The Alchemist Love Bomb

I had fun discussing this brutally effective tactic for a few days with the other "Protectors of the Realms" as well as others. The Alchemist Love Bomb is a questionable combat maneuver at best that takes ample preparation and planning to pull off but it is as brutally effective as the amount of effort required is.

Step One: For an Alchemist a Philter of Love takes 2.5 Long Rests or Days to complete. The 5.5e PHB makes it explicitly clear the Long Rest counts as these days for crafting. If you do not already have these other items: Handcuffs, Chain, and Rope use at least three Tinkerings to make them at the end of the third Long Rest; you may also expedite the process by having party members devote their Long Rest to help you or have a hired NPC help. With three people it takes one Long Rest to accomplish the crafting phase.

Step Two: Once you enter combat get the strongest member of the party or quaff a Potion of Giant Strength (craft one during prep if required) and tackle the Enemy Caster, don't attempt this on a fighter it is tricky. Possible but tricky. After tackling the enemy Caster enter Grapple and Restrain them by placing them in Handcuffs. Attach the chain and either cuff their ankles if you have an extra pair then chain the two sets of Handcuffs together so that they are hogtied or suspend them from the ceiling somehow using the chain. This makes the Handcuffs inescapable.

Step Three: Force feed the Philter of Love to the Enemy Caster and gag them using the rope as a gag. This prevents them from spitting out the Philter of Love.

Step Four: Pinch their nose and wait. There is no Save DC against the Philter of Love Charm effect. The Enemy Caster can refuse to drink it but with the gag they cannot spit it out. That gives them at most their Constitution Mod of minutes before they begin to suffocate then at max 10 rounds afterwards until they die from suffocating.

I brute forced the charm condition on the female BBEG who was a Warlock using this tactic and it is all RAW. The DM was a bit upset until he realized how much prep went into hacking his encounter with Alchemy. Casting Charm is quicker and doesn't take all the effort but it has a DC. There is no way out of the Alchemist Love Bomb!

Quote from heydanseegil >>

The 5.5e PHB makes it explicitly clear the Long Rest counts as these days for crafting. 

Does it? The rules for crafting magic items are in the Dungeon Master's Guide, not the PHB, and they don't say anything about Long Rests counting toward crafting time.

Quote from wagnarokkr >>

Quote from heydanseegil >>

The 5.5e PHB makes it explicitly clear the Long Rest counts as these days for crafting. 

Does it? The rules for crafting magic items are in the Dungeon Master's Guide, not the PHB, and they don't say anything about Long Rests counting toward crafting time.

My mistake it is in Xanathar's and the example used is Alchemist Supplies, "As part of a long rest, you can use alchemist’s supplies to make..." yadda yadda.

However, it is implied in a few ways despite being outright said. First a failed Complication says you'd lose the benefits of the Long Rest so every time you craft you have the chance and losing the Long Rest for everyone not just you. The Rules Glossary also says Light Activity is allowed such as writing which writing a letter using Calligraphy Supplies is a craft. Tanning leather doesn't take a lot of effort once it is stretched, salted, and in the sun. It is literally just waiting. Same with brewing and potions. Cooking is part of a long rest and there is crafting with cooking tools.

Just plain wrong. It is not yadda yadda ... Xanathars lists the items you can make in a long rest. It is not an open ended free for all yadda yadda session.

As part of a long rest, you can use alchemist’s supplies to make one dose of acid, alchemist’s fire, antitoxin, oil, perfume, or soap.

Crafting a magic item in Xanathars works in scales of work weeks, Philtre of Love is uncommon so it talkes 1 work week. Which is 8 hrs labour per day and not to be confused with sleeping. Others may assist so 5x alchemists could do 1 days work each to finish it in a day.

BUT crafting an items requires a one off bit of research to create the "recipe" for it (more weeks), then an uncommon item has a CR4-8 encounter associated with it to get the uncommon component required in the crafting.

So you're prob looking at 3 weeks min, research, component, crafting.

A far cry from yadda yadda ...

Quote from heydanseegil >>

Quote from wagnarokkr >>

Quote from heydanseegil >>

The 5.5e PHB makes it explicitly clear the Long Rest counts as these days for crafting. 

Does it? The rules for crafting magic items are in the Dungeon Master's Guide, not the PHB, and they don't say anything about Long Rests counting toward crafting time.

My mistake it is in Xanathar's and the example used is Alchemist Supplies, "As part of a long rest, you can use alchemist’s supplies to make..." yadda yadda.

The rules you're quoting are for crafting a very specific list of non-magical items and do not apply to crafting anything outside of that list.

Ugh, I had this long reply but we are all wrong and I need to update my crafting times. It does say at the top of the chapter of Downtime Examples, "Using the rules below, characters can make nonmagical items, Potions of Healing, and Spell Scrolls.", which points to the Alchemist Supplies rule on Long Rest within the item details that also can make additional non-wonderous items in addition to the examples; and in the crafting rules it does say the time spent does not need to be consecutive meaning I could pinch out a component to add to the brew and then sleep then pick it back up later. The sections of crafting in other books are hyperlinked in the digital release back to this rule too and the alluded to it in the interviews hyping 5.5e (https://youtu.be/nj4bfDBLwoA?is=744xpO5QMdcJabL3), in the Bastions chapter, and elsewhere.

However something none of us realized that Downtime Activities all require 5 days of non-adventuring which includes doing things like buying anything and transcribing scrolls into a spell book including the additional ones you get when you level up as a Wizard because they still have to be added to the spellbound.

With this in mind it is actually shorter than any of us thought because potion crafting is already halved so a workweek or 5 days becomes 2.5 days then Tools of the Trade reduces it further to 1.25 days or 10 hours. If you want to slow the entire game down that is fine. You knew what sort of speed we were going to play at when you accepted either a Wizard or Artificer into the party as a party member or DM but the intent was to streamline things for 5.5e not slow games down.