Skaab Crafter

This class is for an artificer who wishes to craft and upgrade undead minions, to make them stronger than they could be otherwise. As you level up you unlock various upgrades that you can attach to your minions, allowing you to specialize them to meet a type of play style, operate in a chosen area, or counter a threat. In addition, you also gain the ability to repair and improve not only your undead minions, but those of your allies, allowing the Skaab Crafter to act as the main minion master/creator in your party or in a supporting role for others

Tool Proficiency

When you adopt this specialization at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with Weaver’s Tools. If you already have this proficiency, you gain proficiency with one other type of artisan's tool s of your choice.

Skaab Crafter Spells

Starting at 3rd level, you always have certain spells prepared after you reach particular levels in this class, as shown in the Skaab Crafter Spells table. These spells count as artificer spells for you, but they don't count against the number of artificer spells you prepare.

3rd - Sleep, Inflict Wounds

5th - Enlarge/Reduce, Magic weapon

9th - Animate Dead, Vampiric Touch

13th - Dimension Door, Greater Invisibility

17th - Raise Dead, Cloudkill

Stitching Them Back Together

At 3rd level, you learn how to stitch a corpse back together in a one hour ritual, using string, wire, flesh, or other material to create a zombie or skeleton that is under your control similar to created using the Animate Dead spell (see monster manual for rules for zombies and skeletons).

This control must be reaffirmed after 24 hours, or else the magic holding it together will wear off and it will collapse unto an unusable pile of parts, preventing any caster from raising the corpse again. This unstable nature is added to all undead upgraded with this feature.

You can have a number of undead up to half your Artificer (rounding down) active at any one time. If you attempt to create more, the oldest one will expire as if your control over it expired. This increases at 9th level allowing you to add your intelligence modifier to the number of undead you can create, and again at 15th level, allowing you to create a number of undead with this feature equal to your artificer level + your intelligence modifier.

In addition, when you first use this feature using your artificer tools, you can add one of the available upgrades, assuming you have the necessary parts.

This feature can be used to add additional upgrades onto friendly undead, or remove/replace existing upgrades, with the number of upgrades available to the undead equaling your proficiency bonus. Alternatively, this feature can be used to reaffirm control of up to 4 undead under you control, regardless of the initial source of their creation.

You have one free use of this feature that you regain after a long rest and you can sacrifice one spell slot to gain more uses. If a spell slot is sacrificed, then you can only reaffirm the control of one undead under your control.

Upgrades Available

Two heads: Requires 3rd level - Stitch on an extra head to the corpse, adding +2 to its Intelligence and Wisdom and adding your proficiency bonus to all attack roles and perception checks.

Four arms: Requires 3rd level - Stitch on an extra pair of arms, adding +2 to its Strength and Dexterity. In addition, the creature gets an additional attack actions.

Built up body: Requires 3rd level - Graft additional flesh and bones onto the body of the undead, increasing its Constitution by +2 and increasing its armor class increases by +4 if not wearing any armor and +1 if it has armor.

Environmental Adaptation: Requires 3rd level - Graft on elements of native wildlife to increase the undead’s ability to move and operate in a specific environment, increasing its movement speed in said environment to 30 ft. or remove any restrictions/disadvantages when moving on the difficult terrain of that environment. At 5th level you can grant the undead a swimming speed equal to its movement speed. At 9th level you increase the undead's movement seed to 40 ft. or grant the undead a climbing speed equal to its movement speed. If you had previously increased the undead's movement speed, its upgrade will need to be replaced to increase the speed to the higher value. At 15th level you can granting the undead a flying speed equal to its movement speed. Additional uses of this upgrade can add additional environments, or can target different aspects of an environment.

Built in Weapon or Tool: Requires 5th level - Replace one arm with any tool/weapon, (two arms if the weapon/tool has the heavy feature). The undead has proficiency with it and can use it for its intended purpose, if able. If the item has the loading property, then it can be ignored, and if the item requires ammunition, but none is provided, then the undead will automatically create a piece of ammunition when it takes an action.

Dead Man's Switch: Requires 9th level - Implant a volatile concoction inside the body of the undead. When it is destroyed, the body explodes dealing 2d10 acid, lightning, fire, poison, or cold damage (you chose when adding this upgrade) to all creatures in a 10 ft. radius, or half that on a failed saving throw. Additional uses of this upgrade increases the damage by 1d10 and you can change the damage type at this time.

Study of Undeath

At 5th level, your knowledge and obsession with undeath grown, cutting the time you sleep in half during your long rest (the elven trance duration is unaffected by this), with the remainder half of the rest spent going over your creations.

During this time, you can enact small repairs on the undead you control and reassert your control over a number of all undead under your control, equal to half your artificer level (rounding down) + your Intelligence modifier and are within 60 ft of you. At 15th level, this number increases to your artificer level + your Intelligence modifier, and at 20th level, you can reassert control over all undead you have created that are within 60 ft.

Any undead you control that are affected by this feature regain all missing hit points, and those at max hit points gain bonus hit points equal to your proficiency bonus. In addition, those undead can add your proficiency bonus to all attack and damage roles until your next long rest.

You can also use this time to repair any friendly undead, restoring their hit points and granting bonus hit points equal to your proficiency level to those undead who are at full heath. These undead count as being under your control when calculating how many undead this feature can affect.

 

Refined Control

At 9th level you can place friendly undead stasis like trance unstill you reactivate them or a specific condition you set are met. During this time the undead are unmoving and can perform no actions, but do not require their owner to reassert their control over them, regardless of how they were created.

When they are reactivated, the timer until their owner needs to reassert control starts as if the undead were just raised. They will perform the actions directed by you when you used this feature on them and if no directions are set, they will take no actions.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your artificer level, and you regain the use of this feature after a long rest or by sacrificing a 3rd level or above spell slot.

Imbue Magic

At 15th level, you learn how to graft an artificer spell you know onto an undead. At the end of a short or long rest, you touch one undead under your control and grant it the ability to cast the spell at its base spell casting level for the number of times equal to your intelligence modifier, using your spell casting stats.

The spell stays with the undead until it has been used up or you use the feature again on another undead. In addition, all undead you control can use spell scrolls or magic items that are attuned to you as if it was you who were wielding them