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About The Spellwars

Hi all, Gobo Horde here :)
I stumbled upon the Whitesmith a while ago and it quickly became a favorite of mine. It allows you to do some things that you just simply could not do with regular Pathfinder and indeed most of the rest of the SoP system. But however much I enjoy the flavor and concept of the Whitesmith it has its flaws, and indeed is susceptible to some pretty significant combinations that are extremely potent.
So! My question to you guys is this: How can we break, exploit and outright powergame the carp out of the Whitesmith?

I have found out quite a few ways to do so, and I will be demonstrating some of them below, but first, let me ask you another question. What would happen if you gave a 1st lvl character 34,500gp and told it to go crazy? Would it be more powerful then a normal 1st level character? Of course!
This is an extreme example of the upper limits that a first lvl Whitesmith could theoretically have, at least for short periods of time, and serves to highlight why the Whitesmith is so powerful.

But to begin with, we need to understand what makes it strong, and that is because the Whitesmith can Ignore Preresiquites. A lot of classes can get random and often strong bonuses to stats like attack and damage but they all generally follow the same limitations, namely gold. Most classes cannot afford a Double Barreled Shotgun or a Double Barreled Pistol until quite a few levels later, and even if they could, they most certainly would not be able to afford to enchant it. Gold is the limiting factor. A Whitesmith could easily have a +2 Longsword, a +2 Shield, a +2 set of Hide Armor and a +2 backup ranged weapon at lvl 1, all of it essentially permanent.
The reason the Whitesmith can do this is because of the ability Personal Refinement. This ability allows you to maintain an Enhancement effect on a piece of equipment you are holding, wearing, or that is on your person without concentrating. You also get a more potent Enhancement as you go higher in levels.
There are normally 2 ways that you can maintain a Sphere power;
Option 1: you can concentrate on the effect. This has the obvious drawback of taking an action but it also has the liability of being disrupted by injury, vigorous motion, being knocked unconscious and such, ending the effect early.
Option 2: You spend a Spell Point to maintain the effect for a duration. The has the benefits of persisting even if you are doing something else, or get injured. The effect will persist even if you get knocked unconscious and, as far as I can tell, even if you die. It persists. However it has a limited duration.
There are talents that extend the duration's above, like the Lingering Transformation talent that extends one of these effects but the base rules are still basically the same.

The Whitesmith adds a third option to the above, it is not maintained by concentration nor does it follow the rules for spending a talent (namely an expiration).
Option 3: the effect is maintained without concentration and for as long as the object remains on your person. This means that you don't have to worry about your concentration getting disrupted by things like damage or getting knocked unconscious (you cant concentrate in your sleep) so you should be able to maintain it in your sleep. It also has the only duration limiter being if the object gets removed from your person (meaning you can also sheathe your weapon and keep the effect, or maintain that enchantment for that ring in your pocket). You cant, however give it away without having to resort the the previous 2 methods.

Since this is the crux of most of the fun things you can do with the Whitesmith I figured that I should start out by making sure that is well understood, and then go from there :p

I will also often be referring to 2 specific ability combos, so I am going to spell them out first and immediately. Then also list a few extras.
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The first combo, Shape Weapon
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This takes advantage of the Alteration talent, Morphic Weapon and its Shape Weapon ability to change one of your arms into a weapon you are proficient in. Specifically its any weapon you are proficient in, and it is treated as a manufactured weapon. This means that if you take EWP; Double Barreled Shotgun at lvl 1 you can transform your arm into one on demand, from first level onwards. It is also a manufactured weapon so you can enhance it without having to concentrate or spend SP.
It does, however have a short duration, and we are only a Low Caster for all things non-Enhancement, so we take the Natural Shifter trait to boost our Caster Level by 2, up to our HD, allowing our CL to keep up with our level up to the 4th level before it starts to lag behind. Considering the only thing we need from the ability is the extended duration you should also take the Lingering Transformation talent to increase the duration to 2x your CL.
Other methods you can use to attain this is to take a 2 level dip in the Shifter class to pick up the Shape Weapon Besidal Trait to do exactly the same thing for unlimited durations. If your really lucky you might be able to convince your GM to allow you to take this as an Arsenal Trick to replace Morphic Weapon)
Or you can take the Transformation feat and Improved Transformation feat at 5th level to gain a permanent battle form that also grants you 1 use of Shape Weapon that lasts as long as you are transformed. It takes 2 feats instead of 2 Talents and is only available at lvl 5 onward but it can be as close to permanent as you need. Plus Transformation is overpowered as is.
This is also, assuming that you take enough Drawbacks necessary to get enough Talents.

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The second combo, Animated Limbs
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The second Combo is to take the Animate object Enhancement Talent to add the Graft Construct point to a Prosthetic arm to replace a "missing" arm you dont have. Specifically, Graft grants you;

The object can serve as a replacement limb for a creature two size categories larger than it. While attached to a creature, the object ceases to act as a creature of its own. Instead, the creature benefiting from the graft ignores any penalties due to missing that limb, and gains one of the object’s natural attacks. If the object possesses any Special Attacks modifying that natural attack, the beneficiary of the graft gains it as well, using their size in place of that of the object.

Because you are using Enhancement magic on an item (the prosthetic) that you are wearing, then the effect lasts indefinitely. This also allows you to Enhance the Slam attack of the object you are wearing/holding to grant it Enhancement bonuses and special abilities and maintain them with Personal Refinement and then benefit from them yourself.

You could replace all 4 of your limbs with fake arms/legs and gain up to 4 primary slam attacks, each fully Enhanced. If you were able to extra limbs somehow you could also replace those, such as by taking Improved Transformation and the Additional Limbs Talent.
"Why yes, I am a Octoplegic, Cyborg of DEATH. It was a REALLY bad accident, ok???"
Again, take any Drawbacks necessary to gain the Talents you need. I am not going to argue the validity of whether you can attack with your feet and stay standing or if you have to fall prone to do so. Different thread :P

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Other combos
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Beyond that there are a few other combos that are quite useful. The next Combo is to take advantage of the Tribal Mark Dual-Sphere feat.

You may use your enhance sphere ability to create enhancements that duplicate the effect of being within totems. The tribal mark works as an enhancement, using your Enhancement caster level. If used on a creature, the creature is treated as if being within the totem that is the basis for the enhancement. If used on an object, then any creature carrying the object is affected as if they were the target of the enhancement their self. Only the creature enhanced or carrying the enhanced object is considered inside the totem for effects that require another ally or an enemy to also be within the totem. The enhancement can not be used to rally.

So lets break this down.

1: "The tribal mark works as an enhancement, using your Enhancement caster level."
So this becomes an Enchantment, and we can get around our Low-Caster level for non-Enhancement sphere effects.
2: "If used on an object, then any creature carrying the object is affected as if they were the target of the enhancement their self."
So we can Enhance an object on our person, and therefore maintain it with Personal Refinement. Note. We could Enhance 2 different objects, and gain 2 different Totems affecting us at the same time, AFAIK. I cannot find anywhere within the Tribal Mark feat or the War Sphere that says that multiple totems cannot overlap, or that multiple totems cannot be placed on the same creature. Theoretically you could Enhance 5 different items with 5 different totems and have them all effect you :p
3: "Only the creature enhanced or carrying the enhanced object is considered inside the totem for effects that require another ally or an enemy to also be within the totem."
a: you should not attach a negative totem to yourself, it will not directly affect enemies. It can affect you in response to an enemy attack.
b: "...for effects that require another ally or an enemy to also be within the totem..."
Important thing to note, no other creature counts as being within your totem. However effects that affect creatures outside of your totem will still take effect. Notably the Totem of Forsight and the Tactical Totem totems.
4: "The enhancement can not be used to rally."
Noted.

Basically, you place an Enhancement on a piece of your equipment and maintain it with Personal Refinement and, as long as the effect is maintained you gain the benefits of a Totem that affects yourself only.
There is no perceivable limit to the number of different totems you can have on you (except the total number of items on your person :p).

An Alternative to this combo;
You can take the Squadron Commander feat (and the Squadron Elite drawback to take it for "free" if you want) along with the Tribal Mark/Tactical Totem combo above to grant yourself a constant Outflank feat. You then take the Pincer Formation Squadron feat.
Every time you flank someone, you get a +4 bonus to Attack and Damage. Pretty nifty!

Enchanted Animation or, I haz army of metal coins!

The Cheese: you basically spend 2 SP to grant an object a 1-shot use of one of your Sphere abilities that it can use at a later time.
The Negitives: this does have the drawback of requiring a non-trivial amount of SP expendure. First off, you must spend 1 SP to animate the object. Then you must spend 1 SP to Enchant the object. Then you will often want to Spend 1 SP to enhance or extend the Sphere Effect. Finally some Sphere abilities require you to spend additional SP, so you will have to supply those. All told, you may be spending 2, 3 or more SP per object, and that can easily limit you to one or two castings in an adventuring day. Each casting is also single use.
Lastly, the Whitesmith is a Low Caster and while you may be able to keep up to an Incanter with your Spell pool, you simply do not have many Spheres and Talents to give to your animated objects. You will be able to spam a precious few abilities but you would not have much diversity.
The Lindberg X( Do you know what one thing that Pathfinder is loathe to give? The ability to "save up" spells from one day to another. Because you ignore the normal duration on Animate Object, and instead allow it to last from day to day then this does exactly that. Spend 2 SP today and save an effect. Tomorrow your SP refreshes and you have a "free" dormant spell ready to cast! It gets worse then that...
The object you animate becomes its own creature. It has its own hps, saves and intiative. It is a creature seperate from you. This also means, among other things, that it has its own actions! Let that sink in for a moment. You alone can only cast a single spell per round. 5 people could all cast 5 spells per round.
If you Enhanced 10 constructs with a Destructive Blast, then all 10 constructs could cast Destructive Blast at the same time.
Ditto for massive Cure castings.
Now each casting is a one-shot-and-done but the only cost is prep time.
And for a final question; how long can a Construct concentrate for, if that was the only thing it did >:D (We gave the Whitesmith unlimited duration Enhancements, why not give it unlimited concentration for all its other sphere effects as well? #logic)
The Application: this trick would most likely be best utilized by a Whitesmith 1/Incanter X multiclass character. 1 level of Whitesmith is all you need to aquire Personal Refinement and then the Incanter would gain significantly more talents and bonus feats (and full CLs!) to give yourself a very wide selection of Spheres and Talents to abuse this trkck with. Its one thing to have on-demand, free action heals and destructive blasts, its another all-together to have access to multi-target Mind Controll coupled with widespread Telekinesis and Baleful Polymorph. You can also grant your armor the ability to Enhance your natural armor/natural attacks and task it with maintaining it with concentration.
To take this a step further, I would give my Incanter the EWP: Shuriken feat. Now I have entire stacks of readily availible and light objects that I can animate. Whats more, because they are treated as ammunition they then can be drawn as a free action meaning I can "Command" the object with a: "When I draw you, activate yourself against the target I point you towards!" command, giving me easy and justifiable free-action casting. Chuck the Shuriken afterwards for dramatic effect :P

Oh, you can also Bestow Intelligence on your animated objects for extra funzies but there is no real benefit in doing so, and its a real pain rolling all those mental stats :P

The Permanent Alteration Scroll trick.
So this is a trick you can apply to 'any character and is not Whitesmith specific but it can be a boon to some whitesmith builds, like the quadriplegic natural attacker or the Giant Death Robot builds.
The basic idea is you pay for a scroll to be made for you by a higher level caster, this scroll is of the Alteration Sphere and has the Permanent Transformation advanced talent, therefore requiring it to be 10th CL.
10th CL grants you a form of your choice (even one that costs SP) and 3 traits to apply to the form. The Permanent Transformation talent makes the duration permanent and gives you some defense against getting the effect dispelled.
The basic scroll costs gp, however you can add extra traits by increasing this cost.

So, (25gp) base cost, multiplied by the CL (CL 10), multiplied by the Complexity (+5).

25*10*5=1250gp.
Volia! You are now a permanent (something)!
The Octodriplegic build uses this to gain a couple of extra arms, and then replaces them all with Slam attacks via Graft.
The Giant Death Robot uses this to take on the Construct form with the Size Change trait and a few defenses like DR to gain armor plating. Or Morphic Weapon to turn an arm into a giant cannon. He would then take the Ascetic Control talent for good measure, becoming more construct like, now no longer bleeding, eating or breathing.

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FINALLY! The fun stuff. How to break the Whitesmith >:)
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With that done I am now going to lay out a few ways in which the Whitesmith can be seriously broken or taken advantage of. Some of these are minor, some are pretty significant. It is my hope that by the end of this you could add to my repertoire and show me new ways of cracking the system ^_^

Always Weaponized, or Steel Fists of Doom!
Using the Grafted arm trick above, you can graft a Tiny Construct onto your arm. Because it is Tiny sized, it gets 1 Construction point and a 1d2 damage die. We can take Construction Flaws and the Complex Animations feat to increase our available Construction Points to 2+flaws.
Tolerable flaws might include;
Immobile (+2) it cant move. Its attached to our arm and we dont want it running off anyways...
Aberration (+2) Our arm is made of flesh. Go figure. We cut our arm off and attached a fake arm made of flesh in its place :p (I personally like a metal arm instead but this is more "optimized") Also note that since our arm "ceases to act as a creature of its own" then it should be largely safe, unless your GM all of a sudden takes pleasure in chopping your limbs off, or you stick it into a vat of acid. Or something.
Centralized (+2) You have an elbow. Nuff said.
And, if you want;
Brittle/Flammable/Fragile (+1 each) You gain Vulnerability to "X"
Clunky (+1) Arm gains the staggered condition? not sure how this one works :P
That should give you about 4-10 points, depending, to use on Construction traits like making the arm more durable or improving the natural attack or adding special abilities/qualities to the natural attack.

It is possible to have an arm made out of Adamantine that also ignores hardness from lvl 1 onwards. Take the Graft (+1), Metal (+6) and Material Properties (+1) traits to give yourself an insanely expensive Adamantine arm (It is dispellable though).

While the arm will only have a 1d2 damage die (for being a tiny construct) the arm can/will be your only natural weapon and so get +1 1/2 Str to damage as well as -1/+3 power attacks. It is also possible to improve this attack beyond the piddly Improved Attack (+1) turning it into 1d3 damage. You can, for instance grant it the Slashing Attack (+1) giving it a 19-20 threat range and then give it the Keen Enchant with your Personal Refinement to have a large (17-20) threat range with a lot of static damage.
Or you could give it the Burn ability (+1) x5 or something >_> Your piddly 1d2 slam attack deals +5d6 fire damage too!

You can also give it special attack qualities such as grab (+1) and constrict (+1) to give you unusual combat methods. For instance, replace all 4 limbs with natural attack limbs with the Grab quality and turn into a real brutal grappler, even from a low level.
You can even take the Grab (+1) trait with a bunch of Hollow (+1) traits and swallow up a medium creature inside your arm ^_^

Note!: Graft only allows you to gain the benefits of one natural attack, so the traits that grant extra attacks are generally useless. The magic is also dissipated if the item leaves your person, so movement traits are actively detrimental.

The Cyborg Blender!
Take the Graft trick above, and take it to a whole new level. You know how you can replace one arm with a Slam-granting construct? Well why not replace both? And why not replace both legs while your at it? Heck, why not grow an extra pair of arms and then replace those with Slam-granting construct arms? It can get even worse then that later on >:3

Again, I am not going to enter the debate on whether you can attack with natural weapons on your feet or if you have to be prone to do so, I am just going to assume it works for these purposes. I am also not going to be the one to try and convince your GM to let you play a Quadriplegic, or why such a character would even be adventuring to begin with ^_^
So the basic idea is that you take the Graft's ability to grant you a Slam attack and apply it multiple times. On top of that, you can grant your Slam attack some pretty mean abilities and apply them to ALL of your limbs. Things like +5d6 fire damage, or grab/constrict/swallow whole/poison. Or have 4 natural ranged attacks and become walking artillery :p
2 arms so modified is equal to TWF without the feat, without the penalties and with full Str to damage. And they get full Enhancement bonuses. In addition 2 legs is equal to Imp TWF with a haste weapon, and is even better then an Alchemist or Barbarian doing the same thing.
Note, you can also stack on a bite attack that you might have gained from somewhere else, although it would not benefit from Personal Enhancement because it is not a piece of equipment.
To take this a step further, if you are able to get yourself extra arms somehow you could replace those as well, IF you can convince your GM to let you ;)
One way of doing this is to take the Imp Transformation feat, granting you 1 trait that stays with you, such as the Additional Limbs trait.
The OBSCENE thing to do is to use the Permanent Alteration Scroll trick above to give yourself many, many extra arms and then replace them all...
You are an Octodriplegic Cyborg with FLAMING FISTS OF DEATH!!!

The "You have HOW MUCH AC??" build
SoP has quite a few ways to boost your AC and defenses, and a fair few of them can stack to pretty crazy levels. On top of that there is the Armor (+1) Animated Object trait. We will start with this one :p
A small creature can animate his armor at 3rd level, a medium creature can at 5th level. Animated armor specifically grants you a pool of bonus hps equal to the construct creatures hps. This is 2d10+10 (21) for a small construct and 3d10+20 (36) for a medium construct (remember that unlike PCs, creatures always take average hps each level, even first). HOWEVER, you can also grant the construct the Durable trait (+1) to the construct multiple times, which grants it +10 (small) or +15 (medium) hitpoints for each trait you spend on it :P
With 4 applications of Durable, a 3rd lvl small creature can animate a set of simple, lightweight Padded armor and gain a pool of sixty-one temporary hitpoints, and if that ever breaks, its a swift action removal, then a standard action (and 1 SP) to enchant a new set and finally a full-round action to don a new set, renewing the pool for about 5gp :p
If THATS not enough then remember, your a Whitesmith! Equipment is your game! A 3rd lvl Whitesmith can grant an Enhancement bonus of +3, so enchant your construct armor with a +2 Impervious enchantment.

Magic Items wrote:

It gains double its enhancement bonus to hardness and hit points (instead of just the enhancement bonus)...

Hardness and Hit Points: Each +1 of a magic weapon’s enhancement bonus adds +2 to its hardness and +10 to its hit points.

So, since you are giving it a +2 bonus, you would normally grant it +20 hitpoints, but the Impervious enchant boosts that to +40.

Congrats! Your lvl 3 Halfling Whitesmith has a pool of Temporary hitpoints of over one hundred hitpoints..., and it only costs 5gp and 7.5lbs to carry a spare XD
Not enough? Well, you can have both sets enchanted at the same time, as long as it remains on your person, so simply have your spare sitting in your backpack, fully enchanted and ready to go, and with the SP paid in advance. Then it is a swift action to remove, and a full round action to don, only setting you back 1 round...

Now onto AC!
SoP has a lovely little gem known as the Transformation feat. This lovely little feat grants you the Shapechanger subtype and the ability to transform into 1 Form from the Alteration sphere as a full-round action, with an indefinite duration. Basically you can play as an animal or angel or something all day long. You can also take the Imp Transformation to gain 1 trait while you transform, allowing you to take something fun, or something like Gift of Speech, so you can talk, if your form would not normally allow it :P
There are some fun ones in here, like Orb Transformation where you turn into a floating head, or Axiomatic Transformation where you turn into an angel. For this, we are going to look at the Construct Transformation.
This grants you, among other things, +4 (+1 per 5 levels) Natural Armor.
Assume level 6 for this, so you get +5 NA.
Next you wear Half Plate armor, so +8 Armor, and wear a Steel Shield, for another +2.
Then you Enchant your armor with Enchant Equipment. Enchant Equipment's, Enchantment bonus is equal to: 1, +1 per 5 levels. Then you take Greater Enchantment, granting you and additional +1, then your Personal Refinement grants you +1 per 3 levels, so +2 at lvl 6 (and why I am choosing lvl 6 for this :p). That totals up to a +5 Enhancement bonus.
So cast that Enhancement bonus on your Armor and maintain it with Personal Refinement. Then on your shield. That brings you up to +5 NA, +8 half-plate, +5 Enhancement bonus on your armor, +5 Enhancement bonus on your shield, plus whatever your Dex might be (max +1), so +1.
Congrats, you have an AC of 36!
THEN, with the Natural Enhancement talent, you can cast Enhance Equipment on your natural armor for 1 hour at a time by spending 1 SP, granting you +5 Enhancement bonus to your NA (not to your Armor, so it stacks), bringing your total up to 41.
Not enough? You can take the Tribal Mark combo with the Totem of Iron for an additional +1 bonus.
Or, you could take the Tactical Totem with the Shield Wall teamwork feat if you have a buddy wielding a shield for a +2 instead.
Either way, 40+ AC and 100+ bonus hitpoints at level 6 ^_^

The Final, the Big Kahuna himself!
So this is the big, final build that will utterly demolish current standards :p It makes use of most of the tricks I could think of to create something truly ridiculous >:)

First off, the Whitesmith ignores prerequisites, and that is what makes it powerful. Second off, one of the more powerful options from a pure DPR aspect are gunslingers (largely at lvl 5 but I wont get there :p). However Guns have their own limiting prerequisite that we will need to overcome. Luckily I have found the perfect class to overcome them, if your GM will allow both SoP and PoW then you can take 3 levels in Whitesmith with a 1 level dip in Gunsmoke Mystic.
The Gunsmoke Mystic is just stupid for firearms :p

So Whitesmith removes cost restrictions and Gunsmoke removes firearm limitations
Mystic gives my firearm proficiency and free-action reloads (ignoring maneuvers and everything else for now). Shape weapon gives me 2 double-barreled shotguns for ~ 6 minutes at a time, and for free at a level when no one else can afford even one. Add in TWF and Rapid Shot for 3 shots a round.
Whitesmith grants each shot +3/+3 Enhancement and +1d6+1 fire damage (and +1d6+1 Frost if you can fit in Dual Enhancement)
Assume you take enough drawbacks to get the Talents you need.
So each shotgun bullet deals 2d8 damage, you fire 2 bullets per shot and you fire 3 times per full-attack action.
+3/+0 BAB, +5/+0 Dex, -4/+0 Dual Wielding, -4/+0 TWF, -2/+0 Rapid Shot, +1/+1 PBS, +3/+3 Enhancement, +1d6+1 Fire, +1d6+1 Frost.
Makes each bullet ~ +2 (2d8+6+2d6)
Or 12d8+36+12d6 if they all hit :P
Congrats! you can deal about 132 damage average if all your touch attacks hit when you nova!

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Anyways, thats most of what I can come up with, I hope you enjoyed the read and I would love to hear more of your thoughts!
n]
Lvl
Classes: piazo only+Psionics. No path of war. Must be at least 1/2 caster, preferably 3/4 caster or higher. This is

Style points
HP x5
Saves x2

[/spoiler]

Hey GM, I am creating my Armorist (Whitesmith who can transform my metal arm into any weapon (including guns).
Now I have been working on my casting tradition and selecting most of my talents and I would like some of your thoughts.

Josephs magic is all about his metal arm, in fact its central to the flow of his power. Joseph has for so long channeled his power through its metal pistons and wires that it has become the natural way to cast magic, and casting would be very difficult without it.
A key element of Josephs magic is its ability to transform. However this is not as simple as it first seems since this requires enough mass to physically take on the new shape, and to that end Joseph has installed a hidden compartment in the arm with an access point in the palm of his hand. Joseph then feeds iron ignots into this "mouth" in his hand to supply the required mass, which his arm then transmutes into the desired shape and density.

If guns are commonplace or above then guns become Martial weapons which would mean I have proficency, which would also mean I can transform into them from lvl 1 onwards :)

I will also list Sphere-Specific drawbacks in conjunction with the relevant Spheres and effects, so you can get a feel of how they will mesh.
Joseph also gains 2 free talents at level 1, plus any he gains from his drawbacks. Talents "paid for" by his Drawbacks have an * attached.

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Alteration
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Joseph utilizes the Alteration sphere to change the shape of his metal arm into the shape of any weapon, firearm or tool he may need (no tools yet until he gets an Anytool) but he can transform his arm only and it is obvious when he does so. Furthermore the duration currently only lasts a short while and he has to reenchant his weapon every time.

Alteration Sphere, Morphic Weapon, Lingering Transformation, EWP: Musket, trait, Favored Shape, Lycanthropic, Unnatural Transformation.

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Enhancement
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Joseph is long practiced in spending small ammounts of magic continously. His very way of life depends on it and he has gotten good at maintaining his Enhancements even while sleeping. Couple this with his profession as a blacksmith and you have some well made weapons and armor. However this focus has a folly, and Joseph's magic dissapates if it is too far from his body, making his magical Enhancements unsellable.
Joseph's magic has another flaw, it needs a visible, binding mark on the object to focus and maintain the magic, specifically he scratches on a quick symbol with a piece of coal, a blacksmiths hammer. As you can imagine, a coal marking would have significant negitave reprocussions if Joseph ever got submerged in water and it further identifies Josephs particular brand.

Enhancement Sphere, Greater Enhancement, Animate Objects, Enhancement Dependancy, Marking Enhancements

I then have 1 Talent left to spend on something, and my 2 feats will probably be Additional Traits and PBS.

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The Arm
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So, Josephes arm is technically a tiny construct animated and sustained by Josephs Personal Refinement. It doesn't act as a construct itself and instead grants Joseph full functionality of that arm.
The arm itself is a technological wonder that by all rights shouldn't function if not for Josephs constant magic animating it. The arm is highly dexterous and capable of significant transformitive abilities, when Joseph provides the right magic the arm can change shape to just about anything made of metal that its owner can think of, if he provides enough iron and mass to fuel the transformation. The arm also contains a hidden compartment within the "bones" of the arm with its entrance cleverly disguised into the palm of the hand and this compartment can be used to store a cache of spare iron and gunpowder, or whatever else Joseph may need to hide...
When all else fails the arm can serve as a potent bludgeoning tool if Joseph is somehow left without a weapon to fall back on, and the metal hand has a grip of iron...