Artificer help

[Belzyk]

Ok so I have a min maxing artificer in my low power game and he somehow made 14 homunculus and after he realized they were to easy to kill. He told us he canabilized them to get gold and exp back. Is this possible. He also told one of my players that all his homonculus just destroyed each other. How would you handle this? I need real help because he is so strong compared yo my entire party. Combined.

[iTreeby]

Short answer is no. He can't grind up the homunculi for exp because they are not an item. If he created 14 of them, he can't get the 308 experience back. He can still grind up other magic items provided he has the appropriate item creation feat. But he never gets gold back from the "retain essence" feature


Long answer is that you should have a conversation about tone and power level with the group and make sure everyone is having fun.

[Belzyk]

Short answer is no. He can't grind up the homunculi for exp because they are not an item. If he created 14 of them, he can't get the 308 experience back. He can still grind up other magic items provided he has the appropriate item creation feat. But he never gets gold back from the "retain essence" feature


Long answer is that you should have a conversation about tone and power level with the group and make sure everyone is having fun.

Thanks. This one guy is like super min maxing like my second strongest guy in the party is a cleric who is more of a barbarian then a cleric lol. And only uses his spells to summon a monster to fight.

[Goaty14]

iTreeby is pretty much hit the nail right on the head: Homunculi are creatures, not items, and thus cannot be affected by his Retain Essence class feature. Even if the DM made some really weird ruling that his homunculi are items, he still couldn't do so until he obtained the Craft Construct feat (one could argue that his Craft Homunculus class feature allows him to craft homunculi and thus allows him to deconstruct them, but Retain Essence specifies "feat" not "class feature").

Also make sure you don't hate on him whilst telling him this (which just further rubs salt in the wound and might motivate him to optimize more). Simply tell him that he made a mistake, that we all make mistakes, and it's a low-op game so he should do fine. If he's *really* paranoid that they're too weak, he is allowed to advance their HD (construct HD, which increases HP/saves/bab) by paying more gold/xp.

[unseenmage]

It depends on if the GM is using the 'Constructs are Magic Items' rules interpretation.
Because of an old FAQ and the fact that Craft Construct is a magic item creation feat some GMs rule that Constructs are magic items.

However! Homunculi damage their creator when slain. Doesnt matter how they met their end their creator will still feel the burn.

Other than that you should definitely discuss limiting the Artificer's magic mart, gold, xp, or downtime with the player and GM. Artificers are cool but very very downtime dependant.

[RoboEmperor]

Ok so I have a min maxing artificer in my low power game and he somehow made 14 homunculus and after he realized they were to easy to kill. He told us he canabilized them to get gold and exp back. Is this possible. He also told one of my players that all his homonculus just destroyed each other. How would you handle this? I need real help because he is so strong compared yo my entire party. Combined.

Constructs are magic items so he can get the xp back, but not the gold.

There were a few debates here on this forum about the topic and I believe there was a RAW somewhere that indirectly (not directly) said all constructs are magic items.