Artificer and Dipping?

[Thrawn1138]

Hello,

I'm thinking of playing an Artificer in a D&D 3.5 game.  The DM likes moderately to extremely powerful characters, so I'm planning on pulling out as many stops as possible to ensure my character's survival while trying to be as useful and generally awesome as possible.  On the downside, I haven't really given the class a good look before now.  The DM allows all material from official sources, campaigns, Dragon Mag, Dungeon, and online supplements.

My question has to do with the character build.  I'm not seeing any prestige classes that really help the Artificer, so I'm thinking that I'll take it all the way to level twenty.

Then I looked at the Disciple of Boccob ACF for Wizards from Dragon 357.  In exchange for giving up your familiar, you "qualify for item creation feats as a character 1 level higher", and "magic items you create are crafted at +1 character level", with the caveat that if you destroy a permanent magic item, you lose all arcane spellcasting abilities for a day per caster level of the item.  The horror.

That being said, I'd appreciate it if the folks here could weigh in on whether or not a 1-level wizard dip would be a good idea.  It appears that, with this ACF, I could dip a single level of wizard and end up forgoing a bunch of UMD checks in the long run without losing a caster level for crafting.  Similarly, a cleric with the Magic domain counts as a wizard of half their level for scrolls, wands, etc.  However, that entails the loss of the crafting level.  In your experience, keeping in mind the available materials, are these sort of things worth it in the long run, or is it a better idea to stick to Artificers?

Thanks,

Thrawn1138

[Gribel]

It is not worth it in the long run. UMD checks become trivial soon enough.

In the early levels UMD is not as trivial, even a high charisma and skill focus (UMD) are valid choices (if you don't plan to get to mid-high levels). Still, you lose out on infusions progression, which is awful in the early levels. There's an infusion that lets you store a spell of half your artificer level (up to level 4 spells) on the fly, so it would be pretty much like losing a caster level.

I'd say it is not worth it in the long run and debatable in the early levels.

[ketaro]

Qualifying for item creation feats early would also be wasted as Artificer gets pretty much all of them for free and the level requirements for the ones that have them are on levels that give you a feat anyways.

[Demelain]

Qualifying for item creation feats early would also be wasted as Artificer gets pretty much all of them for free and the level requirements for the ones that have them are on levels that give you a feat anyways.

This. Plus, qualifying a level early by giving up a level puts you right back where you started.

Artificer 20 is beautiful, if your DM is planning to run you into Epic levels. You'll be popping out artifacts like a pez dispenser. It's totally worth it.

[zook1shoe]

Artificer gets a crap-ton of bonus item creation feats.

Bonus Feat: An artificer gains every item creation feat as a bonus feat at or near the level at which it becomes available to spellcasters.

technically, you don't even need to have an artificer at that needed level, since it only lists the required artificer level on the list shown

edit: only the item creation feats on the table are the ones that require that level artificer, everything else is just at the appropriate char level

[Arz]

Dipping won't necessarily make you a better artificer, but it will make a better character. You have four levels at the end of artificer that are dead. Why? You have found an xp trick that obviates your reserve.

Now wizard has great ACF in UA (Conjuror, Enchanter, and Transmuter esp) depending on what type of arty you play. Cleric and Wujen though are great for metamagic.

[awaken_D_M_golem]

(Psi-) Arty wants to dip 1 for Magic Mantle, probably Erudite.

[Demelain]

Artificer gets a crap-ton of bonus item creation feats.

Bonus Feat: An artificer gains every item creation feat as a bonus feat at or near the level at which it becomes available to spellcasters.

technically, you don't even need to have an artificer at that needed level, since it only lists the required artificer level on the list shown

edit: only the item creation feats on the table are the ones that require that level artificer, everything else is just at the appropriate char level

Run that by your DM before you try and pull it. RAW or not, it's damned silly and I don't recommend using it.

[Nytemare3701]

Artificer gets a crap-ton of bonus item creation feats.

Bonus Feat: An artificer gains every item creation feat as a bonus feat at or near the level at which it becomes available to spellcasters.

technically, you don't even need to have an artificer at that needed level, since it only lists the required artificer level on the list shown

edit: only the item creation feats on the table are the ones that require that level artificer, everything else is just at the appropriate char level

Run that by your DM before you try and pull it. RAW or not, it's damned silly and I don't recommend using it.

I allow it, since even if it's a silly RAW interpretation, It's thematically fitting and open-ended enough to give the artificer access to item creation feats that didn't exist at the time of writing (much like fighter feats, but automatic). If you are worried about power, then yeah, it's a problem. If you are just trying to make a cool crafter guy and know how to play nice, then it's awesome.

[Rebel7284]

Artificer gets a crap-ton of bonus item creation feats.

Bonus Feat: An artificer gains every item creation feat as a bonus feat at or near the level at which it becomes available to spellcasters.

technically, you don't even need to have an artificer at that needed level, since it only lists the required artificer level on the list shown

edit: only the item creation feats on the table are the ones that require that level artificer, everything else is just at the appropriate char level

Run that by your DM before you try and pull it. RAW or not, it's damned silly and I don't recommend using it.

This.  It's overwhelmingly likely that the authors were specifically referring to every feat on the table.  Moreover, when you are playing with a tier one class, is 8 free feats really not enough?  How many item creation feats are even left in the remaining 3.5 books? I'd guess it's not that many.

[Gazzien]

Artificer gets a crap-ton of bonus item creation feats.

Bonus Feat: An artificer gains every item creation feat as a bonus feat at or near the level at which it becomes available to spellcasters.

technically, you don't even need to have an artificer at that needed level, since it only lists the required artificer level on the list shown

edit: only the item creation feats on the table are the ones that require that level artificer, everything else is just at the appropriate char level

Run that by your DM before you try and pull it. RAW or not, it's damned silly and I don't recommend using it.

This.  It's overwhelmingly likely that the authors were specifically referring to every feat on the table.  Moreover, when you are playing with a tier one class, is 8 free feats really not enough?  How many item creation feats are even left in the remaining 3.5 books? I'd guess it's not that many.

According to this, there are 31 other creation feats, plus the three cost-reduction feats that are tagged as creation ones.

[Nytemare3701]

Artificer gets a crap-ton of bonus item creation feats.

Bonus Feat: An artificer gains every item creation feat as a bonus feat at or near the level at which it becomes available to spellcasters.

technically, you don't even need to have an artificer at that needed level, since it only lists the required artificer level on the list shown

edit: only the item creation feats on the table are the ones that require that level artificer, everything else is just at the appropriate char level

Run that by your DM before you try and pull it. RAW or not, it's damned silly and I don't recommend using it.

This.  It's overwhelmingly likely that the authors were specifically referring to every feat on the table.  Moreover, when you are playing with a tier one class, is 8 free feats really not enough?  How many item creation feats are even left in the remaining 3.5 books? I'd guess it's not that many.

According to this, there are 31 other creation feats, plus the three cost-reduction feats that are tagged as creation ones.

When you are already Tier 1, your balance is entirely dependent on how optimized you are and what your DM let's you do. 31 ICFs don't make you significantly stronger, definitely no stronger than picking a few optimized spells for your wands.

[zook1shoe]

Its not much different wording than the Rainbow Servant spell progression. Obviously, the artificer one is more powerful.