Artificer - Blaster Build

[Guinea Anubis]

So I have a friend who does not think that a Level 20 Artificer can be as powerful as a Level 20 Wizard. So what I am asking for is an Artificer build that can put out as much damage as possible.

[SpiderBrigade]

Well, I would first say that "doing the most damage possible" is not really the best way to equal a level 20 wizard, unless that wizard is ALSO going to focus on blasting. BUT, artificers can be quite blasty, it's true.

I don't know if it is considered the "ultimate" guide or anything like that (I don't regularly follow the WotC charopt boards) but I did find this. I'll leave it up to the more practiced powerbuilders to get into the specifics of what you should pick.

[Guinea Anubis]

Ya I do not think that Damage = power but my friend does. When he plays a Wizard he takes nothing but damage spells. So I was trying to show him that an Artificer can do as much if not more damage then a Wizard he would make.

[JaronK]

A wizard with nothing but blast spells could be easily shown up by a Frenzied Berserker (Lion Barbarian 5/Revenant Blade 5/FB 10: 7 attacks on the charge, all doing +120 damage before strength modifiers and base weapon damage). That said, a Blastificer can output a lot more damage just by using his metamagic item trigger ability to apply Twin Spell, Maximize Spell, and Empower Spell to whatever he's shooting out of a wand, even if that wand is already a high level spell.

JaronK

[Guinea Anubis]

so what do you all think of this build?

Human

1. Artificer: Artificer Knowledge, artisan bonus, disable trap, Scribe Scroll, Heighten Spell, Legendary Artisan
2. Artificer: Brew Potion
3. Artificer: Craft Wondrous Item, Empower Spell.
4. Artificer: Craft Homonculus, Extraordinary Artisan
5. Artificer: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, retain essence
6. Artificer: Metamagic spell trigger, Twin Spell
7. Artificer: Craft Wand
8. Artificer: Wand Mastery
9. Artificer: Craft Rod,Energy Substitution,
10. Artificer:
11. Artificer: Metamagic Spell Completion
12. Artificer: Craft Staff, Energy Admixture, Extra Rings
13. Artificer: Skill Mastery,
14. Artificer: Forge Ring
15. Artificer: Quicken Spell
16. Artificer: Exceptional Artisan
17. Artificer:
18. Artificer: Maxamize Spell
19. Artificer :
20. Artificer : Craft Construct

[Arbitrarity]

Exceptional artisan is bad. Maybe get... dunno.

Explosive spell?

Maybe the PGToF magical artisan (type)?

Damn, if you had epic heighten.... take a staff with a spell, dump 50 charges into it... Bam, +50 DC on the save.

[Jack_Simth]

Let's see....

Caster level 9 Wand of Scorching Ray, +2 for Wand Mastery put it at caster level 11 (for 3 4d6 rays)
Metamagic Spell Trigger (Quicken Spell) for 5 charges and 3 rays
Metamagic Spell Trigger (Twin Spell) for 5 charges and another 6 rays

That's 9 4d6 rays, at 9th level, for 36d6 damage (if all touch attacks hit, and both UMD checks are passed). Sure, it's 10 charges per round, so that wand is only going to last five rounds, but at CR 9, what's going to last that long without Fire resistance? Oh, and you can take an Energy Substitution feat to craft into the wands for things with Fire Resistance. Each such wand lasts five rounds of abuse this, costs 6750 gp, 540 xp, and 14 days to craft.

If you take Empower Spell yourself, and Craft that into the wands (effectively a 4th level spell in the wand) that goes up a bit, and you're effectively working with 6d6 wands, so that's 54d6 damage per round. Still at 9th level. Each such wand lasts 5 rounds of abuse, and costs 13500 gp, 1080 xp, and 27 days to craft.

How many things at about CR 9 can take even one round at an average of about 189 damage per round?

Edit:
And that's assuming that he can only apply one metamagic feat at a time through the Metamagic Spell Trigger Ability. If he can apply more than that, well, tack on Empower and Maximize to both, using the regular caster level 9 wand of Scorching Ray.

[Beleriphon]

You'd probably want to try and add in Cannith Wand Adept in there somewhere to increase your wandy goodness, but for a straight artificer its a pretty decent blasty build.

[DeadlyGrim]

>>>Jack_Smith
I can improve upon that. Ok, time to bring out the cheese.

~Scorching Ray
~Arcane Thesis (Scorching Ray) [reduces metamagic for that spell by 1 level]
~Searing Spell [from Sandstorm; essentially, it makes the spell ignore fire resistance and makes fire immunity only count for half; double damage versus creatures with the cold subtype] [+0 to spell level w/ Arcane Thesis]
~Fiery Spell [from Sandstorm; adds +1 fire damage per die] [+0 to spell level w/ Arcane Thesis]
~Split Ray [+1 to spell level w/ Arcane Thesis]
~Empower Spell [+1 to spell level w/ Arcane Thesis]
~Energy Admixture (Fire) [+3 to spell level w/ Arcane Thesis]
~Twin Spell [+3 to spell level w/ Arcane Thesis]
~Maximize Spell [+2 to spell level w/ Arcane Thesis]

Under the best case scenario, the Artificer would create a wand with a Searing, Fiery, Split Ray, Empowered [i]Scorching Ray[i] which would create 4 6d6+6 rays. The spell is then Maximized (for 2 charges), Twinned (for 3 charges), and Energy Admixtured (3 charges) for a total of 9 charges. For these 9 charges you get 8 60+4d6 rays, all of which ignore fire resistance and fire immunity only counts for half. At the minimum, a ray does 64 damage. If all of them hit, they deal between 512 and 672 damage (!!!).

And let's not forget the fact that the Artificer can use Persistent Spell with his wands to buff himself up and that he can build golems. Personal favorites are Effigies and the Prismatic Golem, a CR 18 incorporeal golem that an Artificer can make at 15th level.

As for a build, how about this:

Artificer (9th Level Human):
Bonus Feats: Scribe Scroll, Brew Potion, Craft Wondrous Item, Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Wand, Craft Rod, Searing Spell, Fiery Spell
Human Bonus Feat: Empower Spell
1st Level Feat: Split Ray
3rd Level Feat: Twin Spell
6th Level Feat: Arcane Thesis (Scorching Ray)
9th Level Feat: Wand Mastery

So, at 9th level, you can cast 10 6d6+6 rays all for just 4 charges. Thats an average of 270 damage a round that you can do for 12 rounds (with some charges left over). Pretty nice.

>>>Arbitrarity
Oh yeah, cool idea. While it might cost a bit, adding +50 DC to certain spells would be a great way of instant kill.