Capstone Fail

[Malison]

Artificer Arcane Empowerment (Capstone Enhancement)
Cost: 2 action points
Action Points Spent Prerequisite: 74
Available to Artificer class level 20
The patterns of the most complex magical formulae are like children's drawings to you. You treat any non-scroll activated equipped item that casts spells (such as wands, rods, armor, or other activated items) as if they were staves, increasing their caster level to equal yours as well as increasing Save DC's to (1 + your Intelligence bonus + level of spell) if it would be an improvement. These increases are applied after Artificer Knowledge, so do not stack.

1 + Int + level? That's TERRIBLE!

Consider: Wand of Phantasmal Killer, because it's one of the obvious things to try this with.
Used by a Wizard: DC = base (10) + spell level (4) = 14.
Used by an Artificer: DC = base (1) + Int (#) + spell level (4) = 5+Int.

So, if you have less than 30 Int, this gives you nothing at all. If you have more, that's nice. But you'll never get it to the kind of DC that will work on, well, anything you'd want to fight as a level 20. And that's the level that matters, because, in case you forgot, this is a CAPSTONE.

For reference, max sustainable 44 Int (18 +5level +4tome +3enhancement +7item +3exceptional +1litany +1human +2yugo) means DC 22. Triple wizard past lives and triple wand heightening enhancements caps your DC at 31.

Please, put this back to 10+level+Int, just as though it was being cast without Heighten, Spell Focus, DC-enhancing items, or PrE DC boosts. It's already far enough behind spells cast by actual casters without an artificial -9.

EDIT: Release notes were in error, two dev posts below.

[TreknaQudane]

1 + Int + level? That's TERRIBLE!

Consider: Wand of Phantasmal Killer, because it's one of the obvious things to try this with.
Used by a Wizard: DC = base (10) + spell level (4) = 14.
Used by an Artificer: DC = base (1) + Int (#) + spell level (4) = 5+Int.

So, if you have less than 30 Int, this gives you nothing at all. If you have more, that's nice. But you'll never get it to the kind of DC that will work on, well, anything you'd want to fight as a level 20. And that's the level that matters, because, in case you forgot, this is a CAPSTONE.

For reference, max sustainable 44 Int (18 +5level +4tome +3enhancement +7item +3exceptional +1litany +1human +2yugo) means DC 22. Triple wizard past lives and triple wand heightening enhancements caps your DC at 31.

Please, put this back to 10+level+Int, just as though it was being cast without Heighten, Spell Focus, DC-enhancing items, or PrE DC boosts. It's already far enough behind spells cast by actual casters without an artificial -9.

It IS 10 + Int Modifier + Spell Level

Reading Failure.

[Malison]

Reading Failure.

by you. Look again at the quote, or go to the release notes thread.

Unless it's a typing fail by them.

[Eladrin]

It uses 10 + Int + Spell Level, the standard DC calculation, not 1.

[Shade]

mm yea scrolls were taken out.. But otherwise still a badass capstone.

[Ryiah]

Unless it's a typing fail by them.

You clearly missed the first batch of U11 release notes. The epic items alone were missing a good deal of details.

[Caseas]

Forget tooltips and patch notes, people. Try it in practice! :P

It's awesome.

[kalaxi]

It does render the original use i thought for it, scrolling buffs like spell resistance, nightshield, jump, prot from evil useless, disappointing.

[FuzzyDuck81]

Some scroll buffs yeah, but still its really not hard to find a 3/rest shield (presumably u wanted nightshield for the missle absorb not saves?) or jump clicky & then you'll be casting from that as a level 20... not too shabby at all I'm gonna have to restrain my multiclassing instincts for this one, the capstone is just too shiny.

[Malison]

It uses 10 + Int + Spell Level, the standard DC calculation, not 1.

/rant off
Thanks for the confirmation.

[apep1412]

It does render the original use i thought for it, scrolling buffs like spell resistance, nightshield, jump, prot from evil useless, disappointing.

It doesn't seem to work with scrolls anymore. The description was changed.

[Cordovan]

I've now corrected the Lamannia Release Notes. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

[rimble]

Good change, btw. Scrolls are too dangerously unlimited. Too bad it couldn't just be restricted to work on rarer/drop-only scrolls, but oh well.

[Xionanx]

Bah. They already removed the "Good" scrolls from the vendors YEARS ago when UMD Rogues and Bards were running around spamming firewalls.

Removing the ability for the capstone to work on scrolls is lame IMO and goes against the spirit of the class, as one of its main powers is scroll use.

[TreknaQudane]

Bah. They already removed the "Good" scrolls from the vendors YEARS ago when UMD Rogues and Bards were running around spamming firewalls.

Removing the ability for the capstone to work on scrolls is lame IMO and goes against the spirit of the class, as one of its main powers is scroll use.

Which they can still use. They did not receive the ability to use their CL for the Wands/Scrolls and Int for DC however.

Missing is the ability to use Metamagics on Wands and Scrolls :/

[gloopygloop]

mm yea scrolls were taken out.. But otherwise still a badass capstone.

Other than wands of Web, I really can't think of any offensive spells that are worth casting from a wand. What wands am I missing here?

Phantasmal Killer is a terrible spell unless your spell DCs are through the roof because of its two saves and no Artificer is going to have spell DCs through the roof because all they get is 10 + level + Int bonus. There's no Heighten. There's no spell focus/greater spell focus feats. There's no GSF item. There's no Archmage/Pale Master PrE bonus to DCs.

"Nuking" with clickies/wands is going to be even worse because you can't use any Metamagic and all of your offensive item based magic is going to share the same 6 second cooldown, so you won't even be able to machine gun non-metamagic'd spells the way that real casters can.

Artificer spell DCs are going to be mediocre at best and there just aren't many useful offensive items that I can even think of. What offensive wands/clickies am I missing here?

So that leaves us with party buffs. Yes, Artificers will be outstanding at buffing the party with a backpack full of wands and clickies. I'm not impressed.

[Dolphious]

all of your offensive item based magic is going to share the same 6 second cooldown, so you won't even be able to machine gun non-metamagic'd spells the way that real casters can.

Wow, I hadn't even been thinking about that, but yeah the universal timer for clickies is going to be a big damper on this ability in general. Even buffing could get painfully slow if you want to cast a lot of spells.

[Geonis]

So now we can splash rogue for evasion without missing the capstone, as it really isn't worth it anymore. The few scrolls actually in game were somewhat worth missing out on evasion. Now that they are CL+4 rather than CL20, meh.....

Not sure what was so overpowered about this, but, again, meh.

[patang01]

1 + Int + level? That's TERRIBLE!

Consider: Wand of Phantasmal Killer, because it's one of the obvious things to try this with.
Used by a Wizard: DC = base (10) + spell level (4) = 14.
Used by an Artificer: DC = base (1) + Int (#) + spell level (4) = 5+Int.

So, if you have less than 30 Int, this gives you nothing at all. If you have more, that's nice. But you'll never get it to the kind of DC that will work on, well, anything you'd want to fight as a level 20. And that's the level that matters, because, in case you forgot, this is a CAPSTONE.

For reference, max sustainable 44 Int (18 +5level +4tome +3enhancement +7item +3exceptional +1litany +1human +2yugo) means DC 22. Triple wizard past lives and triple wand heightening enhancements caps your DC at 31.

Please, put this back to 10+level+Int, just as though it was being cast without Heighten, Spell Focus, DC-enhancing items, or PrE DC boosts. It's already far enough behind spells cast by actual casters without an artificial -9.

EDIT: Release notes were in error, two dev posts below.

Sadness - No scrolls?

I guess I don't have to worry about another pointless capstone and add 2 levels of rogue for evasion instead.

Thanks but no thanks.

[patang01]

It does render the original use i thought for it, scrolling buffs like spell resistance, nightshield, jump, prot from evil useless, disappointing.

Yup - I wasn't going to use anything offensive anyways since offensive wands and scrolls are fairly useless regardless if they're level 20 compared.

I was considered going pure simply because the delightful use of 20 minute stoneskins, nightshields and such.

Now this capstone is as good as the rangers and just another reason to go multiclass.

Personally I can't think of any reason for anyone or the devs to go...mah gosh - scrolls just make this guy to powerful.

I tried banishment on my level 20 and it failed all the time. So as scrolls goes it was not very useful in that regards.