High Level Artificer Advice

[RaijinKnight]

So we're doing a level20 once off. Medium optimization (I guess?), and it'll be our first (and probably only) experience with level 20, so we're expecting chaos and lots of it.

I'm looking for advice specifically on spells. I have my items planned out, but I want to know what staffs / scrolls / wands would be useful and fun at level 20.

I'm going to be level 20 artificer, straight, I have a high level malconvoker cohort (cleric/malconvoker/thaumaturge). We expect plane hoping and an army invasion (army will probably be undead/demons?)

The sillier and the flashier the spells are the better.

INFO: - I already plan to persist a few low level spells, and I already went the mark of making / unlock dragonmark / unfettered heroism route to give myself unlimited in-combat major creation / fabrication and I expect to have some fun with that.

The malconvoker will mostly be there for the army battle, but any other "personal" fights she probably won't feature in her full glory.
I've got everything planned for her - but due to the nature of the artificer stealing spells from other lists I'm not sure what are good ideas? I'll probably do the following at the least -
Undermaster, Time Stop, A full staff for all the transmute x to y spells, Meteor swarm (for the army part?)

Any other advice for high level play would also be great. Thanks!

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Use Genesis to create your own pocket plane, don't tell anyone it exists, and name it the same thing as a common place on the material plane, like [big city] Market Square. This way no NPCs will find it using knowledge or gather information checks, and will have a difficult time trying to use divinations to find it.

Hide out in that pocket plane, use Astral Projection to create copies of your whole party including equipment, and the copies can manifest a physical body on whatever plane you need to visit. Magic item charges, scrolls, etc. used by those copies don't get expended from your actual items. If one of the copies is destroyed the actual character just wakes up in the pocket plane, completely unharmed.

Since you don't use up actual charges from your items, you can get partially charged wands and staffs at a high caster level for reduced cost. If the item typically has 50 charges when new, divide the cost by 50, then multiply that by the number of charges it has left. Keep in mind your copies can run out of charges, so maybe get ten charges on a wand if you don't think you'll need more than that per Astral Projection, and that wand is 1/5 the normal price.

[RaijinKnight]

This is amazing, thanks! I already have the plane planned (With some permanencied animated statues as a small, nearly endless, militia). But the name idea is amazing! I'll look into the Astral Projection idea as well. Especially seeing as it's something my cohort can cast as well, thereby doubling our targets.

[Afghanistan]

This is amazing, thanks! I already have the plane planned (With some permanencied animated statues as a small, nearly endless, militia). But the name idea is amazing! I'll look into the Astral Projection idea as well. Especially seeing as it's something my cohort can cast as well, thereby doubling our targets.

Make 5 self-resetting traps:


One for True Creation to make 20 cubic feet of Matter.
One for a caster level boosted Animate Object spell (CL 16).
One for Permanency.
One for Genesis.
One for Fabrication.


The True Creation makes the matter for the Animate Objects, which are then animated and ordered to march into a Permanency trap, and then march into an infinitely expanding Demiplane. If you absolutely need to, use the Animate Objects to minecraft the hell out of your Demiplane to turn it into a rapid assembly line using Fabrication to basically generate any mundane item you will be needing. Since you are an Artificer, you gain Brew Potion as a bonus feat. Make a self-resetting Trap of Simulacrum or Ice Assassin, and have duplicates of yourself, produce potions and scrolls until they cease to exist and are then replaced by additional duplicates.

Honestly, something you should just note is that a High-Level Artificer and when played at a sufficient level of optimization, you are more or less equipped to deal with any situation the DM will allow you to prepare for and thus render your entire party obsolete either by replacing them or equipping them with similar level of resources to render anything and everything they could reasonably encounter obsolete. I recall once playing a game as an Artificer//Wizard, and to be quite frank, I used the Artificer aspect of my build far more often than the Wizard half to the point where the party Cleric//Rogue, the Cleric//Druid and Wizard//Psion asked me to leave because I had done as they told me to: Minmax or gtfo.

[AvatarVecna]

Made a low-epic artificer for a mid-op game awhile back, and picked up some neat tricks. If you're allowed custom items of continuous/command word/whatever, there's some really fun options out there. Here's a couple:

Continuous "Delay Death" in some fashion sets your "death at this many negative HP" limit to negative infinite - ie you can't die from HP damage for the duration, barring body destruction effects. Now this doesn't stop you from being dying or unconscious, but there's other things to fix that.

The one we want is a DC 30 Autohypnosis check. The reason is that most methods of letting you act below 0 HP either limit your actions to once per round in some fashion, or they specify that they only work while you're at -1 to -9 HP. Autohypnosis specifies neither, so you're just totally able to act normally no matter how far you are into the negatives, at least until the spell's duration is over. The big issue here is that Autohypnosis is a trained only skill, so you'll need to either invest a single real rank, or find a way around that.

"But how will I make a DC 30 check with just 1 rank?" Well there's a few things you could do:
Build an item giving a competence bonus to Autohypnosis. You can buy up to +30 which completely solves this problem, but +10/+15 is cheaper and can be combined with other tricks to get +29 as cheaply as possible.
Command Word "Divine Insight" CL 3 costs 10800 and gives +8 (insight) to any skill, although you can only have a single charge ready at any time and the charge only waits 3 hours to be triggered. You can increase the bonus by 1 and the duration by 1 hour for every additional 3600 gp spent. This maxes out at +15 (insight) that waits up to ten hours to be triggered, and costs 36000 gp.
Continuous "Masochism" costs 48000 gp and gives you a luck bonus to attacks/saves/skills equal to 1/10th the damage you took in the previous round. If you got a bad hit the round before you went down, that damage fuels your immortality. This is good in general, but for this specific trick it's a bit too unreliable to be the lynchpin of your immortality. The big benefit is that having this on top of your immortality means you can neglect your other defenses so that people damage you as much as possible, and thus fuel your attacks/saves/skills continuously throughout the battle.

This works best as a continuous magic item if you can afford to make it, but a persistent or even just extended casting of it at this level would still be amazing for long battles.

Continuous "That Art Thou" 120k for +20 Listen/Search/Spot, never being FF, and effectively flanking immunity.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Acorn of far travel on a tree planted on your demiplane, or somewhere else safe. Make sure the plane it's on has useful properties, such as Ysgard's minor positive energy trait (with free resurrections) for fast healing. Preferably with the timeless-with-regards-to-magic property, too.

Now, make sure the oak tree is MASSIVE. Plant growth out the wazoo. Craft a ton of scrolls of Sculpt Spell'd (un)hallow, along with a lot of various buff scrolls. Cast (un)hallows under the tree as 5' x 120' lines, half pointed straight up, half pointed straight down, with the cutoff point being 5' above the ground (so your body would effectively be in the bottom 5' and your head is in the top 5'; assuming you're 5'+ tall). Now you count as being under the tree's boughs and can get any of those buffs you want at any time. If one of the spells tied to the (un)hallow is acorn of far travel, every acorn in that AoE is now such an acorn, which you can give to your adventuring companions, friends, and allies. Even better if the (un)hallow effects are Selective and only affect you and your allies (or at least, anyone not opposed to you). Better if you're Large size+ and take up at least 8 spaces.

So you and your party all have at-will access to metamorphosis, regeneration, divine power, shapechange, mass heal, etc, and all without having to craft any more items.

You'll also want WBL-boosters, such as Ancestral Relic (on something that can't be lost) and Item Familiar.

[RaijinKnight]

Make 5 self-resetting traps:


One for True Creation to make 20 cubic feet of Matter.
One for a caster level boosted Animate Object spell (CL 16).
One for Permanency.



I've actually got this part already, though I am using mundane methods by using a minor schema for animate objects. I already have wall of iron myself, as well as infinite fabricates. The permanency is from a custom magic item (a fixed item on the plane, so basically amounts to the same thing I guess).

I had considered simulacrum, but can't remember why I didn't look into it more. I'll re-look at it, thanks.


You'll also want WBL-boosters, such as Ancestral Relic (on something that can't be lost) and Item Familiar.

I've already got most of my feats spoken for. i had Item familiar, but took it out because it just didn't look like I needed it, and I really wanted the ability to have unlimited standard action fabrication and major creation. I know this isn't really optimized for level 20, but it's just going to be so amazing. Also a really fun way to kill someone - just shaping weapons far above them made of really dense materials.


Acorn of far travel .

I did not know about this spell. This spell is AMAZING. I'm suspecting we'll be going up against a lich/demilich, and this is amazing. It gives me the exact same ability as the one the demilich has where it can store boosts near its phylactery. Well not exactly, but close enough. This is like the starting point of a phylactery for a druid lol.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Make sure to get a dedicated wright (Eberron) to reduce time you spend crafting. 1 hour vs 8 hours? Yes, please. Also, there's a quill of scroll scribing (also Eberron).


I did not know about this spell. This spell is AMAZING. I'm suspecting we'll be going up against a lich/demilich, and this is amazing. It gives me the exact same ability as the one the demilich has where it can store boosts near its phylactery. Well not exactly, but close enough. This is like the starting point of a phylactery for a druid lol.Liches and demiliches are REALLY screwed by antimagic fields. Make sure you have some items prepared that you can add to something with good physical scores (prior to magical enhancements). Like, say, the party barbarian, or a friendly dragon. You'd have to make it user-friendly, rather than a scroll, of course, unless said dragon has proper spell access. Otherwise, maybe find a way to fire spell storing dye arrows (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/equipment/weapons/weapon-descriptions/ammunition/ammunition-bow-arrows-common/ammunition-bow-arrow-dye/) at someone willing to take it on.

It's grappling time.

Alternatively, have the party rogue-like slip an acorn of far travel onto the lich, from a tree inside an antimagic field.

[RaijinKnight]

Alternatively, have the party rogue-like slip an acorn of far travel onto the lich, from a tree inside an antimagic field.


Constructs work in antimagic fields right?

I'd like to introduce him to my friend then - first name Furtive, last name Filcher. I love that little construct, and I've got a fairly high level one I can boost a bit more. We are a very small party - no grapplers. But i'll see what I can find for the Malconvoker to summon, or perhaps use the animal companion of the druid in our team.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Constructs work in antimagic fields right?

I'd like to introduce him to my friend then - first name Furtive, last name Filcher. I love that little construct, and I've got a fairly high level one I can boost a bit more. We are a very small party - no grapplers. But i'll see what I can find for the Malconvoker to summon, or perhaps use the animal companion of the druid in our team.Depends on the constructs; constructs created by non-Instantaneous spells don't function, but a golem or other actual (non-spell-created) construct will.

But note that if you use the antimagic acorn of far travel trick, the lich won't have an antimagic aura around it; it'll be affected by the antimagic, as will all of its items, similarly to the target of an antimagic ray, but the effect stops at its own person, and it can't transfer it. Best done with some sort of nonmagical superglue so it's stuck with it.

You'll still have to get its phylactery/ies, but just keep going after it with antimagic field effects (or entrap it in a way it can't escape or destroy itself, so it can't regenerate). Antimagic it (surgically implant the acorn, perhaps), then tie it up with some riverine wire so it can't get free even on a Nat 20/Take 20, then dump it somewhere safe, like maybe a demiplane filled with quintessence. It won't matter if its phylactery is still around if it's stuck somewhere and can neither be killed nor freed.

[RaijinKnight]

This plan fits amazingly well into our party composition actually. We have a druid for the acorn/oak tree setup. And we have a psion for the quintessence. So that just leaves me to do the odds and ends. I am definitely prepping this, thanks!!

As another prison idea, would Thinuan work? Would it prevent the lich from getting to it's phylactery?

[Gavinfoxx]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aG4P3dU6WP3pq8mW9l1qztFeNfqQHyI22oJe09i8KWw/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14zilT4WGOyHM0AfpG4-GmD2FkgDg1HZ9HC1cTleQHds/edit?usp=sharing
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z9NJIs751Af3i0IEIJwCkIp9H9YFiZYZ7u-wmYVaheI/edit?usp=sharing

[MaxiDuRaritry]

This plan fits amazingly well into our party composition actually. We have a druid for the acorn/oak tree setup. And we have a psion for the quintessence. So that just leaves me to do the odds and ends. I am definitely prepping this, thanks!!

As another prison idea, would Thinuan work? Would it prevent the lich from getting to it's phylactery?If liches have souls, maybe. But phylacteries store "life force," and there's no proof one way or another that liches even have souls for thinaun to steal.

So probably not, although this depends on your DM's thoughts on the subject.

[Skysaber]

Fighting an army that will probably include undead and/or demons?

I'd like to introduce you to a close, personal friend of mine, the spell Celestial Brilliance, from the Book of Exalted Deeds. 4th level, just about anybody can cast, lasts 1 day per caster level, and it provides light in a 120ft radius that does 1d6 damage per round to any undead within it. Twice that to evil outsiders.

No Save, No SR. Not stopped by any DR or resistances. And a D6 per round may not sound like much, but it adds up quickly. On an army scale? If you've got 200 creatures under the light, each of those 200 takes their D6 every round.

Because it lasts a day per level you can cast it well ahead of time. Any day you've got extra 4th level slots lying around, cast it just before going to bed at night. Cast it on a few rocks and just chuck them around the battlefield.

Anything undead or demonic the light touches takes damage, every round, forever, until they are either destroyed or leave the light.

Give a couple of rocks to some fast moving, incorporeal followers and watch that army burn.

[Afghanistan]

Make sure to get a dedicated wright (Eberron) to reduce time you spend crafting. 1 hour vs 8 hours? Yes, please. Also, there's a quill of scroll scribing (also Eberron).

It should be noted that the Dedicated Wright and Quill of Scribing (Complete Mage) do NOT allow you to bypass the limit of being able to only work on 1 item a time, and only being able to dedicate 8 hours to that task per day. They allow you to multitask (doing ONE of these tasks), but do not allow you to set up your Dedicated Wright to work on a Magic Item, and then talk to another Dedicated Wright to perform the same task ad infinitum.

If this is the level of production you are looking to attain, I sincerely suggest you make an item of Ice Assassin or Simulacrum and have them continuously produce magic items for you, using their XP pool until they cease to exist.

Something interesting to note about the Dedicated Wright, is that they have ranks in "Craft (Any) +7" and "Craft (Any) +4". This craft cannot be "Craft (Alchemy)" because the Dedicated Wright is not a spellcaster. My suggestion is you take advantage of this to have your Dedicated Wrights perform assembly line crafting of whatever items you might need, however this is redundant because of Fabrication. It's cool though :smalltongue:


I'd like to introduce him to my friend then - first name Furtive, last name Filcher. I love that little construct, and I've got a fairly high level one I can boost a bit more. We are a very small party - no grapplers. But i'll see what I can find for the Malconvoker to summon, or perhaps use the animal companion of the druid in our team.

You're an Artificer, you're whatever you want to be. I suggest you make a Staff of Black Tentacles and just go to town on Grappling, hell make your Staff into a Fell Draining Entagling Staff of Black Tentacles. If you're fighting undead? Make sure you walk around with a Staff of Disintegrate and just pump your caster level as high as you possibly can or listen to Skysaber's idea, it's actually brilliant.

You seem to have a serious interest in using constructs and golems, which while less than ideal for Artificers, is quite literally a staple of play. After all, whoever heard of an Artificer without their army of Runic Guardians?

Here is the Mechonomicon (http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?&topic=8962). A bit lacking, but it is a great place to start for finding decent constructs.


Fighting an army that will probably include undead and/or demons?

I'd like to introduce you to a close, personal friend of mine, the spell Celestial Brilliance, from the Book of Exalted Deeds. 4th level, just about anybody can cast, lasts 1 day per caster level, and it provides light in a 120ft radius that does 1d6 damage per round to any undead within it. Twice that to evil outsiders.

No Save, No SR. Not stopped by any DR or resistances. And a D6 per round may not sound like much, but it adds up quickly. On an army scale? If you've got 200 creatures under the light, each of those 200 takes their D6 every round.

Because it lasts a day per level you can cast it well ahead of time. Any day you've got extra 4th level slots lying around, cast it just before going to bed at night. Cast it on a few rocks and just chuck them around the battlefield.

Anything undead or demonic the light touches takes damage, every round, forever, until they are either destroyed or leave the light.

Give a couple of rocks to some fast moving, incorporeal followers and watch that army burn.

Lets take this to an entirely unseen level, and just make a Wand of Celestial Brilliance. Whip out a Wandgrip of Widen Spell for a 240ft radius of coverage. This combined with Repulsion, Wind Wall, Mystic Shield (Anauroch: The Empire of Shade), and Starmantle (Book of Exalted Deeds) turns you into an almost untouchable vortex of light that, assuming these are intelligent creatures, will route almost immediately.

But these are 4 spells, how are you going to activate what might be 4 items at the same time? Well, we're not. We're going to active 6 items. (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/wn/20030226a)



Alaunghaer's Triptych
Transmutation
Level: Sor/Wiz 5
Components: V
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: Touch
Targets: Up to three magic items
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Special
Spell Resistance: No (object)

You activate up to three items you are wearing or carrying, which together count as a quickened spell (whether you activate one, two, or three items, it counts as a quickened spell for that round, preventing you from casting another quickened spell that round). These activations occur in any order you choose. Only one ability of any particular item can be activated by a particular use of this spell, and the ability must be a spell trigger- or command word-activated ability. The items must be items that you could otherwise activate (for example, you have to know the command word for the item, a character with no cleric levels could not use this spell to activate a wand of cure light wounds, and so on), and must be used properly (items that use magic item slots such as bracers and rings must be worn in the appropriate location, a wand must be held in hand, and so on). The items function normally (you choose the target or area, are subject to any limitation of the items, and so on) and do not suffer any penalties due to being activated quickly by the spell. You may aim the items at the same target or different targets. If more than one item generates a touch effect (such as ghoul touch and shocking grasp), only the last-activated item's touch effect functions, with the other or others having dispersed as if you had cast a spell while holding the charge on a touch spell (in short, activating multiple touch effects is a wasted use of the potential of this spell).

A triptych is not completely reliable. Each time the spell is cast, roll d% for each item; a result of 5% or less means the spell fails to activate the item. If the item were the first or second item activated by the triptych, you can attempt to activate it again with your remaining one or two activations from the spell.

You're going to take this spell, put it into a custom item useable at will (or apply it to a Contingent spell), and apply Twin Spell to it. There are some side effects, the fail chance being the obvious one, but this also consumes your swift action for the turn, which would normally be fine, however swift and immediate actions are relatively interchangeable with one another in the sense that if you take one, you forgo the other, meaning that we cannot use this with Celerity... UNLESS, we use it through a contingent Celerity (which, you should be doing anyway). All of that leading up to one final note: Take Craft Contingent Spell, and if you're allowed to, take Spell Mantle (Lost Empires of Faerun, page 112).

[Gavinfoxx]

<snip>

Your link is messed up. Also, one of my links talks about golems quite extensively

http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?&topic=8962

[Afghanistan]

Your link is messed up. Also, one of my links talks about golems quite extensively

http://minmaxforum.com/index.php?&topic=8962

Oof. My link was messaged up. Nice to know that your link also talks about golems quite extensively. Which one of your links talks about golems quite extensively? The one about "transhumanism" where you use half-golems? or the one where you talk about making airships, with the end notes about talking about a template stacked Effigy of a Dragonhawk? Those guides you made are rather poorly formated and could use a bit more work?

[Gavinfoxx]

Oof. My link was messaged up. Nice to know that your link also talks about golems quite extensively. Which one of your links talks about golems quite extensively? The one about "transhumanism" where you use half-golems? or the one where you talk about making airships, with the end notes about talking about a template stacked Effigy of a Dragonhawk? Those guides you made are rather poorly formated and could use a bit more work?

The Airship one.

And I would love someone to take those, fix the links, and post them here in a better way!

[unseenmage]

Ask your GM if Craft Construct being an item creation feat let's Constructs count as magic items.
If so, you can use the Magic Item Compendium's item combining rules to squish magic item superpowers into your Constructs.


On the topic of Constructs, the Greater Humanoid Essence spell let's you hit Constructs with spells and affects they'd normally be immune to. And the magic will persist after the type changes back because if type change removed spell effects then the GHE spell itself would fall off as soon as it hit.


Among the amusing things GHE enables is its interaction with Intelligent Magic Items which are technically Constructs. Turning them into humanoids makes them susceptible to mind control or polymorph effects or... lycanthropy or vampirism. ;)
Does turning your talking magic sword into either help at all? No. But it is very cool.


Fun fact, plants count as objects in regard to spells. And slimes and molds (green slime, brown mold) count as plants. This can lead to some neat interactions with spells that an artificer is in the unique position to appreciate since they can access any spell.


Lair Wards from Draconomicon and Wondrous Architecture from Stronghold Builder's Guidebook are effectively immobile, far cheaper wondrous items.


One of my go-to favorite artificer toys is the Clockwork Wonders archive from the old WotC site. Crawling Fortress, Spider Theif, and more. All very thematic and all fun. You can likely dig up a copy of the articles somewhere.


Make friends with the Minor Servitor, Create Crawling Claw, and Awaken Sand spells. Awaken Sand and Minor Servitor make free willed, intelligent, friendly Constructs. See my extended sig for the Dust is Lazy thread containing ideas for Awaken Sand.

Minor Servitor was turned into Awaken Construct as per Spell Compendium so asl your GM for permission to recklessly animate whatever materials suit your fancy.

Create Crawling Claw either turns piles of severed left hands into lots of handy minions or some swarms. The creature was updated in Lost Empires of Faerun but the 3.0 version of the spell wasnt.