Playing and building a great artificer: help needed

[Samb]

I never really had any interest in magic users but artificer is the exception. I'm really drawn to this class and I know it can an awesome PC. Unfortunatly, I have never made a Mage PC much less an artificer.

How do you get over the long infusion casting times? Do you spam UMD over and over? The craft points don't seem to cover all things I want to make.

If anyone could point me in the right direction that would be great.

[Fixer]

Infusions often require that you do more immediate preparation than a wizard. In a surprise situation, you have to use the infusions with a casting time less than a minute (there are several) to boost your comrades.

At low levels, you are purely a support character who can try to cast spells from scrolls you make. When you get access to Craft Wand, you can really start to dish out some damage. Around level 10, you can make things to complete adventures in no time, thus reducing party risk considerably.

If your GM is comfortable with custom magic items, you are in Heaven. Things like "Silence Grenades" or "Anti-Magic Bombs" as single-use items are cheap and powerful.

[PinkysBrain]

Don't worry about crafting points, if you lag a level you actually get more experience ... experience is essentially a free resource. Time is generally more of a problem (if the leveling goes too fast in in game time there is simply no time for crafting, even if you use a homunculus in a portable hole to do the actual crafting).

As for quickening infusions ... MoE has some nice ways to get temporary action points, RoE has a Bard spell which can be persisted which gives you temporary action points as well ... but that's really cheesy.

At low level don't forget that Personal Weapon Augmentation is touch ... you can simply run around holding the charge on it.