Petition: Artificer Class

[HeroForge]

While I've heard that the Druid class is going to be appearing in DDO (which would round out the 'core' class list), there is one character class that is totally unique to the Eberron setting, and is actually essential for what the setting itself entails: the Artificer.

Simply put, the Artificer embodies the reversal of Clarke's Law, thusly: "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology." Artificers were responsible for the creation of airships, elemental galleons, the lightning rail, and the warforged. They created many of the magical innovations that people in Eberron take for granted -- perpetual lighting in cities, cargo-moving cranes in harbors, House Sivis's speaking stones. Most of the magical gear that adventurers rely on were made by Artificers.

In DDO, they would be the middle-ground between the different types of spellcasters. They have good armor and weapon selection. Their spells run the gamut of healing spells (they would have both Cure X Wounds spells and Repair X Damage), along with buffs (especially those that could be applied to a character's gear). While not a direct-damage type of caster, they would be alongside bards for a support role.

Not to mention their mechanical bent gives them access to the skills Disable Device, Open Lock, and Use Magic Device. No longer would rogues be the only class to "trapmonkey" (much as I hate the term, it fits here).

Possible enhancements for the class would be anything item-related. They should be the undisputed masters of getting the most oomph out of a wand, or maximizing a charged item. Perhaps they could even be given the ability to restore lost charges to an item, getting a little more use out of something before it runs out altogether. One could also argue in favor of giving Artificers the ability to repair damaged equipment, maybe even restoring an item that has broken in the middle of a quest.

Within the class-grouping, I'd have to say that the Artificer would probably fall best in the "Specialist" category, alongside rogues and rangers.

So, who's with me? Who wants to see the penultimate tinkerer make an appearance in Stormreach?

[YugureUsagi]

Freaking right! I was about to make this thread myself.

The Artificer is my favorite class in the Eberron setting. And it would be a perfect addition to the game. You guys added the Warforged, I mean the two go hand in hand. Really how could you forget such a awesome class?

Beyond the history and the many great inventions the Artificers have given the world of Eberron the class itself offers many usefull abilities in a group. The temporary magical imbuement of normal and even magical weapons and armor. As well as a major "healing" aspect towards the Warforged and consturcts alike. And lastly the fantastic ability to craft magical item after magical item.

Please, PLEASE for the love of Eberron and all who inhabit it, add the Artificer as a playable class in the next major update! The next update being 8 not 7 I understand adding a class is a difficult process.

[Aashrym]

Their spells run the gamut of healing spells (they would have both Cure X Wounds spells and Repair X Damage), along with buffs (especially those that could be applied to a character's gear). While not a direct-damage type of caster, they would be alongside bards for a support role.

Not to mention their mechanical bent gives them access to the skills Disable Device, Open Lock, and Use Magic Device. No longer would rogues be the only class to "trapmonkey" (much as I hate the term, it fits here).

I don't recall artificers having cure x wounds infusions, only the repair line.

Other than that this has been suggested several times and I would enjoy seeing the class implemented.

[HeroForge]

Healing would be pretty easy to cover, actually, whether by simply copying the Cure X Wounds spells, or making an infusion that gives the target X hit points per round (similar to the cleric's Divine Health enhancement).

It would be a class that has decent combat ability (comparable to a rogue's), with buff spells. Primarily, though, it would be a way to play a character who's good with locks and traps in more of a support role, without having to be a rogue. Trapfinding (and, by extension, trapmaking) needs more than one way to be acquired, anyway.

Where the pen-and-paper artificer gains item-creation feats automatically, DDO could instead give artificers a discount (level-dependent, naturally) on recipes at the Stone of Change and the trap-constructing stations, so that they aren't burning through consumable resources as quickly. If later updates add the ability to create new items, the artificer could have some sort of advantage: the ability to make items at lower levels than others, or the aforementioned discounts.

They should also have the ability to get the maximum benefit from magic items, especially charged items like wands and one-shot items like potions and scrolls. Basically, whatever cap is currently reachable through enhancements, the artificer should be able to do one better. I proposed the ability to recharge items as a way to add to their usefulness in a party, either by restoring charges to X/rest items (to reduce the group's reliance on rest shrines), or by recovering spent charges in permanently-drained items -- possibly reducing the item's maximum charges, to prevent exploitation.

Giving artificers the ability to repair damaged/destroyed equipment in the field is just another time-saver I thought of, and it would give the artificer player strong incentive to invest in the Repair skill. To my knowledge, it's possibly the least-taken skill in the entire list, because it only has one benefit: restoring hit points to warforged characters. There really aren't THAT many of them in play, in the grand scheme of things, and a non-WF has little reason to bother with it.

[Aaxeyu]

/not signed.
Artificer doesn't seem very interesting and I'd much rather they finish the classes we already have than add new, unfinished ones.

[Purgatory]

No, I dont want to lvl up my completionist again....

[Scraap]

Honestly, with all the overlap and synergy with existing classes, I kinda wish they'd just ditch mechanic and replace it with artificer as a sub-class rather than adding a brand new one. Maybe even one of the 5-tier varieties.

After all, when you get down to it, a full class eventually means 9 more tiers minimum of PRE in 3 distinct branches to be worked out as well, and I at least can't seem to find enough overall variation available to fully extend those three branches on out utility wise without crippling the core one. Do they even have documented Prestige Classes associated with them to be modified into DDO terms?

So yes and no this end. Love to see em, but not as a full class given the current state of the game.

[donfilibuster]

The crafting could instead be like the slots (epic or guild). Non-permanent effects that are placed on your gear.

[toughguyjoe]

I have to say No to this.

Artificers, made to closely mimic PnP would be brokenly powerful and there would be hundreds of them running around servers doing the things other people do, but better.

If they were to instead make the class and dumb its abilities down and give it a different feel, the forums will be awash in threads about why artificer isn't the Tier 1 class that it is supposed to be.

I just feel like its not worth it. While they certainly are eberron, In my opinion the class is just so over powered that its implementation would create HUGE problems, either on the "its too powerful" scale or "you nerfed it too much" scale.

Druids, full PrE's for classes without them and such are far more important in my opinion.

[Aashrym]

Healing would be pretty easy to cover, actually, whether by simply copying the Cure X Wounds spells, or making an infusion that gives the target X hit points per round (similar to the cleric's Divine Health enhancement).

It would be, but why are you giving them an ability they do not normally possess or need...

they can UMD it for healing if they want to cure x wounds.

[Archmage2k]

I like this idea. Sign me up for any petitions for it.

[gorgorothsixsixsix]

can repair, can heal, can disarm, can keep rerolling saves and attacks. owns undead, owns constructs, owns elemental. has blade barrier and slaying arrow;

Projectile gains a +1 enhancement bonus and becomes deadly against a specified creature type. When hit, the creature must make a Fortitude save or die (or be destroyed). On a successful save, the target takes only normal damage

disrupting weapon, craft wand, brew potion, inscribe scroll...

sounds like a solo machine.

[GravyGecko]

/signed.

But they'll need to bring in Gnomes as well. When I first heard DDO was going to be set in Eberron, my first thought was, "Why?" But my second thought was about playing a Gnome Artificer.

[mediocresurgeon]

I love the artificer in PnP (it's my favorite class) but I strongly believe that there is not a place for it in DDO.

Artificer strengths:
-Party Buffs
-Healing
-Disable Traps
-Item Creation
-Use Magic Device as class skill
-Melee, if you build for it

Most of these strengths are already present in another class--the Bard. Making an artificers class would not add anything new (except that you'd have Bards who could kite through Blade Barrier while casting Reconstruct on themselves).

The part that would make an artificer completely unplayable in DDO, however, is their inherent ability to craft magical gear, and stack temporary enchantments over the normal ones.

Example: As an artificer, I can craft a +5 Holy Silver Greater Evil Outsider Bane (rr), and then cast an Extended buff on that weapon to also make it Holy Burst and Pure Good for the next 40 minutes. In fact, I could cast this buff on every weapon in my party--not just my own. This would make existing raid loot (and most Epic weapons) completely obsolete overnight.

Remember when Flame Arrow made your arrows flaming, permanently? The Devs thought this was so overpowered that they removed the spell from the game. And by "removed from the game" I don't just mean that you couldn't buy wands and scrolls from NPCs--I mean that Wizards had the spell removed from their spellbooks and Sorcerers lost the spell slot forever (there was no way to respec sorc spells yet). And all of this fuss was over +1d6 damage on your bows (which, by the way, you could not reload while moving). Because of such tremendous balance issues that would arise, I really have a hard time imagining DDO ever getting the Artificer class.

I would rather the Devs spend their time on more important things, like the Druid class and more PrEs (like Warforged Juggernaut).

[Runehammer]

/signed

[Lithic]

No, I dont want to lvl up my completionist again....

/signed and /doublesigned. Please no more classes. Ever. Ever ever ever!

[Waywalker]

/NO not signed!

Artificer is, by far, my favorite class. EVAH! "What do you spend your time on?" "Oh, making stuff and blowing stuff up"

But it will break a game in moments. The Artificer is simply -too powerful- for most people to play. Overly complex, yes, but way too powerful. If you let someone do whatever they want with an Artificer, they win. There are plenty of threads about this out on the web already, so I won't belabor the point.

But, sorry, no. "Not like this... not like this." -Cypher

[Aashrym]

I actually want druid and artificer. And not more classes after that would be fine.

[andbr22]

It is pity how many players don't want artificer. They are the coolest thing about eberron (not this big canes that they created).

OP? -> Well when we see they will be P2P class, after Turbine released H-elves, and H-orcs i would say they will be a bit more powerfull, but nothing for sure. For sure they will work great with WF race.
Traps -> cool we get new trapping class. but they still will lack of evasion.
Healing -> no non WF healing magic. Well UMD scrolls can be good (Artificers would propably get 100% on scrolls and wand mastery)
UMD -> Bards SS will still have much higher charisma so artificers propably will have UMD score lower.
Buffs -> I don't think they would be able to "add elemental dmg", but still they will propably gain acces to buff equipmend adding to currently equiped weapon (main hand), or armor "artificer bonus", and i don't think it would be more than +2 or +3 (compare to +7 from bard song)and single targeting , raid buffing would be painfull.
crafting items -> no crafting implemented sorry... Maybe they gain something like paladin holy sword where they will be able to create item for themselves (but it probably would be 4 or even more levels below your current level accesible max items - look for AA they gain +5 unlimited arrows at 18).
Distruption - what level you will have your highest level infusion? At level where every undead at difficulty higher than normal will make his will save at 2+?
BB - see above. (of course you will be able to scrolling those preety fast probably).
Homonculus - ohh a pet! it can bee cool to customize those, but generaly hierlings and summons are dumb.

Ass i see them:
- good healers but not betten than clerics fvs, or even bards
- innovative buffers (new bonus type) but not match bards.
- good Kitters but not better than FvS, or clerics
- only offensive magic are deconstructs (not implemented yet), and BB (OP in setting).
- no CC magic (infusions)
- probably best pet class
- +DR for constructs can be a bit too powerfull (especially in hands of WF Artificer)

Probably we will see them as WF artifices (other races will be probably seen as often as Dwarf wizards)

[Robi3.0]

yes plz!