Posting here, as I wasnt getting much feedback in the Homebrew and Houserules section. I have really enjoyed the Netflix Castlevania series and have found the Forgemasters (Issac and Hector) to be very interesting characters, especially in the way they construct armies of fiends and undead. Unlike a conventional necromancer, their creation of these creatures seems more tied to the use of tools and careful magical crafting. For this reason, I felt inspired to write a necromancy-esque Artificer subclass drawing inspiration from the series. To compare to a necromancer, the overall size of an army they can create in a short period of time is functionally smaller but more robust by making use of both Animate Dead and some of the new summoning spells from TCoE.
Forgemaster
Forgermaster artificers are craftsmen who work in raising creatures from the dead and constructing hellish servants. Given the nature of their work, these artificers are usually drawn into the service of Liches, Vampire Lords, and other powerful necromancers who can provide them the materials they need for their work
Forgemaster Spells
Starting at 3rd level, you always have certain spells prepared after you reach certain levels in this class. These spells count as Artificer spells for you but do not count against your number of spells (or cantrips) known.
Artificer Level
Spells
3rd
Inflict Wounds, Hellish Rebuke
5th
Prayer of Healing, Summon Beast**
9th
Mass Healing Word, Summon Undead**
14th
Blight, Shadow of Moil*
17th
Negative Energy Flood*, Raise Dead
*Spell found in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything
**Spell found in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything
Tools of the Grave
When you choose this specialization at 3rd level, you are able to empower an object with necrotic energy for forging the souls of the forgotten. When you finish a long rest, you can select either a set of tools which you are proficient in or one item bearing one of your infusions to empower this way, with the object gaining the following properties:
You can cast the Chill Touch cantrip while holding this object.
When you cast a spell which deals necrotic damage while holding this object, you can treat values of 1 rolled on the damage dice as 2 instead.
If the object is a weapon, once per turn when you hit a creature with an attack using your tool of the grave you can deal additional 1d8 necrotic damage to the target as part of the attack. You can deal this additional damage a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all uses following a short or long rest.
You can only have one object acting as your tools of the grave at a time. When you empower a new object as part of a long rest, the previous object immediately loses the benefits of this feature.
Crafted Summoning Starting at 5th level, while holding your Tools of the Grave, you can cast Animate Dead at its base level. You can cast it this way a number of times equal to half your proficiency bonus (rounded down), regaining all uses on a long rest. You can also cast the spell by expending a spell slot of the appropriate level when you have them available to you.
Additionally, while within 30 feet of a body which has been dead for no more than 24 hours and while holding your Tools of the Grave, you can use the body as an additional component as part of casting an Artificer spell which has the effect of summoning a creature. The creature summoned this way is treated as an undead or fiend (your choice) in place of the type listed in its stat block. The summoned creature gains temporary hit points equal to three times your Intelligence modifier when created using this feature.
Life unto Death
Starting at 9th level, when you deal necrotic damage to one or more creatures you can use your reaction to create a pool of 2d6 temporary hit points which can be divided between yourself and any undead or fiends in your service. If the damage reduces a creature to 0 hit points, using this reaction instead creates a pool of 4d6 temporary hit points.
Additionally, when you use a spell or other effect which restores hit points you can ignore any part of the spell or effect which prevents it from targeting undead.
Army of Darkness
At 15th level, after using your Crafted Summoning feature you can choose to bind the summoned creature permanently to your current plane of existence under your service. When you do so, the spell’s duration for that creature is extended to last until it is killed or you are killed and does not require concentration. Once you bind a creature this way, you cannot do so again for 24 hours. You can have a maximum number of creatures bound this way equal to your Intelligence modifier. Binding a creature after exceeding this maximum results in the earliest creature bound immediately being killed.
Any undead or fiends under your service due to your Artificer spells can be commanded using your bonus action on your turn, and you can give different commands to each creature.
I like the idea, but Crafted Summoning feels a bit too open ended. I get that it makes it much more flexible, but it also gets a bit unwieldy. I think it would work best if you created a Homebrew creature that gets summoned instead which can be customized. Something similar to Undead Spirit or Fiendish Spirit. That or simplify it a bit more to just something like... "Once per day, you can use a body that has died within the last 24 hours as the material component for your spells. The body can be used to replace any component up to 500GP in value".
I dunno, I don't particularly like either of my suggestions... I feel like there's a more elegant solution somewhere, but I like the general idea, but I think it needs some tweaking.
I wasnt getting much feedback in the Homebrew and Houserules section
I ran into the same issue, unfortunately.
I do have some feedback though, but first I would like to ask a clarifying question: what role do you want this to fill? I am getting the impression that it is ranged caster/minion dps, but I could be wrong.
I like the idea, but Crafted Summoning feels a bit too open ended. I get that it makes it much more flexible, but it also gets a bit unwieldy. I think it would work best if you created a Homebrew creature that gets summoned instead which can be customized. Something similar to Undead Spirit or Fiendish Spirit. That or simplify it a bit more to just something like... "Once per day, you can use a body that has died within the last 24 hours as the material component for your spells. The body can be used to replace any component up to 500GP in value".
I dunno, I don't particularly like either of my suggestions... I feel like there's a more elegant solution somewhere, but I like the general idea, but I think it needs some tweaking.
I appreciate this feedback.
One of the main goals for this is to have an Artificer that summons a bunch of undead and fiends. I also wanted it to make use of several of the summoning spells from Tasha's, but being a half caster kind of limits which ones. So, I decided crafted summoning would work to allow the artificer to take spells like Summon Beast or Summon Construct and be able to make them mesh into the army of undead idea along with spells like Animate Dead and Summon Undead. So, the only mechanical benefit is that it grants temp HP. The rest is kinda a ribbon so that the flavor is coherent.
So, maybe the beast they summon is more like a "hell hound" in flavor. It has the stats of a beast but is a fiend
Maybe the forgemaster uses Animate Dead to make a bunch of skeletons and then uses Summon Construct (repurposed to an undead) to make a sort of Skeleton Lord.
Then, at the end of the day, they could have a full set of supporting creatures of the night, but they dont all have the same stat block, there is some variety to the members in what abilities they can use but they all fit the same flavor.
I am sure it could use some improvement, but I hope this helps to clarify what my original intent was
I wasnt getting much feedback in the Homebrew and Houserules section
I ran into the same issue, unfortunately.
I do have some feedback though, but first I would like to ask a clarifying question: what role do you want this to fill? I am getting the impression that it is ranged caster/minion dps, but I could be wrong.
I dunno about role for sure, most of my inspiration was trying to fit the theme of what I saw in the show. I guess I see them as being a variation on your traditional necromancer. Summons Undead servants to do their bidding. With the Forgemaster, the goal is to make them someone who can heal their summons (per the Life Unto Death feature) and use the summoning spells to supplement Animate Dead. Being a half caster, an Artificer couldnt normally match the size of an undead army a Necromancer Wizard could produce, but I am hoping that their servants could be more "robust" by comparison.
I wasnt getting much feedback in the Homebrew and Houserules section
I ran into the same issue, unfortunately.
I do have some feedback though, but first I would like to ask a clarifying question: what role do you want this to fill? I am getting the impression that it is ranged caster/minion dps, but I could be wrong.
I dunno about role for sure, most of my inspiration was trying to fit the theme of what I saw in the show. I guess I see them as being a variation on your traditional necromancer. Summons Undead servants to do their bidding. With the Forgemaster, the goal is to make them someone who can heal their summons (per the Life Unto Death feature) and use the summoning spells to supplement Animate Dead. Being a half caster, an Artificer couldnt normally match the size of an undead army a Necromancer Wizard could produce, but I am hoping that their servants could be more "robust" by comparison.
I see. I have some ideas that may help in that regard, and, of course, you are free to do as you please with them. And I would like to add that my opinion is biased in the direction of what I, personally, would like to see.
Let's start with the spell list.
I would move Chill Touch, Animate Dead, and Summon Undead to be part of the baseline feature set rather than the spell list. A bit more on that later.
Next, I would recommend addressing the surplus of high level spells/ selection. Choices are never a bad thing, but I think it would be better to stick to the precedent of two spells per level. And I mention selection because the spells chosen would prevent it from being "published" to the community and I would really like to use this personally. Though there may be a work around for this.
Tools of the grave:
As much as I like the ritual aspect, Artificers do not get that many rituals and I would argue the ones they do have are not thematic enough to warrant a feature like this.
I would alter the other two by effectively rolling them into one by "you can add your Int Mod to spells that deal necrotic damage". The 1d4 is rather weak when coupled with the usage cap, and it also increases the overall average better than the 1s as 2s.
Keeping in line with the theme presented, I would propose the addition of Mending as an additional baseline cantrip (alongside Chill Touch) with the addition that it can heal undead you create (not just any undead) for 2d6 like the instances with constructs. Being more dependent on minions that are on the squishy side to start out, I would rather use a cantrip over a spell slot.
Crafted Summoning:
Here is where I would place Animate Dead and Summon Undead as baseline, with a usage cap of PB or spell slots of an appropriate level. It applies established rules, adds scaling, and maintains theme. For being a core feature, and lacking the spell slots of a Wizard, I feel like this is a solid compromise while still being a little bonkers after 9th level. The health scaling portion I feel is fine since it will be offset by numbers later on.
Life unto Death:
Only thing here is that I think it would be fine with a 30ft range, with the healing part of the feature being replaced with Mending mentioned earlier.
Army of Darkness:
Cap off the permanent minions to PB to prevent cases of "it has been a month in-game and now I have ~# of minions!"
I wasnt getting much feedback in the Homebrew and Houserules section
I ran into the same issue, unfortunately.
I do have some feedback though, but first I would like to ask a clarifying question: what role do you want this to fill? I am getting the impression that it is ranged caster/minion dps, but I could be wrong.
I dunno about role for sure, most of my inspiration was trying to fit the theme of what I saw in the show. I guess I see them as being a variation on your traditional necromancer. Summons Undead servants to do their bidding. With the Forgemaster, the goal is to make them someone who can heal their summons (per the Life Unto Death feature) and use the summoning spells to supplement Animate Dead. Being a half caster, an Artificer couldnt normally match the size of an undead army a Necromancer Wizard could produce, but I am hoping that their servants could be more "robust" by comparison.
I see. I have some ideas that may help in that regard, and, of course, you are free to do as you please with them. And I would like to add that my opinion is biased in the direction of what I, personally, would like to see.
Let's start with the spell list.
I would move Chill Touch, Animate Dead, and Summon Undead to be part of the baseline feature set rather than the spell list. A bit more on that later.
Next, I would recommend addressing the surplus of high level spells/ selection. Choices are never a bad thing, but I think it would be better to stick to the precedent of two spells per level. And I mention selection because the spells chosen would prevent it from being "published" to the community and I would really like to use this personally. Though there may be a work around for this.
Tools of the grave:
As much as I like the ritual aspect, Artificers do not get that many rituals and I would argue the ones they do have are not thematic enough to warrant a feature like this.
I would alter the other two by effectively rolling them into one by "you can add your Int Mod to spells that deal necrotic damage". The 1d4 is rather weak when coupled with the usage cap, and it also increases the overall average better than the 1s as 2s.
Keeping in line with the theme presented, I would propose the addition of Mending as an additional baseline cantrip (alongside Chill Touch) with the addition that it can heal undead you create (not just any undead) for 2d6 like the instances with constructs. Being more dependent on minions that are on the squishy side to start out, I would rather use a cantrip over a spell slot.
Crafted Summoning:
Here is where I would place Animate Dead and Summon Undead as baseline, with a usage cap of PB or spell slots of an appropriate level. It applies established rules, adds scaling, and maintains theme. For being a core feature, and lacking the spell slots of a Wizard, I feel like this is a solid compromise while still being a little bonkers after 9th level. The health scaling portion I feel is fine since it will be offset by numbers later on.
Life unto Death:
Only thing here is that I think it would be fine with a 30ft range, with the healing part of the feature being replaced with Mending mentioned earlier.
Army of Darkness:
Cap off the permanent minions to PB to prevent cases of "it has been a month in-game and now I have ~# of minions!"
I appreciate all of these ideas. I may keep several things the same, but I do like many of your suggestions and will try to implement them
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Here is where I would place Animate Dead and Summon Undead as baseline, with a usage cap of PB or spell slots of an appropriate level. It applies established rules, adds scaling, and maintains theme. For being a core feature, and lacking the spell slots of a Wizard, I feel like this is a solid compromise while still being a little bonkers after 9th level. The health scaling portion I feel is fine since it will be offset by numbers later on.
I like the idea of giving them PB "free" castings of the spells, but the issue here is that Animate Dead and Summon Undead are 3rd level spells and Artificers get Crafted Summoning at 5th level, before they have 3rd level spell slots.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews!Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Here is where I would place Animate Dead and Summon Undead as baseline, with a usage cap of PB or spell slots of an appropriate level. It applies established rules, adds scaling, and maintains theme. For being a core feature, and lacking the spell slots of a Wizard, I feel like this is a solid compromise while still being a little bonkers after 9th level. The health scaling portion I feel is fine since it will be offset by numbers later on.
I like the idea of giving them PB "free" castings of the spells, but the issue here is that Animate Dead and Summon Undead are 3rd level spells and Artificers get Crafted Summoning at 5th level, before they have 3rd level spell slots.
Actually, that's kind of what I like about this suggestion. Part of the problem with Artificers as a summoner class is that their spell level progression is too slow to get all the thematically appropriate summoning or conjuring spells until much later. So I think it'd be good to cherry pick the most thematically appropriate spells and give this subclass the option of accessing them before they necessarily have the spell slots for it, but under stricter conditions.
Here is where I would place Animate Dead and Summon Undead as baseline, with a usage cap of PB or spell slots of an appropriate level. It applies established rules, adds scaling, and maintains theme. For being a core feature, and lacking the spell slots of a Wizard, I feel like this is a solid compromise while still being a little bonkers after 9th level. The health scaling portion I feel is fine since it will be offset by numbers later on.
I like the idea of giving them PB "free" castings of the spells, but the issue here is that Animate Dead and Summon Undead are 3rd level spells and Artificers get Crafted Summoning at 5th level, before they have 3rd level spell slots.
Actually, that's kind of what I like about this suggestion. Part of the problem with Artificers as a summoner class is that their spell level progression is too slow to get all the thematically appropriate summoning or conjuring spells until much later. So I think it'd be good to cherry pick the most thematically appropriate spells and give this subclass the option of accessing them before they necessarily have the spell slots for it, but under stricter conditions.
That could be fun. I think I might keep Summon Undead as one of the spells they get at 9th level, but give them access to Animate Dead as part of the Crafted Summoning feature
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Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews!Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Here is where I would place Animate Dead and Summon Undead as baseline, with a usage cap of PB or spell slots of an appropriate level. It applies established rules, adds scaling, and maintains theme. For being a core feature, and lacking the spell slots of a Wizard, I feel like this is a solid compromise while still being a little bonkers after 9th level. The health scaling portion I feel is fine since it will be offset by numbers later on.
I like the idea of giving them PB "free" castings of the spells, but the issue here is that Animate Dead and Summon Undead are 3rd level spells and Artificers get Crafted Summoning at 5th level, before they have 3rd level spell slots.
Actually, that's kind of what I like about this suggestion. Part of the problem with Artificers as a summoner class is that their spell level progression is too slow to get all the thematically appropriate summoning or conjuring spells until much later. So I think it'd be good to cherry pick the most thematically appropriate spells and give this subclass the option of accessing them before they necessarily have the spell slots for it, but under stricter conditions.
This was exactly the idea. reinforces the core theme while not having to completely homebrew a new creature and feature to go with it.
I have updated the Forgemaster based on some of the comments received. Some things I kept mostly the same but tried to change in small ways to address their weaknesses
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Posting here, as I wasnt getting much feedback in the Homebrew and Houserules section. I have really enjoyed the Netflix Castlevania series and have found the Forgemasters (Issac and Hector) to be very interesting characters, especially in the way they construct armies of fiends and undead. Unlike a conventional necromancer, their creation of these creatures seems more tied to the use of tools and careful magical crafting. For this reason, I felt inspired to write a necromancy-esque Artificer subclass drawing inspiration from the series. To compare to a necromancer, the overall size of an army they can create in a short period of time is functionally smaller but more robust by making use of both Animate Dead and some of the new summoning spells from TCoE.
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
I like the idea, but Crafted Summoning feels a bit too open ended. I get that it makes it much more flexible, but it also gets a bit unwieldy. I think it would work best if you created a Homebrew creature that gets summoned instead which can be customized. Something similar to Undead Spirit or Fiendish Spirit. That or simplify it a bit more to just something like... "Once per day, you can use a body that has died within the last 24 hours as the material component for your spells. The body can be used to replace any component up to 500GP in value".
I dunno, I don't particularly like either of my suggestions... I feel like there's a more elegant solution somewhere, but I like the general idea, but I think it needs some tweaking.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
I ran into the same issue, unfortunately.
I do have some feedback though, but first I would like to ask a clarifying question: what role do you want this to fill? I am getting the impression that it is ranged caster/minion dps, but I could be wrong.
I appreciate this feedback.
One of the main goals for this is to have an Artificer that summons a bunch of undead and fiends. I also wanted it to make use of several of the summoning spells from Tasha's, but being a half caster kind of limits which ones. So, I decided crafted summoning would work to allow the artificer to take spells like Summon Beast or Summon Construct and be able to make them mesh into the army of undead idea along with spells like Animate Dead and Summon Undead. So, the only mechanical benefit is that it grants temp HP. The rest is kinda a ribbon so that the flavor is coherent.
So, maybe the beast they summon is more like a "hell hound" in flavor. It has the stats of a beast but is a fiend
Maybe the forgemaster uses Animate Dead to make a bunch of skeletons and then uses Summon Construct (repurposed to an undead) to make a sort of Skeleton Lord.
Then, at the end of the day, they could have a full set of supporting creatures of the night, but they dont all have the same stat block, there is some variety to the members in what abilities they can use but they all fit the same flavor.
I am sure it could use some improvement, but I hope this helps to clarify what my original intent was
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
I dunno about role for sure, most of my inspiration was trying to fit the theme of what I saw in the show. I guess I see them as being a variation on your traditional necromancer. Summons Undead servants to do their bidding. With the Forgemaster, the goal is to make them someone who can heal their summons (per the Life Unto Death feature) and use the summoning spells to supplement Animate Dead. Being a half caster, an Artificer couldnt normally match the size of an undead army a Necromancer Wizard could produce, but I am hoping that their servants could be more "robust" by comparison.
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
I see. I have some ideas that may help in that regard, and, of course, you are free to do as you please with them. And I would like to add that my opinion is biased in the direction of what I, personally, would like to see.
Let's start with the spell list.
I would move Chill Touch, Animate Dead, and Summon Undead to be part of the baseline feature set rather than the spell list. A bit more on that later.
Next, I would recommend addressing the surplus of high level spells/ selection. Choices are never a bad thing, but I think it would be better to stick to the precedent of two spells per level. And I mention selection because the spells chosen would prevent it from being "published" to the community and I would really like to use this personally. Though there may be a work around for this.
Tools of the grave:
As much as I like the ritual aspect, Artificers do not get that many rituals and I would argue the ones they do have are not thematic enough to warrant a feature like this.
I would alter the other two by effectively rolling them into one by "you can add your Int Mod to spells that deal necrotic damage". The 1d4 is rather weak when coupled with the usage cap, and it also increases the overall average better than the 1s as 2s.
Keeping in line with the theme presented, I would propose the addition of Mending as an additional baseline cantrip (alongside Chill Touch) with the addition that it can heal undead you create (not just any undead) for 2d6 like the instances with constructs. Being more dependent on minions that are on the squishy side to start out, I would rather use a cantrip over a spell slot.
Crafted Summoning:
Here is where I would place Animate Dead and Summon Undead as baseline, with a usage cap of PB or spell slots of an appropriate level. It applies established rules, adds scaling, and maintains theme. For being a core feature, and lacking the spell slots of a Wizard, I feel like this is a solid compromise while still being a little bonkers after 9th level. The health scaling portion I feel is fine since it will be offset by numbers later on.
Life unto Death:
Only thing here is that I think it would be fine with a 30ft range, with the healing part of the feature being replaced with Mending mentioned earlier.
Army of Darkness:
Cap off the permanent minions to PB to prevent cases of "it has been a month in-game and now I have ~# of minions!"
I appreciate all of these ideas. I may keep several things the same, but I do like many of your suggestions and will try to implement them
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
I like the idea of giving them PB "free" castings of the spells, but the issue here is that Animate Dead and Summon Undead are 3rd level spells and Artificers get Crafted Summoning at 5th level, before they have 3rd level spell slots.
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Actually, that's kind of what I like about this suggestion. Part of the problem with Artificers as a summoner class is that their spell level progression is too slow to get all the thematically appropriate summoning or conjuring spells until much later. So I think it'd be good to cherry pick the most thematically appropriate spells and give this subclass the option of accessing them before they necessarily have the spell slots for it, but under stricter conditions.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
That could be fun. I think I might keep Summon Undead as one of the spells they get at 9th level, but give them access to Animate Dead as part of the Crafted Summoning feature
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
This was exactly the idea. reinforces the core theme while not having to completely homebrew a new creature and feature to go with it.
I have updated the Forgemaster based on some of the comments received. Some things I kept mostly the same but tried to change in small ways to address their weaknesses
Three-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!