To an artificer, magic is neither arcane nor divine but a force to be captured and infused into items. At the core, an artificer is a master of gadgets. That's just the beginning, however. Your artificer can be a cool-headed problem solver, an ascetic philosopher, a cunning explorer, a magical dilettante, or a combat magician. It all depends on what kind of character you want to play and what sort of magical gadgetry you collect and use.
Artificer Assets[]
An artificer can use almost any magic item and often can modify a magic item on the spot or create a temporary item as needed. An artificer has a few other tricks as well. Here's an overview of the artificer's powers.
- Infusions: Artificers don't cast spells. Instead, they wield infusions, which imbue magical power into items both mundane and magical. Though an infusion isn't a spell, it works just like a spell in game terms.
There's a limit to the number of infusions you can use each day, but you can use any infusion from the artificer class list (your level permitting) without preparing it ahead of time. Better yet, you can learn new infusions that aren't on the normal artificer class list just by studying the infusion and making a Spellcraft check (albeit a fairly difficult one). This allows you personalize your infusion list somewhat.
While its true that Artificers are not spellcasters, and that they do not have spell lists, they do have Infusions, and those infusions act very much like spells. The main differences between spells and infusions is that an infusion can ONLY be placed on an item or a construct. Infusions never affect living beings directly (although you could infuse a buff into an item, and then give the item to another character to wear, and let them benefit that way). The only exception is the Warforged, who fall under the Construct category, which can be infused directly.
The downside of infusions is that they often have long casting times, measure in minutes instead of actions or rounds (although the Artificer can spend an Action Point to turn those minute long infusions into full round actions). Even when sped up, it takes the Artificer a while to get into full swing. However, when they have time to prepare, the Artificer can be particularly deadly. Most effective, especially at low levels, is Personal Weapon Augmentation. This allows you to put Bane on any weapon, even ordinary non-magic weapon, making them act as if they were +2 better and deal an extra 2d6 damage to specified types of creatures.
You can basically think of Infusions as a kind of temporary magic item. And while these may sound powerful, infusions are much more likely to have costly (very costly!) material components. Giving someone else’s weapon a temporary +1 ability is going to cost the Artificer 50gp worth of oils and ungents every time it gets cast, for example, and there’s no way around it. Which generally means you are going to rely on only a select few infusions with no costly components, and leave the expensive ones for emergency situations, or for later levels when you can actually afford them. On the up side though, Infusions are not arcane spells, so they aren’t affected by Arcane Spell Failure. You can infuse all day long wearing your medium armor without fear of messing up.
Something that has to be remember though is that infusions NEVER count as prereqs for crafting normal magic items. It does not matter that the Artificer has an infusion that duplicates the light spell, they still must make a UMD check to fake casting light.
On top of this, it is also important to remember that infusions are not spells. They cannot be researched by any known means. There are only so many Infusions that exist in the world, and an Artificer can’t just make up a new one whenever he wants. Learning a new infusion that isn’t in one of the books is a very special thing, and requires a special adventure, like wrestling the secrets of the Infusion out of the hands of a secret society or out of the heart of Xen’Drik. Learning new Infusions should never be allowed to be something that is done casually.
Craft Reserve
This is what really makes the Artificer stand out as being the best item creation expert in the game. Normally, the crafter must spend his or her hard earned xp when making a magical item. The Artificer, however, has their Craft Reserve, a set amount of points that can be used in the place of xp when crafting. Which means the Artificer can craft to their heart’s content without fearing about falling behind on xp.
Something important to remember with your Craft Reserve though is that it is not additive. You get a set amount of craft points per level, and if you do not use them, you lose any unused points when you level up. You do not carry them over to add to the new total for that level. However, you can opt to simply not level up until after you have used all of your Craft Reserve. But, depending on your game, you may end up not getting full use of your Reserve if you are spending a lot of time in the field with no downtime to craft in.[edit] Artificer Knowledge
A lot like Bardic Knowledge, an Artificer can make a special check with a bonus of his Artificer level + his Int mod (see, I told you Intelligence was important! ) to tell if something is magical or not. Its DC 15, which means it isn’t hard to make. Use an Appraise or Spellcraft check to see if you think something might be magical, then make an Artificer Knowledge check to find out for sure. Then you can use Identify without the risk of wasting that pearl on something non-magical.[edit] Artisan Bonus
An Artificer gets a +2 circ*mstance bonus to any UMD check he makes if he also has the appropriate crafting feat. For example, if the Artificer has Craft Wand, he gets a +2 bonus to all UMD checks to activate a wand. Its not much, but its still 2/3rds of the Skill Focus feat for free.[edit] Disable Trap
Its just like the Rogue ability. Lets you disable traps with a DC higher than 20. Useful for when you are replacing a Rogue.[edit] Item Creation
The bread and butter of the Artificer class is the ability to make any magic item in the game via UMD checks. The exact details are on page 32 of the ECS, but I’ll hit the high points here.
The Artificer can make items just like anybody else, except that instead of casting the prereq spells, they may make a Use Magic Device check (DC 20 + Caster Level). In other words, if you want to make a Wand of Fireball, you would craft normally, then make a DC 25 UMD check (because the lowest level anyone can cast Fireball at is lvl 5). And to make it even easier on the Artificer, they can make the check multiple times. They’re allowed one check every day that they work on it, and another last ditch chance at the end of creation. That’s a minimum of 2 chances to make the check for any item, and dozens of tries to make the expensive stuff, virtually guaranteeing that you succeed, since you only have to make the check once for it to count. And since you only need to fake a caster level of 17 in order to make 9th level spell items, that’s only a DC 37 check. Its one reason why you don’t really need things like Skill Focus (UMD), because most of your checks have a hard cap of how high they go, and anything above that cap is usually just wasted skill points.
Artificer Knowledge: Unlike normal spellcasters, artificers count as both casters and manifesters for the purposes of creating magical and psionic items. Likewise, they can create spell trigger, spell completion, power trigger and power completion items without having the ability to cast the necessary spells or powers. They still need the necessary item creation feats, but each spell or power needed can be replaced with a successful Use Magic Device check with a DC equal to 20 + twice the spell or power level. Other item creation requirements can be substituted as well, with the exception of the caster or manifester level. The Use Magic Device DC is the same as needed to emulate the needed class features, ability scores, race or alignments. Only one check per requirement is allowed.
When determining the spell or power level of a spell or power that appears on multiple lists, the first thing to do is find the effect he is looking to duplicate. Search the spells and powers list that have the full 9 levels of spells or powers first (i.e. sorcerer / wizard, cleric / oracle, druid, witch and psion / wilder). If the desired effect is on one or more of those lists, the artificer has the choice of which list to take it from, notating the spell or power level and, in the case of spells, whether it is arcane or divine. If, and only if, the desired effect is not located on any of those lists, check the spells and powers lists that only have 6 levels of spells or powers (i.e. bard, summoner, inquisitor psychic warrior, etc). If the desired effect is on one or more of those lists, the artificer has the same choice. If, and only if, the desired effect is not located on any of those lists, check the spells and powers lists that only have 4 levels of spells or powers (i.e. paladin, ranger, etc). If the desired effect is one or more of those lists, the artificer has the same choice. The choice of exactly which spell or power from which list will determine the spell or power level mimicked, the related DC for the UMD check for that particular spell or power and, in the case of spells, whether or not the effect is arcane or divine.
All other aspects of item creation remain following the same rules for item creation (feats required, time, cost, etc). The artificer uses his caster level as either the caster level or manifester level for comparing to the item's requirements. If a spell or power is required for the item creation (like that for scrolls, wands, dorjes, etc) and it is not successfully emulated, the entire item creation process (time and construction cost) is wasted. After all Use Magic Device checks have been made, the normal Spellcraft check to actually create the magical or psionic item still needs to be made to see if the item is successfully created.
Thus, attempting to create a Minotaur Belt (a Wondrous Item with a CL of 4, requiring Bull's Strength and Feather Step) has a normal Spellcraft or Craft DC: 19 for someone that did not met either spell prerequisites. However, an artificer can make two UMD checks (first for Bull's Strength at a DC of 24, second for Feather Step at a DC of 22) to lower the final Spellcraft or Craft DC to just 9.
The other important thing to remember is that the Artificer, through the virtue of being an Artificer, can create items 2 levels sooner than everyone else. For example, an Artificer can make a Scroll of Fireball at 4th level, when a Wizard has to wait until 6th because of the caster level. The Artificer would still count as being 4th level for determining how much damage that fireball would do, but he can still make the scroll 2 levels sooner than anyone else can.
One odd restriction though. Any scroll that the Artificer makes counts as an Artificer Scroll, not an Arcane Scroll, not a Divine Scroll. As such, it can ONLY be activated with a UMD check, but is not subject to Arcane Spell Failure. The reason behind this odd rule is that, by the rules, the Artificer can make a scroll of any spell he can make the UMD check for. The Wizard can learn any spell he can get his hands on a scroll of. Hence, an Artificer and a Wizard could team up and literally put every arcane spell in the game into the Wizard’s spellbooks. To prevent that abuse, the higher ups put in this rule, meaning that the Wizard cannot scribe them over.
Here is an example of how to price wands made by an Artificer:[edit] Wand Pricing
Here is the corrected and revised pricing for wands.
The proper formula for calculating the values are:
750 x Caster Level x Effective Spell Level (including any built in metamagic levels!) = Base/Market Price.
1/2 of Base/Market Price is YOUR COST. 1/25 of Base Market Price is YOUR XP COST. Yes, that 200k Item really does take 8000 xp to make! 1/1000 is the TIME IN DAYS to make the item. Yes, a 200K item does take 7 months!
Craft Homunculus
The Artificer’s answer to the Familiar. Normally crafting a homunculus requires the Craft Construct feat, but the Artificer gets the ability for free, and they can come in very handy, should you choose to use them. When making an Artificer, you should look through the various Homunculi and see which craft skills are required to make them, and take enough ranks in those skills that you can make them without difficulty.
And while its not actually in the rules in any way, Small sized Artificers like Halflings and Gnomes should go easy on how many homunculi they make in a row, as it requires a pint of the creator’s blood. So, making three or four in a row isn’t exactly a good idea, what with the blood loss and all.
Which homunculus you make, and when you make it depends a lot on personal preference. My recomendation for your first hom*onculi, should you choose to build them, is the Expedititious Messanger. Its cheap and easy to build, can fly, and has a perfect telepathic link to it's master. The writeup in the book discusses using them essentially as a radio to send messages back and forth. However, as a flyer, and with an instantaneous telepathic link, they make for EXCELLENT flying scouts/spy satellites. Let them fly up and ahead to scout the area, and keep you informed as to whats there. Being of size Tiny also means they get a huge bonus to Hide checks, which means they can hide in a room and relate back to you everything that is said in it, great for spying.
Next on the list, overall, is the Dedicated Wright. The job of the Artificer is to build things. However, its no fun to always be stuck in your laboratory spending a month to craft that magic sword while everybody else is either out having fun, or sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for you. Enter the Dedicated Wright. You come in, make the initial checks, and you can leave to do whatever you want while this hom*onculous does the tedious day to day crafting. Set him to work, go adventuring, and have your new magical item finished for you when you get back.
The next one is a matter of personal taste. The Iron Defender makes a great little bodyguard for your Artificer, especially when you up it's HD. Perfect for more martially oriented Artificers, or those that tend to get picked on by the monsters for all the Scorching Rays you're firing off from your wands. If you take the Improved Homunculus feat however, you can get a lot of options to make the Iron Defender a much more powerful choice. You can up it’s hitpoints, give it the ability to make Sneak Attacks, up it’s strength, and even give it’s claws a free magical +1 equivolent enchantment like Flaming or Bane. It can turn a mediocre pet at higher levels into something to be feared, which is a good thing for the Artificer.
The other, the Ethereal Filcher, is for those with a more sneaky/larcenous bent. With it's ability to sneak around and steal things, nothing is outside of your grasp. BBEG has a cool wand on his belt? Send your Filcher out to to literally climb his leg and take it away from him. Chances are, he'll never notice it was gone. And although it lacks the real time intelligence gathering ability of the Messenger, its much better at hiding and creeping around, so its a good choice for spying as well.
Magic of Eberron introduces several new homunculi as well. The Arbalester, despite it’s picture, is a crossbow. Its good for ranged support, and with it’s high Balance check, it can usually sit on your shoulder and plunk away at the enemy. Give it the natural weapon upgrade, and you’ve got free flaming arrows (or whatever) whenever you need ‘em! The Persistent Harrier is good for making Sneak Attacks for you, however it is made obsolete the instant you have Improved Homunculus as you can give that same ability to your Iron Defender. The Packmate is a walking treasure chest homunculus, but one earns it’s keep in a way none of the others do. Not only can it throw grenade like weapons (like alchemist’s fire or acid) on it’s own, but it can carry a healing potion, walk over to a downed ally, and pour the potion down their throat for them. If you’re getting made into the party healer because you can make all of those healing potions, the Packmate is a great way to keep your buddies alive without taking yourself out of combat at the same time.[edit] Retain Essence
This lets the Artificer essentially deconstruct any magic item and suck the XP used to create it out and put into their craft reserve. While you may still prefer to sell those excess magic items off for gold, the Artificer gets the option to suck them dry so that he can create more magical items than he normally could. Or another way to look at it, if you find a suit of armor with an enchantment you want, you can Retain Essence on it, then enchant the armor you already have with that xp, essentially transferring the enchantment. Only catch is that you have to be able to craft the item normally before you can use Retain Essence on it (as in, you cannot Retain Essence on a magic ring until you actually get Forge Ring).
An interesting side point to this that most people don’t think of is that magical traps use the Craft Wonderous Item feat to make. Which means if you run into a trap that you can’t disarm, and that won’t go off while you mess with it, you can actually use Retain Essence on it to destroy it, and get some free Craft Reserve points in the process. However, it does require you to sit there for 24 hours, in which time who knows what could attack you. But, if you manage to bypass traps on the way in, you win the big fight, and have lots of time to kill on the way out, you might as well stop and Retain those traps you bypassed earlier.[edit] Metamagic Spell Trigger/Completion
These are the core abilities of the Blastificer build. They let you apply any metamagic feat you know to spell trigger and spell completion items (aka wands and scrolls). With it, you can pick up a normal wand, and by burning more charges per shot, pile on metamagic such as Empower, Twin Spell, or Energy Admixture to whats already there. You can potentially pump out hundreds of points of damage this way, although it typically drains the entire wand into one massive blast to do it. Talk with your DM before you try this though, as a lot of them won’t like you doing 300 points of damage in a single round, even if you did burn an entire 50,000 gp wand to do it. Its easily the most abusable ability the Artificer has.[edit] Skill Mastery
You finally get the ability to Take 10 on your UMD checks. By the time you get this, you should be able to activate just about every magic item you own, every time, without fail due to your massive UMD bonus.[edit] VII. Equipment
As an Artificer, you can essentially make any item in the game that you might need, but its still worth mentioning a few important things that will make your life easier.[edit] Weapons
For your traditional Artificer, the crossbow is your best friend. It will be your main weapon for most of the lower levels, tearing through foes thanks to the Bane infusion you should be using on it every chance you get, and still remaining quite lethal even at higher levels. You should still carry backup weapons though. A pair of daggers are mandatory for any character, and a mace is quite useful for undead. Especially when you are able to enchant it up into a Disrupting Mace. Other than those, the spear is very powerful for a Simple melee weapon, although it means giving up on using a shield.[edit] Armor
None of your class skills are affected in any way by armor check penalties, so you should try to wear the heaviest armor you can find. However, it will slow you down to wear Medium armor, so you should probably stick to Light armor at the low levels, like a Chain Shirt, and then move up to a Mithral Breastplate the first chance you get. When you have the money and skill to make your own magical armor, my personal suggestion is Tessellated Armor from the Arms & Equipment Guide. It wears like Mithral Full Plate, only counts as Medium (so you can wear it without penalty), and best of all, you can equip it and dismiss it as a standard action. So you can walk around without your armor up normally, with no penalties to things like Move Silent and Hide, and then when combat begins, you simply activate your armor and suddenly become a tank.[edit] Shields
To put this mildly, the only reason you should not be using the best shield you can find is if you are wielding a two handed weapon like a spear. Otherwise, you need that AC, and you’re not really affected by the penalties of it. If you’re relying on your crossbow, you should always be wearing a buckler. If you’re relying more on a one handed weapon, go straight to a large shield. Again, as long as you have a free arm, there is no reason at all not to use the biggest, baddest shield you can find.[edit] Assorted Magical Gear
You are going to be carrying a LOT of stuff around as an Artificer. From wands and schema to the vials of oils for your infusion material components, to all that loot and crafting supplies. As such, one of the first things you should make for yourself is Heward’s Handy Haversack. Its really a no brainer, get one as soon as you can, by hook or by crook.
Another must have item for a ranged combat artificer is Bracers of Archery. That'll net you free proficiency with a longbow, which should immediantly replace your crossbow. No need to get feats like Rapid Reload for a crossbow, or for Martial Weapon Prof when you can build yourself a core item and get it essentially for free.
Other than that, you are going to want to get an item that boosts your Use Magic Device check. Check with your DM to see if he allows you to make non-standard magical items (those that are not expressly listed in the DMG, using the item creation pricing tables). If he does, the second thing you need to make is a UMD boosting item. A +5 item is pretty inexpensive to make, is a big help, and puts the final nail in the Skill Focus coffin. Make one ASAP, and upgrade it whenever you find those UMD are getting difficult to make again. If the DM doesn’t allow custom items, there is the Circlet of Persuasion which grants +3 to all Charisma based checks, including UMD, which still makes Skill Focus (UMD) a complete waste of a feat.
At later levels, you should also look into making a Portable Hole. A Dedicated Wright doesn’t need to breath, and there’s plenty of room in one to put a full magical laboratory. Set one up in your portable hole, toss your Dedicated Wright in it, and then fold it up and stick it in your pocket. That way, you can carry the Wright around with you while you adventure, and it can be making your magic items for you the whole time, and you don’t have to go back home to get them. You could even be cute about it. Give it a little Alarm item it can activate to make the hole ding like a microwave. *ding!* Oh good, my +3 sword is done!
Other than those, you are an artificer. If you find that you need something, then simply make it.[edit] VIII. Multiclassing
Multiclassing is a question that comes up a lot with Artificers, and for good reason. The Artificer is a good class, and it makes you think twice before multiclassing or taking a PrC, much like the Rogue does.[edit] Base Classes
Mechanically speaking, there is only one reason a primary Artificer (as in, a character that is mostly artificer that is just going to dip for a couple of levels into something else) to multiclass. To obtain spell lists, and utility magic. Dipping into Sorcerer gives you the entire Arcane spell list (meaning no more UMD checks to activate arcane wands), and would give you spontaneous casting of good utility magic. Take spells like Prestidigitation, Mage Hand, Dancing Lights, True Strike, and other spells that have a set effect that does not depend on caster level. Dipping into Cleric gives you basic healing capabilities, better armor choices, and some other neat abilities. If you want to get really cheesy, take a single level in Cleric devoted to the Sovereign Host in general and pick the War and Magic domains. The War domain gets you pretty much any weapon proficiency you want (that is used by any of the sovereign host gods), but the Magic domain is what is key. Not only do you get access to the Divine spell list, but the Magic domain also gives you access to the entire Arcane spell list as well. You can use any wand in the game without a UMD check. This one is a good idea for Blastificers that don’t want to deal with the failure chance on activating their wands. If you can convince your DM to let you do something this cheesy, that is.
But as a secondary class, the Artificer can add some oomph to almost any class. It’ll take several levels to be of full use, but just enough to get to Craft Wonderous Item is a great boon to everybody. Rogues mix with Artificer exceptionally well, as both classes have Use Magic Device as class skills. The rogue essentially trades sneak attack for magic item creation, and the artificer trades creation feats for more skillpoints and some sneak attack.[edit] PrC
Even though we now have some PrC made specifically for the Artificer, I would like to step out of guide mode here long enough to say that the Artificer is a wonderful class that remains exceedingly good for the whole 20 level run (and the thought of an Epic level Artificer should make you tingle all over). One big reason not to take a PrC is that the Craft Reserve only refills when you level up in Artificer, not any of the PrC out there. Which means you have to use Retain Essence a lot, use actual XP to craft with, or stagger your progression in the PrC by going back and forth between Artificer and PrC to keep refilling that Craft Reserve.
Back into guide mode, there are 3 good PrCs for Artificers out there now:[edit] Cannith Wand Adept
If you’re a Blastificer, you want into this PrC ASAP. Its in the Sharn: City of Towers expansion book, and is a 3 level PrC focusing on, obviously, wand use. The main draw here, besides only being 3 levels, is that it lets you activate two wands at the same time, meaning double the pain per round for the Blastificer. On top of that, they can suck charges out of wands and use them as if they were action points. However, it has some stiff prereqs, including needing the Mark of Making, meaning it’s a Human-Only PrC.[edit] Alchemist Savant
From Magic of Eberron, its good for Gnomes with their bonus to alchemy checks. It’s a 5 level PrC that lets you make alchemical items and potions extremely quickly (three potions a day instead of 1, and alchemical items are made in hours, not days, and days instead of weeks). The biggest draw for this one is that it’s capstone ability is the ability to make vanilla potions. A potion that is blank, that you can cast spells or infusions in later, and then have the potion work normally. It is the only way to make an item out of an infusion, and when you can start cranking out Potions of Iron Construct and Weapon Augmentation, that’s some sweet stuff.[edit] Renegade Mastermaker
Also from Magic of Eberron, this one is a transitive class that slowly turns the character into a Warforged. You gain a free battlefist (which you can infuse normally, and which also gains magical plusses for free), damage reduction, and all around slowly become a Warforged. You gain the ability to use embedded and attached items, and at the final level of this 10 lvl PrC, you take on the Living Construct type, and get a bonus WF feat, which can include body feats like Mithral Body.
Other than these, the Artificer also qualifies for any normal PrC however, but he has some special considerations. Any PrC that requires a spellcasting level is fair game, but not ones that require specifically arcane or divine spellcasting. If the PrC grants “+1 Spellcasting Level”, it increases the Artificer’s caster level and grants new Infusions known/per day, but none of the other Artificer abilities (aka no Craft Reserve refill), just like it does for increasing a cleric’s spells known/per day, but not things like Turn Undead. If the PrC grants +1 Arcane/Divine Spellcasting level, the Artificer does not benefit from those, as his infusions are neither Arcane nor Divine.
The Artificer is still restricted from taking PrC that require having a certain spell on their spell list, or the ability to cast a specific spell, as they are not actually spellcasters, do not have spell lists, and cannot actually cast any spell on their own. However, all of this is rather restrictive, so you could always talk to your DM and see if (s)he would houserule that you can qualify for other PrC. If so, PrC like the Effigy Master become very good choices for an Artificer indeed.
