Okay, so my DM wrote up an... interesting Prestige Class for Artificers, and he said I could post it. I was hoping I could get your all's thoughts and advice on this... very weeiiirrrd prestige class...thing.
My thoughts on it: It seems to mostly be intended to used for games where Experience is NOT a river, like, uh, the one he's running with an Artificer in it! And yes, I know it's kind of...weird, and the rules aren't cut and dried for what the artifact does. Uhm, by the way, it's made to be campaign setting neutral, to work for artificers in non eberron settings because most of the PrC's for artificers, sadly, focus on Eberron!
Here's the quote of the email he sent me:
"I was noticing there aren't really any PrC's for artificers. So I wrote one. It's not all that nice to take in some ways, but here it is.
Artifact Maker PrC
This is a 3-level class for someone gathering the power to make an artifact.
Prerequisites:
* Caster class, able to cast spells of your class's top level.
* One Knowledge 20 ranks.
Hit Dice: d4
Saves: all poor
Spells: You gain no spells for being an Artifact Maker.
Level 1 Artifact Maker: Great Expert: When you make a Knowledge roll, you may
roll (Artifact Maker Level + 1) d20's and take the best of them.
Level 1: Begin the Great Work: You start working on a major artifact. It'll
take a long time... Design it with the DM. It will need at least three
exotic components. These may be quite exotic indeed, like Pelor's toenail
clippings.
Level 1: Efficient Enchantment: Reduce gold, experience, and time costs of
performing enchantments by 25%. This goes up to 35% at second level, and 50%
at third level. This *does* stack with other reduction feats -- e.g., if you
have Extraordinary Artisan which reduces it by 25%, which is to say, it
reduces it *to* 75%, then your total costs are 75% of 75% = 56.25% at first
level, and 50% of 75% = 37.5% at third level.
Level 1: Fixed Path: You may not put levels in any class other than Artifact
Maker until you finish the Great Work or otherwise lose all your Artifact
Maker levels.
Level 1: Bonus Metamagic Feat If you lose the Artifact Maker class, you
retain this feat.
Level 2 Artifact Maker: Quest-Giver: You may commission a group of lower-level
characters to bring you components for your Great Work. You may geas/quest
them to do so -- even if you don't have that spell. As long as they are
working directly on that project, they are lucky: several times a day, they
may reroll a d20, though they must take the reroll. The number of times this
can be used by a quester per day is (Your total level minus the quester's
total level).
Level 2: Speedy Enchantment. You reduce the time required to perform
enchantments by 90%. This stacks with other enchantment speeding feats and
properties, including Efficient Enchantment.
Level 2: Bonus Metamagic Feat. If you lose the Artifact Maker class, you
retain this feat.
Level 3: Time To Finish It. When you have enough experience to reach level 3,
you must take level 3. You are also under a geas yourself, to finish the
artifact as soon as practicable.
Level 3: Complete the Great Work. You can only take this level if you have
all the materials for the artifact -- whatever those turned out to be.
* Lose all levels in Artifact Maker, and as many other levels as you want.
* Use all the experience that you lost towards the artifact that you are
making. Note that the Efficient Enchantment and Speedy Enchantment
properties apply to this experience.
* After it's over, you end up considerably lower level, but with one
artifact of your own design, two bonus metamagic feats, and some priceless
memories. Of course, your friends are all three levels or more ahead of
you."
