how to get to level 6 artificer in the wild

[newguydude1]

my group is gonna have 3 players who cant make it for the next month so my dm is gonna do a solo adventure for me "inspired by dont starve."

i can get a mirror mephit at level 1 and use simulacrum but i need money to do this and my dm is not gonna give me shops only random drops so i cant do this. i need to wait until level 6 so i can use spellstoring item to cast lesser planar binding to get my mirror mephit.

so the tricks i thought of are for level 1-5
summoned marked homunculus for 1hour/level arbalesters but i'm gonna be facing demons and devils exclusively so their dr is gonna ruin me
personal weapon augmentation bestowing flying weapon property to turn a medium weapon into a medium animated object 10min/level
grab monkey grip feat at level 3 to animate large objects instead of medium

but the main problem with personal weapon augmentation is that it takes 1min to cast and encounters happen at random unexpectedly

i don't know how to get enlarge person on my artificer

i thought about getting a dip here and there to make my life easier but i don't know. a dip in psion gets me a geodite which is super strong early but becomes worthless later and i can't retrain class levels.

my dm said my gear is gonna be rolled randomly and is mostly gonna be consumables not wondrous items

[sleepyphoenixx]

Get a Wild Cohort (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a).
It doesn't cost you anything and at low levels it's just as strong as a druid companion (the Riding Dog is generally considered the best pick).
Even if you can't retrain the feat later it's a decently strong meatshield until at least level 10 and still reasonably useful after that. That goes double for a solo adventure.
And if it dies you can get a free new one 24 hours later.
As a bonus riding dogs get decent spot & listen so they also help avoid ambushes and can track which can come in handy at low levels.

At level 7 you could upgrade to a Dire Eagle which is decently tough and can serve as a flying mount or a Fleshraker which is almost too good even with the slowed progression.

[newguydude1]

Get a Wild Cohort (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a).
It doesn't cost you anything and at low levels it's just as strong as a druid companion (the Riding Dog is generally considered the best pick).
Even if you can't retrain the feat later it's a decently strong meatshield until at least level 10 and still reasonably useful after that. That goes double for a solo adventure.
And if it dies you can get a free new one 24 hours later.
As a bonus riding dogs get decent spot & listen so they also help avoid ambushes and can track which can come in handy at low levels.

At level 7 you could upgrade to a Dire Eagle which is decently tough and can serve as a flying mount or a Fleshraker which is almost too good even with the slowed progression.

thank you but i forgot to mention only books, no magazine or online stuff unless its an errata. my dm has every single book in 3.0 and 3.5 and he doesn't like online stuff cause they make his books useless. one time he allowed energy bow and every archer used only energy bow and he didnt like it. also savage progression aasimar.

[newguydude1]

nobody has any op low level artificer tricks or class independent tricks that doesn't rely on online stuff?

i guess there are limits to 3.5.

[Nounverber]

Low level tricks for artificers are hard because all their tricks take prep time to do. This works fine if you have action points or time to scout and set up, but the artificer chassis isn't good at reacting to things until he can actually buy or craft his contingencies or equipment.

If you got dropped into the wilderness at level 1 with no support and just basic equipment, you could go find a tree and "craft" it into a very large quarterstaff. After "equipping" it as a weapon, you cast personal weapon augmentation and give it the flying weapon property (Magic of Faerun) so it becomes an animated object. Because you animated a large or huge object, it has the requisite hp and hardness of a wooden quarterstaff of that size and has all the attack bonuses and damage dice as an appropriately sized animated object. You now have ten minutes per caster level to send it to fight battles for you or clear out dungeons singlehandedly. After the duration runs out or the quarterstaff breaks either find your quarterstaff/another tree and cast it again to repeat the process

The downsides to this trick is that it requires using a 3.0 book to work. You also have to somehow get a huge or bigger tree to make the quarterstaff, which, while it doesn't cost anything to make, would still take a work week to craft depending on interpretation of RAW. It also still takes a full minute to cast personal weapon augmentation, so it can't be done while in combat. Also, any intelligent creature would avoid the tree staff and fight out who keeps sending it to beat everything which means the chances of getting ambushed when out of infusions or whatnot significantly increases. There could be debate on whether you get experience for "beating" encounters with it but if conjurers get experience for letting their summons beat everything then you could too.

To progress the trick, increasing caster level or finding a way to persist or extend the augment would greatly help. Finding a way to correctly hide yourself from foes would help too. Being able to transport gigantic items with you would be difficult unless you have easy access to large items that could be considered weapons or have access to shrink item and/or extra dimensional storage.

[newguydude1]

Low level tricks for artificers are hard because all their tricks take prep time to do. This works fine if you have action points or time to scout and set up, but the artificer chassis isn't good at reacting to things until he can actually buy or craft his contingencies or equipment.

If you got dropped into the wilderness at level 1 with no support and just basic equipment, you could go find a tree and "craft" it into a very large quarterstaff. After "equipping" it as a weapon, you cast personal weapon augmentation and give it the flying weapon property (Magic of Faerun) so it becomes an animated object. Because you animated a large or huge object, it has the requisite hp and hardness of a wooden quarterstaff of that size and has all the attack bonuses and damage dice as an appropriately sized animated object. You now have ten minutes per caster level to send it to fight battles for you or clear out dungeons singlehandedly. After the duration runs out or the quarterstaff breaks either find your quarterstaff/another tree and cast it again to repeat the process

The downsides to this trick is that it requires using a 3.0 book to work. You also have to somehow get a huge or bigger tree to make the quarterstaff, which, while it doesn't cost anything to make, would still take a work week to craft depending on interpretation of RAW. It also still takes a full minute to cast personal weapon augmentation, so it can't be done while in combat. Also, any intelligent creature would avoid the tree staff and fight out who keeps sending it to beat everything which means the chances of getting ambushed when out of infusions or whatnot significantly increases. There could be debate on whether you get experience for "beating" encounters with it but if conjurers get experience for letting their summons beat everything then you could too.

To progress the trick, increasing caster level or finding a way to persist or extend the augment would greatly help. Finding a way to correctly hide yourself from foes would help too. Being able to transport gigantic items with you would be difficult unless you have easy access to large items that could be considered weapons or have access to shrink item and/or extra dimensional storage.

Personal Weapon Augmentation only works on weapons you wield, throw, or shoot. by raw you cannot wield or throw anything that is bigger than your size category. so the biggest object you can make is medium at level 1.

1min casting time makes it impossible to use when i get attacked.

[Yogibear41]

Fiery Burst + Heat Metal infusion for at will 2d6 fire damage?

[newguydude1]

Fiery Burst + Heat Metal infusion for at will 2d6 fire damage?

do infusions qualify for fiery burst? they're not spells.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

1min casting time makes it impossible to use when i get attacked.

Artificers can spend action points to use a 1-minute infusion as a 1-round action instead. If your campaign isn't using action points, well, the artificer was built assuming Eberron campaigns which always use action points, so your DM should ideally houserule something equivalent, like being able to shorten infusion times X/day.


do infusions qualify for fiery burst? they're not spells.

As per ECS 31, infusions "function just like spells and follow all the rules for spells," so they're usable for [Reserve] feats.

[thethird]

It won't necessarily help with your first encounter. But note that artificers can make pretty good low level necromancers having access to animate dead at first.

[newguydude1]

It won't necessarily help with your first encounter. But note that artificers can make pretty good low level necromancers having access to animate dead at first.

no they dont. lowest level animate dead is 3 for me because my dm doesnt allow dragon compendium and that requires level 6 to use with spellstoring item.

[newguydude1]

As per ECS 31, infusions "function just like spells and follow all the rules for spells," so they're usable for [Reserve] feats.

magic of eberron says infusions are not spells so anything that specifically requires spells as prerequisites can't be qualified by artificer infusions. so while artificers can get fiery burst because he has the ability to cast 2nd level spells, since he has no "fire spell" available to cast he cannot use fiery burst.

what my dm said.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

magic of eberron says infusions are not spells so anything that specifically requires spells as prerequisites can't be qualified by artificer infusions.

No, MoE says that "a prestige class with a prerequisite to cast a specific spell would be unavailable to an artificer," emphasis mine. That just means that something requiring, for instance, "Spellcasting: Ability to cast heat metal" would not be satisfied by the ability to infuse heat metal into an object, but the heat metal infusion still counts as a 2nd-level spell with the [Fire] descriptor for other purposes including but not limited to powering Fiery Burst.

[gogogome]

No, MoE says that "a prestige class with a prerequisite to cast a specific spell would be unavailable to an artificer," emphasis mine. That just means that something requiring, for instance, "Spellcasting: Ability to cast heat metal" would not be satisfied by the ability to infuse heat metal into an object, but the heat metal infusion still counts as a 2nd-level spell with the [Fire] descriptor for other purposes including but not limited to powering Fiery Burst.

Hi, i'm the TC's DM. Rather than discuss the rules through him I'd thought I'd cut out the middle man and respond directly.

"An artificer can qualify for prestige classes with spellcasting level requirements (as long as they do not specifically require arcane or divine casting), even though his infusions aren’t spells."

The rules aren't saying "infusions are spells except where noted." They're saying the opposite. They're saying "infusions are not spells except where noted." So just because the rules didn't specifically exclude "fire spells" does not mean they're included by default. It's the opposite. They are excluded by default.

The sidebar in question says three things:
+1 spellcasting level increases infusions.
Infusion levels count as spellcasting levels for prerequisites, as long as the prerequisite does not require arcane or divine specifically.
Infusions are not spells so they don't satisfy the prerequisites of anything that requires spells.

In summary, infusion level = spellcasting level, but infusion =/= spell.

Fiery burst requires ability to cast 2nd level spells, infusion level = spellcasting level, therefore artificers can grab fiery burst.
You need fire spells available to cast to use fiery burst. Infusion =/= spell, therefore artificers have no fire spells available to power the feat.

ECS is saying anything that affects spells affect infusions. So eschew materials and optional material components work with infusions because they affect spells. Is has nothing to do whether infusions count as spells or not. And ECS made it clear infusions are not spells.

In conclusion, artificers cannot use reserve feats.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

The rules aren't saying "infusions are spells except where noted." They're saying the opposite. They're saying "infusions are not spells except where noted."

No, they are treated exactly as spells except where noted: infusions "function just like spells and follow all the rules for spells," as already quoted. "Just like" and "follow all the rules for" are all-encompassing except for where other rules carve out exceptions, just like terms such as "treated as" or "gain the benefits of" which apply in all cases unless excepted.


ECS is saying anything that affects spells affect infusions. So eschew materials and optional material components work with infusions because they affect spells. Is has nothing to do whether infusions count as spells or not. And ECS made it clear infusions are not spells.

"Only feats that affect spells affect infusions, not feats that use spells" is something you're extrapolating, and even if "affecting" or "using" spells were defined game terms and the distinction had any mechanical weight, there are other cases where the rules do limit things like that, and infusions aren't limited in that way.

The infusions verbiage isn't like the verbiage in psionics-magic transparency: "spells, spell-like abilities, and magic items that could potentially affect psionics do affect psionics," which is much more limited and specifically does not include feats (and some other things like supernatural abilities). It's not even like the shadowcasting verbiage: mysteries are "cast as though they were arcane spells" and then have some extra rules like -4 on dispel checks and not being able to use metamagic feats, so you could argue that they only count as arcane spells in the instant they're cast so anything that relies on them being spells while not-yet-cast wouldn't work.

Infusions work like spells in an unqualified manner, even for feats, even while uncast.

As for the sidebar in MoE, it applies explicitly and only to prestige class qualification and progression, and the bit in question:


An artificer can qualify for prestige classes with spellcasting level requirements (as long as they do not specifically require arcane or divine casting), even though his infusions aren’t spells.
[...]
Likewise, a prestige class with a prerequisite to cast a specific spell would be unavailable to an artificer.

...is merely recapitulating these bits from ECS in a prestige class context:


Infusions are neither arcane nor divine; they are drawn from the artificer infusion list
[...]
An artificer’s infusions do not meet spell prerequisites for creating magic items. For example, an artificer must still employ the Use Magic Device skill to emulate the light spell to create a wand of light, even though light appears on his infusion list.

...so it's not adding any extra exceptions or restrictions, any more than the bit in Complete Arcane explaining that warlocks having a CL lets them meet CL prerequisites is adding anything; both sections are just reminders and restatements.

So: infusions are not spells, but are treated as spells in any and all ways (to the point that infuser level == caster level, +1 level spellcasting == +1 level infusing, etc.) except that (A) they are neither arcane nor divine and so can't be used to qualify for arcane-requiring or divine-requiring things and (B) specific infusions that mimic individual spells cannot count as the equivalent mimicked spells for prerequisite purposes. And since [Reserve] feats don't care whether you're an arcane or a divine caster and don't require a specific spell to be used, they work with infusions just fine.

Now, all that said, the RAW isn't the important thing in this case, 'cause you can always either houserule out something allowed by RAW or houserule in something disallowed by RAW if you want to, and I get the impression that you don't want the artificer to be able to take Fiery Burst and have something in combat other than constructs/infused gear/etc. Given that you felt online material made your books "useless" when the energy bow seemed to be better than other magic bows and the Aasimar progression seemed to be too good of a one-level dip, and you're not allowing purchasing magic items (which, granted, is out of theme for a survival adventure but is still an assumed part of the rules wealth- and equipment-wise) or retraining (which is tailor-made for situations exactly like this), I'm assuming you're concerned about perceived power levels more than anything else.

You're already running (A) a solo campaign (B) with a very quick pace (if the expectation of going from level 1 to 6 in a month is realistic) (C) outside of Eberron, for a class that is (A) best at supporting other teammates, (B) requires a lot of downtime, and (C) relies on action points and other Eberron-isms to compete if it hasn't been able to craft a bunch of items yet, so it seems to me that you don't need to worry about anything being overpowered and in fact you might want to do something to compensate for those fairly nontrivial drawbacks. Maybe it's letting him take Fiery Burst even if you still think it's not RAW, maybe it's giving him action points to infuse faster, maybe it's giving him more starting gold (complete with plot hooks for later!), maybe it's starting at 3rd instead of 1st so he can survive ambushes a bit better, maybe it's giving him a warrior hireling or something to guard him while he infuses things.

And if none of those sound good, well, OP, maybe playing a workshop- and money-dependent solo character in a wilderness-survival-themed adventure just isn't gonna work out.

[gogogome]

snip

I am a RAW only DM. I allow my players do crazy shenanigans. For example TC is using sublime chord spell list to create CL1 scrolls of lesser planar binding to get himself a mirror mephit simulacrum at level 1. But they also must feel the downside of RAW too. No special treatment from me.

As for your argument, if it weren't for MoE people will be saying artificers can't qualify for spellcasting PrCs because they don't have spells and they don't have ability to cast spells. MoE made an exception: infusion levels count as ability to cast spells, and +1 spellcasting levels progress infusion levels despite ECS directly saying Artificers are NOT spellcasters. Literally the first sentence. So you are incorrect thinking everything is included by default unless noted otherwise. It's the opposite. Artificers have no spells and they can't use them to qualify for anything. Specificity or Generalness doesn't matter. If something requires spells then artificers are powerless. Artificers have no spells.

Perhaps using psionics as an analogy will make you understand better. With transparency in full effect powers function just like spells and everything that affects spells affect powers too like dispel magic and dead magic zones. But despite this transparency, you cannot use powers to create magic items or power reserve feats. Infusions are the same. They are not spells just like powers are not spells.

As for pacing, i wouldn't be surprised if the TC here hit level 6 in our first session. This is gonna be a very roleplay light campaign where all the encounters come to him seeing how he's going to spend all of his time trying to craft scrolls instead of invading fortified fiend bases. And even if I hit him with a 75% xp penalty (I'll probably will) i'm pretty sure he's going to blow through each encounter in minutes. You can fit a lot of encounters in 4 hours if the only RP the player is doing is "i roll craft checks"

[magicalmagicman]

And if none of those sound good, well, OP, maybe playing a workshop- and money-dependent solo character in a wilderness-survival-themed adventure just isn't gonna work out.

HEY!

COME ON NOW!

Do you know what edition we're in? We're in 3.5 mate. Anything is possible.

In fact, the OP's Personal Weapon Augmentation build completely works without action points. Everyone seems to have forgotten that you can hold a touch spell indefinitely. So just carry the two-handed weapon (medium or large) in one hand, cast Personal Weapon Augmentation with the other and hold the charge, and then when you meet your first foe simply hold your two-handed weapon with both hands as a free action (carrying->wielding takes no action) which automatically discharges the touch spell onto your two-handed weapon, and then spend a full-round action throwing it and thereby animating it.

Medium Animated Objects should hold you until level 2, Large Animated Objects should hold you until level 5, and at level 6 you do your mirror mephit thing.

If you absolutely want to have huge objects then dip sorcerer for 4 castings of enlarge person, or psychic warrior for expansion and grab Practiced Manifester to increase its duration from 1round to at least 2 rounds and Psionic Talent to get more power points. I don't recommend it though because I doubt you'll survive long enough to drop weapon, grow, pick up weapon, and throw.

[thethird]

no they dont. lowest level animate dead is 3 for me because my dm doesnt allow dragon compendium and that requires level 6 to use with spellstoring item.

Are you or your dm familiar with divine crusader?

[newguydude1]

HEY!

COME ON NOW!

Do you know what edition we're in? We're in 3.5 mate. Anything is possible.

In fact, the OP's Personal Weapon Augmentation build completely works without action points. Everyone seems to have forgotten that you can hold a touch spell indefinitely. So just carry the two-handed weapon (medium or large) in one hand, cast Personal Weapon Augmentation with the other and hold the charge, and then when you meet your first foe simply hold your two-handed weapon with both hands as a free action (carrying->wielding takes no action) which automatically discharges the touch spell onto your two-handed weapon, and then spend a full-round action throwing it and thereby animating it.

Medium Animated Objects should hold you until level 2, Large Animated Objects should hold you until level 5, and at level 6 you do your mirror mephit thing.

If you absolutely want to have huge objects then dip sorcerer for 4 castings of enlarge person, or psychic warrior for expansion and grab Practiced Manifester to increase its duration from 1round to at least 2 rounds and Psionic Talent to get more power points. I don't recommend it though because I doubt you'll survive long enough to drop weapon, grow, pick up weapon, and throw.

omg i luv u


Are you or your dm familiar with divine crusader?

please read the first post. i dont have access to scrolls. and if i did i'd be making a mirror mephit simulacrum at level 1 instead of animate dead.