Artificer- from the Ultimate book of Prestige Class's

[chipmunck]

Artificer- from the Ultimate book of Prestige Class's


I am DM'ing a game and I have a player who wants to take this class.

I do not have the book and I am not sure how balanced the Class is, or how it might be misused.

I could use people's help here please!

any imput will be very helpful.
Thanks
chipmunck

 

[Chun-tzu]

Welcome to the boards.

I'd say the power level of the class depends on how you (the DM) view magic item creation. In some campaigns, finding the time and gold to create magic items is harder than other campaigns.

The class doesn't look unbalanced to me (but I haven't seen it in play). It's a 10-level class, and you can't get into it until 8th level. They lose out big on spellcasting, gaining only 3 spellcasting levels out of the 10. For a non-epic game, that limits him to maximum 13th level spellcaster (7th level magic). All artificer levels stack for item creation pre-requisites, though.

The trade-off? He gets 3 bonus item creation feats, improved ability to identify magic items, a few other minor abilities, and an ability called Efficient Process. With this ability, he creates magic items at 5% less gold and XP per level (so at 10th level Artificer or 17th level character, he's only paying half-price for any magic items he creates).

So, these guys can create magic weapons, armor, and other items more easily than other casters, but it's still a costly process. After all, as DM you have a lot of control over how much gold he gets his hands on. If you don't have a problem with that, then it should be fine.

Of course, you'll want to see the PrC for yourself. I assume the player has the book, so you should ask him for a photocopy or something. For an online game, ask him to type it up for you and see if you think it's overpowered or not.

Edited for spelling and clarity.

 

[chipmunck]

Welcome to the boards.

The trade-off? He gets 3 bonus item creation feats, improved ability to identify magic items, a few other minor abilities, and an ability called Efficient Process. With this ability, he creates magic items at 5% less gold and XP per level (so at 10th level Artificer or 17th level character, he's only paying half-price for any magic items he creates).

Thanks!

I have some questions about the efficient process:
1. Is this 50% reduction on top of the 1/2 price cut one already gets with Creation Feats?

2. Is this 50% reduction apply only to the GP value?

3. If yes to both 1. and 2. ... Then that's paying 25% GP value and getting a 50% reduction to XP Cost at High levels that can be quite a bit. Is this right??

I do feel a bit uncomfortable with my players being able to create a 100k GP item for 25k GP and only 2k XP of the 4k XP that would normally be paid.


We know you can not lose a level through creating an item. (xp cost)
Soo, he now can make an item because of the 50% reduction that he otherwise could not make.

Because of this, he could make items that are many levels ahead of him, which can interupt the balance of the game for the other players as well as myself.
Is there ways around this? (I am a new DM) How may I limit this to create a balance.

Thanks!
Chipmunck

 

[Chun-tzu]

I have some questions about the efficient process:
1. Is this 50% reduction on top of the 1/2 price cut one already gets with Creation Feats?

2. Is this 50% reduction apply only to the GP value?

According to the description, the reduction (which applies to BOTH gold and XP) stacks with any other form of reduction. I'm not sure what other cost reductions you're referring to, though. The core feats allow you to create magic items, period. There's a feat in Forgotten Realms called Magical Artisan, which gives you 25% reduction for only ONE type of item creation feat. So I guess that would be 75% off for each type of item that the character has spent two feats on (the item creation feat and magical artisan). Yeah, that's a pretty good deal.

3. If yes to both 1. and 2. ... Then that's paying 25% GP value and getting a 50% reduction to XP Cost at High levels that can be quite a bit. Is this right??

I do feel a bit uncomfortable with my players being able to create a 100k GP item for 25k GP and only 2k XP of the 4k XP that would normally be paid.

Yeah, it's potentially unbalancing when you add in stuff from a variety of sources that weren't balanced with each other in mind. It depends on whether there are any other item creation reducing feats in your campaign (and there don't have to be).

Keep in mind, that whopping bonus doesn't reach that high until 17th level! You really shouldn't be running a campaign that high-level as a newbie DM (IMHO). If he's a first-level Artificer, and has Magical Artisan in the item creation feat, then he's only getting a 30% discount (and most of that is from the feat) as an 8th level character.

There are a couple ways you can go. You can tell the player that you'll allow the character on a trial basis, but that you reserve the power to make alterations if necessary. You can just forbid any further item creation cost reductions, but even 50% at 17th level might seem potentially unbalancing.

I think you should discuss the character more with your player, to get a better idea of his character concept. What does he plan to do with this guy? What kinds of magic items does he plan to create? There IS potential for munchkinism here.

In a WORST case scenario, though, the Efficient Process bonus only applies when he's working in his own magic laboratory (which costs 5000 GP to create as a prerequisite for taking the class, to be adjusted by the DM up or down as he sees fit for his campaign). So if you allow the character on a trial basis, and he abuses his abilities, and you warn him that he's abusing it but he continues to do so, then you can just trash his lab.

But really, there are lots of ways to limit his abilities, like not giving him enough time to create items (urgent missions), and so on.

 

[melkoriii]

Yeah, it's potentially unbalancing when you add in stuff from a variety of sources that weren't balanced with each other in mind. It depends on whether there are any other item creation reducing feats in your campaign (and there don't have to be).

Well as I see it, that’s only from the class.

Normal magic items cost 1/2 market price. With just the class you get another 50% off. So that’s 25% of market price.

With the classes other power of Cannibalizing magic items you can get ANOTHER 20% off if the item has the spell you need for the item your creating.

So in the end you get 95% off market price just from the class.

Now How do you calculate the xp cost?

Is it from the base market price? Or what the character pays?

Also it your game has big cities, you could make some good coin by just selling items at the 50% market still making 45% profit.


Even at low lvls (lvl 8) you can get 5%(Class) + 20%(Cannibalize item) to get a total of 75% off market price.

This is before any other cost reductions from other feats or what not.

 

[Spatzimaus]

With the classes other power of Cannibalizing magic items you can get ANOTHER 20% off if the item has the spell you need for the item your creating.

So in the end you get 95% off market price just from the class.

Actually, doing the math, I'd say that's 80%, not 95%. Cut 20% off of the "new" price, which happens to be 25% of the original; it's the same reason you got to 25 in the first place (50% of 50%).

IMC, we made an Artificer PrC that's somewhat similar to the one you're looking at. It's only a 5-level PrC, with NO spellcasting ability, but most of the other abilities are similar. Personally, I'd recommend doing this; tweak the class into something both you and the player are happy with, don't just take a book's word that it's balanced.

Here's what I learned from my experience with that similar class (both as a player and DM): allowing a player to make cheap magic items can be dangerous, for both of you. Taking so large of a caster level hit can be crippling unless the rest of the party can pick up the slack, so it hurts the player. On the other hand, providing an easy mechanism for high-end magic item creation can cause balance headaches for the DM. But, if you're willing to keep a close eye on the player, it can be really nice to have a gadget-guy in the group. ("Hmm, I know I have a wand of fireballs in here somewhere...")

 

[chipmunck]

Normal magic items cost 1/2 market price. With just the class you get another 50% off. So that’s 25% of market price.

Curious.. wouldn't it be at a 100% if the two discounts STACK on top of each other?
50% + 50% would be 100%.. or is that being read wrong?

One of the things that comforts me as a DM is knowing the Characters will not be around the Workshop as often as the player will want to.. They are adventuring outside of their 'hometown'... But it will be interesting where they might put the workshop since they found a fortress they want to sit on.
This can be a bonus to me, the DM, but a neg. to the player, which makes me also feel I am jiping him out of something. But then again, this can be a VERY powerful bonus in the first place.

-Chipmunck

 

[melkoriii]

Curious.. wouldn't it be at a 100% if the two discounts STACK on top of each other?
50% + 50% would be 100%.. or is that being read wrong?

One of the things that comforts me as a DM is knowing the Characters will not be around the Workshop as often as the player will want to.. They are adventuring outside of their 'hometown'... But it will be interesting where they might put the workshop since they found a fortress they want to sit on.
This can be a bonus to me, the DM, but a neg. to the player, which makes me also feel I am jiping him out of something. But then again, this can be a VERY powerful bonus in the first place.

-Chipmunck

Well the 1/2 market price is not a reduction. Thats the base cost to make the item. So any % are of this.

So yes my math was off.

20% off base is 10% off market.

So 50%(class) + 20%(item) is 70% of the creation cost which is 50% of market.

So thats 70% of 50%
or
35% of market price.

Still a great savings.

Exg.

Wand of Fire ball CL 5
3x5x750 = 11,250gp Market price
Item creation costs is 1/2 that or 5,625gp

Now Wiz 8/ Art 1 gets 5% off and 20% from his last charge of his last Wand of fire ball.

He now pays 4,218gp 7sp 5cp
Savings of 1,406gp 2sp 5cp

For only 5,906gp 2sp 5cp he could make a Wand of Fire Ball CL 7
Only 281.12gp more he gets +2d6 damage per Fire Ball.

Now this is Artificer lvl 1. At lvl 2 he gets a 10% more to this.

Now if you allowed other feats like mechend above he can make even more powerful things for much less the cost.

To me its over powered.

I would give the Artificer PrCl a Time cut in creation and maybe some other thing NOT related to the cost of items

 

[maransreth]

Chipmunck, You can find the Artificer in the Netbook of Classes. This is where the class originally came from.
Download Netbook of Classes Volume 1 from http://nboclasses.fancc.net and you can read it all yourself.

There are a number of different artificer type classes in that and Volume 2 as well. They all slightly differ and it depends on the player as to which they prefer.