Power Classes VI - Artificer

[Simon Collins]

This is not a playtest review.

Power Classes: Artificer is the sixth book in Mongoose's Power Classes series introducing new 20-level classes in a short space.

Artificer is a mono softcover product costing $2.95. It consists of 16 pages, which are the same height as A4 but only half the width (equivalent of 8 full pages). The inside covers are used for credits, contents and OGL. Unfortunately, information from the back cover is repeated on the first page but margins, font size and white space are all within reasonable limits. The artwork, including the front cover showing what looks like a fighter with some clockwork in his armour and a repeating crossbow, is average. Writing style is serviceable. Editing seems good, apart from one or two simple spelling errors.

The artificer creates mechano-magical constructs and machinery using arcane science. Obviously, gnomes make a good match for this class, as do humans, but there is some discussion of use with the other races. Of major note in the introductory section is the artificer's need to spend large amounts of time in construction and the effect this has on his personality. This has a potential drawback in terms of standard adventuring, and the GM will have plenty to deal with betwen adventures for this class.

The artificer uses the same HD, BAB, and save progression as a wizard. Rather than gaining spells, though, he is able to construct items that mimic or produce spells using mechanical parts charged with arcane power, known as designs. The artificer gains designs in the same progression as a sorcerer gains spells. These designs can take one of several different forms as the artificer progresses in levels:
* Weapons - through use of mechanomagical devices, the weapon gains an additional damage dice dependent on size, but requires a specific exotic weapon proficiency to use without penalty. Magical weapons cannot be enhanced with arcane science.
* Armour - enhancing armour through arcane science provides damage reduction, increasing in power with the artificer's level. It is possible to enhance magical armour with arcane science.
* Inventions - the artificer's equivalent of staves and wands with charges that create specific spell effects.
* Elemental Modification - provides a weapon with additional damage dice of elemental damage (acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic), increasing with the artificer's level. Again, this is limited to non-magical weapons.
* Constructs - works somewhat like a creature template to produce a construct based on a corporeal creature with a definitive form, with supernatural and spell-like abilities recreated using the Invention design ability.
* Steelgrafting - grafting of machanomagical inventions with the bodies of living beings.
* Living Machines - provides the mechanomagical items with Fast Healing ability.
* Technogenesis - reproduces the same effects as an awaken spell on a mechanomagical construct.
Each class feature has details on costs and length of time for construction. There is also a section giving an example of construction costs and time.

Three examples of mechanomagical equipment are given - boots of leaping, defending sphere, and a geargyre (clockwork message-bearing falcon). There is also a new feat (Craft: (mechanomancy)), a new magic item (runic tools - giving bonuses to craft skills), and two new feats - arcane researcher (giving bonuses to knowledge of magical items), and mechanomagical savant (reducing time and costs for creating mechanomagical items).

Conclusion:
An interesting addition to the core classes for those who enjoy the mixture of magic and mechanics. It seems to be reasonably balanced against the other classes but will demand more of a GM, who must regularly make calls as to the acceptability of the artificer's inventions. It seems particularly suited to a world such as the Iron Kingdoms from Privateer Press, but would be reasonable in any setting whose technology level is close to Renaissance or later.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

New 20-level class

 

[GameWyrd]

Mongoose’s Power Classes are, I think, one of last year’s surprise hits. The books are tiny, too small really to be called books and I’m surprised they’re allowed to claim an ISBN. They’re booklets, 16 thin pages between a card stock cover and stapled together. They’re actually rather robust. The idea behind the power class is value for money. US$2.95 gets you a single new core class, a little crunch dressing in the form of new feats or equipment and nothing else. In other words, just what you need to use the class.

The Artificer is the sixth book in the power class series and the second book in the second batch. The illustration of the Artificer on the booklet’s cover is quite subtle. I think you’ll notice the blonde hair and the crossbow first. Look again at the elbow joint in the armour; it’s specially hinged. Look at the Artificer’s foot; it looks almost robotic.

The main problem with the Artificer as a new core class is that it doesn’t make a good player character class. Artificers aren’t up to much unless they have access to their workshop and the tools of their trade. I think it is unlikely that these masters of creation will want to leave their workshops for very long just to go around destroying things. The other problem with the Artificer that hits me is the common XP drain in d20. In order to try and keep core classes balanced the Artificer must pay XP points whenever he builds one of his enhanced creations. The Artificer who locks himself in a workshop and never builds a single device will be a more experienced Artificer than one who looks himself in a workshop and builds a vast collection of weird and wonderful creations.

I wasn’t put off by those two problems. The Druid doesn’t make a good adventuring class and this XP spending requirement strikes in many places. It’s easy to shrug off these problems in the face of such an evocative character class. The Artificer is something different. The blending of magic and machinery is ideal for steampunk and still perfectly suited to fantasy. The Mechanomagical class abilities invite inspiration. Mechanomagical weapons are built by taking a non-magical weapon and having it enhanced and modified by the Aritificer. The mechanomagical weapon can now deal extra damage but the extra weight makes it harder to wield. Similar enhancements can be worked into Mechanomagical armour. Mundane weapons can also be infused with elemental force. At higher levels the Artificer can invent and construct increasingly fantastic machines, artificial limbs that can be spliced into flesh and even put real life into an unliving shell.

The meat, or should I say steel, of the Artificer’s abilities is the way in which he can infuse spells into equipment. You just use the standard Wiz/Sor spell list for the Artificer and if he knows the spell then he can build it into a construct as a special ability. The Artificer is, perhaps uniquely, suited to both high and low fantasy. If you want to reel back d20 core plethora of magic and yet not have to redesign the whole system then the Artificer lets you do this. On the other hand, if you’re already in a high fantasy setting in which mechanic contraptions defending themselves with fireballs would be suited then you can turn to the Artificer.

The extra pages in the booklet offer up some example mechanomagical equipment. I hadn’t quite released from reading the class abilities that machines of sort of style presented was possible. It is good to see that they area, but I think the GM will have a lot of tough calls to make as to the complexity of different devices. There is the new mechanomagical skill and a pair of new feats too. In all, this power class booklet gets the thumbs up.

* This Power Classes: Artificer review was first posted at GameWyrd.

 

[Gengulfus]

I thought the idea behind the artificer is excellent - especially for a fantasy steampunk setting, such as the Iron kingdoms (IK) by Privateer Press.

You are right to point out these flaws - really this needed a massive book like the others MOngoose produces - with ideas and better rules as to how to make these magical devices - helping the referee keep things under control...

but certainly interesting - am already using it - it is more fun than the rather dull arcane engineer from Fantasy Flight's The Path of Magic (I laiked the book - the class was just lacking! - as was the other gun-bunny mage one too - too tame!

 

[John Cooper]

Power Classes VI: Artificer
Edited by Daniel Bishop and Paul Tucker (no author given)
Mongoose Publishing product number MGP 1106
16 half-sized pages, $2.95

Power Classes VI: Artificer is the 6th in Mongoose's booklet series of new 20-level character classes. This one, the artificer, is a blend between a wizard or sorcerer and a scientist: in effect, an inventor of sorts who infuses his devices with arcane energy. It's a great idea, but one that was perhaps constrained unduly by the page count. I think Power Classes VI: Artificer would have been a much better book at twice the size, even if it meant raising the (already considerably low) price a bit.

The cover art, once again by Nathan Webb and Scott Clark, depicts a male human artificer. It's a subtle work; you have to look closely to pick out the "artificer" details: the piston on his armored right arm (presumably adding a Strength bonus), the artificial left foot (which, oddly enough, seems to be wearing a sandal!). Proportion looks okay, except the artificer's facial features seem constrained to a smaller portion of his face than normal.

Nathan also contributes the three pieces of black-and-white interior art: a close-up of a face peering at some gears on page 5 (nothing fancy, rather bland); a goateed male gnome artificer "wearing" the bottom half of a suit of armor scaled for a human (very imaginative piece, one of my all-time favorites of Nathan's) on page 10; and a male human artificer wielding a sword on page 13. This latter piece suffers a bit in that I don't think Nathan had a very good idea of what an artificer's sword should look like (not that I blame him; I'm not quite sure myself), so he stuck some switches and levers on it and called it a day.

As for the class itself, where to begin? It's very flavorful, I'll give it that: playing an artificer would be a very different experience than playing a wizard or a sorcerer. It would fit right in a "steampunk" campaign, which I believe was the intention. However, I'm not too sure of some of the mechanics of the class.

As far as hit dice and Base Attack Bonuses go, the artificer looks very much like a wizard - okay, to be expected. He can wear light and medium armor without penalty (there's no "arcane spell failure" to worry about) - nice touch, and it makes sense. He gains bonus "spells" (let's just call them that for now to make the analogy) based on his Intelligence (like a wizard) but casts spells like a sorcerer. However, to cast any of his "spells" (they're really called "designs") at all, he must first create a mechanomagical focus. This isn't as bad as it sounds, because they're indefinitely reusable - in a way, they're comparable to a wizard's spellbook: without them, no spellcasting. However, each one costs money and experience points to make, not to mention a chunk of time not spent adventuring. Imagine a wizard being penalized (in gold and xp) every time he learned a new spell. It doesn't seem fair, does it?

It gets worse. At every even level from 2nd through 18th, the artificer gets a class ability called "Invention." An invention is a 50-charge magic item (well, mechanomagical item), basically the equivalent to a wand or staff. Creating it isn't automatic; you still have to pay the gold, xp, and time to get your invention made, with no guarantee of success. That's not bad when you compare it to crafting a wand or rod, but why is this a level-dependent class ability? If a wizard takes the Craft Wand feat, he can craft wands all day if he wants. Why can an artificer only create a non-reusable source (after 50 uses, it's done) only after having attained another two levels from the last time he was "permitted" to do so? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

As he gains in level, an artificer learns (or discovers) how to create all sorts of things, from mechanomagical weapons , armor, constructs, replacement limbs, and so on. Eventually, he can even infuse life into a mechanical being. This is a good way to go about it: as he gains in level his "mechanomancy" abilities improve, allowing him to do more and more with his knowledge. (Fortunately, there are no limitations to how often he can use these abilities; if he wants to lock himself in a lab and crank out construct after construct, more power to him.)

The exact prices (gold, xp, time) are broken down for each of these mechanomagical abilities, although there seems to be a typo that throws everything off in the section on spell foci. The examples indicate that a spell focus should cost 100 gp times the square of the spell's level (a 3rd level fireball spell focus would thus cost 3 times 3 times 100 gp, or 900 gp, as listed), not 10 gp times the square of the spell level, as described. This makes more sense, as the verbiage specifically states that "building a mechanomagical spell focus is an expensive affair." Also, unless the "how many ounces in a pound" rule is different in England than it is here in the United States, I think the rule should be that a mechanomagical spell focus weighs half a pound per spell level rather than the stated 5 ounces per spell level. (Again, all of the examples provided use the half-pound/level formula; the fireball example used above weighs a pound and a half.) England doesn't have 10 ounces to the pound or anything, does it?

There are three examples of mechanomagical equipment and one magic item at the end of the book, as well as a new skill - Craft (mechanomancy), which is needed to create mechanomagical items, so the artificer had better put a good chunk of his 4 skill points per level into it to keep him from wasting good time, money, and experience points - and two new feats. The new magic item seems weird, though: runic tools grant a +5, +10, or +15 circumstance bonus to Craft skill checks dealing with metal or stone - okay, perfectly reasonable so far - but must "rest" for 24 hours after being used before they can be used again. Huh? Where's the rationale for that? It seems pretty arbitrary and off-the-cuff.

Proofreading (by William James) was okay this time, although three "possessive" apostrophe errors slipped by him.

This isn't the greatest in the "Power Class" line of booklets, but it takes an interesting approach to the "arcane inventor" character. (If memory serves, wasn't there a very similar character concept in the "Pulp Heroes" mini-game in the first issue of Polyhedron to be grafted onto the back of Dungeon magazine?) I don't think I'd use it exactly as written, but at $2.95 you're still getting a bargain even if you have to do a little tweaking to the concept yourself.