Crafting/Artificer Questions

[Holocron Coder]

I'm in the process of creating an Artificer. Thus, crafting is definitely something I need to know more about.

I've looked at the normal crafting feats and read over the Craft skill, but I still have a few questions, both about crafting and about Use Magic Device

1) When crafting magical arms and armory using the feat, do I have to have ranks in both Craft(Armorsmith) and Craft(Weaponsmith)?
2) With Use Magic Device, is there a penalty for failing to activate a Scroll, Wand, etc that you yourself created?
3) Is there anything I can get to boost my UMD or C(anything) checks?

I think that's all for now... anything you think may be of use or suggestions are accepted :) As an additional note, I'm making a Warforged Artificer. Yes, the Cha penalty hurts, but I like the fluff of it.

[PlatinumJester]

I'm in the process of creating an Artificer. Thus, crafting is definitely something I need to know more about.

I've looked at the normal crafting feats and read over the Craft skill, but I still have a few questions, both about crafting and about Use Magic Device

1) When crafting magical arms and armory using the feat, do I have to have ranks in both Craft(Armorsmith) and Craft(Weaponsmith)?
2) With Use Magic Device, is there a penalty for failing to activate a Scroll, Wand, etc that you yourself created?
3) Is there anything I can get to boost my UMD or C(anything) checks?

I think that's all for now... anything you think may be of use or suggestions are accepted :) As an additional note, I'm making a Warforged Artificer. Yes, the Cha penalty hurts, but I like the fluff of it.

Get skill focus UM and C(whatever) and the magical aptitude feat (PHB).

[GimliFett]

1)Nope, you don't need 'em unless you want to craft the masterwork items to be enchanted yourself. :smallbiggrin:
2)Not as far as I've ever heard. I know there are a couple of feats that allow you to attune to wands to allow various bonus-like-substances.
3)I think there are a couple of items in Magic Item Compendium, but not entirely sure at the moment. Best bet is as PlatinumJester suggested!

Warforged Artificer? Are you using the Racial Substitution levels?

[Holocron Coder]

Warforged Artificer? Are you using the Racial Substitution levels?

What would be these racial substitution levels? :smallbiggrin: And where?

[Curmudgeon]

2) With Use Magic Device, is there a penalty for failing to activate a Scroll, Wand, etc that you yourself created?
Sometimes. If you use Activate Blindly then you can fail, sometimes dramatically. (You'd likely only do this for high-level scrolls, because the high DC makes Use Scroll harder than Activate Blindly.) Also anytime you can fail when rolling a 1 on your Use Magic Device check and do so, you can't use that item for 24+ hours. (This will probably only happen at low levels, because from level 13 on the Artificer can take 10 on their UMD rolls -- a special Artificer version of Skill Mastery.)

[Telonius]

Well, you could always make a widget of UMD or C. Gloves of Crafting sound like a reasonable item.


Gloves of Crafting

These gloves grant the user a +5 competence bonus on a particular Craft check. The Craft that these gloves improve is determined at their creation.

Faint transmutation; CL 3rd; Craft Wondrous Item, mending, creator must have 5 ranks in the desired Craft skill; Price 2500gp; Weight 1 lb.

[Zim]

If you really want to actually make the items you're enchanting, they you'd need the appropriate craft skills. This is usually not a problem as artificers get a good number (4 per level + high Int). To boost those checks, craft an item that casts magecraft 1/day for a +5 to your craft checks and use masterwork tools. If you are worried about the time needed to create expensive nonmagical items (mithral, adamantine etc...) then use fabricate.

[MightyIgoo]

What would be these racial substitution levels? :smallbiggrin: And where?

In "Races of Eberron". Basically, at Lvl1, you can "infuse self" just as you could any other item or construct or whatever. At Lvl4, instead of being able to craft a homunculus, you can repair damage to stuff you perform infusions on. At Lvl5, instead of the retain essence feature, you can craft a weapon familiar (an intelligent weapon that floats around beating people up).

I loves me some Warforged artificer, but these substitution levels can force some hard decisions: Weird little helper guy or auto-repair? More XP for crafting stuff or magical bodyguard? I guess it depends on how you want to play your character.

[Arbitrarity]

My preferred selection there is to take all of the sub levels except the one for retain essence. Craft Construct covers homunculi, the first sub level is free, but retain essence is useful.

[SCPRedMage]

1) When crafting magical arms and armory using the feat, do I have to have ranks in both Craft(Armorsmith) and Craft(Weaponsmith)?
Like others have said, you only need Craft skills if you plan on making the item to be enchanted.

2) With Use Magic Device, is there a penalty for failing to activate a Scroll, Wand, etc that you yourself created?
An artificer actually gets a +2 to UMD checks to use any magic item that he has the feats to make.

3) Is there anything I can get to boost my UMD or C(anything) checks?
Well, the DMG goes over the magic item base pricing (bonus squared x 100) for compentence bonuses to skills; you can use that to make your own, if your GM will let you get away with it. Beyond that, Skill Focus (UMD) will get you a +3, and Magical Aptitude gets a +2 to UMD and Spellcraft.

[skywalker]

Let's say I'm an artificer, and I want to make all my magic items myself(to show off my sexy bod, to match my cloak, whatever). What craft skill would I need to craft a ring? It strikes me as strange that all these rings are floating around, but no skill specifically mentions rings. Would it be blacksmithing, gemcutting, is there a "craft(jewelery)?"

[Jarchh]

I've never played an arti before, but someone in my gaming group has for the last year or so, and I've built both his arti's for him. There are a couple of guidelines he always followed. Firstly when you level up MAKE sure you spend your craft reserve since I'm pretty sure in the books it says it doesn’t roll over/a dm wont let it roll over, so it's better to waste it on some items that you don’t really want then to lose it.

Secondly, are you 100% sold on warforged? A house d’Cannith arti can be very handy. A. From a role-play sense they’ll likely have access to a great deal of the best crafting resources/libraries and such since house Cannith artificers are arguably the best artificers in Eberron (could be gnomes as well if you wanted to argue that a flying ship is cooler then a robot). And B. The marks of making give some good powers. Least I think gives some that aren’t really useful they’re just things like make hole, which could come in handy in a pinch. But when you get to Lesser/Greater you’re in for a nice surprise, since you can get a use a day of great artificer spells such as Lesser/greater creation and fabricate. And lastly there’s a great Item that the artificer always buys, I think it’s in the ECS or the DMG called Helm of the artificer (sorry I don’t have books on me) which gives you a bonus to either craft or UMD I’m not quite sure, but it’s worth looking at, he seems to like it.

And lastly don’t try and go for a combat homunculus it looks good on paper but they really don’t stand up as anything in combat, and you’ll likely only waste your XP and GP. You’ll want to go for something like the pack master/mate whatever the walking chest is called. That can pour potions down your throat for you. That’s saved members of our party a good few times. Or even the homunculus that can assist you on crafting/craft for you, again sorry I don’t have my books so I can’t name it for you.

[Feralgeist]

There IS no skill, or even a check. you only need to spend time and the feat for it.



Forge Ring [Item Creation]
Prerequisite

Caster level 12th.
Benefit

You can create any ring whose prerequisites you meet. Crafting a ring takes one day for each 1,000 gp in its base price. To craft a ring, you must spend 1/25 of its base price in XP and use up raw materials costing one-half of its base price.

You can also mend a broken ring if it is one that you could make. Doing so costs half the XP, half the raw materials, and half the time it would take to forge that ring in the first place.

Some magic rings incur extra costs in material components or XP, as noted in their descriptions. You must pay such a cost to forge such a ring or to mend a broken one.