Prestige Class magic balancing

[Spatzimaus]

Title is self-explanatory, I've been developing an Artificer class for my campaign world. It's based heavily on similar classes in various books (and the Netbook of Classes). Thing is, it's tough to balance since it mostly has non-adventuring abilities.

(Note: in my world there isn't a Wizard class. Don't ask. This is meant for Sorcerers, Psions, and certain Cleric domains.)

The spellcasting ability of the class goes like this:
> Each class level increases Caster Level by 1 (and when making an item each class level counts double, so a 10/4 Sorcerer/Artificer can make a Caster Level 18 item, like a sword with +6 in abilities)
> At each level, gain two known spells/powers, subject to two rules:
1> No new spell may be higher in level than your Artificer class level (so at class level 1 you're pretty much stuck to 2 level 1 spells)
2> The sum of the spell levels can't be higher than the highest spell you can cast. (a 10 Sorcerer could take a 0 and a 5, a 1 and a 4, a 2 and a 3, or anything less)
> No new spell slots, spells per day, power points, etc.

Effectively, I'm keeping the spells known and caster level roughly untouched (and increasing the flexibility a bit), but not increasing spells per day or which levels you can cast.

So, on a 0-10 scale, 0 being no magic, 10 being "+1 level of existing class", and 5 being +1 every other level, what would you rate this? And, what SHOULD a Prestige Class rate?

Once I get this figured out I might post the entire class for a balance check.

 

[Technik4]

Interesting idea, however hypothetically if you could take this prc by 10th level (and assuming its a 10-level prc0 at 20th level your sorc could only cast a butload of levels 0-5 spells. And they could create magic items as if they were level 30. Imo, thats a little too weak, I'd rate it by your system a 2 or 3.

However, if its a 5-level prc, at 20-th level you could almost cast 8th level spells (assuming sorc) or as a cleric you could. Also, you could create items as if you were 25th level. Do you have the epic handbook? I'm just curious because I don't so I'm not really sure of the ramifications of letting someone make items as if they were higher level. Probably still pricey.

Here's an idea, just to help out those artificers. Every level of the prestige could allow 1 item to be crafted at 30% reduction in gold and exp (or could be created at a rate of 2,000 gold/day instead of 1,000). Also, how do you plan on compensating clerics? They don't learn new "powers" or "spells" like pisons and sorcerors.

Cool Idea

Technik

 

[Spatzimaus]

It's a 10-level class, and one of the prerequisites is the ability to cast Fabricate (Sor/Wiz 5, Psi 4, or certain FR domains at 5), so people will be taking it starting around level 10.

No, I don't have the ELH. In this case, having the higher caster level just means the level-dependent benefits of spells can go higher. Under the ELH rules I know that'd multiply cost by 10 or something, but that seems a bit excessive since I still can't break any damage caps, and I'm using level 5-6 spells here.

A 10/10 Sorcerer/Artificer under these rules would still only be able to cast level 5 spells, but on the other hand he'd know a LOT of different ones. Sorcerers aren't exactly shortchanged in spells per day either. Personally I was rating it closer to a 5, but I wasn't sure whether it'd be better or worse than "+1 to existing class" every other level.

I don't intend to compensate Clerics. Yes, they effectively don't gain anything from the spellcasting side of it, but that's okay, this class isn't really made for them. You might see a few Clerics go 17/3 or something, because the basic abilities of the class are useful, but they won't go all ten levels.

The cost reduction you listed is too big. If you make the class able to make items effectively for free you'll see everyone using lots of wands and never running out of spells, or wielding +10 swords. It really starts getting bad if you can get below 50% of standard cost.

I'd better just list the stuff. I'll try to edit it later to look pretty.
ARTIFICER:
d4 HD, +1/2 BAB, Will good, 4+INT skill points
Class skills: Appraise, Concentration, Craft, Profession, Scry, Spellcraft, Use Magic Device
(if a Psion, substitute Psicraft, Remote Viewing, Use Psionic Device)

Prerequisites:
> The ability to cast Fabricate
> Two item creation Feats, but they can't be the one-shot items (no Scroll, Tattoo, Potion, or Power Stone)
> Magical Artisan, Metacreative, or Skill Focus: Craft (any)
> 16 ranks of Craft skills, at least 6 of which must be in one skill.
> Spend 5000 gp on a personal lab, no one but you can use.

The abilities of the class:
> Spellcasting as I listed above
> Efficiency: a 5% reduction in materials and XP for all items made in your personal lab. At 3rd level it goes to 10%, 5th to 15%, 7th to 20%, 9th to 25%. Doesn't stack with Magical Artisan/Metacreative.
> At 3rd level they can bind a permanent "Arcane Mark" into an item they've enchanted, lined up with a corresponding mark in the physical item. Usually this is a maker's mark, but sometimes it's writing, like maybe a poem about one ring ruling them all.
> At 4th level they can use a more powerful spell in an item needing a lower one (Delayed Blast Fireball in a Flaming Sword, for example), giving a 5% reduction in cost for each spell level extra, but the spells clearly have to be upgrades of each other.
> At 6th, when casting a spell allowing for detailed work with a Craft check, they get a bonus of (class level - 5), and they can now make detailed work with spells like Stone Shape/Wood Shape.
> At 10th they can use exotic materials in an item instead of paying an XP cost; effectively they pay the full Market Price to make the item (minus the Metacreative/Efficiency/etc. reducers) with no XP.
> Salvage: Artificers can take low-powered or depleted magic items and use them as ingredients in new creations of the same type. This not only refunds part of the cost, it also can remove the need for one spell the items share. The refund is 25% of the dismantled item or 10% of the new item, whichever is less.
At 2, 5, and 8 the Artificer can upgrade this ability; increasing the refund, allowing different types of items (wand of Fireballs used to make a Flaming sword), or even allowing inferior spells to be partially substituted.
> Gifts: At 2, 4, 7, and 9 they pick some item creation-based abilities from a list. The ability to split the XP cost with a willing subject, work 12-hour days (with a corresponding drop in time needed), interrupt an enchantment, work multiple projects, etc. The character can also use his general Feats to select these Gifts, but in general they're weaker than normal Feats.

I'm still tweaking, but that's the basic idea. Here's why it's so tough to balance: I wanted them to have a LOT of item-related abilities, none of which are useful in the standard dungeon crawl. If they're still good at spellcasting AND have other abilities, it's broken, but if their spellcasting is too weak no one would want it for a normal campaign.

 

[Technik4]

I see what you mean about no dungeon-crawling stuff. Hmm. Your requirements are quite steep you know, I could see spell-casting at a few of the levels. It makes sense especially with a lab, and as far as having the higher level spells, your artificers wont. So that ability doesn't mesh with what you have.

I mean, the abilities you give are pretty weak, even in the realm of item creation. Why do those bonuses not stack in a lab? And whats wrong with 1-shot items?

Changes I propse:

Efficiency: Instead of making it not stack with the feats, allow it to stack, but make it only reduce exp costs. These guys make items all the time, I'm sure theyre more efficient when it comes to how much exp they have to put in. I would also alter the percentages to 10% at 3 and 25% at 9th. The 5% changes every other level is too much bookeeping imo.

Keep the arcane mark thing, but make it more useful somehow. Like, if any of the artificer's items fall into someone else's hands, the artificer can tell any new properties by examining it.

Allowing detailed work with stone shape and wood shape is pretty minor ability.

I like the gift ability, but the person who helps should have some spell-casting ability.

Salvage is a good ability, but it seems difficult to work out the exact mechanics.

Knowledges should probably be on their skill list.

In my previous post, I alluded to being able to make 1 item cheaper (if you change the natural ability to reduce exp costs, this could reduce gold costs by 25% instead of gold and exp costs). Anyway, this was intended to be like 1 item/level. Not a blanket reduction. Even if you don't like that idea, at 10th level of prestige class I would allow artifcers to make 1 artifact. Hell, allowing them to make a minor artifact along the way wouldn't hurt either, thses guys are pretty short on abilites, from what I see.

And, at higher levels, theyll basically have a wizards knowledge of low level spells but a sorcerors ability to cast them. I'd say thats not as good as just knowing 6th and 7th level spells as a sorceror or wizard.

Technik

 

[Spatzimaus]

Part of the point of this is that I don't like Prestige Classes where it's a forgone conclusion to go all 10 levels. You won't see a whole bunch of 10/10 Sorcerer/Artificers; you'll see just as many 15/5s, 18/2s, etc. depending on how specialized at creating items you want to be. If you don't want to sacrifice all your high-level magic you won't take all 10 levels. Also, I wanted it to be common to still take levels of your original class (or a related PrC like Loremaster) in between levels of this. So, you might go Sorcerer 10, Artificer 2, Sorcerer 2, Artificer 2, Sorcerer 2 and end up a 16/4 split. Use your Sorcerer levels to keep skills like Knowledge (Arcana) up.

The requirements really aren't very tough, although they are a bit specific. Every PHB class has Craft as a class skill I think. 16 ranks may seem excessive, but you can do that all at first level by choosing 4 skills. Practically every caster takes some of the item creation feats. The requirement that you know one specific spell isn't unprecedented, although it's not the sort of thing you can do at low level; fortunately it's a useful spell.
Most other Prestige Classes require you to take a Feat you otherwise wouldn't want, or take cross-class skills, or something like that. None of that here.

The reason for no 1-shot items is that I wanted the feats to be things you could use the Salvage ability on, and the logic for that is a bit more complex. The reason I didn't let the lab bonus stack with Magical Artisan, etc. is best shown mathematically:
An item costs 50% of its market value. Let's say I let everything stack; 25% for Magical Artisan, 25% for the lab bonus, and I'm using Delayed Blast Fireball instead of Fireball (20% bonus). Now, the item costs 15% of its total value to make (and only 30% of the normal XP cost), allowing me to make a HUGE profit; if I salvaged something to make it, it's even cheaper. Instead of a +4 sword, I could make a +7; instead of a +6 I could make a +10. It's just a bit too much for non-deities; once you get below around 50% of normal cost, small changes have huge effects. You'd see level 15 characters with the sort of equipment level 20s dream about, and that's a balance nightmare.
Restricting it to either XP or gold cost only is something. Maybe say that at every class level you can choose to subtract 5% from material cost, XP cost, OR creation time, and leave it up to the character to specialize. That might be a bit much though. So, if the ability was "Each level of Artificer reduces the time needed to enchant an item by 5%", would you rather have that? It makes more sense, too; part of the reason for the lab bonus is that you know where everything is.
I thought of the existing method in the other direction: by the time you're class level 9, you effectively receive Magical Artisan/Metacreative in EVERY item Feat. That's a lot of free Feats, so saying that it doesn't stack with the one Feat you took as a prerequisite was a small price. But I like the creation time thing better.

As for benefits, I wanted a lot of minor abilities that when combined give you someone unequaled in item creation. The main abilities are the Salvage ability, the Gifts, and the Higher Spell thing at level 4, the rest are just trinkets. Yes, the detail thing is almost useless; it's just an annoyance that Artificers would get higher Craft checks making things by hand with masterwork tools than with the magic they had specialized in.
Each ability is relatively weak. But, just look at how many abilities we're talking about here; it's a lot more than most Prestige Classes get.

I left out a few details:
> The Arcane Mark thing: if it's a distinctive mark (i.e., you've never used it on another item) it allows you to scry the item. Someone else can't duplicate the pattern exactly, it's tied to who made it.
> The Gift that allows XP split requires the other person to be present for at least half the creation time. They don't have to be a caster, you're using a supernatural ability to drain some of their essence for use in the item. (It was never fair that the tanks would ask us to make weapons for them, when they have nothing that costs them XP)
> I specifically left off certain skills (Knowledges, for example) because it's just not appropriate to what they do. The only Knowledge I could see fitting in is Engineering. They get Use Magic Device, though, so skillwise they still come out ahead.

Salvage is a powerful ability, depending on how you upgrade it. At the lowest level it lets you do things like recharge wands, at a discount, but if you upgrade you can do things like use a Wand of Burning Hands to make a Wand of Fireballs, which you could burn most of the charges from before making a Flaming Burst weapon out of it.
I was thinking about making the various upgrades be selectable as Gifts (and make those come more often) but there are some front-loading problems with that I'm still trying to work out.

"And, at higher levels, theyll basically have a wizards knowledge of low level spells but a sorcerors ability to cast them. I'd say thats not as good as just knowing 6th and 7th level spells as a sorceror or wizard."

Which is stronger: Someone with the spells/day of a 10th level Sorcerer, 20 extra known spells of levels 0-5 and a caster level of 20, or a straight 15th level Sorcerer (which is what a "+1 every other level" gives you)? I'm honestly not sure, and I play a Sorcerer; that was the original point of the thread. Level 3-5 spells are nothing to sneeze at, either.

If, after all is said and done, it still is underpowered I was planning on giving bonus item Feats like a Wizard (at 5 and 10?). Giving them the ability to make Minor Artifacts might be nice, but it overlaps a bit too much with the Epic item creation stuff.

 

[threefallentrees]

This, to me, doesn't look like a PC class at all - much like the Candle Caster, the emphasis on item creation makes for a class that's a little less than adventuring-worthy, but would make an excellent ally who hangs out at home most of the time, accumulating XP through manipulating college intrigues or something.

One concern of mine is that a 10th-level Artificer isn't really the ultimate item-creator. He does have a very high caster level, but without access to certain high-level spells, there are some items that will be forever out of reach for a non-epic Artificer. This isn't reasonable, IMO.

I'd give the class a small amount of full spellcasting levels and fewer additional spells known, so that a full Artificer is still useful as part of an adventuring party, though certainly not as much as a pure spellcaster.

I might arrange the abilities like this:
(I don't list abilities that are part of a repeating pattern. Rather, I'm going to describe the pattern in the ability. I didn't describe asterisked powers.)

1 Efficiency 5%, Gift*, Artifice
2 Spell/Power Knowledge, Salvage*
3 Spellcasting/Manifesting Levels, Efficiency 10%, Arcane Mark*
4 Upgrade Spell*, Gift*
5 Detailed Crafting*, Better Salvage*
6 Efficiency 15%
7 Gift*
8 Better Salvage*
9 Efficiency 20%
10 Exotic Materials, Gift*
Efficiency: This decreases the XP cost of creating items in the Artificer's personal lab by 5%. This increases to 10% at 3rd level, 15% at 6th level, and 20% at 9th.
Artifice: At each odd level, the Artificer's caster level for the purposes of creating magical items increases by two, and his caster level for the purposes of casting spells increases by one.
Spell/Power Knowledge: At each even level, the Artificer learns two new spells/powers. These may be of any level equal to or lower than both the highest level you can cast/manifest, and your Artificer class level.
Spellcasting/Manifesting Levels: At each level divisible by three, the Artificer gains new (spells per day, spells known, increase in caster level/powers known, power points, increase in manifester level) as if he had gained a level in his previous spellcasting/manifesting class. (Blah blah game jargon)

I cut out a few abilities here, like turning down your artifice caster-level raising ability to add up to 13 caster levels at the top, rather than 20, and taking out a few of the ability upgrades, but now a lot of the abilities follow repeating patterns for nice epic extendabilty, and the Sor10/Art10 gets all the way up to 6th-level spells by 6th level, as well as a respectable caster level of 18 at 20th level. The spell knowledge is not as good as your version, but I did feel that the caster level increases in their current form were a little unbalancing.

 

[Technik4]

Misundertanding

Ok, we're still talking about different things on a couple points here, maybe I'm just not expressing myself clearly enough.

Magical Artisan cuts the cost of 1 feat by 25% exp and 25% gold.

Your lab does the same thing, but doesnt stack with magical artisan. By 10th level, a sorceror will have acquired all of 4 feats. He needs 2 item creation feats (but not the ones that are good at low levels), and the magical artisan feat. So, since you can't take any of that stuff at level 1, you MUST take Craft Wondrous Item at level 3, your choice of a non-1-shot item feat at level 6 (or Magical Artisan for Craft Wondrous). Additionally, you must spend your precious skill points (2+int, avg is 8 or 12 starting - leads to about 26 or 29 total, either way more than half your skill points) on craft skills.

I mean, I'm not trying to be mean here, just honest. Any sorceror or psion is giving up A LOT to make items, and for you to imply that they will just take a couple levels and don't deserve something nice at the end seems silly to me. I find that generally, 10-level prestige classes are the ones people stay in, and the little 5-level ones are what people dab in and out of. Imo.

Anyway, here is how I would do a 10-level Artificer

Requirements: 10 ranks in 1 craft skill; 1 item creation feat; Magical Artisan or Metacreative on that item creation feat. The ability to cast Fabricate.

Skills: (2+int) Appraise, Concentration, Craft, Knowledge (Arcana), Knowledge (Engineering), Profession, Scry, Spellcraft, Use Magic Device. (If a Psion, substitute Psicraft, Knowledge (Psionics), Remote Viewing, and Use Psionic Device)


Class Abilites:

1- Personal Lab, Item Creation Feat (or Magical Artisan or Metacreative)
2- Arcane Mark
3- Partner (1)
4- Finesse
5- Salvage
6- Partner (2)
7- Item Creation Feat (or Magical Artisan or Metacreative)
8- Minor Artifact
9- Partner (3)
10- Improved Salvage


Personal Lab - At first level and beyond you may invest 5,000 gold into a lab suited for making magical items. Any item you make in the lab gets a 10% deduction in xp costs.

Partner - You indoctrinate one person to your lab, show them the layout, and organization scheme you favor. You may split any exp costs while they work with you in the lab. You may create up to 2,000 gp of an item/day instead of 1,000 gp/day while your partner works with you in the lab. Each time you get this ability you may indoctrinate someone to your lab, but only 1 Partner can work with you at a time.

Arcane Mark - as yours

Finesse - You have developed an impressive finesse for crafting things. You get a +10 bonus to anything you craft, and can make detailed work using Stone Shape/Wood Shape.

Salvage - as yours, except 10%

Minor Artifact - Your mastery has allowed you to craft an item of enormous power. Before your next level you must create a minor artifact. Examples as in DMG or of your own creation.

Improved Salvage - as yours except 25% and you can use exotic materials instead of xp.


This still might be a class that doesn't get all 10 levels taken. It allows for stopping at 7, with some good bonuses. You could even stop short of the minor artifact, at 5 and have the finesse and salvage abilites. If you go all the way you can get the rest of a normal sized party to make items with you.

Which leads us to spell-casting. I understand better that by not givig spell progression you steer people clear of this prc, but it only makes me wonder why? You could easily give spell-casting every other level, and some sort of bonus to creating items as if you were higher level on the off levels. Theres really nothing that unbalancing. You get some deductions in item costs, but you don't get full spell access.

As far as all those powers learned, it just doesn't sit that well with me. Experimenting with magic and psionics when youre in a lab can have disastrous results.

Hope this is some help,

Technik

 

[Spatzimaus]

Technik: I see your point on the item creation Feats, it's just that practically ever caster I've ever seen takes the Wondrous/Universal item Feat anyway. I suppose I could just remove that "but only certain Item feats" part of the requirement and move it down to the Salvage ability. That'd make the Feat part a lot easier.

The skill requirement was originally 12 with 6 in one skill, but that seemed a little easy. I could go back to that, though; I'm reluctant to require so many points in one Craft skill since they're not supposed to specialize so much. This was supposed to be more of a "ooh, I can use magic to make a hat, or a brooch, or a pterodactyl..." thing.
Remember that this class is only really accessible to Wizards (who have INT as a prime stat), Psions (4+INT base), and Sorcerers (okay, these guys get the shaft).

The lab bonus seems to make more sense as a time reducer instead of an XP or cost reducer, so I tried rewriting it as that. Knowing where everything is shouldn't make it take less drain.

I was thinking about this some more. The reason I don't like the "+1 every other level" classes is if you're going to do that, you're going to stick the good abilities into the odd levels, so why not just make it a 5-level noncaster class then, and have them take their normal caster class on the even levels?
So, let's say we wanted to make it a 5-level class with no real spellcasting ability. That'd let you go in and out of it easier.

Since it'd be a shorter progression, you could start it a little later (which helps with the Feat and skill requirements), you could interleave it with other prestige Classes (i.e., instead of Sorcerer 10/Artificer 10 you'd be Sorcerer 10/Artificer 5/Loremaster 5), etc.

So, here's the revised version:
ARTIFICER:
Add Knowledge (Engineering) and Forgery to the class list, remove Spellcraft, Scry, and Concentration. They're not gaining casting ability, after all.
(Keep the 4+INT, though, they should be spending a lot of points on Craft by the time they're done)
Feats: remove the limitation on which item Feats you can pick, move that to the Salvage description.

At each level, the Artificer gets the following abilities:
> +1 caster level when making items (i.e., a 10 Sorcerer/4 Artificer has caster level 14 when making items even though in all other ways he casts as a 10th-level Sorcerer) This way you can't exceed Caster Level 20.
This is the only spellcasting ability they really get, though.
> -10% to item creation time for all items made in his personal lab (multiplicative)
(Example: I have Metacreative (Arms&Armor), and I have 5 Artificer levels including the Gift that lets me work 12-hour days. Normally a +3 sword sells for 18kgp and costs me 9kgp and 720XP, and takes 9 days. For me, it costs 6750gp and 540XP and takes (6.75 * 0.50 / 1.5) = 2.25 days.)
> One Gift from the previous table (and all of the Salvage upgrades are added to that table) at every level.
> Add class level to all magical Craft checks, plus the part about being able to use Stone Shape/Wood Shape for fine detail.

The abilities:
1> Salvage
2> Arcane Mark, Bonus Feat
3> Higher Spell
4> Exotic Crafting, Bonus Feat
5> Minor Artifact

Bonus Feat: may be any item creation Feat, the Magical Artisan/Metacrative Feat, or any Gift.
Minor Artifact: You now have the ability to create Artifact-level items. These items may exceed the standard caps (+10 weapons/armor, etc), can't be dispelled, and so on, but require extremely rare materials and take a large amount of time and energy (i.e., the DM can use it as a plot hook a lot and you'll only ever make one or two of these). Also, they can bypass a lot of the DM Sanity Check sorta things. (Want an item that casts Cure Light Wounds at will? Okay, it's an Artifact, but it costs 10x as much!)

 

[maransreth]

I think I missed something through the post trail, but I couldnt find a write up for the higher spell.
The one thing this guy is going to lose out on due to being a sorcerer is spells known. The +1 caster level when applied to making items is good as it ups the DCs and damage limits, but they wont know many spells from just their level. As a sorcerer, when you go up in levels your advantage is casting more spells than a wizard. In this example, you dont really care about that as you only need to cast the spells needed to make an item.
So I would suggest also adding in that they learn 1 spell each level at any level they choose, up to their highest spell level (when +1 caster level is taken into consideration) and they can only use it for magic item creation.
(How many times did I repeat myself? lol I have that tendency at times).

Gifts: for sharing XP, just give them the Transference feat from Netbook of Feats.
Only other suggestion is to add Alchemy to the class list.
Perhaps also an ability from another artificer class: When they wield an item they created, they get Maximized effect or Empowered effect, if applicable. Of course that would be a 5th level ability.

 

[Spatzimaus]

Higher Spell is the ability I listed at 4th level in the original post: You can use a higher-level spell in place of a lower-level one (like Delayed Blast Fireball instead of Fireball) if it's a clear upgrade (i.e., same school, superior range/damage, all the same tags like Fire).
This lowers the cost of the item by 5% for each level difference. So, use DB Fireball instead of Fireball to lower the item's cost by 20%. This stacks with all other cost reducers, like Magical Artisan.

Yes, the idea of this was a class that misses out on the higher-level spells. This hurts Sorcerers somewhat, although I always liked the lower-level stuff anyway. It doesn't hurt Psions much at all, since it's difficult for them to have multiple disciplines high enough to select spells.
Sorcerers don't give up anything when they take a "+1 spellcasting level" class. I wanted to give a lot of item-related special abilities, but it has to cost them somehow. All they have are spells per day (they have plenty), spells of high level, spells known, and caster level. My original 10-level concept sacrificed spells per day and high-level spells to keep the other 2; the latest 5-level version sacrifices all four but lets you get full progression for the other 5 levels so it's a 50% in each.

One idea I was playing with was letting an Artificer still gain one known spell, but of his class level (i.e., at first level he gets a level 1 known spell, at second he gets a level 2, and so on). Just a token spellcasting thing, of course, not enough to unbalance things. Also, one of the new Gifts they could pick would add 3 new Known spells (total level equal to your caster level, no spells higher than you can cast). You can't take the same Gift multiple times, so it'll never make up for the loss of spellcasting.

Alchemy: my bad, that was supposed to be on the class list from the start.

Transference: Honestly, I don't want this to be that easy, so I don't think that Feat is balanced. It shouldn't be an ability every class can get, in the first place, but it should also have other limits. Forcing the person to be present, having the caster take half the drain, etc. is a start.

I was thinking of another ability, based on the Master Dorje psionic Feat, giving Sorcerers a similar ability with Wands, but there's probably some Feat like that in one of the splatbooks.

I also want to change the Precise Magic ability. How does this sound:
"Artificers can create finely-detailed objects with crude spells like Wood Shape and Stone Shape.
When using any spell allowing for finely-detailed work, the Artificer may take longer to cast the spell in order to improve the item quality. For each extra round spent, add +2 to his Craft check. The number of extra rounds cannot be higher than the Artificer class level."
(i.e., an Artificer 3 can spend 3 extra rounds to add a +6 bonus. These spells aren't 1-action things to begin with, so it's not as bad as it sounds.)