Artificer Rundown

[Insight]

Can someone with access to the Eberron books give me a brief rundown on how the Artificer class works, specifically its class abilities?

In addition, is the Artificer class or anything like it (say a third party equivalent or approximation) available in a PDF or any other source? I'm not all that interested in Eberron, but I'd like to find out more about this class.

Thanks!

 

[FalcWP]

An Artificer gets two big things.

1) They're awesome at creating items. They get all item creation feats as bonus feats. They get a "craft reserve" - a pool of XP they can use for crafting, without hitting their real XP. They can emulate any spell they happen to need for crafting an item.

2) Infusions. These are like spells, in a sense. They get a certain number per day. Infusions effect objects - you don't cast bull's strength on a person, but you might put it on a belt that a person wears. They can put spells into items, basically, as well as a few other effects. Say you're fighting a troll? The artificer sets up the party's weapons with the flaming property, and then gets out a wand of scorching ray that he crafted.

In addition, they have Trapfinding and the associated skills, so they can cover that aspect of the rogue's job.

 

[Wolfwood2]

An Artificer gets two big things.

1) They're awesome at creating items. They get all item creation feats as bonus feats. They get a "craft reserve" - a pool of XP they can use for crafting, without hitting their real XP. They can emulate any spell they happen to need for crafting an item.

2) Infusions. These are like spells, in a sense. They get a certain number per day. Infusions effect objects - you don't cast bull's strength on a person, but you might put it on a belt that a person wears. They can put spells into items, basically, as well as a few other effects. Say you're fighting a troll? The artificer sets up the party's weapons with the flaming property, and then gets out a wand of scorching ray that he crafted.

In addition, they have Trapfinding and the associated skills, so they can cover that aspect of the rogue's job.

The biggest brake on an artificer is money. Making all those items gets expensive, and unlike caster crafters they have a chance at failing their Use Magic device checks and being unable to make the ideas, wasting all the cash invested. (Happens more at lower levels.)

In addition, a lot of their best infusions require expensive material components. Giving the group fighter's weapon the bane property sounds great, but if you do it every encounter the costs are going to add up.

 

[freefall]

They can also use items better then other characters. They can use extra charges to add metamagic to wands and staves. By making a skill check they gain the ability to metamagic spells cast from a scroll (limited number of times per day). They can also create cheaper items by using lower level caster level then normally would be allowed.

 

[Insight]

Thanks for the replies thus far.

Is there a way I can access a detailed list of and explanations of the Artificer's class abilities aside from purchasing the Eberron CS?

 

[Bryntryst]

ECS is copyrighted and not open source, so aside from breaking the law, no.

 

[moritheil]

The biggest brake on an artificer is money.

And time. Many of their infusions take 1 minute or more to cast, making them infeasible in combat. Outside of the Eberron system this is handled well by not giving them action points.

 

[the_mighty_agrippa]

And time. Many of their infusions take 1 minute or more to cast, making them infeasible in combat. Outside of the Eberron system this is handled well by not giving them action points.

Though, there is a feat to give them the ability to rapidly cast one infusion a day.

 

[the_mighty_agrippa]

Artificer in a nutshell...

Recon
Plan
Buff
Buff
Buff
Kill
Loot
Craft Items