Broken Artificers

[Benson]

What makes an artificer so broken that DMs will often ban it from some of their games? I hear/read about this class usually being a game breaker, how so? Enlighten me.

[Ernir]

Their (seemingly) intended trick was to multiply the party's wealth. So your party is getting more powerful magic items faster, and more importantly, with a greater degree of customization than what would be available from most DMs.

They have quite a few ways to not pay for metamagic costs when using their items.

They get access to spells faster than Wizards do. They also get all of them. They are therefore a Tier 1 class under JaronK's tier system, which carries a tag of its own.





That being said, I'd consider them significantly harder to break than, say, Wizards. Most Artificers I've seen (as well as the one I've played) have ended up as little more than Wizards who have to pay to use their spells.

[gbprime]

Well apart from being the ultimate buffing class and being able to "cast" pretty much any spell, they can cannibalize existing magic items in order to make new ones. From a wealth by level point of view, it is exceedingly efficient. A party with an artificer tends to be OVER-equipped with custom-tailored items.

[Elvenoutrider]

and a wand weilding artificer can easily out dps the barbarian, out crowd control the wizard, completely replace the party rogue, and heal better than a cleric. This class can replace an entire party by itself, and then it can take the craft contruct feat and build an army of effigies...

[term1nally s1ck]

Because it's nuts. WBL is the most powerful part of the game when used right. Artificiers can in general double or more the value of their wbl.

[Ytaker]

Efficient Progress (Ex): The Artificer is well adept at the crafting of magical items. At every even level, the Artificer is able to reduce the amount of time, gold and xp expended on the creation of a magic item by the indicated number (Increments of 10%)

That is why. Custom crafted items at a much, much lower cost.

[Kaww]

Efficient Progress (Ex): The Artificer is well adept at the crafting of magical items. At every even level, the Artificer is able to reduce the amount of time, gold and xp expended on the creation of a magic item by the indicated number (Increments of 10%)

That is why. Custom crafted items at a much, much lower cost.

Which book is this?

[Ernir]

Efficient Progress (Ex): The Artificer is well adept at the crafting of magical items. At every even level, the Artificer is able to reduce the amount of time, gold and xp expended on the creation of a magic item by the indicated number (Increments of 10%)

That is why. Custom crafted items at a much, much lower cost.

Isn't that from this homebrew?

[Greenish]

It is often said of ToB, especially warblades, that they're very easy to do competently, but have somewhat low ceiling in how powerful they can be made by optimization.

Artificers are the polar opposite.

[term1nally s1ck]

That's not RAW abilities, they have the craft reserve to do that kind of thing.

However, they can access about a dozen things that let them craft things at a fraction of the cost. Especially wands.

[Trekkin]

If anything, I think the problem with the Artificer is a much larger version of the problem with the Factotum and the Archivist: giving a class a blank check for "all" of something, be it skills or spells, is dangerous in a setting with this much published source material. On the Factotum end, we get Iajitsu(sp?) Focus and Autohypnosis allowing effects that probably aren't intended but aren't gamebreaking, either; on the Artificer end, we get people pulling in, say, Dragon Compendium to write scrolls of Animate Dead at level one, because Death Masters get it at CL 3. There are worse excesses, of course, but the spirit of the problem is the same: a player with access to "all" of some class of content has a huge library from which to choose, more so than most other characters. Even wizards, whose spell selection only grows as new books are brought in, have a limited number of slots in which to put those spells and a very limited two spells per level before they have to actually find them in the world; artificers are bound only by their gold, time, and craft reserve (which ceases to be as much of an issue once they can cannibalize items).

The other issue is simply that item creation rules need firm DM adjudication to work as intended, and many DMs I've known don't want to spend a disproportionate amount of time with a single player making sure his items are free of abuse and cheese or impose hugely limiting restrictions on the player to save time, so they end up unintentionally letting broken things be made.

It's not a bad class,in my opinion; I've played them myself to great fun all around the table, and I've DMed parties including them with little issue, but they need a few things to work:

1. The books from which the artificer can draw need to be restricted, especially in games where every player wants to play a class from a different splatbook. This makes it much easier to limit potential abuse, and can be a fun exercise in creativity as well.
2. The item rules need to be thoroughly understood by both players involved.
3. WBL and especially time need to be controlled; even with a Dedicated Wright, having only a few days in which to make something can help stop the Artificer showing up with a hundred wands and Metamagic Spell Trigger-ing them into magic nukes.
4. Most importantly, everyone in the party needs to understand that this is one of those classes that's dangerous. It really can break the game without even trying, but the ones that try not to break the game are generally successful.

That all said, they're a really fun class that has some wonderful builds out there, and one of the most compatible with player creativity I've known.

[stainboy]

The artificer's abilities aren't presented in a user-friendly way. The class says "you can do all the things on these tables in the back of the DMG" which makes it easy to skim the class without understanding all the things it can do.

For example, a 5th level artificer can spend an infusion to gain the ability to cast Control Undead. Not Command Undead, the good one that regular casters don't get until 13th level. Is that game-breaking? Probably not if the DM knows about it in advance, but it surprised the hell out of me.

The best way to get a class or ability banned is to surprise the DM with it in the middle of combat. That's easy to do if the DM hasn't read the Artificer class carefully, then cross-referenced it with the infusion list, then the item creation feats in the PHB, then a dozen magic item tables spread out over half the DMG, then every other sourcebook he allows that contains magic items.

[Yuki Akuma]

I'd like to know what infusion the 5th level Artificer is using to get a 7th level spell.

[stainboy]

Greater Armor Enhancement grants an armor special ability with a market value of up to 100,000 gp. The Undead Controlling property has a market value of 49,000 gp. For the duration, the artificer has unlimited castings of Control Undead, so long as he controls no more than 26 HD at one time.

The Etherealness special property has the same market value, also casts a 7th level spell, and is given as an example of use in the text of Greater Armor Enhancement. There's no ambiguity about whether these uses were intended.

[Yuki Akuma]

Hey, neat.

[golem1972]

Essentially an artificer can spend xp to increase the parties wbl.

Sell the parties magic items (half market price) and build them the items they wanted (half market price - gp reducing feats). If a party of four has 10000gp each the artificer can turn that into 20000 gp (market price) each in magic equipment. If the 10k gp was all magic items, theres no gp gain for the party, just customization. If it's all cash, you've essentially doubled their WBL. If you kept the reduced gp difference for yourself, you've doubled your wbl + 2x the total cost savings.

Blastificers can pump out a lot of damage for a commensurate gold piece cost (I stay away from that myself).

Buffificers can easily out do DMM Clerics.

Me personally, I tend to minimize my expendable magic items and stick mostly to long term use items. Basically for me it's the difference between a potion of cure serious and a healing belt. Same cost, one has a much better benefit. And I only use retain essence on magic traps or similar items: xp is a river, gps are power.

[shadow_archmagi]

Well, here's the thing. In D&D, spells can do things quickly and easily. If you have "Build a wall" prepared, then it's the best way to build a wall. If you have "Knock" it is the best way to unlock a door or chest.

Artificers have access to every spell, every enchantment, and every magic item.

With enough spreadsheets, that becomes very broken.

[Halae]

And after all that, all a player needs to do is look at the Cost Reduction Handbook to send WBL far over the edge. Of course, it's very rare that any reasonable DM would allow this sort of thing, but the potential is there, like it is for any sufficiently rules aligned player.

The point is, if someone wants to play an artificer, it should be a lot like someone wanting to play an evil character or... I don't know, a red wizard. The point is, yes, it can work, but it's so easy to send things past their limit that it becomes very easy to disrupt the game. this is the territory where DMs shuld have a chat with their player in order to keep them from going that far

[Da Beast]

I think it should be noted that artificer is probably the most complicated class to play effectively and requires more book keeping than just about anything else you could make. If someone has the expertise and wants to put in the time and the effort artificer can be insanely broken with access to any ability in the game and getting spells before the classes that actually cast them. If you don't know what you're doing you'll probably fall behind a blaster wizard in terms of unused potential.

[true_shinken]

It is often said of ToB, especially warblades, that they're very easy to do competently, but have somewhat low ceiling in how powerful they can be made by optimization.

Artificers are the polar opposite.

This is so very true.
The artificer in my game has to flip through about 10 pages of notes everytime he does anything other than iaijutsu (because he multiclassed so as not to have 'artificer work' to do all the time; he's still the most powerful character in the group).

[Endarire]

Artificers have 4 main weaknesses:

-High wealth dependency. It may be cheap, but it ain't free!
-High time dependency, at least until they have a Dedicated Wright to work for them.
-High need for DM supervision.
-You need to be an expert at D&D to optimize one and play one well.

[2xMachina]

Even when you get a Dedicated Wright, it still costs time. Sure, now you don't have to sit down and do nothing but craft, but your item STILL won't be ready for a while.
If you're on the clock, the item may not be finished until after the campaign ends.

Also, Artificers can expect to be a lvl or 2 lower than the rest of the party for XP. Eating items are ok, but you lose gold from that. Say, item is worth A Xp and B gold. You get A Xp to make another item. Nice, but you need to use B gold and crafting time to make it into an item you want.

Artificer's spell casting ALSO eats WBL. I believe the conversion of WBL to spell should reign back the WBL.

Artificers have a LOT of flexibility. Will probably Out-god God Wizards themselves. Prepared spells? No need, just reach into your Bag of Holding for the spell you want. You probably have a wand for that.
Need to kill a BBEG? You can, so long you spend as much as you can expect to find from the loot.

[JaronK]

Note that if you're playing with action points, it's not too hard to have Artificers capable of casting spells off wands without using charges, since there's a feat (IIRC) that lets you spend an action point instead of a charge, and Artificers can persist a spell that gives one action point per round.

JaronK

[Innis Cabal]

Artificers have 4 main weaknesses:

-High wealth dependency. It may be cheap, but it ain't free!
-High time dependency, at least until they have a Dedicated Wright to work for them.
-High need for DM supervision.
-You need to be an expert at D&D to optimize one and play one well.

The last of those being an opinion only.

[shadow_archmagi]

so easy to send things past their limit that it becomes very easy to disrupt the game.

Well, I wouldn't really say *easy.* You still need to do huge amounts of paperwork to make it happen.

I can't really see an artificer becoming hideously broken without trying.

[2xMachina]

No one cheeses so much Cost reductions in a real game anyway.

[term1nally s1ck]

Doc Roc did. He has a campaign journal up with a Gnome artiicier by the name of Bree.

[2xMachina]

Most DM's won't allow it. If they allowed it, they're OK with it, so no problem there either.

[Ernir]

Doc Roc did. He has a campaign journal up with a Gnome artiicier by the name of Bree.

Not even he used the full set, though.

[CycloneJoker]

Golly gee whilikers! Can we learn why the S-to-P Erudite is busted next?

Shouldn't it be obvious after just a quick skim?