The Gaming Den

So, the Chameleon's big thing is that they get to cast up to 6th level spells of ANY divine or arcane spellcasting class. Which includes the bullshit consolation prize spells 10-level PrCs hand out like crazy.

So, post your list of ridiculous spells for Chameleons to plunder right here!

Any Artificer guide should have those type of spells listed - and an Archivist guide would have at least the divine ones.

Off hand, I believe there was some demon-summoning PrC in either one of the Fiendish Codexes or BoVD that got Summon and Planar Binding spells at much lower levels than normal.

The classic of course is that Demonologist gets planar binding as a 4th level spell (LPB at level 3). That gets you your demon army at level 10, and your minor demon allies at level 8. One level earlier than the wizard in any case. This goes up there with holy sword, which you can pull off the Paladin list. Charm Monster can be had as a 3rd level spell seven ways from sunday via Bard or any of the bullshit casters that get it.

Book of Exalted Deeds has the Emissary of Brachiel who hands out atonement at 4th level. You can get hold monster at 4th level as well.

In It's Cold Outside we have the Disciple of Thrym, who gets summon giants as a 4th level spell. This spell is way overvalued at its standard level of eighth, but it seriously does pull in 3 Celestial Hill Giants, 2 Celestial Stone Giants or a Celestial Frost Giant. You're 10thleve and you're summoning a CR 10 badass to fight for you. Also, you get entomb at 5th level instead of 6th, which is pretty sweet.

-Username17

Ice9 wrote:Any Artificer guide should have those type of spells listed - and an Archivist guide would have at least the divine ones.

Surprisingly, neither Artificer guides nor Warlock guides seem to go in for that sort of thing. It's bizarre. You'd think it would be all over Break Enchantment at level 4 through Death Delver and that kind of crap, because that's the only thing that makes Artificers not laughingstocks. Hell, even the Archivist Guides never go into the bullshit on how the minimum caster level (and thus minimum item creation costs) on spells tend to be when they show up on the Blighter List or the Divine Champion list or something similar.

Artificers can, by the book, make Miracle Scrolls at caster level 9. None of the guides ever bother to go into that, which makes me wonder why people even make artificer guides. It's all rants about how to stack damage onto wands of scorching ray at 20th level.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:because that's the only thing that makes Artificers not laughingstocks.

Our drug addict slot is already filled by Shadzar. Get off it, I expected better of you.

Roy wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:because that's the only thing that makes Artificers not laughingstocks.

Our drug addict slot is already filled by Shadzar. Get off it, I expected better of you.

I'm dead serious. Artificers blow. They are a really shitty class. And if someone wanted to play one I would tell them no. Not because I feel that they are underpowered, but because they totally fucking suck. People on the old CharOp board got their knickers all twisted since of course by level 20 they can replicate absolutely any stupid spell combo you can think of by building some magic items that produce them and then activating them with UMD. But honestly, who gives a crap? A Rogue can do that crap too just by buying magic items that happen to duplicate whatever spells you wanted. If you're playing with the Artificer at all, you're presumably trying to use the D&D item economy, and that means all that shit is on the market.

Yes. The Artificer has the Infinite Caster Level Skill Dance. But that's not even a new loop. It's called the Skill Dance because it's based on the same recasting shenanigans of the Spelldancer. And the Artificer requires several months of downtime to make all that shit instead of just getting up one day and starting to dance.

Let's face it, the entire fucking class is based on a system where you spend actual downtime and actual resources making a UMD test to try to get a DC 20+ Caster Level to not lose fucking everything. This is a humiliating kick in the pants for several levels: at first level your DC is 21 and your bonus is like +8. You don't even succeed half the time. And while you gain bonuses to UMD faster than +1 per level, the DC to make something level appropriate is increasing. Artificers don't stop being actually embarrassing until the Fighter stops being competitive.

The thing that keeps them from being a complete laughingstock around level 4 is the fact that there are bullshit casting lists like Blighter. This let's them make a Caster Level 3 scroll of stinking cloud by hitting a UMD DC of 23. But let's face it: the DC is only 14 on that bad boy, and they still only have a +17 on a UMD check to read a scroll at 4th level, so it's a lot like they were a normal magician who decided to have a shitty DC and an Armor Check Penalty.

By the time the Artificer gets powerful enough to even reliably use his own fucking class features, the Bard has already had to cut a deal with the DM to not destroy the campaign with his Diplomancy shenanigans. So no, I don't respect Artificers. They suck. They suck conceptually, and they suck in real play. The fact that they can break the game at later levels don't even matter because all their are doing is standard UMD abuse. Yawn.

-Username17

Spell stealing:

From It's Inside Outside:

Trapsmith list:

1st—arcane sight, cat’s grace, clairaudience/clairvoyance,
dispel magic, fox’s cunning, gaseous form, haste, knock, protection
from energy.
2nd—arcane eye, dimension door, lesser globe of invulner-
ability, Otiluke’s resilient sphere, stoneskin, stone shape.
3rd—Bigby’s interposing hand, break enchantment, fabricate,
greater dispel magic, wall of stone.

Dispel Magic is CL based, so not quite as awesome to hit at low levels, but gaseous form/haste/DD/Resilient Sphere/Stone Shape/Wall of Stone/Break Enchantment/Fabricate, all available by level 3 to an Artificer, or level 7-8ish for a Chameleon are badass.

Your ignorance is astounding, and likely tainted by the assumption you can just get infinite cash, at which point anyone fucking breaks the game with super gear.

Roy wrote:Your ignorance is astounding, and likely tainted by the assumption you can just get infinite cash, at which point anyone fucking breaks the game with super gear.

What's the lowest level that an Artificer can do something level appropriate without at least a 10% failure chance?

What's the lowest level an actual spellcaster has to bargain with the DM because they can already win D&D?

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:

Roy wrote:Your ignorance is astounding, and likely tainted by the assumption you can just get infinite cash, at which point anyone fucking breaks the game with super gear.

What's the lowest level that an Artificer can do something level appropriate without at least a 10% failure chance?

I think Artificers get pretty damn tight at about level 3, but they're no slouches at level 1 either, especially if you get an opportunity to buff. Just having a bane crossbow or whatever makes you level appropriate at that point.

The Artificer does lose some value if you're not using gentleman's agreements regarding the generation of unlimited wealth, but I still think you're selling them short, Frank. The bar for "level appropriate" probably shouldn't be so high as "bargains with the DM because he wins D&D" after all.

Caedrus wrote: I think Artificers get pretty damn tight at about level 3, but they're no slouches at level 1 either, especially if you get an opportunity to buff. Just having a bane crossbow or whatever makes you level appropriate at that point.

The Artificer does lose some value if you're not using gentleman's agreements regarding the generation of unlimited wealth, but I still think you're selling them short, Frank. The bar for "level appropriate" probably shouldn't be so high as "bargains with the DM because he wins D&D" after all.

I should note that powers that let you "bargain with the DM" are generally meaningless for assessing balance of actual games anyway. In 99% of cases, either they are already banned, or will be banned on the spot. No, don't point me to a handful of people that will honestly (i.e., without whipping out, say, Deities & Demigods and erasing your character from reality on the next session, or something) let shit like infinite wealth or diplomancy fly, because they are just a handful and my personal probability of meeting one of them as my DM is about 0%.

The issue is not stupid tricks like Balor mining or layered shapeshifting. Even on-the-spot-banning create-an-iron-cage-from-a-scroll-of-fabricate. No, as a DM the issue is a myriad of obviously broken spells and even worse, combinations of spells which are fine on their own. I can't possibly fix all that shit on my own. And I can't easily explain to my players what's fine to use and what is not. That shit breaks gentlemen agreements and that is why I worry about players with wizards, clerics and druids and I don't really mind sorcerers, artificers and fighters.

Any class with a vast spell list they prepare from each day is essentially unfixable. There will be 20 spells per level that are either flat-out broken or broken in combination with other spells or abilities or worded so badly they stall the game. A wizard basically has to run every spell he ever intends to scribe past me. With the whole point of the wizard being the large spellbook that number is going to be intractable. The sorcerer on the other hand gives me a list of a dozen spells, I veto one of them, he picks another spell - done.

Now, I am not sure what Frank meant, but I think the general gist is this: yes, as written artificers break the game. But they do so later than all full casters. They can also stack infusions to generate nuclear blasts from wands - at levels where no-save-just-die spells become available and chargers one-shot anything anyways. And at no point will you have to sit down with the artificer and have a long and careful talk about how to scale down their character so it works again. At worst you veto the insane loopholes (skill dancing) and possibly houserule a couple infusions.

So by any measure I can think of artificers are less powerful than wizards. That doesn't mean they are worse to have in your game though. Wizards are a huge pain to have in your campaign and artificers are not. But it does mean that cries of "artificers are broken" sound a little silly as long as wizards, clerics and druids are in your game.

Wizards, clerics, and druids have squatter's rights. Artificers are a lame fanboy class.

Which is why we tolerate the above three's mega-brokenness but not the last one's minor-brokenness. Because the first three have 30 years of legacy so they are by definition harder to remove from the game. This is disregarding the fact that wizards, clerics, and druids are integrated into the games and settings more fully than any other set of classes.

Murtak wrote:Now, I am not sure what Frank meant, but I think the general gist is this: yes, as written artificers break the game. But they do so later than all full casters. They can also stack infusions to generate nuclear blasts from wands - at levels where no-save-just-die spells become available and chargers one-shot anything anyways. And at no point will you have to sit down with the artificer and have a long and careful talk about how to scale down their character so it works again. At worst you veto the insane loopholes (skill dancing) and possibly houserule a couple infusions.

So by any measure I can think of artificers are less powerful than wizards.

This.

Where I disagree is the notion that Artificers are at any time OK to have in a game. After all, by the time they can reliably make and use the things they want they are dumpster diving through all spell lists each and every time they want to add a single wand or scroll to their repertoire. Actually talking to an artificer about their character's ability progression is exhausting, time consuming, and ultimately probably game breaking anyway. It's like a Cleric who shuffles his spells every day. Only he's using the Wu Jen list and the Hexblade list.

But before that point, their stuff doesn't work. You want to make the Infusions crap happen? That's Int Based, while your actual artificing and magic item use are Charisma based. Welcome to MADland. Caedrus was just telling us how cool it was to have a Goblin Bane Crossbow. And yeah, I guess it is. It's almost as cool as not having to spend two standard actions and two of your 1st level infusions to get yourself a meaningful attack for 10 minutes that only works on one kind of enemy that you have to nominate ahead of time.

The UMD DCs are laughably trivial for characters high enough level to throw midlevel spells around, but by that point the Artificer has become an accounting nightmare so ghastly that they should be banned on principle. There is no point where they are good for the game. Early in their careers they are a drain on party resources so severe that you wish they were replaced by a Bard or a Fighter. The low level UMD checks are hard and fail a lot. At higher level they're a fucking pain in the ass that drags the game to a screeching halt without actually doing anything unique or interesting as payoff.

-Username17