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I hashed this out in twenty minutes last night, and I thought i'd see if other people had any ideas or alternatives. My goal was to fill the dead levels, fix the strange 5 + skill points design, raise HD to match the medium BAB, and to replace the capstone with something better. Here are my notes-
(The dead levels were 15th, 17th and 18th.)
HD-
Changed to D8 to match medium BAB.
Skills-
Add Fly as a class skill. Change skills gained per level to 6 + Int modifier.
15th Level: Craft Golem
The artificer gains Craft: Golem as a bonus feat.
17th Level: Technologica Arcanum-
The Artificer may apply metamagic feats to the effects his device creates on the fly by spending a full-round action to activate the item. Using this ability is dangerous however, and is always treated as though you had run out of safe uses for the item (if you have already ran out of uses for the item increase the base DC as appropriate)- and if the check is failed the device breaks permanently. The DC to activate the item increases by an amount equal to the amount of spell levels increased by the metamagic x2- and in the case of devices with multiple effects this DC increase must be calculated for each effect the artificer chooses to apply. The artificer may apply different metamagic feats to each effect his device produces, but is limited to one metamagic effect per device ability.
Example 1- Grognard, a 17th level artificer, decides to use the Maximise metamagic on the fireball effect his Inferno Cannon produces. He has not used the item today, and the DC to activate the item is usually only 15. Because he is applying the maximise metamagic on his Inferno Cannon to deal 60 damage instead of 10d6, we treat the item as though it was being used beyond its safe usage capacity- so we start with DC20. Because the maximise spell metamagic increases the spell level on normal spells by 3, we double this to get our new DC- 26. If he fails this check, the item breaks instantly.
Example 2-Grognard has built a firestorm launcher- a device which combines the destructive power of a fireball with the nastiness of a lightning bolt. Because the device has two effects, we start with the “unsafe” usage of DC27 (25+2 effects)- and work our way up with metamagic. Like in example 1, Grognard wants to maximise the fireball effect- so the DC increases to 33.However, Grognard wants to get even more oomph out of his launcher- so opts to ALSO maximise the lightning bolt damage on his weapon! This increases the DC to 39!
18th Level:
Exemplar (formerly a capstone ability)
20th Level: Technological Supremacy-
The artificers devices have become so potent and reliable that even when they are subjected to his Technologica Arcanum ability, they only break permanently if he fails the check by 10 or more. Failing by less than ten when using this ability merely results in the weapon not functioning for the rest of the day. The Artificer also gains a permanent +1 bonus to all skills, his vast mental reservoir of knowledge and know-how serving him well in any endeavour.
For those who don't have Tome of Secrets- the class is here; Link
I like it. I read that book over and realized it was neat for 10 levels then tanked off into nowhere with nothing worth continuing onward.
I like it. I read that book over and realized it was neat for 10 levels then tanked off into nowhere with nothing worth continuing onward.
We have a guy playing one of these in our group. That was their assessment as well. They have also tweaked the artificer as follows:
1) Added a casting stat and 2) that a 1 on a skill check is always a failure.I think I will point them to this build out and see what they think.
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I like it. I read that book over and realized it was neat for 10 levels then tanked off into nowhere with nothing worth continuing onward.
We have a guy playing one of these in our group. That was their assessment as well. They have also tweaked the artificer as follows:
1) Added a casting stat and 2) that a 1 on a skill check is always a failure.I think I will point them to this build out and see what they think.
Yeah I will be using intelligence as a casting stat for the artificer, but no bonus weird science inventions from the casting stat, just the DC's. Forgot to mention that. I think that rolling a 1 on UMD is an auto-fail is a good rule for the artificer as clever players will only use their devices when they will auto-pass.
Yeah I will be using intelligence as a casting stat for the artificer, but no bonus weird science inventions from the casting stat, just the DC's. Forgot to mention that. I think that rolling a 1 on UMD is an auto-fail is a good rule for the artificer as clever players will only use their devices when they will auto-pass.
I know he has some weird science inventions, but not sure how they are playing into the casting stat if at all. I presume it is intelligence he is using but not sure. The party has acquired several weird science items and besides the artificer a couple of us have UMD as well so we get to use a couple of the items as well. Although my character broke one that our artificer built the last time.
Thus far we haven't broken any other of the weird science devices.
Craft Construct should have been on the class list to begin with. Heck you could probably lower the level he gets it by a few and it would be no big deal. The HD increase gets a thumbs up and so does normalizing the skill points (seriously 5 skill points?? Huh?). I also liked that you lowered the Exemplar ability since it really has no significant impact on high level game play. I suggest adding medium armor proficiency to the list. He can craft armors and that should be a strength. Medium armor enhances this classes power by NONE.
Now on to the bad...
Technologica Arcanum is very underwhelming for a 17th level ability. The artificer is already a very weak class, giving him the ability to maximize a 4th level spell isn't on par with the 9th level spells the wizard just got this level. I suggest taking away the chance for anything bad. He's 17th level already he's higher level than Batman, Aragorn, Conan, and Hercules. Seriously its okay to give him nice things :)
I also suggest not increasing the action to a full round. If you really need to limit it in some way, and I don't think its powerful enough to, then just say he can only do it whenever the weapon is still considered reliable. Its simple and elegant.
Angelium Rejuvination Rod - Touch your allies and their woes are a thing of the past. Maximized cure critical wounds + break enchantment. Not as good as heal but its cool and its fair and theres no reason he shouldn't be able to do it without a problem.
Anti Caster Canon - rage, silence, suggestion (i suggest you stop casting or i'll shoot you with something scarier), maximized enervation, and dispel magic. Sure the artificers got a crappy DC to his effects but SOMETHINGS gotta work. At the level he can do this anti-magic field can be cast a number of times per day equal to a really high number by full casters and its not even the highest level spell in regular rotation by casters and monsters. So again nothing broken here.
Vanishing Ray - extended greater invisibility and minor image (so it looks like a ray is vaporizing your ally to dust). Make your allies vanish and then with your high bluff (good Cha) convince your enemies that you have just used your amazing disintegration ray to reduce your ally to shards of nothing then made an unexpected face-heel turn in the enemies favor. It would be REALLY hard to call this broken in any way.
The Scorching Repeater - Its his laser machine gun that shoots Maximized scorching ray, scorching ray, scorching ray, scorching ray, and scorching ray (and yes you can add the same spell multiple times and no it isn't broken.) Thats 24+48d6. Now we're talking. But wait its really only slightly better than a disintegrate spell. You are casting 5 spells and one of them is maximized and yet a single empowered disintegrate is better. Nothing Special. At 20th level you should have at the bare minimum a +36 to use magic device. Which means you can use this gun 4 times with one scorching ray maximized. And then you could probably use the gun another 5 to 5 times. Again not that amazing. That's just a warm up for a 17th level caster class. You still end up underpowered in the end and it cost you alot more time to prepare your amazing gun of "I still suck in comparison". And to rub it in resist energy a 2nd level spell can literally make this gun useless.
I like that you recognized the inherent weakness of the class but right now the artificer is actually stronger when he just uses 8th and 9th level scrolls that he made. Improved Metamagic Science makes his scrolls far better than his primary class feature. If that's the case there is no reason to play the class outside of just really wanting to play Gene Starwind. Until weird science becomes at least as attractive as just making scrolls then it does not work.
Would it even be worth packing this thing down to a 10th level PC class or even a PrC?
I've yet to see an artificer that has anything over a craft focused wizard.
And that's the goal of this class is to make something that fills that niche. Enough Hit points and combat abilities to make it stand out with enough magic stuff to bring it inline.
This class does have potential but it needs more tweaking so that after level 10 it's not a big ball of meh.