"Fight with a friend at your back, steel in your hands, and magic in your veins." -- Quirion Explorer
Selling Points: Why you would want to play an Artificer
Healing Infusions – Your “basic heal” power is very versatile, you can grant THP, Resistances, just Healing, and more; and the best part is that it doesn’t cost the target a Healing Surge (controllers will love you for this) though it does cost someone (anyone) a surge to recharge it, the first 2 uses are free.
You can make anyone look awesome – It doesn’t matter if they’re a defender, controller, or striker, you can make them better at it. While other leaders need allies with good MBAs or Multi-attacks, all you need is allies. You can also cover other roles or convert someone into a different role.
Great Damage Prevention – On top of your heal being able to grant THP, you also do whenever an ally uses a Daily Magic Item Power, and with many of your powers. Several other powers grant Resistances, Defensive bonuses, or punish the enemy for attacking.
This Handbook will use the following system for ratings:
Red: Garbage, or completely overshadowed by another option.
Purple: Fairly ‘Meh’ or Situational/Build Specific.
Black: OK. You could do worse than pick this.
Blue: Good stuff. You probably want this.
Sky Blue: You want this, it’s either essential to your build, or just that good.
Gold: Why haven't you taken this yet? A defining choice for a build, or even the whole class.
Because Artificers don't have a class feature that defines their secondary, nor riders based on a feature, nearly all things are given two ratings, one for Wis builds, one for Con builds (ex. Burning Weapons is worthless if you don't have a good Con)
This Handbook covers the following sources:
AP - Arcane Power
AV - Adventurer's Vault
AV 2 - Adventurer's Vault 2
BoVD - Book of Vile Darkness
DXXX - Dragon Magazine, issue XXX
DMA 2009 - Dragon Magazine Annual 2009
DSCS - Dark Sun Campaign Setting
EPG - Eberron Player's Guide
DP - Divine Power
DSH - Dungeon Survival Handbook
FRPG - Forgotten Realms Player's Guide
HoS - Heroes of Shadow
HotEC - Heroes of the Elemental Chaos
HotFK - Heroes of the Forgotten Kingdoms
HotFL - Heroes of the Fallen Lands
HotFW - Heroes of the Feywild
MM - Monster Manual
MM 2 - Monster Manual 2
MOTP - Manual of the Planes
MP - Martial Power
MP 2 - Martial Power 2
NWCS - Neverwinter Campaign Setting
PHB - Player's Handbook
PHB 2 - Player's Handbook 2
PHB 3 - Player's Handbook 3
PHH 1 - Player's Handbook Heroes: Series 1
PHH 2 - Player's Handbook Heroes: Series 2
PHR: DB - Player's Handbook Races: Dragonborn
PHR: TF - Player's Handbook Races: Tieflings
PrP - Primal Power
PsP - Psionic Power
Glossary
AP - Action point.
BBEG - Big bad evil guy.
Burst/Nova/Spike Damage - Generally understood to mean the highest
amount of damage a character can inflict in the space of a single round.
Usually, calculations for this allow 1 round of setup before the actual
damage.
CA - Combat advantage.
CC - Combat Challenge.
DPR -
Damage per round, which is generally meant to mean the character's
expected damage value using At-Will powers against a standard enemy of
the same level (eloquently described by Adslahnit as the Official CharOp
Inanimate Block of TofuTM).
DT – Difficult Terrain.
ED - Epic destiny.
HP - Hit points.
LX - Level X.
MAD - Multiple attribute dependency, which is defined as needing 3 or more ability scores for a given build.
MBA - Melee basic attack.
MC - Multiclass or multiclassing.
NAD - Non-AC defense.
OA - Opportunity attack.
PP - Paragon path.
RBA - Ranged basic attack.
SAD - Single attribute dependency, which is defined as a build that really only needs 1 ability score.
THP - Temporary hit points.
Special Thanks to Lordduskblade for the format and everyone in the IRC for criticism and encouragement (aka. Putting up with me)