Artificer

Version 0.29: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Artificers have built, bought or burgled an assortment of magic wands to help them through the early Dungeon. Wands have a limited number of uses, though, so they'll want to upgrade from their club ASAP.

An Artificer is an Evocations specialist. Wands are their tool of choice, and they bring a few with them to the Dungeon.

Preferred Species

Meteoran, Kobold, Spriggan, Draconian, and Demonspawn are the recommended species if you pick an Artificer Background.

Starting Equipment

Some species may receive different items based on their unique restrictions.

• +0 club
• +0 leather armour
• Wand of charming (15 charges)
• Wand of flame (15 charges)
• Wand of iceblast (5 charges)

Artificer wands will always remain the same, even if they wouldn't spawn in the Dungeon (in place of another wand).

Starting Skills and Stats

These are adjusted by your species' aptitudes.

• Fighting: 1
• Dodging: 1
• Armour: 2
• Stealth: 1
• Evocations: 3

Choosing Artificer adds 4 to your starting Strength, 3 to your starting Intelligence, and 5 to your starting Dexterity.

Strategy

Artificer is a versatile background. It is important to both be liberal with your wand charges and save them where possible. You should use your weapon to kill easy enemies and use wands against tough opponents.

Your charming wand is useful for dealing with groups (such as orc bands or swarms of killer bees) early on. Your flame wand is useful for reliably (albeit slowly) killing enemies from range, particularly if they're standing in or near water, but 15 charges won't last long. Iceblast is an incredibly strong wand simply for the fact that it never misses.

Artificers can choose many paths to pursue through the game; pretty much whatever path you choose, your evocations will be a useful supplement to your main skills.

Demonspawn in particular may like Artificer, as wands can carry you until at least 2 or 3 mutations have developed, allowing you to choose a build that suits your mutations.

History

• In 0.29, Artificers received 5 charges of iceblast, losing their piece from Xom's chessboard (which was moved to Chaos Knight).
• Prior to 0.27, Artificers began with a wand of random effects (15 charges) instead of a piece from Xom's chessboard.
• Prior to 0.26, Artificers began with a short sword instead of a club, and started with Short Blades skill instead of Armour skill.
• Prior to 0.14, Artificers began with scrolls of recharging identified.
• Prior to 0.10, Artificers could start off the game with a +0 leather armour, a bread ration, and either a rod of Striking (8 charges) or their choice of a wand from Magic Darts, Frost, Flame, Confusion, or Enslavement (15 charges each). If they chose a wand, they also started with a wand of random effects (15 charges). If they chose a non-damaging device (wand of enslavement or wand of confusion), they started with a +0,+0 dagger.