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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RealAlHazred" data-source="post: 6749769" data-attributes="member: 25818">Originally posted by Tempest_Stormwind:This post used to include the first round of comments from Mellored's thread(x), where I originally pitched this (but I don't like threadjacking, so I moved to a new place). Instead, this explains my design process and discusses the class' effectiveness. My design goals when putting this together (apart from remaining roughly on par with the other classes!) are as follows: <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Artificers must be playable with the standard 5e assumptions about magic items, as well as in Eberron where lower-level magic items are more commonplace. Ideally, it's a seamless transition - no changes to the class involved. It should automatically adapt to how magic items are handled in different worlds, without seriously challenging the assumptions of those worlds. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It has to "feel" like the previous editions' artificer did. This means a magical craftsman, mechanical tinkerer, and arcane improviser. Certain specific abilities won't be ported if they conflict with goal 1. (For instance, Metamagic Spell Trigger from the 3e artificer assumes commonplace purchasing of wands and freely available metamagic, neither of which are true in 5e, so out it goes.). <a href="http://keith-baker.com/extra-life-hacking-the-artificer/" target="_blank">I think that Keith Baker summed up what "defines" an Eberron artificer here</a>, and largely, I concur. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It should be as simple to play as any other spellcaster, and ideally presented, in its entirety, in around two to four pages of typesetting before artwork or tables, while still supporting a few different subclass options. This includes any new spells, so in fulfilling Goal 2 I can't create an entire new chapter to reflect their infusions. Existing rules will be used wherever possible as a result.</li> </ul> For Design Goal 1, I think this fits quite nicely, though it might not be immediately obvious, since most of the controls aren't explicit in the class text. They're mostly inherited instead from how the DM is already regulating magic items, but they still leave enough tools to fine-tune how the artificer works to just about any degree. Allow me a brief diversion to explain why.Regarding magic item creation in 5e Standard and other settings[sblock]I'd like to note that, in the DMG, magic item creation is a perfectly valid downtime activity, assuming you have a formula as well as the raw materials and downtime. (Check page 128; it's exactly as common a downtime activity as cavorting, spreading rumors, or buying a business - the last of which seems to be one of the default assumptions as to what higher-level characters spend all their vast wealth on anyway!) A formula, according to page 141, is written down (such as in a book or on a scroll, though its size isn't mentioned), and is one step rarer than the item it describes (although certain games with commonplace item creation might have formulas of the same rarity as their item). According to page 128-129, using a formula requires that a character have spell slots and can cast any spell the item produces (items that don't produce spells don't have this second requirement - anyone with spell slots and the appropriate formula can create a +1 sword or bag of holding). There's also a level requirement based on the item's rarity, as well as a GP cost (which also sets the time required) based on the same rarity. The DMG also includes this wonderful paragraph: You can decide that certain items also require special materials or locations to be created. For example, a character might need alchemist's supplies to brew a particular potion, or the formula for a flame tongue might require that the weapon be forged with lava. (Note: The Player's Handbook describes that potions of healing require an herbalists' kit to brew, for instance (in addition to the formula). This would be an example of one of these additional requirements.) Expressed as a table, since the formula doesn't seem to be widely known, and adding in relevant details from other DMG sections, we can consolidate like this:<table style='width: 100%'><tr><td>Rarity</td><td>Find Level</td><td>Craft Level</td><td>Market Value</td><td>Creation Cost</td><td>Downtime</td></tr><tr><td>Common</td><td>1st</td><td>3rd</td><td>50 - 100 gp</td><td>100 gp</td><td>4 days</td></tr><tr><td>Uncommon</td><td>1st</td><td>3rd</td><td>101 - 500 gp</td><td>500 gp</td><td>20 days</td></tr><tr><td>Rare</td><td>5th</td><td>6th</td><td>501 - 5000 gp</td><td>5000 gp</td><td>200 days</td></tr><tr><td>Very Rare</td><td>11th</td><td>11th</td><td>5001 - 50000 gp</td><td>50000 gp</td><td>2000 days</td></tr><tr><td>Legendary</td><td>17th</td><td>17th</td><td>50001+ gp</td><td>500000 gp</td><td>20000 days</td></tr></table>Add to this the formula itself (usually one rarity level above the item it builds), and any requirements the formula contains. Qualified workers meet the Craft Level requirement, have spell slots, and can cast any spells that the item creates (often none). Note: If you use the Selling Magic Items system, the Creation Cost column is the item's base price (though Legendary items aren't saleable without a special quest), but it isn't always easy to get the full price back. Additionally, page 135 suggests that the Market Value of consumable magic items be cut in half. It doesn't say if this should extend to the Creation Cost or Downtime, although this is probably a reasonable interpretation. Furthermore, you can split up the downtime between multiple people (so while one worker needs to spend over 5 years on making a Very Rare item, a team of five working together needs just 400 days to do it). The Cost to Create is spent in 25gp increments per worker per day, which matters if you can't create the item in one single batch of downtime days. (This is subtly different from the mundane crafting rules in the PHB, where you make progress in 5gp increments per worker per day but only actually spend half of that.) That's all that the game says about formulas and item creation. Let's take a look at what that means for us. The controlling factor here is that items require formulas to be built. There's no true example formulas, nor any way to place said formulas (i.e. they don't appear on treasure tables, although they do have a suggested rarity, which at least lets you set a market price for them if you want), in the game without DM fiat, so even though item creation is valid, the tools to do so are completely under total DM control. (Consider this an example of "<a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DummiedOut" target="_blank">Dummied Out</a>".) This artificer does include a system for discovering formulas based on what items you've already allowed in the game (in effect rediscovering the possibly lost ancient knowledge used to build the item in the first place), but before you bust out the banhammer on this ability (Salvage Essence) or the entire class, I'd like to say a few things. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">You regulate which formulas are available exactly the same way you are already regulating the handing out of magic items. An item you aren't comfortable giving to the players is also unable to be crafted by the players. This happens automatically, without any specific work on your part that you aren't already doing for your world. If you're running a game where +1 swords are legendarily rare, the artificer won't be able to build them at all. If you're running a game where everyone uses a +1 toothbrush, artificers can build them as easily as their frequency in the world implies.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Powerful items that the team really wants to use right away are less than ideal choices to copy. Artificers only get the formula by dismantling (destroying) the magic item, and it takes a long time to build a replacement (and since the first one they build only replaces the one they dismantled, it takes two such replacements for the party to be "up" an item!). This lets you further moderate the desire to build items through time pressure - the players won't see salvaging as a necessary step so much as an investment, with time pressure being the risk. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">You can adjust the exact cost to create the item itself, although the game's suggestions for this are fixed for all items of the same rarity. The reason you'd do this is that this cost sets the amount of downtime required (one day per 25 gp spent per worker), and you also control how much downtime's available - so if you want a player to build an item, but don't want it available just yet, make it expensive enough so that they won't have it finished in time for the next adventure. (I personally wouldn't do this all the time, but if the players dismantle something that you didn't expect which would defeat the entire next adventure you've prepped, this is an easy way to save yourself the trouble of re-designing the whole thing without, say, stealing the item from them.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Finally, and most significantly, a formula isn't a free ticket to construction - it's just the roadmap. Get creative - if you don't want your player making powerful items in his comfortable forge, add something exotic to the formula!</li> </ul> What do I mean by something exotic? A component or special requirement that forces the players to make tough decisions, or one that acts as an adventure seed. Maybe that magic ring really does need to be forged in the fires of Mount Doom, forcing an adventure - or two, since the rest of the party has to keep him safe while he works, and any place named Mount Doom probably isn't a safe vacation spot. Maybe it can only be crafted under the light of a full moon, forcing the player to wait a month between downtime days to build it. Maybe cloaks of elvenkind need the touch of elves to be built, so a gnome artificer might be unable to do it alone - and the elves might require him to prove his allegiance to elf causes before they agree to help. If your artificer is Good, have one of the raw materials be blood from the still-beating heart of a celestial - he'll think twice about making that, and (since he had to destroy the item to learn this, so now a potentially useful item is gone and he has to murder a celestial to make a replacement) he'll be more cautious about it in the future. Or, it might require a completely different magic item, for which the player doesn't have a formula (possibly, the item might be unique), to construct, forcing him to search for a different item... and maybe the only one people know about is locked deep inside your king's vault, forcing him to convince the king to let him use it, or to commit treason, break in, and steal it. Of course, for pretty simple items, nothing stops you from using a more basic formula, reserving the exotic stuff for items with unique effects or story significance either. In settings like Eberron, standardized magic items (I'm using that label instead of "common" because uncommon items are still manufactured en masse, but are naturally less common than the commons) have probably been <a href="http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20081205#.VNLjQmjF-gY" target="_blank">thoroughly researched</a> for centuries by House Cannith and the other dragonmarked houses. You throw the resources of many multinational corporations at something, and sooner or later you find out just the core elements of what makes it tick, and then you let the market do its thing. (Just as we learned the active ingredients in willow bark that let it numb pain and moved on to manufacture aspirin, really - one of the assumptions in Eberron is that, in a world with magic, society will learn to harness magic.) For this, the original, ancient, technique for making, say, +1 weapons will probably be rather exotic and traditional, but the mass-produced standardized versions have a way of doing it with purchasable components and replicatable procedures, which is reflected by a far simpler formula (one that's simple enough to reduce to something like "Able to cast Magic Weapon and 250gp in 'raw materials'", handwaving the details and possibly supplying Magic Weapon through an item anyway!). There could even be a proprietary item - a special Guild-owned forge, say - that makes standardized items cheaper to produce, meaning an independent craftsman could still build the items, but they wouldn't be able to compete with the Guild on the open market (indeed, the "market price" would reflect some lower price thanks to the Guild device, rather than the "true" cost of the item.) In fact, such an item did exist in 3e - it's where I got the name "schema" from! However, in Eberron, trade secrets and copyrights are a thing - if you reverse-engineer a proprietary standardized magic item and try to make your own copies without belonging to an appropriate guild, expect a knock on the door from the MPAA (Magical Properties and Artifice Agency, a wholly-owned for-profit subsidiary of House Cannith). There's also the possibility, in either type of setting, for magic items to have multiple possible formulas. If an artificer disassembles two +1 weapons, he might find that one of them had a much easier-to-fulfil formula than the other. This puts a choice in his mind if you pass him a big item - let's say he was foolish before and dismantled that Nine Lives Stealer only to find he could never recreate it, and by the rolls of the dice, he manages to find another, obviously from a different maker. Does he risk dismantling it, on the chance that it might provide a feasable formula this time, even though he may very well never see another of its kind again? However, in order to accommodate settings where permanent magic items exist but simply aren't being made (i.e. the technique isn't merely "lost, but rediscoverable" - it's not repeatable at all for whatever reason), Salvage Essence is always paired with another ability at the same level, so even in settings where salvaging is useless, players still have a steady progression of abilities. This is written so that being able to build permanent magic items is not so central to the class to cause the artificer to fall apart without them! (It's kind of like playing a fighter in a setting without magic swords - losing something that the class does very well feels a little weird, but the class and all of its attendant math should still work just fine.)[/sblock] For Design Goal 2, let's consider how well this hits all of <a href="http://keith-baker.com/extra-life-hacking-the-artificer/" target="_blank">Keith's defining elements</a>.Show[sblock]Simple weapons: Check. (There's even an emphasis on crossbows, the defining ranged simple weapon of the original artificer, since there's no better ranged weapons and no offensive cantrips (but Personal Weapon Augmentation allows cantrip-grade combat using that crossbow...).) (Elemental Evil does add in Magic Stone, giving them an offensive ranged cantrip, but A) Magic Stone has been an artificer spell before, and B) you're still picking up a "simple weapon" and imbuing it with magic to fight. I think that's fine.)Light and Medium armor and shields: Check. (There's also specific emphasis on shields, in that Armor Augmentation needs a shield to resist magical damage.)The ability to disarm traps like a rogue: Check (proficient in thieves' tools like a rogue; there's also Magecraft to give it unique proficiency with magical traps (which are, in effect, magical objects similar to infusions), but doing so cuts into your budget for other magical toys. By comparison, a rogue with Expertise in thieves' tools can be as good as you with mechanical traps all day long at no opportunity cost, but has to use Arcana on magical traps instead. (However, Thief rogues are the best of all worlds, having expertise and being able to pick locks or disarm traps far faster, but I'm fine leaving this ability to the dedicated thieves rather than the more meticulous artificers.) Both classes are excellent at handling traps, but with slightly different focuses and opportunity costs).An exceptional talent for making permanent magic items: Check (Salvage Essence, which automatically adjusts for different worlds' magic item availabilities in accordance with Goal 1, and is timed with other abilities so that you get a steady ability progression even if the world has no crafting at all)Temporary magic items created on the spot, focusing on enhancing the abilities and equipment of the artificer and his allies (and, he refers to magic inventions a la Spell Storing Item here, as well as to the results of infusions at a broader level): Check (a tightly themed spell list, all of which use objects as required components, with Weapon Augmentation and Prototype being the two most generalizable. Reflavoring the scroll-creation mechanic into Arcane Devices and allowing these to be created over short rests also harkens to this ability).The most useful and versatile infusions had long casting times unless the artificer spent an action point (so there was a rhythm between being a noncombat troubleshooter or being a hero): Partial Check (though because durations are shorter in this edition, this isn't quite as universal as before - it's mostly found in Prototype, wth the "hero mode" accelerator being the signature of the magitechnician.). Also, just because it's often hard to see what isn't there, artificers deliberately lack a spellcasting focus. They have to use the components themselves to build the spells from first principles, instead of specializing in shortcuts and methods particular to one form of magic (like the arcane, holy, musical, or druidic focus). They can instead employ their component pouches, though, and I encourage players to come up with exactly what's inside those pouches - I think of it as whatever the magical equivalent of <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MacGyvering" target="_blank">duct tape and paper clips</a> would be. The extra object component (typically artisan's tools, but it doesn't have to be) that many spells require isn't a focus in the 5e sense of the term - it's the object you're imbuing with magic (i.e. the leather belt used when you cast Enhance Ability becomes a ghetto Belt of Giant Strength), or the tools with which you imbue another object with magic (i.e. you use your tools to breathe magic into your buddy's sword when you make it a Magic Weapon). Incidentally, although a component pouch technically substitutes for the spell's listed components, these extra object components must be held or worn for the magic to work - and thus, the component pouch can't actually substitute for them even if it replaces the others.[/sblock]All of this is designed to reinforce the artificer as a "tinkerer" rather than a "spellcaster", even though it re-uses the basic spellcasting rules. As for Design Goal 3? Let's start with length.The core class, without the table, is under two pages long at default print settings. Adding in the table and the four Artificer Guilds takes it up to three and a half pages, with half a page including the spell list (and the brief form of most of the spells will still fit on this page, but spells are usually presented separately from the class - how long is the wizard or the cleric if you count all the wizard or cleric spells as part of the class?). And it'll get even shorter once columns are added. Regarding the "simplicity" part of Design Goal 3, let's take a closer look.Show[sblock]The vast bulk of the class is similar to a highly-focused spontaneous spellcaster, but with 2/3 spell progression. The spells known are based off of 2/3rds of the sorcerer's, adjusted for evenness afterwards, but the artificer list is smaller than 2/3rds of the sorcerer list (40 spells compared to 113, before cantrips) and is more tightly focused on altering objects and constructs. A few of those spells got a slight power-up because of this limitation, but most didn't. Unless you're a construct or in a party of constructs (note: the Unearthed Arcana rules for warforged are ambiguous about whether they're constructs or humanoids), you'll spend most of your time considering the devices and objects around you in the world. Quite a lot of the complexity instead comes from being able to select from multiple spell lists when building arcane devices or using Prototype. Neither of these can be employed in combat (unless you're a magitechnician, which specializes entirely in Prototype), and the default size of the book of schema (spellbook) is about half the scope of a wizard's, which limits the range of obscure spells you can pull out (especially without warning - a player who says he's building a device of Fireball for tomorrow is very different from a player who spontaneously pulls a Fireball out of nowhere). Both of these methods also have limits that prevent them from being your first recourse to every problem. You'll still turn to them when you've got a problem they'll solve, but being able to, occasionally, build exactly the right device to solve a problem is exactly what artificers are supposed to do. All the same, let's discuss those limitations. Arcane devices have a limited pool of availability - craft reserve is used by several other features, and unlike prepared spells, you pay one point per level of the device you want to make, and the device goes away once used (similar to old-style fire-and-forget Vancian casters). They also follow the rules for spell scrolls, which means that they use the table on Spell Scroll DCs and spell attack bonuses from the basic rules, and not your own proficiency / Intelligence. I've replicated that table here. The last columns are the effective wizard level and Intelligence that the scroll is effectively casting as, and what level the artificer has to be to build such a device. Level 8 and 9 arcane devices are impossible without some degree of multiclassing (which will leave you with very little in the way of craft reserve to spend on them). He also can't activate spell scrolls if he doesn't have the schema for that spell yet (and remember that he can't learn a schema from a scroll unless he's got a slot of that level, and he's a 2/3 delayed caster), although he can cheese it a bit if he knows Synchronize (a 5e version of the 3e Suppress Requirement infusion).[UNKNOWN=pre]: Level   Rarity  DC   Attack  Wiz Lvl/Int  Arti Lvl1       C       13   +5      1  / 16      2nd2       U       13   +5      3  / 16      5th3       U       15   +7      5  / 18      8th4       R       15   +7      7  / 18      11th5       R       17   +9      9  / 20      14th6       V       17   +9      11 / 20      17th7       V       18   +10     13 / 20      20thThis does mean that a 1st level arcane device is equally powerful if it's built by a 20th level genius rock gnome inventor or a 1st level neophyte dwarf apprentice. (Yes, you can make a stupid artificer. You'll perform just as well with your devices, but you won't have as many of them nor will your non-buff spells be as powerful. Using the Int-substitution in Personal Weapon Augmentation is optional, so you might find weapon-users who like the idea of magically enhancing their blades considering artificer (likely the Spellforgers' Guild), instead of multiclassing into a different caster or playing the blast-happy Eldritch Knight.) This is deliberate - for utility spells, you'll usually be able to whip up the perfect spell for the occasion if you have the schema (consider an arcane device a costly way of mimicking the Ritual tag and you'll have the right idea), but for combat spells, you won't be able to fall back on anything but your strongest arcane devices if you want to have a good chance of succeeding. If you want to use your Intelligence in combat, you'll not use your arcane devices and instead fall back on your spells - particularly Weapon Augmentation and Prototype (assuming you built a prototype or two in advance, or are a magitechnician). Speaking of Prototype, assuming 15 Intelligence to start and pumping it at every opportunity, here's what you can expect for its success rates. Prototype is one of the wildcards on the artificer, even with the dramatically limited possibilities in this version (its 3e predecessor, Spell Storing Item, really put it to shame, but could be easily broken), so knowing how likely it is to explode in your face is useful information. For the standard artificer (if a success rate is too risky for you, then that's a way of saying "use an arcane device instead except under time pressure"):<table style='width: 100%'><tr><td>Level</td><td>Prof</td><td>Int Mod</td><td>Arcana</td><td>1st</td><td>2nd</td><td>3rd</td><td>4th</td><td>5th</td><td>6th</td><td>7th</td></tr><tr><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>2</td><td>4 </td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>2</td><td>2</td><td>4 </td><td>65%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>2</td><td>2</td><td>4 </td><td>65%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>5 </td><td>70%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>3</td><td>3</td><td>6 </td><td>75%</td><td>65%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>3</td><td>3</td><td>6 </td><td>75%</td><td>65%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>3</td><td>3</td><td>6 </td><td>75%</td><td>65%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>8</td><td>3</td><td>4</td><td>7 </td><td>80%</td><td>70%</td><td>60%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>9</td><td>4</td><td>4</td><td>8 </td><td>85%</td><td>75%</td><td>65%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>10</td><td>4</td><td>4</td><td>8 </td><td>85%</td><td>75%</td><td>65%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>11</td><td>4</td><td>4</td><td>8 </td><td>85%</td><td>75%</td><td>65%</td><td>55%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>12</td><td>4</td><td>5</td><td>9 </td><td>90%</td><td>80%</td><td>70%</td><td>60%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>13</td><td>5</td><td>5</td><td>10 </td><td>95%</td><td>85%</td><td>75%</td><td>65%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>14</td><td>5</td><td>5</td><td>10 </td><td>95%</td><td>85%</td><td>75%</td><td>65%</td><td>55%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>15</td><td>5</td><td>5</td><td>10 </td><td>95%</td><td>85%</td><td>75%</td><td>65%</td><td>55%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>16</td><td>5</td><td>5</td><td>10 </td><td>95%</td><td>85%</td><td>75%</td><td>65%</td><td>55%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>17</td><td>6</td><td>5</td><td>11 </td><td>100%</td><td>90%</td><td>80%</td><td>70%</td><td>60%</td><td>50%</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>18</td><td>6</td><td>5</td><td>11 </td><td>100%</td><td>90%</td><td>80%</td><td>70%</td><td>60%</td><td>50%</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>19</td><td>6</td><td>5</td><td>11 </td><td>100%</td><td>90%</td><td>80%</td><td>70%</td><td>60%</td><td>50%</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>20</td><td>6</td><td>5</td><td>11 </td><td>100%</td><td>90%</td><td>80%</td><td>70%</td><td>60%</td><td>50%</td><td>40%</td></tr></table> For a member of the magitechnicianss guild (reminder: These guys specialize in Prototype. At 3rd, they get to cast it from craft reserve, using it more frequently. At 5th, they can occasionally use it in combat. At 11th, they get MUCH more reliable with it. At 17th, they have a small chance of getting an extra use out of it: this occurs 9.75% of the time assuming no disadvantage is present, and 5% of the time when disadvantage is present, assuming 20 Int by 17th): <table style='width: 100%'><tr><td>Level</td><td>Prof</td><td>Int Mod</td><td>Arcana</td><td>1st</td><td>2nd</td><td>3rd</td><td>4th</td><td>5th</td><td>6th</td><td>7th</td></tr><tr><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>2</td><td>4 </td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>2</td><td>2</td><td>2</td><td>4 </td><td>65%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>3</td><td>2</td><td>2</td><td>4 </td><td>65%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>4</td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>5 </td><td>70%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>5</td><td>3</td><td>3</td><td>6 </td><td>75%</td><td>65%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>6</td><td>3</td><td>3</td><td>6 </td><td>75%</td><td>65%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>7</td><td>3</td><td>3</td><td>6 </td><td>75%</td><td>65%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>8</td><td>3</td><td>4</td><td>7 </td><td>80%</td><td>70%</td><td>60%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>9</td><td>4</td><td>4</td><td>8 </td><td>85%</td><td>75%</td><td>65%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>10</td><td>4</td><td>4</td><td>8 </td><td>85%</td><td>75%</td><td>65%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>11</td><td>4</td><td>4</td><td>8 </td><td>98%</td><td>94%</td><td>88%</td><td>80%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>12</td><td>4</td><td>5</td><td>9 </td><td>99%</td><td>96%</td><td>91%</td><td>84%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>13</td><td>5</td><td>5</td><td>10 </td><td>100%</td><td>98%</td><td>94%</td><td>88%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>14</td><td>5</td><td>5</td><td>10 </td><td>100%</td><td>98%</td><td>94%</td><td>88%</td><td>80%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>15</td><td>5</td><td>5</td><td>10 </td><td>100%</td><td>98%</td><td>94%</td><td>88%</td><td>80%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>16</td><td>5</td><td>5</td><td>10 </td><td>100%</td><td>98%</td><td>94%</td><td>88%</td><td>80%</td><td>--</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>17</td><td>6</td><td>5</td><td>11 </td><td>100%</td><td>99%</td><td>96%</td><td>91%</td><td>84%</td><td>75%</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>18</td><td>6</td><td>5</td><td>11 </td><td>100%</td><td>99%</td><td>96%</td><td>91%</td><td>84%</td><td>75%</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>19</td><td>6</td><td>5</td><td>11 </td><td>100%</td><td>99%</td><td>96%</td><td>91%</td><td>84%</td><td>75%</td><td>--</td></tr><tr><td>20</td><td>6</td><td>5</td><td>11 </td><td>100%</td><td>99%</td><td>96%</td><td>91%</td><td>84%</td><td>75%</td><td>64%</td></tr></table> All of these are rounded to the nearest hundredth, then expressed as a percentage (the actual number for an 11th level magitechnician's 1st level prototype is 97.75%, for instance). These success rates are high, but low enough that it's still a gamble, particularly on your highest-level spell slots, which is usually enough of a deterrent to stop it from being exploited. Mishaps suck, but they're fun, especially if the DM has something suitably poetic or karmic in mind; the threat of having that happen keeps the risk at the forefront of your mind when you whip together some mad scientist's contraption using the Prototype spell.[/sblock] Finally, some acknowledgements.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">This couldn't have happened without Rampant. Although we argue throughout this thread, it's almost always productive, as this kind of criticism really points out the weak points in design.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">AlHazred also supplied useful feedback, including the nicely-formatted spell descriptions.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Finally, Mellored (unintentionally) provoked me into doing this in the first place.</li> </ul> Feynman once said that "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool." Although he was speaking of science, it also holds true in game design, where the equivalent of an experiment is honest feedback and testing. I think this turned out quite well, but I don't want to fool myself. So go ahead: Rip me a new one. </blockquote>

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