Help with Eberron Artificer

[Avinc]

Hello

In the dnd campaign I am in I have recently wanted to try out the Eberron artificer because I have wanted to try out a class with magic and I liked how it looks. Now being that this is my first character that uses spells ("Infusion") I have gotten quite confused on the artificer's class features and such. So I was hoping somebody could give me a better explanation on his class features and how they work before I get a headache reading it all over and over (Also so I wont have to keep bugging my friend on how it works). It would also be nice if I could have a few suggestions on feats but that is unnecessary atm.

Thank you all in advance.

[Neurophage]

The Artificer is one of the most complicated classes in d20. By far, the Artificer's most important class feature is Craft Reserve. In 3.5, crafting a magic item requires an expenditure of XP. Craft Reserve is a pool of points the Artificer spends instead of or in addition to XP to craft items. Points of Craft Reserve are not carried over between levels. If you don't use them, you lose them. Don't worry about taking Item Creation feats. The Artificer gains them automatically. Item Creation lets you craft an item if you don't know the spells it requires to craft it, so long as you make a fairly easy Use Magic Device check. Artificer Knowledge, Artisan Bonus and Disable Trap are pretty self-explanatory in terms of what they do.

Level 5 is the game-changer for Artificers, because of Retain Essence. Retain Essence lets you take a magic item, break it down and add the XP used to craft that item to your Craft Reserve. What this means is that every single magic item in the entire game is useful to an Artificer. This completely breaks the clause on Craft Reserve about points not carrying over between levels. To the Artificer, every magic item is a battery for storing Craft Reserve. The party no longer sells magic items they don't need anymore. Just give them to the Artificer and let them turn the obsolete junk into something new.

Your key responsibility as an Artificer is to jack your Use Magic Device bonus as high as you possibly can. It is the end-all be-all.

[DungeonmasterCal]

Is the Artificer worthwhile to convert to PF? If so, what would need to be done?

[avr]

First, take a look at the other PF artificer conversions. There's enough results to fill up the first page of a Google search (two were for another 3rd party class, but there are a couple on the second page too).

[Fabius Maximus]

DungeonmasterCal wrote:

Is the Artificer worthwhile to convert to PF? If so, what would need to be done?

Drop Dead Studios published The Artisan a few years ago. It is an almost direct conversion of the Artificer and should work well.

[DungeonmasterCal]

Thanks!

[Boren]

Really the only change needed for an artifacer into pathfinder is swap the exp craft reserve to gold 1 exp = 5 gp and done.