3.5 Artificer help

[Galacticz]

Hey guys,

Brand new here, so be nice!!

My DM wants to get back to our roots and start a 3.5 campaign. He wants us to all be pretty powerful and wants to play this campaign for longevity, starting at level 1.

I always used to play a druid in 3.5, nothing beats wildshaping and summoning a crap ton of ****. But thats more of the same. I am looking for something new, with unrivaled flexibility. I have never dabbled in DnD's crafting system so when finding out the Artificer based itself around that, I was immediately interested and a little put off. The possibilities seem endless, being able to craft any of 3.5's diverse magic/wonderous items, but it also seems detrimental. What I mean is, the XP cost. I know Artificer's have a 'Craft Reserve', but it seems that I will be blowing through that in just a few days (in game), and then have to start gimping my own progression to keep my bags stocked with wands and scrolls. None the less, I am still immensely interested.

So I have a decent understanding of 3.5, except for the crafting system, but i do not know all the different feats in all the different books to make a nicely optimized Artificer. I need ya'll's help. I need to know how 3.5's crafting system works, and how i would go about crafting my numerous items. I need to know what feats I should get to ease my crafting costs and make me a better Artificer (is it true that Artificers, if built right can create items at 30% their normal cost???).

As for build, I am conflicted as well. I know I want to go kinda a Blastificer/Bufficer, who has a couple golems to watch my ass. So i guess that means I am branching into 3 different builds. Is that too despecialized to be properly optimized?

This class has soo many possibilities, its dizzying. I have tried reading some guides, such as the Artificer's Handbook, but alot of the stuff is going over my head some how. I am sorry for all the Nub questions, but I need some help.

Help a Gnome out.

[Undercroft]

Off the top of my head, the good metamagic feats (spilt/twin/maximise/empower/quicken/etc) are always good to grab along with wand mastery (might be in the eberron campaign setting). the Metamagic Spell Trigger ability the class gets lets you burn extra charges to add metamagic abilities onto your wand's spell.

As for the craft reserve it's refillable once you hit 5th level i think. You get an ability called Retain Essence which lets you essentially suck the xp out of other magic items (and magic traps too) and put them into your craft reserve. Ideal for recycling any useless magic items you find.

Other than that i can't help too much. I mostly use them as NPCs and don't tend to stat them out fully. it's more of a "that npc artificer has finished yoru sword of awesome. Go pay him".