer can access out of the box. Unfortunately you won't be able to squeeze them into several encounters, I suggested what I would have used (undead (from animate dead, death master), guidance of the avatar + corolax (requires web content)) because they give you minions that get actions and can help you fight the action economy losing battle.

Limiting myself to printed material in a book not from Dragon Magazine Compendium (and I am guessing that Dragonlance Campaign Setting is also out) I would us with Marbles (from Arms and Equipment Guide) carried by an Unseen Crafter (lasts way longer than Unseen Servant) that drops them (i.e. you don't waste an action) on your enemies. Making them flatfooted. Also note / check aboleth mucus (savage species), dust eggshell grenades (oriental adventures), sleeping poison (city of splendors waterdeep, can't remember the name of the poison proper but you will know what I am talking about when you see it), sprayer (Arms and equipment guide) + alchemical fire (or other liquid based weapons)

You can also go for the Corolax either way. The Corolax can be befriended with a Handle Animal check you might need to take 20 at it. Wieldskill (player's guide to Faerun) is a +5 to skill checks and allows you to make checks untrained (if that's necessary), if you could get the magic's of faerun version that's a +10 but was superseded by the Player's guide.

At this level though strongly look into non magical items go check the Arms and Equipment guide which has a lot of mundane items that provide a bonus to one skill or another.

Don't forget to store your corpses for later, when you can cast animate dead. And if you are feeling particularly evil remember that there are rules in the book of evil darkness to use corpse parts as spell components.

[Zaq]

Park your ass and farm gold until you have a full set of adamantine equipment. No need for feats.

Artificers aren’t proficient with the heavier kinds of armor, though. Wearing heavy armor you aren’t proficient with usually causes more problems than it solves (you have a minus WHAT to initiative?!). Adamantine Plating has no such trouble.

[magicalmagicman]

Limiting myself to printed material in a book not from Dragon Magazine Compendium (and I am guessing that Dragonlance Campaign Setting is also out) I would us with Marbles (from Arms and Equipment Guide) carried by an Unseen Crafter (lasts way longer than Unseen Servant) that drops them (i.e. you don't waste an action) on your enemies. Making them flatfooted. Also note / check aboleth mucus (savage species), dust eggshell grenades (oriental adventures), sleeping poison (city of splendors waterdeep, can't remember the name of the poison proper but you will know what I am talking about when you see it), sprayer (Arms and equipment guide) + alchemical fire (or other liquid based weapons)

Nice! I totally forgot about alchemy! Throwing alchemist's fire like crazy should be enough damage output at level 1. I'll have to look up the other stuff you mentioned.

Can artificers craft alchemist's fire? They're technically not spellcasters right? And it says you need to be one to craft alchemist's fire.

As for adamantine v.s. mithril, probably adamantine since I doubt I'll get a dex score above 14 since this is 25 point buy.

As for corolaxes, I'll have to run it by my DM. He doesn't like giving me access to creatures in the wild saying it's unrealistic to find the exact creature I want living nearby. He doesn't mind me getting access to creatures via planar binding so we'll see.

[noob]

Nice! I totally forgot about alchemy! Throwing alchemist's fire like crazy should be enough damage output at level 1. I'll have to look up the other stuff you mentioned.

Can artificers craft alchemist's fire? They're technically not spellcasters right? And it says you need to be one to craft alchemist's fire.

As for adamantine v.s. mithril, probably adamantine since I doubt I'll get a dex score above 14 since this is 25 point buy.

As for corolaxes, I'll have to run it by my DM. He doesn't like giving me access to creatures in the wild saying it's unrealistic to find the exact creature I want living nearby. He doesn't mind me getting access to creatures via planar binding so we'll see.

For corolaxes by searching in a library and interrogating scholars and so on you might start finding in which continent it might be then go to that continent and search more by interrogating more scholars and so on until you find a country or smaller region in which there is corolaxes.

Mithril main interest is using the highest ac armor as if it was a medium armor and the fact that it might be very light(do not forget the carry capacity of your artificer especially since you are going to carry throwables)

[thethird]

Nice! I totally forgot about alchemy! Throwing alchemist's fire like crazy should be enough damage output at level 1. I'll have to look up the other stuff you mentioned.

Can artificers craft alchemist's fire? They're technically not spellcasters right? And it says you need to be one to craft alchemist's fire.

Like a spellcaster, an artificer can apply metamagic feats he knows to his infusions. Like a sorcerer, an artificer can apply a metamagic feat to an infusion spontaneously, but doing this requires extra time. An artificer can craft alchemical items as though he were a spellcaster.

Look at the Indispensable Haversack (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?148101-3-x-Shax-s-Indispensible-Haversack-(Equipment-Handbook))


As for corolaxes, I'll have to run it by my DM. He doesn't like giving me access to creatures in the wild saying it's unrealistic to find the exact creature I want living nearby. He doesn't mind me getting access to creatures via planar binding so we'll see.

:smalleek:

[Falontani]

Demonologists from Book of Vile Darkness get Lesser Planar Binding at level 2, Lesser Planar Binding at level 1. If you are willing to play with some devils I suggest binding an imp, pay it some money (that you have an infinite supply of) to serve you for a predetermined amount of time. They are lawful evil so if you bring a legit contract then the Imp probably would be willing to do it. You can probably get several other fun beasties out of this deal as long as you have a moderate amount of charisma. Just make sure to do it in an area that you can flee from easily enough and get a couple guards to assist you if it breaks free

[Jack_Simth]

Do you mind bing super evil?

Agony (Liquid Pain) from the Book of Vile Darkness has a Craft(Alchemy) DC of 25, and substitutes for 3 xp when crafting magic items (see Pain as Power on page 33 and the Drugs table on page 43). So if you can reliably make a DC 25 Craft(Alchemy) check (you'll need to get a +15 modifier and take ten... tricky at level 1 with a Warforged... but 18 base Int + 4 ranks + Old age (+2 Int) + Skill Focus (+3) + Alchemist's Lab (+2) = +14; a hireling similarly equipped - say, an adept-1 with 4 ranks, skill focus, and an alchemist's lab - doing "Aid Another" is good for the extra +2) you can turn unlimited down-time into Unlimited funds + Unlimited Down Time, and unlimited funds into Unlimited Funds + Unlimited Crafting XP, and then turn Unlimited Down Time + Unlimited Funds + Unlimited Crafting XP into unlimited magic items.

Also:
Get Brew Potion when you can. For a Cleric, Animate Dead is a 3rd level spell, suitable for making an Oil. Anyone can apply an Oil. And the effective caster is the person applying the oil. Which means a minion under your control can control more minions even if they're not spellcasters themselves....

[magicalmagicman]

Do you mind bing super evil?

Agony (Liquid Pain) from the Book of Vile Darkness has a Craft(Alchemy) DC of 25, and substitutes for 3 xp when crafting magic items (see Pain as Power on page 33 and the Drugs table on page 43). So if you can reliably make a DC 25 Craft(Alchemy) check (you'll need to get a +15 modifier and take ten... tricky at level 1 with a Warforged... but 18 base Int + 4 ranks + Old age (+2 Int) + Skill Focus (+3) + Alchemist's Lab (+2) = +14; a hireling similarly equipped - say, an adept-1 with 4 ranks, skill focus, and an alchemist's lab - doing "Aid Another" is good for the extra +2) you can turn unlimited down-time into Unlimited funds + Unlimited Down Time, and unlimited funds into Unlimited Funds + Unlimited Crafting XP, and then turn Unlimited Down Time + Unlimited Funds + Unlimited Crafting XP into unlimited magic items.

Also:
Get Brew Potion when you can. For a Cleric, Animate Dead is a 3rd level spell, suitable for making an Oil. Anyone can apply an Oil. And the effective caster is the person applying the oil. Which means a minion under your control can control more minions even if they're not spellcasters themselves....

No liquid pain or thought bottles. The DM is limiting my power with xp costs. I'll double check the oil thing. Level 4+ I'm making max hd homunculi, so I guess level 3 I'm making an undead army. So I guess levels 1-2 is alchemist fire spam.

[Jack_Simth]

Hmm... what about Handle Animal? A riding dog is 150 GP, takes a move action to command to do a trained trick, and is a CR 1 beastie.

[Zaq]

I forget, is Power Word: Pain effective even with minimum (scroll) CL? If so, it’s a pretty darned powerful spell at level 1, so it might be a good offensive option if you can kite something (or otherwise survive) long enough. I consider it at least somewhat cheesy at level 1, but in a solo game, you need a reasonably big gun or two.

[unseenmage]

The 3.0 spell Create Crawling Claw turns a pile of severed left hands into Constructs.
The Crawling Claw creature was updated in Lost Empires of Faerun to a swarm, but the spell was not.
As is it's a GM call whether or not you make the pile of individual creatures or the swarm.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that the spell only requires that the left hands be severed, it never says from what. I made lots of statues of left arms when I made my own Crawling Claw army.

The Awaken Sand spell from Sandstorm creates sentient, free willed, oozelike Constructs.
Check out the Dust is Lazy link in my sig for various alternate sands and powders to use with Awaken Sand.
Hitting them with the Greater Humanoid Essence spell then mind controlling them gets rid of that pesky free will, though they already start out Friendly.

Animate Objects can be used on objects that are not magic items. Alchemical items and special materials are both explicitly not magic items.
Additionally the Quintessence power has an Instantaneous duration which means the substance it creates is as magical as the stone created by a Wall of Stone spell.
An animated ball of coagulated time that hurts living things just by touching then sounds pretty awesome.

A Runic Guardian from MM2 with the Simulacrum spell contained in it can net you quite the infinite army.

Also, the Sacred Guardian template from Bestiary of Krynn Revised is the best Int granting Construct template. Ask if the book is allowed and be aware that it has some campaign specific deities tied to it.
The list of superpowers it grants is worth the chance though.

FYI, in case you are not aware, you can only benefit from a single Dedicated Wright Homunculus at a time for Magic Item crafting. This is because the Dedicated Wright explicitly utilizes your daily Magic Item crafting allotment. So no matter how many you have they'll all be drawing on that one finite number of hours per day.
Still totally worth making one though.

Devices are in Ravenloft: Legacy of the Blood; they're nonmagical magic items. If the book is allowed they could be animated and still generate magic item like effects.
Good luck getting access to them without getting your character eaten by the Dark Powers of Ravenloft though.

Ask your GM if Craft Construct is an item creation feat in their game. If so then you might be able to use the Combining Magic Items rules in Magic Item Compendium.
Also, the Feats in Magic Items sidebar in the 3.0 Arms and Equipment guide comes in very handy if the Constructs are Magic Items rules interpretation is at play.

Effigies are a cheap Construct that are easy to make. Effigies of 1HD base race humanoids shoukd retain all of their racual traits that are neither Supernatural nor Spell Like. The bonus racial feat for Humans is especially intetesting in thus case.
Elder Eidolons from Lords of Madness are just Effigies hopped up on madness and more superpowers.

Sorry so much of this is higher level. As you've no doubt noticed Construct minionmancy can be incredibly late to come online.

[magicalmagicman]

Hmm... what about Handle Animal? A riding dog is 150 GP, takes a move action to command to do a trained trick, and is a CR 1 beastie.

He's only letting me buy crafting materials, so no hirelings or animals. If I want an animal I have to find one in the wild and rear it myself, but I think he really hates this so... any minion i'm going to get either has to be created or called, not found.


I forget, is Power Word: Pain effective even with minimum (scroll) CL? If so, it’s a pretty darned powerful spell at level 1, so it might be a good offensive option if you can kite something (or otherwise survive) long enough. I consider it at least somewhat cheesy at level 1, but in a solo game, you need a reasonably big gun or two.

NICE! No save instant kill at level 1! Too bad it's single target so can't use it in every encounter. This is nice! :)

@Unseenmage
I have a plan for minionmancy. Level 4-5 max hd Iron defenders. Level 6+ Eternal Wand of Lesser Geas + a Ravid I bound via scrolls of Lesser planar binding or an Eternal Wand of Lesser planar binding if my DM permits BoVD for permanent gargantuan animated object. This should carry me until hydra effigies which should carry me until shadesteel golems. Do you see any potential problems with this plan?

edit:Big typo. Bolded part is the correct part.

[thethird]

@Unseenmage
I have a plan for minionmancy. Level 4-5 max hd Iron defenders. Level 6+ Eternal Wand of Lesser Geas + a Ravid I bound via scrolls of Lesser planar binding or an Eternal Wand of Lesser Geas if my DM permits BoVD for permanent gargantuan animated object. This should carry me until hydra effigies which should carry me until shadesteel golems. Do you see any potential problems with this plan?

Yes.

Take the warforged acf trading away craft homunculus. Get craft construct as a bonus feat at fourth and build umbral spies instead. If you want combat homunculus I would recommend expeditious messengers dropping bombs (dust grenades, poison spheres, alchemist fire etc)

Also you can get lesser geas and lesser planar binding at level 3 (lesser geas from bard, and lesser planar binding from demonologist). And don't forget about the animate dead spell which will be available at level 3.

Level 3 in fact gives you a LOT with craft wondrous items you can create magical traps.

Level 5 will give you summon giants, which is a great summon spell for that level.

Sardorian golems >>>> shasesteel golems (unfortunately they are from a probably unavailable source)

----

EDIT: Actually. Animate Dead is a lvl 3 spell in the death domain. That means that a divine crusader gets it. Why is that important?


Spells per Day: A divine crusader casts divine spells. She may only prepare and cast spells from her chosen domain (see above). Effectively, a divine crusader has a class spell list of only nine spells (one per spell level). To prepare or cast a spell, a divine crusader must have a Charisma score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The difficulty class for a saving throw against a divine crusader's spell is 10 + the spell level + the divine crusader's Cha modifier. The divine crusader also gets bonus spells based on her Charisma. A divine crusader prepares and casts spells as a cleric, except that she cannot spontaneously cast cure or inflict spells.


For purposes of meeting item prerequisites, an artificer's effective caster level equals his artificer level +2. If the item duplicates a spell effect, however, it uses the artificer's actual level as its caster level. Costs are always determined using the item's minimum caster level or the artificer's actual level (if it is higher). Thus, a 3rd-level artificer can make a scroll of fireball, since the minimum caster level for fireball is 5th. He pays the normal cost for making such a scroll with a caster level of 5th: 5 X 3 X 12.5 = 187 gp and 5 sp, plus 15 XP. But the scroll's actual caster level is only 3rd, and it produces a weak fireball that deals only 3d6 points of damage.

I.e. you can get animate dead at first level. I normally use that trick to get teleportation circle at 7th but there is no reason why you can't use it to get animate dead at first.

[magicalmagicman]

Take the warforged acf trading away craft homunculus. Get craft construct as a bonus feat at fourth and build umbral spies instead. If you want combat homunculus I would recommend expeditious messengers dropping bombs (dust grenades, poison spheres, alchemist fire etc)

What is this? How do you trade out homunculus for craft construct?


Also you can get lesser geas and lesser planar binding at level 3 (lesser geas from bard, and lesser planar binding from demonologist). And don't forget about the animate dead spell which will be available at level 3.

Lesser geas needs to be on an eternal wand because otherwise I'll be spending 1 lesser geas scroll every 5 days.


EDIT: Actually. Animate Dead is a lvl 3 spell in the death domain. That means that a divine crusader gets it. Why is that important?

Interesting... Divine Crusader gets access to CL3 animate dead, which means Artificers does get access to CL1 animate dead at level 1. NICE DUDE! HOLY ****! OMG! DIVINE CRUSADER IS FREAKING OP AS ****!

Screw animate dead. I now have access to every domain spell in existence super early! 9th level spells at level 7?????

AND IT'S IN A COMPLETE BOOK! OMG! NO DM CAN BAN THIS!

Imma comb through every domain spell to see what I can do.

But yeah! new plan!

Level 1-2: Animate Dead army equipped with Adamantine gear.

[thethird]

What is this? How do you trade out homunculus for craft construct?

Lesser geas needs to be on an eternal wand because otherwise I'll be spending 1 lesser geas scroll every 5 days.

Interesting... Divine Crusader gets access to CL3 animate dead, which means Artificers does get access to CL1 animate dead at level 1. NICE DUDE! HOLY ****! OMG! DIVINE CRUSADER IS FREAKING OP AS ****!

Screw animate dead. I now have access to every domain spell in existence super early! 9th level spells at level 7?????

AND IT'S IN A COMPLETE BOOK! OMG! NO DM CAN BAN THIS!

Imma comb through every domain spell to see what I can do.

But yeah! new plan!

Level 1-2: Animate Dead army equipped with Adamantine gear.

On phone so I wont use individual quotes.

1) Check races of eberron; you can trade craft homunculus for double craft reserve if you are crafting certain things. It kind of halves xp cost. Artificers normally gain bonus feats which can be craft construct.

2) Seriously craft a trap of it at 3rd. Geass is in no way a beneficial spell and you dont even need to dig dungeonscape to justify beneficial traps.

3) That reminds me I should write an artificer guide some time. (A DM though can ban whatever he wants)

[death390]

if your going to use divine crusader you can use a few others.

beholder mage all sorc/wiz
ur-priest has spell-level/lvl all cleric casting.

both of these are fast casting classes with 1 spell level per level.

[noob]

if your going to use divine crusader you can use a few others.

beholder mage all sorc/wiz
ur-priest has spell-level/lvl all cleric casting.

both of these are fast casting classes with 1 spell level per level.

beholder mage have the problem of having a caster level of twice his level.
so at level 1 it have cl2 and at level 2 it have cl 4 and so on(up to cl 20 at level 10).

[javcs]

As long as you don't mind being Evil, and Book of Vile Darkness is allowed ...

Ritual Sacrifice can be freaking amazing. If you can get away with it (most people will dislike what you're doing if they find out).

With a DC 30 Knowledge (Religion) check for the sacrifice, you can get an evil outsider dispatched to serve you for 1 hour per HD of sacrificial victim, serving as described in the Planar Ally spell. It's easy enough to get a +10 or more bonus, just from the basic ritual sacrifice modifier tables, then there's skill ranks and Int mod, making the DC of 30 quite attainable, even at level 1. Worst case scenario, you have to sacrifice a few more people before you hit the DC 30. Anybody willing to sacrifice one person is probably willing to sacrifice more than one person.
Planar Ally has a 12HD cap. An Efreeti has 10HD. An efreeti can grant you 3 wishes. Start your Wish loop. Proceed until finished (or the DM chucks a book at you).
If you want a Greater Planar Ally, you need to hit a DC 35 Knowledge(religion) check, but DC 30 and regular Planar Ally should suffice to get you going.

In addition, you can use Ritual Sacrifice for Dark Crafting XP, 3x DC (minimum DC 15) (and Dark Crafting Gold). Sure, you can only use one application each of Dark Crafting per item - however, you're an Artificer, and once you get Retain Essence, you can strip down all those lower-level Dark Crafted items for more Crafting Reserve XP (this also strips out the taint of Evil).

You may also be able to capture the souls of those you sacrifice and then use them as bartering chips with those interested in them (usually Evil Outsiders) or use them as XP for item creation (you can use as many souls as you want at a time, and combine with Dark Crafting).

It might well be worth investing in nonlethal/capture capabilities (knockout poisons/gases) to sacrifice living enemies.



In addition, I believe the Demonologist PRC from BoVD gives (lesser) Planar Binding at a lower spell level (3rd and 4th, respectively, or 2 spell levels lower).



Make sure you spend your entire Craft Reserve before leveling, even if it's on something worthless - you can always strip it down with Retain Essence later.




As long as you have as much time as you like before you have to start adventuring ... and it sounds like you do, you can pull off a lot of stuff. Gold Farm until you've got multiple sets of the finest non-magical equipment you can get your hands on.
For that matter, you may be able to gold-farm your way into getting a Stronghold (SBG) that produces gold for you. If you can pull it off, this would be amazing. Also ... you may want to goldfarm up to a second stronghold and trick it out as much as you possibly can.

[lbuttitta]

You may find the Zeroficer Handbook (http://bg-archive.minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=11474) helpful: everything you need to know to make a tier-0 Artificer will be in there!

Also, best of luck to you! I'm curious how this will turn out.

[magicalmagicman]

2) Seriously craft a trap of it at 3rd. Geass is in no way a beneficial spell and you dont even need to dig dungeonscape to justify beneficial traps.

A bard's lesser geas has a minimum CL of 7 so the earliest I can craft a trap of it is at 5, and yeah! Why didn't I think of traps? They bypass the craft wand requirement. In fact it seems for magical traps, you don't need any craft skill or feat for it even!. I guess my schtick comes online at level 5 now! wooo!

So levels 1-3 adamatine equipped skeletons
level 4 - Max hd Iron Defenders
level 5 - Gargantuan Animated Objects

Craft Construct requires craft magical arms and armor which is obtained at level 5 so I can't grab craft construct at 4.

edit: Concerning fast casting classes, my DM said "no shenanigans".
So to clarify, Nar Demonbinder, normally his lowest CL is 8 (wizard7/NarDemonbinder1)
By Raw, you can do this (Wizard7/Sorcerer1/NarDemonbinder1) and apply NarDemonbinder to sorcerer1 to get a lowest CL of 2. He's saying no to this.

edit2:BoVD is very powerful, but is also very evil! I'd love to use it (mainly for Demonologist's level 3 Planar Binding) but the DM might not allow it since it's 3.0 and we're suppose to be heroes.

edit3: Can you make magical automatic reset traps of Planar Binding line of spells?

[thethird]

A bard's lesser geas has a minimum CL of 7 so the earliest I can craft a trap of it is at 5, and yeah! Why didn't I think of traps? They bypass the craft wand requirement. In fact it seems for magical traps, you don't need any craft skill or feat for it even!. I guess my schtick comes online at level 5 now! wooo!

edit: Concerning fast casting classes, my DM said "no shenanigans".
So to clarify, Nar Demonbinder, normally his lowest CL is 8 (wizard7/NarDemonbinder1)
By Raw, you can do this (Wizard7/Sorcerer1/NarDemonbinder1) and apply NarDemonbinder to sorcerer1 to get a lowest CL of 2. He's saying no to this.

edit2:BoVD is very powerful, but is also very evil! I'd love to use it (mainly for Demonologist's level 3 Planar Binding) but the DM might not allow it since it's 3.0 and we're suppose to be heroes.

edit3: Can you make magical automatic reset traps of Planar Binding line of spells?


But an archivist get's the lesser geas from a divine bard at CL5 (this might be a shenanigan). I always assumed that magical traps require craft wondrous item to create (which you get at 3rd anyway) but I cannot find it written as such on the SRD. I don't see why you wouldn't be able of creating a trap of planar binding, still it might be hard to use that trap (as there is no way that the trap can know the target).

My personal advice though is the following. Trap your warforged platting into a trap of spell storing item. As a magical item designate it as your Item Familiar (get the feat). Carry several nonmagical items around. At 7th the Item Familiar will be intelligent and able to use the powers on its own. And use the spell storing infusion on your items which then you can use. Any spell of level 4 and below at your fingertips. Since then you would be the one casting planar binding no way of your DM screwing you with traps being stupid. You can of course make other intelligent traps (they are a magical item).

Also... you are going to be carrying undead around since lvl 1, and you are playing by yourself. Why should you be a hero?

[magicalmagicman]

But an archivist get's the lesser geas from a divine bard at CL5 (this might be a shenanigan). I always assumed that magical traps require craft wondrous item to create (which you get at 3rd anyway) but I cannot find it written as such on the SRD. I don't see why you wouldn't be able of creating a trap of planar binding, still it might be hard to use that trap (as there is no way that the trap can know the target).

I can actually picture a planar binding trap. Victim triggers the trap, the trap brings in a demon, demon kills victim. Just like scrolls of Simulacrum, I think you need to designate a target at creation and can never change it ever again.

The real difficulty however is getting the creature inside a magic circle. Would creating the magic circle then remotely triggering the trap which is inside the circle work?


Also... you are going to be carrying undead around since lvl 1, and you are playing by yourself. Why should you be a hero?

There's a difference between grave digging and murdering innocent people for their essence. :P

I guess it comes down to what I'm comfortable with, and I'm not comfortable with some of the things suggested in this thread. :P

[javcs]

A bard's lesser geas has a minimum CL of 7 so the earliest I can craft a trap of it is at 5, and yeah! Why didn't I think of traps? They bypass the craft wand requirement. In fact it seems for magical traps, you don't need any craft skill or feat for it even!. I guess my schtick comes online at level 5 now! wooo!

So levels 1-3 adamatine equipped skeletons
level 4 - Max hd Iron Defenders
level 5 - Gargantuan Animated Objects

Craft Construct requires craft magical arms and armor which is obtained at level 5 so I can't grab craft construct at 4.

edit: Concerning fast casting classes, my DM said "no shenanigans".
So to clarify, Nar Demonbinder, normally his lowest CL is 8 (wizard7/NarDemonbinder1)
By Raw, you can do this (Wizard7/Sorcerer1/NarDemonbinder1) and apply NarDemonbinder to sorcerer1 to get a lowest CL of 2. He's saying no to this.

edit2:BoVD is very powerful, but is also very evil! I'd love to use it (mainly for Demonologist's level 3 Planar Binding) but the DM might not allow it since it's 3.0 and we're suppose to be heroes.

edit3: Can you make magical automatic reset traps of Planar Binding line of spells?

BoVD is evil, sure. Being evil just means you have a set of slightly different motivations for doing things.
First, you get started off because you've been hired to find 4 kidnapped kids, and things snowball from there. Being evil doesn't mean you don't like getting paid. And instead of "because it's the Right Thing to Do", you do stuff "because this happening/continuing to happen would be inconvenient for me or otherwise not in my own best interests" or "because this guy has acted against me in some way, and thus is an enemy".

But yeah, what you're comfortable with is important.


Yes, you can do automatic reset traps of Planar Binding/etc, but you'd have to use it to summon only the one type of creature per trap (all such decisions would need to be made during creation). You would probably have issues as to negotiating, though.

[Jack_Simth]

Yes, you can do automatic reset traps of Planar Binding/etc, but you'd have to use it to summon only the one type of creature per trap (all such decisions would need to be made during creation). You would probably have issues as to negotiating, though.For planar binding as a trap, you don't negotiate, and you don't magic circle. You simply have it call a type of outsider that naturally hates everything and destroys anyone nearby. No need for a deal at all, you just grab something stupid, hungry, and violent.

[Endarire]

Just remember Craft Construct normally has the prereqs of Craft Wondrous, Craft Arms & Armor, and caster level 5. If you can get it sooner, then great! If not, 'til 6 you wait!

What about Leadership as a feat later? It helps solve some of that 'solo' stuff, especially as a minion master.

Also consider this Bufficer guide - Disregard Money, Acquire Buff Spells: Artificers without the Artifice (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?427628-Disregard-Money-Acquire-Buff-Spells-Artificers-without-the-Artifice).

Are you using a crossbow as a primary weapon? (It's good to have some sort of physical offense, even if it's outmoded later. As a Artificer, you could fairly easily use a buncha infusions to make a crossbow a +1 Holy <Right Now> Bane <Perfect Energy Type for the Situation>, etc. weapon with the perfect armor for the situation too.

[magicalmagicman]

For planar binding as a trap, you don't negotiate, and you don't magic circle. You simply have it call a type of outsider that naturally hates everything and destroys anyone nearby. No need for a deal at all, you just grab something stupid, hungry, and violent.

I'm going to create a magic circle around the planar binding trap and a lesser geas trap, trigger the planar binding trap via some kind of controlled proximity trigger, and have the trap bind a ravid who will be bombarded by an automatically reseting lesser geas trap who will make the ravid my faithful loyal servant for 5 days.


Just remember Craft Construct normally has the prereqs of Craft Wondrous, Craft Arms & Armor, and caster level 5. If you can get it sooner, then great! If not, 'til 6 you wait!

What about Leadership as a feat later? It helps solve some of that 'solo' stuff, especially as a minion master.

Also consider this Bufficer guide - Disregard Money, Acquire Buff Spells: Artificers without the Artifice (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?427628-Disregard-Money-Acquire-Buff-Spells-Artificers-without-the-Artifice).

Are you using a crossbow as a primary weapon? (It's good to have some sort of physical offense, even if it's outmoded later. As a Artificer, you could fairly easily use a buncha infusions to make a crossbow a +1 Holy <Right Now> Bane <Perfect Energy Type for the Situation>, etc. weapon with the perfect armor for the situation too.

Leadership is a no, I will be using the crossbow early levels but ditch it once my minionmancy takes off, and I will take a look at the bufficer. I like buffing my minions.

[Mike Miller]

As a fan of Shackled City, I would enjoy a recap of events from your exploits every once in a blue moon if you don't mind letting us know how it goes.

[magicalmagicman]

Actually scratch the crossbow. With adamantine full plate and mithril heavy shield equipped warrior skeletons at level 1, I'm just gonna go the full noncombatant route and go 0 weapons and carry a mithril tower shield. Lets me dump DEX.

Lets give a huge round of applause to thethird for solving my low level problem by figuring out how to get animate dead at level 1 and letting me get access to gargantuan animated objects 1 level sooner! Thanks a lot! Seriously! You turned my "What to do, i'm super weak" Artificer to "ZOMG THIS CLASS IS TRULY OP AS ****" Artificer XD.


As a fan of Shackled City, I would enjoy a recap of events from your exploits every once in a blue moon if you don't mind letting us know how it goes.

Sure!

[thethird]

Actually scratch the crossbow. With adamantine full plate and mithril heavy shield equipped warrior skeletons at level 1, I'm just gonna go the full noncombatant route and go 0 weapons and carry a mithril tower shield. Lets me dump DEX.

Look at the mechanus gear from planar handbook. Use black sand (from sandstorm) to kill a creature and generate more blacksand. Get some blacksand tossed in the skeleton's gear so they get some "fast healing".

[magicalmagicman]

Actually I'm gonna not use traps. I've been looking into it and it completely breaks the game. Proximity triggered haste trap for permanent haste and the like.

So I guess 1-3 animate dead, 4-5 homunculus, and 6+ is gargantuan animated objects.

[Endarire]

What about 'restraining yourself' and using boon traps for your base or merely at the start of an area to heal and buff your units? That way there's some cost involved.

[magicalmagicman]

What about 'restraining yourself' and using boon traps for your base or merely at the start of an area to heal and buff your units? That way there's some cost involved.

Nah, exploit is an exploit no matter how it's used.

[unseenmage]

Nah, exploit is an exploit no matter how it's used.

In that case you wont be playing Artificer, right?
Or at the very least not making use of lower level access to spells?

[magicalmagicman]

In that case you wont be playing Artificer, right?
Or at the very least not making use of lower level access to spells?

Lower level access spells is core, such as paladin's, ranger's, and bard's spell lists. It's optimization not an exploit. Divine Crusader is a PrC form of these, but CL2 fast casting progression PrCs are probably an exploit, could be optimization, but my DM ruled it as an exploit. I personally think it's just optimization because the text clearly says you can choose to apply the PrC's casting level to any spellcasting class you have, no limitation, but w.e it's my DM's game.

As for traps, as someone else put it in one of the past threads here on this forum, Automatic resetting traps triggered by proximity carried by the PC turns traps into at-will permanent magic items that have their own action economy at a significantly tiny fraction of the cost it would've costed if it were an wondrous item. They're no longer traps.

[unseenmage]

...It's optimization not an exploit. ...
Arbitrary line is arbitrary.

And I do say that as someone who played a minionmancing Artificer in an infinite gp allowed, IRL game where Wish, Gate, Genesis, and Miracle were disallowed and I too forsook portable resetting magic traps.


I was being more facetious than anything anyway. My apologies if the lack of blued text was somehow misleading.


Speaking of immobile magic items, be sure to check out Lair Wards from Draconomicon and Wondrous Architecture from Stronghold Builder's Guide.
The latter especially has precedent for an alternative pricing for making mobile those magical structures which are normally stationary.
Perhaps resetting magic traps will be more palatable if they are mounted on a moving building that costs more than a small country.

[Troacctid]

Realistically, you shouldn't actually have unlimited time in Shackled City, because the bad guys will complete their evil plan while you're durdling, and then you'll have egg all over your face.