Gnomish Artificer Experiences?

[wolff96]

I'm currently playing in a campaign where I am a dwarvish druid. A friend of mine (recent convert to roleplaying games) is considering making a Gnomish Artificer (from Magic of Faerun).

Does anyone have any experience playing a GA?

He's considering going into the class as a Rogue/Wizard... is that a good start? I'm totally unfamiliar with the PrC, and the DM asked me to help him out since he's my friend.

Any suggestions welcome.

(Oh, and if this should be in another forum, please move it.)

 

[JohnClark]

I thought of doing the gnomish artificer, but when faiths and pantheons came out and I saw the techsmith, I knew that was the right class. You get nice bonuses to craft, your own construct and other such things, the artificer class looked like it would be pretty hard to implement. Good luck though, it's worth a shot certainly.

 

[der_kluge]

I've always argued that tinkering is a skill, not a class. If you have Bluffside:City on the Edge, we have a free download (available with the user/pass from the book) with simplified tinkering rules.
IMHO, you're better off just playing something like a rogue, or spellcaster and just dumping points into a tinkering skill. You shouldn't have to have a specific class to be able to tinker.

 

[Shallown]

I haven't had any experience playing or running the class but a player mentioned he might want to play one so I gave it a second look. It is not as powerful as I orginally thought it was. Keep an eye out at the weight of the gear an artificer has. This is one limiting factor. If dead magic or wild magic zones/magic are common then they do have a serious advantage since I think all their stuff is non magical. They just use spells to simulate it.

Just some ideas hope they are helpful.

 

[Conaill]

I asked the same question over on the Wizards boards not too long ago, and got virtually no responses. Sigh...

I'm playing a gnome tinkerer right now, planning on becoming a Gnome Artificer at lvl 7. So far, I've found the prerequisites to be quite harsh (luckily my DM is being quite lenient, letting me make a few substitutions). There's something like 32 skill ranks required, including 11 ranks in Alchemy and Knowledge skills (meaning you have to pay for these cross-class, or take some levels in a class with few skill points). On top of that, it require at least one spellcaster level, plus two fairly useless feats.

All in all, if you really want to take this PrC at 6th level, you'll probably have to devote the majority of your skillpoints to it right from the start. Lvl6 (e.g. Rog5/Wiz1/GnA1) is a lot more feasible.

And what do you get in return? Essentially ONE single special ability, which is more or less equivalent to Craft Wand! The primary benefit of artificer devices is that they seem to be useable by anyone, as opposed to a wand which requires you to have the spell on your class spell list. So in theory you could arm your entire party with these things and it doesn't even cost you any XP.

On the other hand, the "spell" list (power levels are almost always equal to spell levels) is very restricted, and the devices are large and heavy. Note that the latter point is quite a problem for gnomes! Their size and reduced strength means that the gnome artificer will probably have serious trouble carrying more than a single device on top of his armor and backpack!

Note that the text in MoF is quite ambiguous regarding how much it actually costs to create one of these artificer devices. In one place, they mention a base price of power level x artificer level x 1000gp (compared to x 750gp for a wand), but then in the example they say "...so creating this device costs 2 x 3 x 1000 gp". If these devices really require "time and expenditure of resources as if the artificer were creating a magic item", then the cost to the creator should only be HALF of the base price, no?

The devices are rechargeable at half cost, so it's a lot cheaper to make devices with only 5 charges and recharge them regularly. You also have the option of making them less bulky (only taking up one slot), which doubles the price again.

All in all, I would say the PrC is somewhat underpowered compared to its prerequisites. And its main abilities are more likely to help the rest of the party than himself (heavy devices, useable by anyone). I would recommend adding some goodies that are beneficial specifical to the artificer himself.

 

[Graf]

I'm playing a gnome tinkerer right now, planning on becoming a Gnome Artificer at lvl 7. So far, I've found the prerequisites to be quite harsh

All in all, if you really want to take this PrC at 6th level, you'll probably have to devote the majority of your skillpoints to it right from the start. Lvl6 (e.g. Rog5/Wiz1/GnA1) is a lot more feasible.

Level 5 is perfectly doable. if your character is constructed properly you should have no problems. The feats are probably actually a bigger problem than the skills.

My target is to make a human warrior with access to gnomish technology (so you can use the items yourself). You will have access to extremely useful spells like cats grace and bulls strength while wearing heavy armor and your fighting skills won't be significantly degraded.
You should be able to do this without XP penalties either.

Its easiest as a human. I lent out my FRCS so I'm doing this from memory but it works like this:
Assume a Human with Int 16

1st level: Rogue 1
Feats Skill focus (Craft), Education (making Knowledge skills class skills)
Skill points (11*4 +4 = 48)

Artificer (25pts)
3 Craft skills +4 (12)
Knowledge (arch) +4 (4)
Knowedge (eng) +4 (4)
Prof (apothecary, etc) +3 (3)
Disable Device +2 (2)

Other rogue skills 23pts

2nd level
Wizard (Illusionist or other speciaity so long as you don't prohibit illusion... maybe a diviner with an extra true strike?)
Skills 5pts
Alchemy 3 (3)

3rd level
level feat: Lightning reflexes
Fighter 1 skill points 5
Craft +2 (skill rank is now +6)

4th level
Fighter skills points 5
Craft +1 (skill rank +7)

5th level
Fighter skill points 5
Craft +1 (skill rank +8)

ARTIFICER CLASS ACHEIVED
You can also drop another level of rogue in for evasion, better sneaking, etc.
So long as your rogue or fighter class remains 2 or less (i.e. within 1 level of the wizard class) you avoid XP penalties.

As long as you start out strong GA is pretty easy to get access to.

These classes are designed to be balanced even in the more extreme case (i.e. that of the one above).

And what do you get in return? Essentially ONE single special ability, which is more or less equivalent to Craft Wand!

except that you don't need to be able to cast the spell to get access to the ability....
You can use it in armor
it works in an anti-magic field
its immune to spell penitration problems that plague higher level games and can't be dispelled (what level would a spell called Undispellible Bull's Strength be called? )

magic without magic... you can't beat that with a stick

The devices are rechargeable at half cost, so it's a lot cheaper to make devices with only 5 charges and recharge them regularly.

A very good point. Something I hadn't thought about.

All in all, I would say the PrC is somewhat underpowered compared to its prerequisites.

I think that if you dig deeper it's difficult to argue this. Its a tough class to take casually but with planning and the right feat selections all the requirements can be completed by 3rd level (except for the Craft +8 which any class can take).

For the record the fighter above could be ANY other class.

Tinkerer Paladins anyone?

 

[Victim]

I think the list of powers is incredibly restricting. Gnome Artificers should be making steam powered armor and iron clads, not wands of flame arrow.

 

[drnuncheon]

One other big advantage the artificers have over their magical counterparts: they don't pay XP to make their items, just gold. It's also a lot cheaper for them to get new devices than it is for a wizard to get new spells. And they don't provoke AoOs either, which is nice.

J

 

[RodneyThompson]

I have a guy playing an Epic Level Gnome Artificer in the Epic portion of my game. He's built all of his toys into a single mecha-like suit of armor. It brings him up to about Medium size and resembles the body of a golem, but with all kinds of attachments and stuff.

He hasn't abused it, yet, so it's going smoothly so far. Still, we'll see if it gets out of hand.

 

[Decamber]

IIRC, Psionicist did some tweaks to the prC a while ago. It worked pretty good when I DMed his gnome articifer. If you're interested, I'll summon Psi to tell you some more about it..