Beginner Artificer help

[Zeronic]

Last time I posted here I was playing my soulbow and I very much liked the build they gave me here.
I have come a long way in the meantime, playing other characters which most I build myself.
After playing DDO for a long time I was thinking of an artificer since that was what I played ingame. Yet I hear that that class is an oddball ( and cheesy, but heey, it is D&D 3.5).
We start at lvl 10 since this is a short campaign and this is the build so far.
Warforged lvl 10 Artificer
STR 12 DEX 16 CON 14 INT 22 WIS 8 CHA 8
+2 light Crossbow and a +2 composite plating. And some nice stat boosting items.
Feats: Point Blank shot, Precise shot, Rapid reload, Brew Potions, Craft magic arms and armour / Rod / wand / Wonderous item. Scribe scrolls, Empower spells, Maximize and wand mastery.
Won't go into detail for skills, just the nececarry skills in UMD search etc etc.
Now I though this would be a sort of semi spellcaster and ranged attacker.
Yet if I look at it's spell list now I mainly see repair spells, or attribute boost or enhance weapon.
Then, you have infusions, which, if I search around for, give me a similar list of spells + more that my spellforge doesn't show.
Any idea how I should really play this character? How do infusions really work? And crafting stuff seems even more of a hassle. Help please?

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

You've chosen the most complex, but highly rewarding class. Enjoy!

It sounds like you already have an idea how you want to play this character.

Think of infusions as mostly buff spells that take a long time to cast. They're really useful, especially the weapon enhancements since you can make any of them. You just need time to prepare in advance, and sometimes adventures don't permit that. Crafting also takes much, much more time. The advantage you have is you are a Warforged, you don't need to sleep, you can craft during the 8 hours everyone else is sleeping as long as they don't need to to keep watch. If you stay up all night crafting, you won't rest to replenish your infusions. If you craft something cool, it'll be worth it.

Artificer requires time, lots and lots of time, to make it awesome. Now, if you're starting at level 10, you can assume you played level 1-9 building stuff. If you're playing wealth by level, turn that gold into items you crafted for yourself (Assume half cost). It might help, for this designing mental exercise to walk yourself thru level by level. This means, for example, at level 1, you have 20 points in your craft reserve. That's 20 level 1 spell scrolls. Assuming you've adventured level 1-9, some of them would get used up, but you can enter the adventure with a ton of scrolls and wands. Heck, you could have taken the Craft Construct feat before level 10 (if you wanted to swap something already on your list) and built something nifty. Go as bananas as your DM would allow.

 

[drothgery]

Think of infusions as mostly buff spells that take a long time to cast. They're really useful, especially the weapon enhancements since you can make any of them. You just need time to prepare in advance, and sometimes adventures don't permit that.

You can burn action points to reduce casting times on infusions. It's rather helpful when you don't have time to prep.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

You can burn action points to reduce casting times on infusions. It's rather helpful when you don't have time to prep.

Ah, good point. I've borrowed some things from Eberron, like races and classes, but never played in the setting, so never had Action Points. I forgot about those. [MENTION=6669697]Zeronic[/MENTION], are you playing with Action Points?

 

[nijineko]

what are you focusing on? heading towards a wand master? crafter? or something else?

if wand master, then you will want dual wand wielder and enhance item and wand surge or some similar load out.

if crafter then you want legendary and extraordinary crafter, a dedicated wright homunculus, and a workshop handy, portable and/or in an extradimensional space would be good.

infusions only affect objects and constructs. you can effectively use them to create temporary magic items, or to grant new effects to existing magic items. think of it as modifying items and magic items on the fly. it's rather nice to be able to grant any weapon the bane property regardless of if it is enchanted or not.

the crafting rules are somewhat complex, and actually are only guidelines for estimating prices. but worth it if you can manage. keep in mind that you can actually craft two (or more) items simultaneously if you use (one or more of) the homunculus. use the xp transfer rules from the phb2 web enhancement to ease the drain on you. and don't forget your recover xp and convert to craft points ability from unused / unwanted magic items.

my artificer just hit 9th level, and took the landlord feat so that he could make the party a mobile stronghold. =D

and a level or two before that, he made himself a dual repeating deathwand crossbow, and he plans to put an enhancement on both that will increase the ammo capacity to 200 bolts total (100 for each of the crossbows in the dual weapon). that's effectively two light crossbows and four wands or djores being wielded all at once. and he can use any of them and switch between them during an attack action. he has silvered bolts in one, and regular bolts in the other, and four djores: empathic transfer, repair damage, energy bolt, and crystalstorm.

another advantage of a crafting focused artificer is the ability to make constructs to fight for you and protect you (and the party!)

 

[Zeronic]

Thanks for the replies so far!
The plan was a bit like my DDO artificer. Although less relying on the crossbow but more on spells.
It seems that Artificer thus has it's own small spell list and an infusion list? Do infusions take up
a slot of the spells I can cast on a day or is that completely stand alone. And since I have such
a small pool of spells, any recommendations as for what wands I should craft?
Also, nope, I am not playing with action points. But since I am secretly the villain of the campaign (I am also the DM so I could turn some stuff into my favour a little bit) I could work around some things.
Also, if someone uses Heroforge, I can upload the .HFG file.

 

[nijineko]

well, in actual d&d, artificers not only cannot cast spells, they are specifically not spellcasters.

they only have access to infusions, and even if an infusion duplicates the effect of a spell, it is not considered a spell, nor can it be used on non-objects / non-constructs.

now, you don't need your infusions to craft items. if you look in the details under the crafting section of the class description - it indicates that you add new abilities to the UMD skill, which allow you to emulate spells and some other things for purposes of crafting items only. (still can't cast them, but you can meet item crafting prerequisites with them). note that you still have to meet feat and skill prerequisites yourself with the actual feats selected and skill points spent.

if you are going to go the wand route, you might want to make your crossbow a deathwand crossbow. then you can wield two wands and the crossbow all at once.

as for wands, i guess it depends on how much combat you do. or if you need to fill the healer role too. two blasting wands (at least one of which bypasses SR and preferably has no save allowed) or a blaster and a battlefield control are generally good choices. having a cure light wand along somewhere is also a good idea. maybe use a charm bracelet to keep it handy.

 

[Dozen]

But since I am secretly the villain of the campaign (I am also the DM so I could turn some stuff into my favour a little bit) I could work around some things.

Yeah, I'd... see that coming from a mile away.

But, wands.
- Enlarge Person is a better start than any damage spell of it's level(So long you fit into the dungeon, obviously).
- Negative Energy Ray, to heal your undead minions! (What do you mean you don't have undead minions? What are you, a druid? Get on it already!) It also deals decent damage, only halves on save and is invisible, a fine spell either way.
- Nerveskitter is a definite winner no matter what. +5 to Initiative for an Immediate Action, anyone? Everyone, rather.
- Rays of (Insert adjectives here) are just dreamy for eternal wands, each sparing you from a monster or two every day, no save allowed.
- Vision of Entropy is the Queen of Single-Target Fear Spells, all but guaranteeing an unconscious enemy at higher levels.
- The smart use of low level Compulsion spells(Suggestion, Command, Illusory Script, etc.) gives a great boon. In most social situations, they are far better than Dominate.
- Got Listen as a class skill? Get Listening Lorecall. See who sneaks up on you now.
- While you're at it, get every skill.

Optimization:
- Looking at your build, I think you already know, but I should stress, Charisma is not your base stat. Still, you can't simply ignore it without a mess of a build(I listed a few below).
- You should decide if you want magic only or archery only. With magic in the pantry, specializing in ranged weapons is redundant.
- If you chose the archer, put your current Strenght score into Charisma instead. You have no business on the front lines with your d6 and no melee feats. Dump it, Get Easy Travel on your armor, and stay back.
- On the sidenote, an archer build could be used along the Hordeficer with minimal effort, I recommend it. A villain needs it's own army!
- For the above, Craft Construct is suppository. Create Wondrous Creature from the NBoF is your best friend, if you allow those things in the first place. Don't bother with homunculi if you want to live, however.
- Know your enchantments, wondrous items. Magic Item Compendium will help you out. Even though you have items in numbers approaching infinity, time is a factor.

Multiclass options. With the dead levels later on, after you got Retain Essence, you'd be wasting your levels advancing as a full Artificer(who spends money on 7th+ level spell items? That's what full casters are for), which encourages to complement your abilities with other classes:
-Archivist/Wizard: One level dip in each, you can ignore Charisma, UMD, and focus on your other stats as you see fit, making you a stronger combatant.
-Incarnate: The Incarnate and the Artificer are a match made in the Seven Heavens. The single most confusing combination in the game(Good gods, will you look at all this paperwork?!) but once you got the hang of it, you're potentially broken, filling every party role imaginable, alone, with powers a Bard can only dream of. Versatile, nice abilities, good skills, UMD checks are child's play. Needs high Con and makes a poor archer, so you might want to switch with your Dex score.
-Factotum: A somewhat less powerful version of the above, only less crazy and allows for potent ranged combat. If you lack the smarts yet still want to be a challenge for each party member on their own turf, go for it.
-Fighter: The only reason you may want a positive Strength modifier at this point. Infusions mix with Fighters nicely.
-Warlock: A four-level dip for the second best UMD Check possible(The best being the Incarnate/Warlock's), Detect Magic at will, and the invocations you get spare a few wands and magic items you'd otherwise probably invest in anyway. Benefits from high Cha.