Silly idea but... Say my homonculus was built in the form that could be wielded as a dagger?
Could it also have returning infused on it? Something like, Two-Weapon fighting > Throw homunculus dagger, have it cast a touch spell on hit, return at end of turn?
I might be stretching this fairly thin... but it would be a funny idea to play with.
Silly idea but... Say my homonculus was built in the form that could be wielded as a dagger?
Could it also have returning infused on it? Something like, Two-Weapon fighting > Throw homunculus dagger, have it cast a touch spell on hit, return at end of turn?
I might be stretching this fairly thin... but it would be a funny idea to play with.
Ultimately it's up to the DM.
Rules As Written the Artificer determines the Homunculus's appearance so it could certainly look like a dagger, whether or not it could be wielded as a dagger would be a DM call.
However, it can't have the returning weapon infusion put on it for a few reasons.
The rules rather explicitly state: "no object can bear more than one of your infusions at a time."
Infusions can only be placed on a nonmagical object. Once an object bears an infusion it is a magic item, thus not eligible even if number 1 weren't the case.
The Homunculus is a creature, not an object, therefore not eligible. The item with the Homunculus infusion "serves as the creature's heart" but since it already bears an infusion (The Homunculus Servant) it is ineligible for reasons 1, and 2.
That said as the Homunculus has a flying speed, it doesn't need the returning infusion to be able to fly all the way back to you on its turn provided you are within 30 feet. If it takes the disengage action (commanded by your bonus action) it can even do so without provoking opportunity attacks. And it could use its reaction to deliver a touch spell you cast on your turn.
However, note the following:
All creatures can take an action and a bonus action on their turn and a reaction once per round.
Attacking takes an action.
Casting a spell can take an action, bonus action, or reaction (or longer) depending on the spell's casting time.
Commanding the Homunculus to use their action (in combat) to do something other than dodge takes your bonus action.
But the Homunculus can move and use its reaction for free (doesn't require your bonus action).
So in theory in order to do this with the homunculus your it would probably look like this:
Your Turn: Action: Make a ranged weapon attack (Throwing your Homunculus at an enemy). Bonus Action: Cast a touch spell through the Homunculus (using its reaction)
Your Homunculus's Turn (immediately after yours): Action: Dodge (the action it takes automatically) Movement: Fly up to it's speed (30 feet) back towards you.
...I'm starting to see why you'd want returning weapon on the Homunculus this way. The only two bonus action touch spells on the artificer list are magic weapon and magic stone. Neither of which directly do damage.
Note Multiclassing could net you a few a few additional ways to improve this:
2 levels of Fighter can get you Action Surge which lets you take a 2nd action on a turn (once per short rest). At 7 levels of Fighter (Eldritch Knight) gets War magic which lets you make a weapon attack as a bonus action after casting a cantrip.
6 levels of Wizard can get you the Bladesinger Wizard's Extra Attack which lets you replace attack twice with an attack action and you can replace one of those attacks with a cantrip.
3 levels of Sorcerers get metamagic and 3 sorcery points Quickened Spell (which costs 2 sorcery points), allows a sorcerer to cast a spell with a casting time of 1 action as a bonus action.
You can also get quickened spell through the Metamagic Adept feat but that only nets you 2 sorcery points letting you quicken a spell once per day.
If a Homonculus actually looked like a dagger, I think most enemies would be unlikely to attack it. So the action economy could look like: bonus action command homonculus to attack as thrown dagger, reaction + action hold touch spell (e.g. Shocking Grasp), homonculus attacks as thrown dagger, held touch spell triggers. You don’t get your homonculus dagger back, but it could attack again the following turn in the same way.
The one RAW issue is that the homonculus normally uses a ranged force attack. If you wanted to neuter that, I think it’s reasonable for a DM to give you a weaker attack type.
And I thought I'd come up with every use for a Homunculus. This is new to me and not a terrible idea IMHO. It's not like it makes the Homunculus immune to being attacked or anything...the stats for it would be the same. Damn...now I need to scheme more LOL!
I love how in depth this is. I did read that only one infusion per item. Although the infusion is technically the heart/gem not the body of the humonculous but(this of course would be up to the dm to slip this by or not)
But i do think that it might be interesting just to make it form into a weapon at will (throwing or not) would be fun to play with armorer. Feels like a power ranger scenario LoL. Thanks for the info @Unclevertitle!
Yeah, I feel like it could be fun. The question here is now if the body of the homonculus infused? or is it just the heart that has the infusion. Otherwise having return attached to the body _might_ be viable... however then it would lead to well would the heart return with the body.
So it would need some extension of the rules as is. As noted by Unclevertitle and action economy but... man... All i can imagine now is Power Rangers being put together and then their weapon flying in hahaha.
Might not be worth the returning but i think it will definitely be fun to flavor the flying transforming weapon/homonculus LoL! Being able to maybe make an attack roll to slash with it, then have it also do a touch spell as my bonus action would be pretty rad.
I love how in depth this is. I did read that only one infusion per item. Although the infusion is technically the heart/gem not the body of the humonculous but(this of course would be up to the dm to slip this by or not)
No, the infusion is the homoculus. That's why the infusion is called "homonculus". And if your homoculus looked like a dagger it probably wouldn't be able to move or do any of the other things that a homoculus normnally could do, at least not if I was DM-ing.
But i do think that it might be interesting just to make it form into a weapon at will (throwing or not) would be fun to play with armorer. Feels like a power ranger scenario LoL. Thanks for the info @Unclevertitle!
You could throw it but you wouldn't really be able to do the things you want to do, at least not without breaking the rules.
And if your homoculus looked like a dagger it probably wouldn't be able to move or do any of the other things that a homoculus normnally could do, at least not if I was DM-ing. I imagine as a Homonculus with a custom design, I would have it "look like a dagger" when it pulled in its limbs. Basically imagine a bird like bot and when it pulls in its wings and beak straight up, it would have narrow and sharp edges. It's legs would slide in to be a solid handle. More gundam/steampunk fantasy overall. I could probably provide a sketch if this doesn't make sense. I definitely don't feel like the Homonculus being able to fly/travel/be thrown is the issue that Iwould have. If i'm allowed to create guns, I would imagine advanced and intricate designs would be imagineable.
You could throw it but you wouldn't really be able to do the things you want to do, at least not without breaking the rules.
But that was also why I was basically asking the opinion here. I was hoping for an excuse to be able to put on returning weapon. I didn't have high hopes.
At this point, the other solution is to the Homonculus to be designed so that it could be thrown with the weapon. So maybe it could break down to be small enough to be attached around it. The weapon would hit, Homonculus would be in touch range. The weapon would return to me, Homonculus would then be free to disengage/travel.
@Unclevertitle! Question, would you know of any other item or enchantment that might return an object?
At this point, the other solution is to the Homonculus to be designed so that it could be thrown with the weapon. So maybe it could break down to be small enough to be attached around it. The weapon would hit, Homonculus would be in touch range. The weapon would return to me, Homonculus would then be free to disengage/travel.
And if your homoculus looked like a dagger it probably wouldn't be able to move or do any of the other things that a homoculus normnally could do, at least not if I was DM-ing. I imagine as a Homonculus with a custom design, I would have it "look like a dagger" when it pulled in its limbs. Basically imagine a bird like bot and when it pulls in its wings and beak straight up, it would have narrow and sharp edges. It's legs would slide in to be a solid handle. More gundam/steampunk fantasy overall. I could probably provide a sketch if this doesn't make sense. I definitely don't feel like the Homonculus being able to fly/travel/be thrown is the issue that Iwould have. If i'm allowed to create guns, I would imagine advanced and intricate designs would be imagineable.
Without breaking the rules? No. Also, such a device you're describing would be quite impractical and, in my opinion, a bit silly. The homoculus is a (more or less) living creature and throwing it around would just be weird. I get images of the Flintstones playing darts with birds or something.
You could throw it but you wouldn't really be able to do the things you want to do, at least not without breaking the rules.
But that was also why I was basically asking the opinion here. I was hoping for an excuse to be able to put on returning weapon. I didn't have high hopes.
At this point, the other solution is to the Homonculus to be designed so that it could be thrown with the weapon. So maybe it could break down to be small enough to be attached around it. The weapon would hit, Homonculus would be in touch range. The weapon would return to me, Homonculus would then be free to disengage/travel.
basically what you are saying is that you want to use a silly excuse to gain extra advantages. Why not just let the homoculus fly on its own and throw a dagger seperately? You'd achieve basically the same thing without all the shennanigans.
@Unclevertitle! Question, would you know of any other item or enchantment that might return an object?
At this point, the other solution is to the Homonculus to be designed so that it could be thrown with the weapon. So maybe it could break down to be small enough to be attached around it. The weapon would hit, Homonculus would be in touch range. The weapon would return to me, Homonculus would then be free to disengage/travel.
Having the Homunculus ride a thrown weapon is a nice idea. In which case you'd might be able to use a dagger with the returning infusion. Same action economy issues, but if your DM is cool with a minor exception, then go for it!
As for other weapons that return when thrown, off the top of my head there's the Dwarven Thrower but this page goes into more detail regarding some other items/options.
Yeah i am just curious how it would work for either transferring an enchantment or creating an enchantment like that. Something similar to Critical Role c1 chain of returning would be pretty radto mix into this effect. We will see if this ever becomes a thing.
Thanks agains o much. the metamagic is probably the best bet for all of this. Since this isn't exactly something i would be doing as a regular, just a fun attempt.
Does seem that "touch spells" are pretty limited overall... might have to see if that can be played with if i ever get to try it.
Your Turn: Action: Make a ranged weapon attack (Throwing your Homunculus at an enemy). Bonus Action: Cast a touch spell through the Homunculus (using its reaction)
All of your advice here is solid, but I wanted to pick up this remark because I don't believe this is how Channel Magic works; to cast a touch spell through your Homunculus as a bonus action would require you to have a bonus action touch spell, which limits you to Magic Stone and Magic Weapon (unless you get spells from other lists, but even then the choice is pretty limited in terms of what you might actually cast).
You use your bonus action to tell your Homunculus what action to take on its turn, but it's free to move and take its reaction as normal. To use Channel Magic you must cast the spell as normal, so this will probably mean casting as an action in most cases, Homunculus then uses Channel Magic to be the source, and then you can order it to do something else in its turn using your bonus action. So a combo for that might be Shocking Grasp through the Homunculus, then your bonus action to have it fly to an ally and use Help.
One thing I'm unclear on is how it interacts with spells that have a duration. For example, could you throw your Homunculus "dagger" into a floor you cannot yourself get to, then through it cast Glyph of Warding to leave a nasty trap? It's also unclear if the Homunculus needs to use its reaction for the duration or only in the final round, as many timed spells probably weren't written with the idea of casting through a magic servant in mind, heh, so they don't always specify that you must be doing something for the full duration. For example, with glyph of warding inscribing the glyph might only take a minute or two at most, but gathering the magical energy to bind into it is what actually takes the time. This would be up to your DM (I might not allow Glyph of Warding personally, but Tiny Servant and other possible shenanigans seem safe to allow).
Love the idea of a throwable "dagger" Homunculus though; I'd say Rules As Written it's probably not allowed (you only describe what it looks like, not what it actually is) but as a DM it's something I'd definitely allow because rule of cool almost always wins over rules as written for me.
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Your Turn: Action: Make a ranged weapon attack (Throwing your Homunculus at an enemy). Bonus Action: Cast a touch spell through the Homunculus (using its reaction)
All of your advice here is solid, but I wanted to pick up this remark because I don't believe this is how Channel Magic works; to cast a touch spell through your Homunculus as a bonus action would require you to have a bonus action touch spell, which limits you to Magic Stone and Magic Weapon (unless you get spells from other lists, but even then the choice is pretty limited in terms of what you might actually cast).
That's exactly what I meant though. Using a Bonus Action to cast a spell. Because the artificer's Action is already tied up in a weapon attack. And yeah, options for bonus action spells with range Touch are quite limited without feats or multiclassing for things like Quickened Spell or homebrew.
So basically, you want to create a Gladius from Devil May Cry 4?
I'd allow it.
--
The Gladius in DMC4 is a demon that flies but can take a blade form - it then tries to stab the player, then goes back into its flying form to reposition and repeat. In blade form it can be wielded like a sword.
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That is a bit sweeter then my original idea! LOL was thinking of having a hawk/dragon automaton that makes its feathers and parts into the (gladius) weapon as above. But you definitely get the gist! Rought example below.
Your Turn: Action: Make a ranged weapon attack (Throwing your Homunculus at an enemy). Bonus Action: Cast a touch spell through the Homunculus (using its reaction)
All of your advice here is solid, but I wanted to pick up this remark because I don't believe this is how Channel Magic works; to cast a touch spell through your Homunculus as a bonus action would require you to have a bonus action touch spell, which limits you to Magic Stone and Magic Weapon (unless you get spells from other lists, but even then the choice is pretty limited in terms of what you might actually cast).
That's exactly what I meant though. Using a Bonus Action to cast a spell. Because the artificer's Action is already tied up in a weapon attack. And yeah, options for bonus action spells with range Touch are quite limited without feats or multiclassing for things like Quickened Spell or homebrew.
I figured this one out! Seriously limited EXCEPT!
Replicate Item : Spellwrought Tattoo 1st level spell- Inflict Wounds, I would need the metamagic for the 2 sorcery points
Boom.... clearly only once a day but... thats a pretty big hitter for level 2...
Your Turn: Action: Make a ranged weapon attack (Throwing your Homunculus at an enemy). Bonus Action: Cast a touch spell through the Homunculus (using its reaction)
All of your advice here is solid, but I wanted to pick up this remark because I don't believe this is how Channel Magic works; to cast a touch spell through your Homunculus as a bonus action would require you to have a bonus action touch spell, which limits you to Magic Stone and Magic Weapon (unless you get spells from other lists, but even then the choice is pretty limited in terms of what you might actually cast).
That's exactly what I meant though. Using a Bonus Action to cast a spell. Because the artificer's Action is already tied up in a weapon attack. And yeah, options for bonus action spells with range Touch are quite limited without feats or multiclassing for things like Quickened Spell or homebrew.
I figured this one out! Seriously limited EXCEPT!
Replicate Item : Spellwrought Tattoo 1st level spell- Inflict Wounds, I would need the metamagic for the 2 sorcery points
Boom.... clearly only once a day but... thats a pretty big hitter for level 2...
This seems like one of those things that I, if I were DM, would allow just because it's a fun, silly little combo that doeesn't look too broken at first glance, but I'm sure there's some crazy combo you could pull off at some point that makes it ridiculous. I'd still probably allow it, though... you're using up two infusions for this concept right out of the gate, and it seems, to me at least, to be far less efficient than just having a normal homonculus and a separate blade, since that combo allows you to accomplish more or less the same thing, but also allows your homonculus to separate and avoid AOE spells or get into tactical positions without leaving you unarmed.
Replicate Item : Spellwrought Tattoo 1st level spell- Inflict Wounds, I would need the metamagic for the 2 sorcery points
Boom.... clearly only once a day but... thats a pretty big hitter for level 2...
LoL... What do you think? Would that work?
Sure that'll work, although what I would say is you don't really need metamagic for this; just use your action for the casting, Homunculus reaction to deliver it, and then use your bonus action to have the Homunculus attack again for some extra damage? While the Homunculus doesn't do a lot of damage compared to you using a cantrip, it's pretty close before 5th level and it does save on resources.
This saves you having to pick up an extra feat, or frees you up to take Magic Initiate (Cleric) or Shadow Touched instead to get Inflict Wounds in the first place (plus Shadow Touched allows you to (up)cast it using your own spell slots for additional uses). This will be better than a [magicitem]Spellwrought Tattoo[/spell] which will consume an infusion use to keep resetting it.
While those are both good feats to have regardless, you could also just use Shocking Grasp as your touch attack; not as strong early on but it saves on resources, and if it hits it also prevents the target from taking an attack of opportunity against your Homunculus when it moves away. While free Inflict Wounds can give you 3d10 necrotic + d4 + 2 force (Homunculus attack) for one turn per long rest (or a spell slot), Shocking Grasp can give you d8 lightning + d4 + 2 force every turn, or 2d8 + d4 + 2 from 5th level and so-on.
Of course you can do both; Shocking Grasp isn't a bad cantrip to have anyway (good for getting out of melee yourself), and it means you have a fallback once you've used Inflict Wounds, or when you don't want to burn a limited use or a spell slot for extra damage against a weaker enemy.
I know the idea is to try and get something you can do as part of throwing the "dagger" Homunculus, but you could always throw it, use the Homunculus attack as a bonus action, then deal the extra damaging stuff on the next turn? It's a result of my own personal experience, but I've learned to be wary of one time gimmicks as I have a nasty habit of either missing, or rolling 1's and 2's for damage when I do stuff like that. 😉
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Silly idea but... Say my homonculus was built in the form that could be wielded as a dagger?
Could it also have returning infused on it?
Something like, Two-Weapon fighting > Throw homunculus dagger, have it cast a touch spell on hit, return at end of turn?
I might be stretching this fairly thin... but it would be a funny idea to play with.
Ultimately it's up to the DM.
Rules As Written the Artificer determines the Homunculus's appearance so it could certainly look like a dagger, whether or not it could be wielded as a dagger would be a DM call.
However, it can't have the returning weapon infusion put on it for a few reasons.
That said as the Homunculus has a flying speed, it doesn't need the returning infusion to be able to fly all the way back to you on its turn provided you are within 30 feet. If it takes the disengage action (commanded by your bonus action) it can even do so without provoking opportunity attacks. And it could use its reaction to deliver a touch spell you cast on your turn.
However, note the following:
So in theory in order to do this with the homunculus your it would probably look like this:
Your Turn:
Action: Make a ranged weapon attack (Throwing your Homunculus at an enemy).
Bonus Action: Cast a touch spell through the Homunculus (using its reaction)
Your Homunculus's Turn (immediately after yours):
Action: Dodge (the action it takes automatically)
Movement: Fly up to it's speed (30 feet) back towards you.
...I'm starting to see why you'd want returning weapon on the Homunculus this way.
The only two bonus action touch spells on the artificer list are magic weapon and magic stone. Neither of which directly do damage.
Note Multiclassing could net you a few a few additional ways to improve this:
2 levels of Fighter can get you Action Surge which lets you take a 2nd action on a turn (once per short rest).
At 7 levels of Fighter (Eldritch Knight) gets War magic which lets you make a weapon attack as a bonus action after casting a cantrip.
6 levels of Wizard can get you the Bladesinger Wizard's Extra Attack which lets you replace attack twice with an attack action and you can replace one of those attacks with a cantrip.
3 levels of Sorcerers get metamagic and 3 sorcery points Quickened Spell (which costs 2 sorcery points), allows a sorcerer to cast a spell with a casting time of 1 action as a bonus action.
You can also get quickened spell through the Metamagic Adept feat but that only nets you 2 sorcery points letting you quicken a spell once per day.
If a Homonculus actually looked like a dagger, I think most enemies would be unlikely to attack it. So the action economy could look like: bonus action command homonculus to attack as thrown dagger, reaction + action hold touch spell (e.g. Shocking Grasp), homonculus attacks as thrown dagger, held touch spell triggers. You don’t get your homonculus dagger back, but it could attack again the following turn in the same way.
The one RAW issue is that the homonculus normally uses a ranged force attack. If you wanted to neuter that, I think it’s reasonable for a DM to give you a weaker attack type.
And I thought I'd come up with every use for a Homunculus. This is new to me and not a terrible idea IMHO. It's not like it makes the Homunculus immune to being attacked or anything...the stats for it would be the same. Damn...now I need to scheme more LOL!
I love how in depth this is.
I did read that only one infusion per item.
Although the infusion is technically the heart/gem not the body of the humonculous but(this of course would be up to the dm to slip this by or not)
But i do think that it might be interesting just to make it form into a weapon at will (throwing or not) would be fun to play with armorer. Feels like a power ranger scenario LoL.
Thanks for the info @Unclevertitle!
Yeah,
I feel like it could be fun.
The question here is now if the body of the homonculus infused? or is it just the heart that has the infusion.
Otherwise having return attached to the body _might_ be viable... however then it would lead to well would the heart return with the body.
So it would need some extension of the rules as is. As noted by Unclevertitle and action economy but... man... All i can imagine now is Power Rangers being put together and then their weapon flying in hahaha.
Might not be worth the returning but i think it will definitely be fun to flavor the flying transforming weapon/homonculus LoL! Being able to maybe make an attack roll to slash with it, then have it also do a touch spell as my bonus action would be pretty rad.
No, the infusion is the homoculus. That's why the infusion is called "homonculus". And if your homoculus looked like a dagger it probably wouldn't be able to move or do any of the other things that a homoculus normnally could do, at least not if I was DM-ing.
You could throw it but you wouldn't really be able to do the things you want to do, at least not without breaking the rules.
And if your homoculus looked like a dagger it probably wouldn't be able to move or do any of the other things that a homoculus normnally could do, at least not if I was DM-ing.
I imagine as a Homonculus with a custom design, I would have it "look like a dagger" when it pulled in its limbs.
Basically imagine a bird like bot and when it pulls in its wings and beak straight up, it would have narrow and sharp edges. It's legs would slide in to be a solid handle.
More gundam/steampunk fantasy overall. I could probably provide a sketch if this doesn't make sense. I definitely don't feel like the Homonculus being able to fly/travel/be thrown is the issue that Iwould have. If i'm allowed to create guns, I would imagine advanced and intricate designs would be imagineable.
You could throw it but you wouldn't really be able to do the things you want to do, at least not without breaking the rules.
But that was also why I was basically asking the opinion here. I was hoping for an excuse to be able to put on returning weapon. I didn't have high hopes.
At this point, the other solution is to the Homonculus to be designed so that it could be thrown with the weapon. So maybe it could break down to be small enough to be attached around it. The weapon would hit, Homonculus would be in touch range. The weapon would return to me, Homonculus would then be free to disengage/travel.
@Unclevertitle! Question, would you know of any other item or enchantment that might return an object?
At this point, the other solution is to the Homonculus to be designed so that it could be thrown with the weapon. So maybe it could break down to be small enough to be attached around it. The weapon would hit, Homonculus would be in touch range. The weapon would return to me, Homonculus would then be free to disengage/travel.
Without breaking the rules? No. Also, such a device you're describing would be quite impractical and, in my opinion, a bit silly. The homoculus is a (more or less) living creature and throwing it around would just be weird. I get images of the Flintstones playing darts with birds or something.
basically what you are saying is that you want to use a silly excuse to gain extra advantages. Why not just let the homoculus fly on its own and throw a dagger seperately? You'd achieve basically the same thing without all the shennanigans.
Having the Homunculus ride a thrown weapon is a nice idea. In which case you'd might be able to use a dagger with the returning infusion. Same action economy issues, but if your DM is cool with a minor exception, then go for it!
As for other weapons that return when thrown, off the top of my head there's the Dwarven Thrower but this page goes into more detail regarding some other items/options.
Yeah i am just curious how it would work for either transferring an enchantment or creating an enchantment like that.
Something similar to Critical Role c1 chain of returning would be pretty radto mix into this effect. We will see if this ever becomes a thing.
Thanks agains o much. the metamagic is probably the best bet for all of this. Since this isn't exactly something i would be doing as a regular, just a fun attempt.
Does seem that "touch spells" are pretty limited overall... might have to see if that can be played with if i ever get to try it.
All of your advice here is solid, but I wanted to pick up this remark because I don't believe this is how Channel Magic works; to cast a touch spell through your Homunculus as a bonus action would require you to have a bonus action touch spell, which limits you to Magic Stone and Magic Weapon (unless you get spells from other lists, but even then the choice is pretty limited in terms of what you might actually cast).
You use your bonus action to tell your Homunculus what action to take on its turn, but it's free to move and take its reaction as normal. To use Channel Magic you must cast the spell as normal, so this will probably mean casting as an action in most cases, Homunculus then uses Channel Magic to be the source, and then you can order it to do something else in its turn using your bonus action. So a combo for that might be Shocking Grasp through the Homunculus, then your bonus action to have it fly to an ally and use Help.
One thing I'm unclear on is how it interacts with spells that have a duration. For example, could you throw your Homunculus "dagger" into a floor you cannot yourself get to, then through it cast Glyph of Warding to leave a nasty trap? It's also unclear if the Homunculus needs to use its reaction for the duration or only in the final round, as many timed spells probably weren't written with the idea of casting through a magic servant in mind, heh, so they don't always specify that you must be doing something for the full duration. For example, with glyph of warding inscribing the glyph might only take a minute or two at most, but gathering the magical energy to bind into it is what actually takes the time. This would be up to your DM (I might not allow Glyph of Warding personally, but Tiny Servant and other possible shenanigans seem safe to allow).
Love the idea of a throwable "dagger" Homunculus though; I'd say Rules As Written it's probably not allowed (you only describe what it looks like, not what it actually is) but as a DM it's something I'd definitely allow because rule of cool almost always wins over rules as written for me.
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That's exactly what I meant though. Using a Bonus Action to cast a spell. Because the artificer's Action is already tied up in a weapon attack. And yeah, options for bonus action spells with range Touch are quite limited without feats or multiclassing for things like Quickened Spell or homebrew.
So basically, you want to create a Gladius from Devil May Cry 4?
I'd allow it.
--
The Gladius in DMC4 is a demon that flies but can take a blade form - it then tries to stab the player, then goes back into its flying form to reposition and repeat. In blade form it can be wielded like a sword.
Flying:
Blade:
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That is a bit sweeter then my original idea! LOL was thinking of having a hawk/dragon automaton that makes its feathers and parts into the (gladius) weapon as above. But you definitely get the gist! Rought example below.
Homonculus
I figured this one out!
Seriously limited EXCEPT!
Replicate Item : Spellwrought Tattoo 1st level spell- Inflict Wounds, I would need the metamagic for the 2 sorcery points
Boom.... clearly only once a day but... thats a pretty big hitter for level 2...
LoL... What do you think? Would that work?
That would work.
This seems like one of those things that I, if I were DM, would allow just because it's a fun, silly little combo that doeesn't look too broken at first glance, but I'm sure there's some crazy combo you could pull off at some point that makes it ridiculous. I'd still probably allow it, though... you're using up two infusions for this concept right out of the gate, and it seems, to me at least, to be far less efficient than just having a normal homonculus and a separate blade, since that combo allows you to accomplish more or less the same thing, but also allows your homonculus to separate and avoid AOE spells or get into tactical positions without leaving you unarmed.
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Sure that'll work, although what I would say is you don't really need metamagic for this; just use your action for the casting, Homunculus reaction to deliver it, and then use your bonus action to have the Homunculus attack again for some extra damage? While the Homunculus doesn't do a lot of damage compared to you using a cantrip, it's pretty close before 5th level and it does save on resources.
This saves you having to pick up an extra feat, or frees you up to take Magic Initiate (Cleric) or Shadow Touched instead to get Inflict Wounds in the first place (plus Shadow Touched allows you to (up)cast it using your own spell slots for additional uses). This will be better than a [magicitem]Spellwrought Tattoo[/spell] which will consume an infusion use to keep resetting it.
While those are both good feats to have regardless, you could also just use Shocking Grasp as your touch attack; not as strong early on but it saves on resources, and if it hits it also prevents the target from taking an attack of opportunity against your Homunculus when it moves away. While free Inflict Wounds can give you 3d10 necrotic + d4 + 2 force (Homunculus attack) for one turn per long rest (or a spell slot), Shocking Grasp can give you d8 lightning + d4 + 2 force every turn, or 2d8 + d4 + 2 from 5th level and so-on.
Of course you can do both; Shocking Grasp isn't a bad cantrip to have anyway (good for getting out of melee yourself), and it means you have a fallback once you've used Inflict Wounds, or when you don't want to burn a limited use or a spell slot for extra damage against a weaker enemy.
I know the idea is to try and get something you can do as part of throwing the "dagger" Homunculus, but you could always throw it, use the Homunculus attack as a bonus action, then deal the extra damaging stuff on the next turn? It's a result of my own personal experience, but I've learned to be wary of one time gimmicks as I have a nasty habit of either missing, or rolling 1's and 2's for damage when I do stuff like that. 😉
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