Psionic/divine/arcane artificer.

[Buufreak]

So. I've been thinking this one over. My understanding is by the books, you get standard or psionic artificer but never both, because the idea of having magic and psionic items is over the top. But I feel like because of bulk of material this creates a massive disparity, in favor of magic. Because of this, do you think it would be out of the question to limit a magic based artificer to either arcane magic or divine magic?

[Falontani]

Psionic Artificer > magic artificer.

MiC has a quote somewhere in book that says that anything that can be made with magic can be made with the equivalent power.
Complete Psion's Erudite with stp erudite may manifest any spell as a power if he learns it. This means that psionic artificer has access to all the spells as well as all the powers. Using the MiC quote and your able to make any magical or psionic item.

Now to answer your question:

It could work, turning artificer into an arcane spellcaster and limiting to arcane magic items, divine spellcaster with divine magic items, etc. I would personally give arcane artificer a familiar at level 1, divine artificer would get turn undead or perhaps a divine companion, and psionic a psicrystal. It would be interesting to see how they balance compared to normal artificer, because your stripping a large amount of flexibility for access to the one feature and being considered an ordinary spellcaster for prerequisite's sake.

[Crichton]

Complete Psion's Erudite with stp erudite may manifest any {arcane} spell as a power if he learns it. This means that psionic artificer has access to all the {arcane} spells as well as all the powers. Using the MiC quote and your able to make any {arcane} magical or psionic item.

(bolded bracket text is my addition, for clarification)


There do exist methods for converting divine spells into arcane ones, but so far as I'm aware, there aren't any such methods that aren't at least somewhat questionable*. I'd love to hear otherwise, though, if there's something specific in mind.


That said, the ability to create any magic item that has an arcane spell or psionic power prerequisite, but not divine spell prerequisite, is still an incredibly versatile and powerful ability indeed.


*Edit: well, there is at least one unquestionable way to get some divine spells as arcane. Dragons explicitly cast as sorcerers, but some dragons have access to cleric spells, so theoretically they could scribe arcane scrolls of those spells. But that's entirely contingent on the DM providing a friendly dragon to do that for you. So I guess I should have said '...at least somewhat questionable, or dependent entirely on DM permissin/collaboration...'

[Falontani]

(bolded bracket text is my addition, for clarification)


There do exist methods for converting divine spells into arcane ones, but so far as I'm aware, there aren't any such methods that aren't at least somewhat questionable*. I'd love to hear otherwise, though, if there's something specific in mind.


That said, the ability to create any magic item that has an arcane spell or psionic power prerequisite, but not divine spell prerequisite, is still an incredibly versatile and powerful ability indeed.


*Edit: well, there is at least one unquestionable way to get some divine spells as arcane. Dragons explicitly cast as sorcerers, but some dragons have access to cleric spells, so theoretically they could scribe arcane scrolls of those spells. But that's entirely contingent on the DM providing a friendly dragon to do that for you. So I guess I should have said '...at least somewhat questionable, or dependent entirely on DM permissin/collaboration...'

Wyrm Wizard, geomancer, southern magician, Alternate spell source are the easy ways, and if an erudite can learn it, then psionic artificer works.

[Crichton]

Wyrm Wizard, geomancer, southern magician, Alternate spell source are the easy ways, and if an erudite can learn it, then psionic artificer works.

Southern Magician and Geomancer change aspects of the spell as it's cast, but don't actually convert the spell in a way that can be scroll-scribed.
Alternate Spell Source, from Dragon, would do it, but only if Dragon's on table as a source
Wyrm Wizard looks like the surest way, from your list.

But, just like my suggestion of finding a dragon to get scrolls from, both of those are contingent on the DM providing an npc with them, or another character in your party having them, for our StP Erudite to get scrolls from or learn from directly. That said, IF the DM allows the Artificer to draw from any spell/power that could exist, instead of just the published ones and the converted ones the PC has directly come in contact with, then yes, it would work. Again, up to the DM being permissive.

[Falontani]

Correct, however the artificer is best with a lenient dm. It can be powerful no matter how you read it, even if you are limited to ecs and core. But the more open the less artificers tend to try to break the game and more try to define themselves as more than just a craftsman. At least in my games.

[Crichton]

Correct, however the artificer is best with a lenient dm. It can be powerful no matter how you read it, even if you are limited to ecs and core. But the more open the less artificers tend to try to break the game and more try to define themselves as more than just a craftsman. At least in my games.

I fully agree with that entire statement. 100%

[magic9mushroom]

MiC has a quote somewhere in book that says that anything that can be made with magic can be made with the equivalent power.
Complete Psion's Erudite with stp erudite may manifest any spell as a power if he learns it. This means that psionic artificer has access to all the spells as well as all the powers. Using the MiC quote and your able to make any magical or psionic item.

1. Erudite is potentially variant rules.

2. CStP uses the text "manifesting a spell", and they do retain verbal and somatic components. It's questionable whether they count as powers for this purpose.

[Buufreak]

Psionic Artificer > magic artificer.

MiC has a quote somewhere in book that says that anything that can be made with magic can be made with the equivalent power.
Complete Psion's Erudite with stp erudite may manifest any spell as a power if he learns it. This means that psionic artificer has access to all the spells as well as all the powers. Using the MiC quote and your able to make any magical or psionic item.

That... is interesting. I assume WotC decided that was the best way to deal with the massive lack of psionic support?


Now to answer your question:

It could work, turning artificer into an arcane spellcaster and limiting to arcane magic items, divine spellcaster with divine magic items, etc. I would personally give arcane artificer a familiar at level 1, divine artificer would get turn undead or perhaps a divine companion, and psionic a psicrystal. It would be interesting to see how they balance compared to normal artificer, because your stripping a large amount of flexibility for access to the one feature and being considered an ordinary spellcaster for prerequisite's sake.

The abilities get is a nice touch, but I wasn't leaning so far as to making them full fledge casters, more as just restricting an artificer to (pardon the 4e term) specific power sources.

[Mato]

Just popping in for some minor tweaks here to help with clarity of the ideas about a few things in the topic.

Because of this, do you think it would be out of the question to limit a magic based artificer to either arcane magic or divine magic?Technically artificers don't use arcane or divine magic.

When an artificer scribes a scroll, is it an arcane scroll, a divine scroll, or neither?
Actually, it’s neither. According to the official errata for the EBERRON campaign setting, the magic items crafted by an artificer are neither arcane nor divine. This has no bearing on the artificer’s ability to use the scroll, but it means that the scroll is useless to any other character without a successful Use Magic Device check.

Page 32: Artificer—Item Creation
Magic items created by an artificer are considered neither arcane nor divine.


MiC has a quote somewhere in book that says that anything that can be made with magic can be made with the equivalent power.It's on a sidebar on page 232.

It allows psionic crafters to create the items published in the MiC using various psionic equivalents as substitutions. A DM does need to extend this side bar's application to the rest of the supplements. And even if you do a psionic crafter cannot create an item that directly implements a spell without a correct match. For example a "psionic artificer" cannot create a wand or scroll of most given spells and he cannot create a candle of invocation since there is no psionic version of gate.

Many of the items in this book can also be created by a character with the appropriate psionic item creation feat. ... If an item includes a spell prerequisite, but the effect of the item does not directly implement that spell, then a psionic power of similar flavor can be substituted.


CStP uses the text "manifesting a spell", and they do retain verbal and somatic components. It's questionable whether they count as powers for this purpose.It also says.

Benefit: You add Spellcraft to your class skill list, which allows you to attempt to convert an arcane spell into a power you can add to your repertoire.

Because the spells are now effectively psionic powers, they are no longer affected by metamagic feats. However, metapsionic feats can affect them as they would a psionic power.It's a little hard to understand, the erudite learns a spell but only treats it as a discipline power, manifests a spell as a power using power points based on the spell's level, his magic missile spell deals so much damage, manifesting the spell has strange components, and so on.

But all you have to do is take a tiny step back and realize the erudite is not writing new rules into the rulebook. For example, when an erudite learns protection from evil he has not actually rewrote chapter four of Complete Psionic to include a new "protection from evil, psionic" power. The erudite just has the patched in access to manifest an entry from chapter 11 of the Player's Handbook using various manifesting rules in certain ways. He is manifesting a spell that is effectively and practically more or less and almost nearly and approaching close to, but is not actually or officially or explicitly, a power.

[Falontani]

Technically artificers don't use arcane or divine magic. You are correct, the thread's purpose is a rhetorical, "What if instead of doing what they do, they use arcane or divine."



It allows psionic crafters to create the items published in the MiC using various psionic equivalents as substitutions. A DM does need to extend this side bar's application to the rest of the supplements. And even if you do a psionic crafter cannot create an item that directly implements a spell without a correct match. For example a "psionic artificer" cannot create a wand or scroll of most given spells and he cannot create a candle of invocation since there is no psionic version of gate.Again, traditionally correct, however if the next rule is allowed at a table, then Spell to Power Erudite can manifest Gate as a power, and thus would be able to construct a psionic version of the Candle of Invocation using his "Psionic" Gate power.



It's a little hard to understand, the erudite learns a spell but only treats it as a discipline power, manifests a spell as a power using power points based on the spell's level, his magic missile spell deals so much damage, manifesting the spell has strange components, and so on.

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20070629a]Benefit:[/url] You add Spellcraft to your class skill list, which allows you to attempt to convert an arcane spell into a power you can add to your repertoire.

Because the spells are now effectively psionic powers, they are no longer affected by metamagic feats. However, metapsionic feats can affect them as they would a psionic power. This is 100% clear to me, the Spell to Power Erudite has added the arcane spell to his powers known list. Ergo it is a power. Everything below the first line is detailing how the new power works because Psionics aren't the same thing as magic usually. When a Spell to Power Erudite manifests "Psionic" Magic Missile it doesn't check his manifester level for the number of missiles it shoots out, because unlike traditional spellcasting, psionics get them by augmenting the power. They wrote the augmentation rules on all arcane spells in a single paragraph. And they did it beautifully.


But all you have to do is take a tiny step back and realize the erudite is not writing new rules into the rulebook. For example, when an erudite learns protection from evil he has not actually rewrote chapter four of Complete Psionic to include a new "protection from evil, psionic" power. The erudite just has the patched in access to manifest an entry from chapter 11 of the Player's Handbook using various manifesting rules in certain ways. He is manifesting a spell that is effectively and practically more or less and almost nearly and approaching close to, but is not actually or officially or explicitly, a power.
But most spells that have been converted to powers ARE DIFFERENT.


Evocation [Fire]
Level: Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level)
Area: 20-ft.-radius spread
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Reflex half
Spell Resistance: Yes
A fireball spell is an explosion of flame that detonates with a low roar and deals 1d6 points of fire damage per caster level (maximum 10d6) to every creature within the area. Unattended objects also take this damage. The explosion creates almost no pressure.

You point your finger and determine the range (distance and height) at which the fireball is to burst. A glowing, pea-sized bead streaks from the pointing digit and, unless it impacts upon a material body or solid barrier prior to attaining the prescribed range, blossoms into the fireball at that point. (An early impact results in an early detonation.) If you attempt to send the bead through a narrow passage, such as through an arrow slit, you must “hit” the opening with a ranged touch attack, or else the bead strikes the barrier and detonates prematurely.

The fireball sets fire to combustibles and damages objects in the area. It can melt metals with low melting points, such as lead, gold, copper, silver, and bronze. If the damage caused to an interposing barrier shatters or breaks through it, the fireball may continue beyond the barrier if the area permits; otherwise it stops at the barrier just as any other spell effect does.

Material Component
A tiny ball of bat guano and sulfur.


Evocation(Discipline Power)(Probably Psychokinesis however it does not explicitly specify) [Fire]
Level: Sor/Wiz 3Erudite 3
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Long (400 ft. + 40 ft./level)
Area: 20-ft.-radius spread
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Reflex half
SpellPower Resistance: Yes
A fireball spell is an explosion of flame that detonates with a low roar and deals 1d6 points of fire damage per caster level (maximum 10d6)5d6 points of fire damage to every creature within the area. Unattended objects also take this damage. The explosion creates almost no pressure.

You point your finger and determine the range (distance and height) at which the fireball is to burst. A glowing, pea-sized bead streaks from the pointing digit and, unless it impacts upon a material body or solid barrier prior to attaining the prescribed range, blossoms into the fireball at that point. (An early impact results in an early detonation.) If you attempt to send the bead through a narrow passage, such as through an arrow slit, you must “hit” the opening with a ranged touch attack, or else the bead strikes the barrier and detonates prematurely.

The fireball sets fire to combustibles and damages objects in the area. It can melt metals with low melting points, such as lead, gold, copper, silver, and bronze. If the damage caused to an interposing barrier shatters or breaks through it, the fireball may continue beyond the barrier if the area permits; otherwise it stops at the barrier just as any other spell effect does.

Material Component
A tiny ball of bat guano and sulfur.
Augment
For every additional power point you spend, this power’s damage increases by one die (d6).

[magic9mushroom]

This is 100% clear to me, the Spell to Power Erudite has added the arcane spell to his powers known list. Ergo it is a power.

Technically, at no point does it say the spell is a power.

It says you can attempt to convert an arcane spell into a power (but doesn't say whether it succeeds).

It says you treat the spell as a discipline power for the basis of learning it.

It says the spells are now effectively psionic powers, and metapsionic feats can affect them as they would a psionic power.

And then it says about ten times that you are manifesting spells (which uses different rules than manifesting powers, such as verbal/somatic components).

[Mato]

Again, traditionally correct, however if the next rule is allowed at a table, then Spell to Power Erudite can manifest Gate as a power, and thus would be able to construct a psionic version of the Candle of Invocation using his "Psionic" Gate power.

But most spells that have been converted to powers ARE DIFFERENT.I think you should pick one, either you are trying to say the erudite's manifested spells are like the spells or they are different. When you try to push both like that, it's clear you're not paying any attention to what the rules or other posters have to say and you are trying to push for a certain outcome you like instead.

You also misunderstood me. The problem isn't that the erudite cannot manifest a given spell, it's that normally a psionic crafter cannot. For example there is no such thing as "invisibility, psionic" even if an erudite learns how to manifest the invisibility spell. So if a wilder wants to create a ring of invisibility, first he needs to ask his DM to apply the sidebar in the MiC to all items instead of that book and then he needs to ask his DM if the 2nd level cloud mind power can be used as a substitute for it (which should be a 'no' imo).

And this next part is a little harder to grasp but while we're at it I'd like to use your post as an example to highlight another fun oddity in these crossover rules. It's extremely important that you understand the side bar we're discussing is about psionics crafting magic items. Your DM must be using the powers are different variant rule presented in the expanded psionics handbook, and if using that must also set the appropriate manifester level and appropriate power, in order for a wilder to create a psionic item using this side bar's rules. Go a head and read the entry again to see what I mean, it's on page 232 of the magic item compendium. When it said creating magic items, it didn't really mean "creating winged boots" as a psionic item is an option for manifesters but creating magic items is an option for manifesters unless you are using variant rules.




Technically, at no point does it say the spell is a power.
It says you can attempt to convert an arcane spell into a power (but doesn't say whether it succeeds).
It says you treat the spell as a discipline power for the basis of learning it.
It says the spells are now effectively psionic powers, and metapsionic feats can affect them as they would a psionic power.
And then it says about ten times that you are manifesting spells (which uses different rules than manifesting powers, such as verbal/somatic components).Thank you for helping clarify this to him.

[Crichton]

Technically, at no point does it say the spell is a power.

It says you can attempt to convert an arcane spell into a power (but doesn't say whether it succeeds).

It says you treat the spell as a discipline power for the basis of learning it.

It says the spells are now effectively psionic powers, and metapsionic feats can affect them as they would a psionic power.

And then it says about ten times that you are manifesting spells (which uses different rules than manifesting powers, such as verbal/somatic components).



While they definitely do leave it ambiguous as they continue to call it a spell later, it's a poor reading that says they don't ever say the spell becomes a power:



You add Spellcraft to your class skill list, which allows you to attempt to convert an arcane spell into a power you can add to your repertoire



You seem to think that since they use the word 'attempt' that it doesn't mean it succeeds, but the phrase 'power you can add to your repertoire' indicates that if it didn't succeed, you couldn't add it to your repertoire, which confirms that yes, it does succeed and has been converted into a power.

As a minor addition, the name of the ACF is, after all, Convert Spell to Power, not Learn a Spell you can Manifest.


My take on that is that it clearly states it becomes a power, and they use the 'spell' language later to avoid having to use awkward phrasing like 'converted spell' or 'converted power' or 'spell that's now a power' and so on. That part is just my interpretation of the RAI, but the RAW seems to indicate that it is indeed a power now.