List of Questions for an E6 Artificer

[Nytemare3701]

1. My swim/tumble/attack/etc checks are abysmal anyway, so I want to get a gigantic shield. Any obscure Tower Shield+++ out there?
2. Going a golemancer route, focusing on Effigies and Elder Eidolons. Any creatures you recommend? (I hear good things about the Rukanyr)
3. The classic Bane infusion+crossbow is off the table for me (I have a horrid attack bonus). Would I need to have my arbalester activate a magic item that has the infusion to buff itself?
4. Is there a way to affix permanent effects to a golem? They don't have normal bodies, so body slots would get wonky. I assume the rules in MIC about adding 50% to the cost to add another effect doesn't apply to constructs.
5. What items have you created in previous low-level games that you absolutely loved? Best I've heard so far was At-Will Launch Bolt/Item.
6. Disregarding the fluff about Gnomes(since this isn't an eberron game), How difficult to pull off is Elemental binding on your own?
7. Any obscure warforged components I should know about?


Thank you all for your time and input in advance!

[Nytemare3701]

0 Replies in 6 days...That's a record. 

[Nytemare3701]

Bump -_-

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

Extremely fragmented new boards, yadda yada. I'll bite because you, like me, actually give the board useful info. Oddly enough I don't have much collected from you although about 80% is in tabs waiting to be dumped (my firefox is taking up about a gig and a half). See my sig

1. steal version and some exotic shields in RoS
2. see the mechonomicon
3. arbalester ?
4. why not?
5. ew
6. not bad. see the crafting reduction handbook
7. yes but I don't know them. PM Bastian

Feel free to PM me anything of yours not in our handbook forum you think helps the community.

[Nytemare3701]

Extremely fragmented new boards, yadda yada. I'll bite because you, like me, actually give the board useful info. Oddly enough I don't have much collected from you although about 80% is in tabs waiting to be dumped (my firefox is taking up about a gig and a half). See my sig

1. steal version and some exotic shields in RoS
2. see the mechonomicon
3. arbalester ?
4. why not?
5. ew
6. not bad. see the crafting reduction handbook
7. yes but I don't know them. PM Bastian

Feel free to PM me anything of yours not in our handbook forum you think helps the community.

Most of my content was in 1-shot things (like finding the manyfang dagger in serpent kingdoms). In return for the help, I'll go find all my content and carry it over.

1. I'll take a look, thanks!
2. I didn't see any creatures suggested for use with Effigy. I found Rukanyr in another thread.
3. It's a crossbow homunculus. It fires on its own.
4. I was under the impression that they don't follow rules for normal magic items. I can't for the life of me figure out why I assumed that -_-
5. The errata'd version makes it suck, I agree. I dropped it.
6. The crafting reduction handbook doesn't spell out the requirements for it, and the source book is packed with fluff about it. 
7. Will do.

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

(like finding the manyfang dagger in serpent kingdoms). In return for the help, I'll go find all my content and carry it over.

6. The crafting reduction handbook doesn't spell out the requirements for it, and the source book is packed with fluff about it. 

^ was in my compendium for months before you brought it up (in the extra cheesy do not use area)

I'm pretty sure I gave Bastian a bunch of citations. The feat allows you to track everything down you need, I thought. IIRC: locate one, immobilize one, prepare some fluffy ritual, make a charisma check and if you have the feat BAM.

[Cagemarrow]

1. Look at Livewood or Wildwood for your shield, both self heal in sunlight and water. Then look at ways to animate it and improve it further.

2. Templates that don't add hit dice are your friend here, it doesn't add anything to the cost of the body. Add a few onto the maximum HD animal you can, 6 hd as straight Artificer and you can really boost their abilities. I think at one point I had plans to make a Rhino (normally 8 hd but reduced to 6 with the rules for building items at +2 levels, still costs the same as an 8 hd creature) that could fly with a str in the upper 40s. I don't remember all of them but I know it had Half Dragon and Lolth Touched at the minimum.

You also want to look at the construct extras that allow you to instill intelligence based on paying extra and your caster level to get them an int of 3 at CL 6. Puts them back up to animal intelligence and gives them their feats and skills back. I can't remember which dragon it was and don't have access to my books though. I want to say 350 something.


3. Arbalestors are a mixed bag because of their low HD and thus to hit and saves. You'd be better off picking something that you could make using effigies that can fire ranged weapons. At least then you wouldn't risk the d10 damage if they bite it.

4. Nothing says that golems cannot wear items and as far as I remember only warforged are prevented from wearing armor. There are constructs that specifically wear full plate even and come with the proficiency in it. The good thing about this is if the construct is destroyed the items aren't gone with it.

5. Glad you liked my "LAW" rip off, although the quiver of ehlonna portion can't be made in e6 due to the required spell not being available, shrink item could be substitued though. I've also enjoyed adding the dragon claw grappling hook to the rod of ropes from complete adventurer to make an even easier to use hook shot/batclaw.

Eternal Wands are eminently useful, especially ones that create permanent items/traps such as Ghoul Glyph or Explosive Runes. Only downside is they have to be arcane spells.

Gloves/Gauntlets that cast create trap from Dragon Magic at will are very useful with a duration of 12 hours. The fullisade of darts does the most potential damage in an single attack but the scything blade can attack repeatedly for the full duration as an automatically resetting trap. Used this in a game to hold back a goblin army while we got civilians out of town. Level 1 spell

An amulet of Unseen Crafter at will is almost as good as fabricate and can be done at 3rd level if you get enough gold, and once you do more gold is no longer an issue, but be sure to max your craft checks for this. Level 2 spell

Boots of Lightfoot - 1st level assassin spell, I think, never provoke attacks of opportunity on movement again.

6. In E6 its almost impossible due to the difficulty of containing the elemental, if I remember correctly its a concentration check DC 20 + HD of the creature to be bound and requires a spell that would only be available through a ritual, Planar Binding I think. Its not worth it unless you really want an airship and can burn the feats to max concentration and get planar binding as a capstone ritual.

If you want to reduce item costs look at the Artisan feats from Eberron and then stack Magical Artisan from Forgotten Realms on top of those, since it gets applied to item creation feats.

7. I actually can't remember any that can be made within the CL limits of E6. Though I can see the Battle Fist and Sword not causing any problems.

[Nytemare3701]

2. Templates that don't add hit dice are your friend here, it doesn't add anything to the cost of the body. Add a few onto the maximum HD animal you can, 6 hd as straight Artificer and you can really boost their abilities. I think at one point I had plans to make a Rhino (normally 8 hd but reduced to 6 with the rules for building items at +2 levels, still costs the same as an 8 hd creature) that could fly with a str in the upper 40s. I don't remember all of them but I know it had Half Dragon and Lolth Touched at the minimum.

You also want to look at the construct extras that allow you to instill intelligence based on paying extra and your caster level to get them an int of 3 at CL 6. Puts them back up to animal intelligence and gives them their feats and skills back. I can't remember which dragon it was and don't have access to my books though. I want to say 350 something.

That's getting into Mr Roboto territory isn't it? Would you consider paying for them as if they were HD increases reasonably balanced?

[Cagemarrow]

In the case of my rhino I was looking to build an engine for our boat more than a combat monster. I had an elaborate plan to have it walking inside a paddle wheel and occasionally using chains to lift the boat and fly with it when we needed to go over land.

In my game the DM just made me roll knowledge checks to see if my character would reasonably know enough about the templates to build them. I suppose paying for the increase in CR as if they were HD wouldn't be to bad, as long as they didn't count against the Caster Level to make them, since you are limited to 6 HD by E6.

Constructs are very overpriced to begin with compared to the equivalent Undead that a necromancer could have under their control. They can't even be healed without the repair line of spells unless they come with fast healing.

[Shadowhunter]

Create Trap is in Races of the Dragon, not Dragon Magic.

As for creating new items, that is totally DM-dependent. I love the idea of an Create Trap at-will item for example, but I'm less enthusiastic if someone wanted to do a user-activated glove of True Strike
So it really depends on what he or she will allow, since there are many options.

Nerveskitter sounds like it could be good for an item.
Another brokenly good low-level spell is Power Word: Pain, also from Races of the Dragon.
No save, short range, mind affecting, compulsion.
d6 damage per round for 4d4/2d4/1d4 rounds depending upon targets current HP.
If you have 50 HP or less, you'll take a d6 damage per round for 4d4 rounds.
That is going to hurt.
The average is 35 points of damage. For a level 1 spell. That's the same average as a CL 10 lightning bolt to a single target, just over time.

Silent Image seems like it could help a lot, it's a very versatile spell.
Basically any spell without save option could be good.

Will post more spell ideas as I come up with them.

[CattyNebulart]

get a slashing weapon with a wandchamber and put a wand of whirling blade (2'nd level spell) in there. Yay touch attacks (in a 60ft line IIRC) that get your casting stat as an additional bonus to hit and damage. Granted that can get expensive quick, but having it as a use activated item is very very broken.

[Nytemare3701]

get a slashing weapon with a wandchamber and put a wand of whirling blade (2'nd level spell) in there. Yay touch attacks (in a 60ft line IIRC) that get your casting stat as an additional bonus to hit and damage. Granted that can get expensive quick, but having it as a use activated item is very very broken.

I'd have to take a feat to become proficient with my own skin then :-(. I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure I'm not proficient in my adamantine plating since Artificer doesn't give heavy armor proficiency. Without the proficiency, my attack bonuses are terrible (unless whirling blade bypasses that since it's no longer a str or dex based check... )

[Bastian]

6. In E6 its almost impossible due to the difficulty of containing the elemental, if I remember correctly its a concentration check DC 20 + HD of the creature to be bound and requires a spell that would only be available through a ritual, Planar Binding I think. Its not worth it unless you really want an airship and can burn the feats to max concentration and get planar binding as a capstone ritual.

If you want to reduce item costs look at the Artisan feats from Eberron and then stack Magical Artisan from Forgotten Realms on top of those, since it gets applied to item creation feats.

It's DC 10 + HD  of the creature to be bound. Also, artificers can cast Planar Binding for the purposes of Bind Elemental with a UMD check.

On a side note, it also requires an opposed charisma check and a second person to make it.

[Nytemare3701]

6. In E6 its almost impossible due to the difficulty of containing the elemental, if I remember correctly its a concentration check DC 20 + HD of the creature to be bound and requires a spell that would only be available through a ritual, Planar Binding I think. Its not worth it unless you really want an airship and can burn the feats to max concentration and get planar binding as a capstone ritual.

If you want to reduce item costs look at the Artisan feats from Eberron and then stack Magical Artisan from Forgotten Realms on top of those, since it gets applied to item creation feats.

It's DC 10 + HD  of the creature to be bound. Also, artificers can cast Planar Binding for the purposes of Bind Elemental with a UMD check.

On a side note, it also requires an opposed charisma check and a second person to make it.

We have a warlock in the party, so that should be ok.