Help with my Artificer

[Sil]

You can't buy more XP!!!!

Artificers can. You can retain essance to get more XP.
You get XP faster if you are behind the party one level, so you can get more XP than other players naturally.

 

[dedicated]

It goes into your craft reserve & it sounds like they don't have the gold to just buy items to drain

 

[Sil]

If you have a gold restricted campaign, then perhaps the artisian feats have value.
Since you can make you magic items at half cost, you are ahead of most players already. And you can craft for them and make a profit.
If you are still short of gold you can craft magic items on commision, and double your money.

 

[Aelryinth]

What does your artifcer want to do?

He can be a twinked out Wand freak, and obliterate just about anything...towards mid levels.

He can be a Magic Item Maker, with the rest of the party feeding him gold to make custom magic items, with his craft reserve XP.

He can be the Uber Self buffer, with Wands with buff spells, and multiclassing to throw in support skills.

Whats the final plan for the Artficer?

Secondly, on skills - Does your party have a trap sniffer? If not, then you need Search, DD, OL. You have to keep Concentration, UMD and Spellcraft maxed, at least for the early levels.

Go read the Optimization Threads on the WotC board, and then the Artificer Thread on the WOtC Eberron/classes board. Both give some very helpful advice on stats.

Of course, I value Dex more then Con for an Artificer, but eh! Artificers are defined by their roles into the above categories...pick your feats well! (And make sure you know what your DM's ruling is going to be on making/selling items)
'
===Aelryinth

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For pure survivability, Dex has more of an impact than Con, regardless of class. Each point of Dex bonus reduces the number of successful hits by 5%. Each point of Con bonus only helps with a single hit (or the occasional Fort save).

 

[Caliban]

For pure survivability, Dex has more of an impact than Con, regardless of class. Each point of Dex bonus reduces the number of successful hits by 5%. Each point of Con bonus only helps with a single hit (or the occasional Fort save).

I think both are valuable, no matter what the class, but I disagree that Dex always has more of an impact than Con.

I think that Con is more important than Dex for front line types, and becomes more important the higher level you get. At mid to high levels Fort saves become more and more common, and attack bonuses begin to outstrip any benefit that Dex can give you (barring certain extreme dex/ac builds).

Also, many types of attacks no longer involve attack rolls or reflex saves. And being able to take one or two more hits also becomes more and more important at higher levels. Extra hit points can allow you to survive the first round or two combat, which is often all you need to turn the tide of battle.

Of course, I also play a lot of RPGA games, where they routinely throw ridiculously overpowered opponents against you.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I agree that Fort saves become more important as level goes up.

But compare HP to AC:

A HP bonus works out to +20-+80HP (ignoring bonuses over +4) over 20 levels of progression. That amount can be done in 1-2 strikes by most high level PCs.

An analogous Dex bonus translates to a 5-20% shift in number of hits PER COMBAT, regardless of level.

It is far better to avoid being hit than being able to TAKE a hit.

 

[Caliban]

I agree that Fort saves become more important as level goes up.

An analogous Dex bonus translates to a 5-20% shift in number of hits PER COMBAT, regardless of level.

It is far better to avoid being hit than being able to TAKE a hit.

That isn't actually accurate. +1 to AC does not always translate into an additional 5% chance of being missed, especially at mid to high levels. (At low to mid levels it is true in most cases.)

If the opponent has a +30 attack bonus, an AC of 15 and an AC of 30 both have an equal chance of being hit (95%). (And my 16th level melee character has faced multiple creatures with a +25 to +35 attack bonus, a few with a +40 attack bonus, and at least one with a +50 attack bonus.)

And there are an increasing number of spells that just cause damage. All the AC and Dex in the world doesn't help.

Dex is important, but having over 200 hit points helps a lot too.

I'm not saying that Damage Avoidance isn't important, it is. It's a major part of surviving challenge oriented campaigns at higher levels. But you are going to be in situations where you have to be able to suck up damage for a round or two before you can respond to your opponents. High Con is a major factor in surviving those types of encounters.

That's why my 16th level melee fighter has Evasion, Mettle, Uncanny Dodge, Improved Uncanny Dodge, 204 hit points, an 18 Dex, a 20 Con, a 35 AC (up to 50 with buffs and feats), and his lowest saving throw is +15 (+17 vs spells, higher with appropriate buffs).

However, he is an admittedly extreme example of a front line "tank" oriented character, designed to survive in high level Living Greyhawk RPGA modules. They have a tendency towards lopsided encounters with a high level of lethality.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

A +1 Dex bonus is mathematically identical to a 1 digit shift on a D20, the only die you roll to determine a hit, and a 1 digit shift is 5%.

The fact that a PC may have many modifiers is immaterial to that shift.

An Attacking PC is +17 to hit and the defender has +10 to his AC from all sources for an AC of 20. The attacker has an aggregate +7 (+35% chance to hit). If the defender subsequently gains a +1 to his AC and the attacker has no new bonuses, the attacker's chance of success has dropped by 5%.

An Attacker with +40 to hit and a defender versus the same defender has only a 5% chance of missing (rolling a natural 1). A subsequent +1 bonus to the Defender's AC still shifts probability 5% in his favor, but the Attacker's modifiers render that change moot... because the Attacker has a modifier effectively greater than the die can reflect.

You could see this more easily in a system like Chaosium's Stormbringer, where weapon proficiencies are expressed in % terms. Even if my warrior has a Sea-Axe proficiency of 175%, a defensisve shift of 5% may not matter, but it still exists.

 

[Caliban]

A +1 Dex bonus is mathematically identical to a 1 digit shift on a D20, the only die you roll to determine a hit, and a 1 digit shift is 5%.

Not actually true if the 1 digit shift doesn't actually modify your chances of hitting the target number. (Or avoiding being hit, as the case may be.)

The fact that a PC may have many modifiers is immaterial to that shift.

Err, this isn't true either. It's very material to the PC in question.

An Attacking PC is +17 to hit and the defender has +10 to his AC from all sources for an AC of 20. The attacker has an aggregate +7 (+35% chance to hit). If the defender subsequently gains a +1 to his AC and the attacker has no new bonuses, the attacker's chance of success has dropped by 5%.

This isn't accurate either. The attacker has a 90% chance of hitting (only missing on a 1 or a 2). I don't see how your "aggregate" bonus is relevent, but it would be +40%, not +35%.

An Attacker with +40 to hit and a defender versus the same defender has only a 5% chance of missing (rolling a natural 1). A subsequent +1 bonus to the Defender's AC still shifts probability 5% in his favor, but the Attacker's modifiers render that change moot... because the Attacker has a modifier effectively greater than the die can reflect.

Which is pretty much what I'm saying. There is no shift of probably, because the chance of missing is unchanged. In this situation, +2 Con is worth a lot more than +2 Dex.

You could see this more easily in a system like Chaosium's Stormbringer, where weapon proficiencies are expressed in % terms. Even if my warrior has a Sea-Axe proficiency of 175%, a defensisve shift of 5% may not matter, but it still exists.

If it doesn't matter, who cares if it exists in some abstract realm or not? For the purposes of our discussion here, it only matters if it actually affects your PC's chance of having hit points left over after they attack you.

Increasing your Dex, while useful in many situations, does not always increase your chance of being missed in all cases, and does it less and less as you reach the higher levels.

Increasing your Con, always gives you a better chance of withstanding the damage you do take, and the benefit scales in level.

I say that increasing both Dex and Con can be important for any character build, and which one is most important depends on the exact build you have in mind for your character. It's not always Dex. And for some builds, it's neither Dex or Con.