if experimental elixir was more powerful, thematically i would be fine with it, but it is almost entirely useless and their 5th level feature does not help enough to get them back on track.
I have now read the update, and while I am annoyed that they dropped the homunculous rather than improve it, Experimental elixer is a bit weak as well. given the weak abilities they provide, and the fact that they don't scale, you should start being able to produce a number equal to your int modifier. Otherwise I can get on board. Bunsen, you seem kind of aggressive. relax, we all love the game. Clearly the Alchemist path doesn't appeal to you, and that is fine. but some of us just had higher hopes for the class.
I'm personally not concerned either way with the alchemist, but something I noticed....Have we seen the stat block for the homunculus yet? Alchemist doesn't seem to have anything to use a bonus action on (certain spells obviously), how do we know the homunculus is just another familiar?
Artillery has baked in abilities to eat bonus actions to dissuade use of the homunculus infusion, and making it an infusion gives some freedom of choice for those that don't like "pets." Honestly, I'm one of em, my Cannon will always be in tiny handheld mode.
I want the alchemist to be good, but not forced into fighting alongside a pet that fights for them. This is genuinely horrible at lower levels. I do not know what you think I am saying?
Nobody's seen the stat block for the new homunculus. That said, logically it cannot be the alchemical homunculus anymore because it needs to be something that works for every artificer subclass, now and moving into the future. They are required to strip the alchemical booster abilities out of it, especially since those are now the weak-ass Experimental Elixir ability, and they cannot allow it to retain its long-distance acid strike because that's a chemical-master thing, not a Generic Tool Guy thing.
The homunculus will most likely be a generic flying Tiny critter with a handful of extra HP compared to a familiar and a basic melee attack similar to those given every random critter the Familiar spell can summon. It's essentially Mage Hand with a personality, because it's not allowed to be anything else.
I mean yeah, remove the abilities, but I do not feel it will just be a familiar. Considering it requires a bonus action to use, they might design it to work with the bonus action drainless alchemist. Or we could make the blind assumption that it will be a simple familiar, despite the fact that invocations designed for specific builds exist for the warlock, and this is a 6th level feature.
As mentioned though, artillerist and battlesmith are held together by their bonus action abilities. I can't see the homunculus being a viable replacement for the Cannon or Defender. But for the Alchemist who has no innate bonus action, I'm not seeing a problem.
You'd prefer an alchemist who hides in the back, cowering in fear and doing nothing at all while their allies fight in their stead, waiting to hand out healing potions to whoever's hurt at the end of a fight?
They still have medium armor and shield proficiency along with Infusions to improve either/both. And they have access to close combat friendly cantrips that benefit from their bonus spell damage class feature.
And while they are more support oriented than the other two subclasses, they have nothing that requires them to wait until combat is over before they can use the buff and healing spells mid-fight.
Well, sure. Homunculus infusion wont be as good as steel defender, but it might be a decent damage shield (that requires alchemist supplies to heal) and be able to attack (as a bonus action) dealing damage slightly less than that.
Do they? Which close combat-friendly cantrips are you speaking of?
What I'm seeing is that they're limited to Acid SPlash or Poison Spray, both of which are somewhat infamous for being horrifically bad as combat tools. Acid Splash has some out-of-combat utility as a ready source of acid, though most (canny) DMs will limit what you can do (or rather, how fast you can do it) with Acid Splash.
Poison Spray is pretty much just a flat waste of time, anything you could conceivably want to hit with it will be rolling with +37 to its Constitution save because every goddamned critter in the Monster Manual gets godawful monstrously high bonuses to its DEX/WIS/CON saves more or less for existing, and half the Monster Manual is immune to poison damage anyways.
They don't have access to any Necrotic damage at all. None. I'm not even sure why Necrotic was added to their damage list, it's heckin' weird.
The armor proficiencies are still there, yeah, but the Alchemist especially has pretty much flat zero combat presence. Its entire job in a fight is to sit back, hate its life, and cast whatever buff spells its limited halfcaster spell slots allow it to. The artificer class as a whole was predicated on being a half-caster, with enough martial proficiency to get by and the rest of its slack being taken up by its Companion Critter (or Doohickus, in the case of Artillerists or Archivists). The Alchemist lost its Companion Critter and its martial abilities, and thus has virtually no ability to exert pressure or presence on the battlefield. It is less martially capable than the cleric, which is a full caster.
I dunno about you, but adding one's INT modifier to Poison Spray does not sound to me like a solution for losing the entirety of your martial combat capability AND your battle-buddy steampunk mechanical familiar.
We'd have to see what the finalized spell list is, but for reference this is the document I've seen detailing what the official Artificer will (probably) look like:
Fire gets the +int bonus to damage. Alchemist does presumably get Firebolt. I'm not suggesting that all is well with Alchy, but it does have access to more than being up in melee and acid spraying.
Hm. the summaries/discussions I'd seen surrounding that archive omitted the Fire damage type. All right. That opens up Firebolt, as well as MI:Wizard to get Green Flame Blade. Not fantastic options given the surfeit of fire resistance in the MM as well, but low-end-of-competent at least. Don't love the thought of being forced to use precious, extremely limited cantrip slots on damage-y cantrips instead of relying on magical armaments, but that choice has been stripped from me so oh well.
Totally agree with that. It goes back to my earlier complaint of the lack of Wand Prototype, and being able to store the damaging cantrip(s) in the wand, and have other cantrips memorized.
At least they aren't forced to spend it on mending, which has even less worth normally. Still, I feel that artificer will be getting its own cantrip that makes the alch level 5 worth it. At least, I hope so.
Are you kidding? Mending is one of the best utility cantrips in D&D. The fact that it can heal artificer constructs is icing on the cake. That cantrip can damn near work miracles if you're creative enough, and have enough time to spare for it.
Oh, true. firebolt isnt a terrible cantrip to need to know tho (if you are gonna need to know a cantrip to deal damage, it should probably be firebolt if it can)
I feel like we have two different schools of thought here trying to fix the same problem: Bunsen is direct, very combat oriented and numbers heavy. I get that. where as Yurei is on the more creative end, trying to find out-side-the-box ways to solve issues. and I kind of like that. I think the homunculous gave more options that people gave it credit for, fit better than most people realized. The elixer right now could be good, but it is so limited in what it can do. and, yeah, artificers get nothing to do with our bonus action.
I just realized, Flaming Sphere was added to the Alchemist's spells. Action to cast, bonus action to use while concentrating...is that what Alchemists are meant to use for their bonus action now?
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if experimental elixir was more powerful, thematically i would be fine with it, but it is almost entirely useless and their 5th level feature does not help enough to get them back on track.
I have now read the update, and while I am annoyed that they dropped the homunculous rather than improve it, Experimental elixer is a bit weak as well. given the weak abilities they provide, and the fact that they don't scale, you should start being able to produce a number equal to your int modifier. Otherwise I can get on board. Bunsen, you seem kind of aggressive. relax, we all love the game. Clearly the Alchemist path doesn't appeal to you, and that is fine. but some of us just had higher hopes for the class.
I'm personally not concerned either way with the alchemist, but something I noticed....Have we seen the stat block for the homunculus yet? Alchemist doesn't seem to have anything to use a bonus action on (certain spells obviously), how do we know the homunculus is just another familiar?
Artillery has baked in abilities to eat bonus actions to dissuade use of the homunculus infusion, and making it an infusion gives some freedom of choice for those that don't like "pets." Honestly, I'm one of em, my Cannon will always be in tiny handheld mode.
I want the alchemist to be good, but not forced into fighting alongside a pet that fights for them. This is genuinely horrible at lower levels. I do not know what you think I am saying?
Nobody's seen the stat block for the new homunculus. That said, logically it cannot be the alchemical homunculus anymore because it needs to be something that works for every artificer subclass, now and moving into the future. They are required to strip the alchemical booster abilities out of it, especially since those are now the weak-ass Experimental Elixir ability, and they cannot allow it to retain its long-distance acid strike because that's a chemical-master thing, not a Generic Tool Guy thing.
The homunculus will most likely be a generic flying Tiny critter with a handful of extra HP compared to a familiar and a basic melee attack similar to those given every random critter the Familiar spell can summon. It's essentially Mage Hand with a personality, because it's not allowed to be anything else.
Please do not contact or message me.
I mean yeah, remove the abilities, but I do not feel it will just be a familiar. Considering it requires a bonus action to use, they might design it to work with the bonus action drainless alchemist. Or we could make the blind assumption that it will be a simple familiar, despite the fact that invocations designed for specific builds exist for the warlock, and this is a 6th level feature.
As mentioned though, artillerist and battlesmith are held together by their bonus action abilities. I can't see the homunculus being a viable replacement for the Cannon or Defender. But for the Alchemist who has no innate bonus action, I'm not seeing a problem.
They still have medium armor and shield proficiency along with Infusions to improve either/both. And they have access to close combat friendly cantrips that benefit from their bonus spell damage class feature.
And while they are more support oriented than the other two subclasses, they have nothing that requires them to wait until combat is over before they can use the buff and healing spells mid-fight.
Well, sure. Homunculus infusion wont be as good as steel defender, but it might be a decent damage shield (that requires alchemist supplies to heal) and be able to attack (as a bonus action) dealing damage slightly less than that.
Do they? Which close combat-friendly cantrips are you speaking of?
What I'm seeing is that they're limited to Acid SPlash or Poison Spray, both of which are somewhat infamous for being horrifically bad as combat tools. Acid Splash has some out-of-combat utility as a ready source of acid, though most (canny) DMs will limit what you can do (or rather, how fast you can do it) with Acid Splash.
Poison Spray is pretty much just a flat waste of time, anything you could conceivably want to hit with it will be rolling with +37 to its Constitution save because every goddamned critter in the Monster Manual gets godawful monstrously high bonuses to its DEX/WIS/CON saves more or less for existing, and half the Monster Manual is immune to poison damage anyways.
They don't have access to any Necrotic damage at all. None. I'm not even sure why Necrotic was added to their damage list, it's heckin' weird.
The armor proficiencies are still there, yeah, but the Alchemist especially has pretty much flat zero combat presence. Its entire job in a fight is to sit back, hate its life, and cast whatever buff spells its limited halfcaster spell slots allow it to. The artificer class as a whole was predicated on being a half-caster, with enough martial proficiency to get by and the rest of its slack being taken up by its Companion Critter (or Doohickus, in the case of Artillerists or Archivists). The Alchemist lost its Companion Critter and its martial abilities, and thus has virtually no ability to exert pressure or presence on the battlefield. It is less martially capable than the cleric, which is a full caster.
I dunno about you, but adding one's INT modifier to Poison Spray does not sound to me like a solution for losing the entirety of your martial combat capability AND your battle-buddy steampunk mechanical familiar.
Please do not contact or message me.
We'd have to see what the finalized spell list is, but for reference this is the document I've seen detailing what the official Artificer will (probably) look like:
https://imgur.com/a/rs8Bu7M
Fire gets the +int bonus to damage. Alchemist does presumably get Firebolt. I'm not suggesting that all is well with Alchy, but it does have access to more than being up in melee and acid spraying.
Hm. the summaries/discussions I'd seen surrounding that archive omitted the Fire damage type. All right. That opens up Firebolt, as well as MI:Wizard to get Green Flame Blade. Not fantastic options given the surfeit of fire resistance in the MM as well, but low-end-of-competent at least. Don't love the thought of being forced to use precious, extremely limited cantrip slots on damage-y cantrips instead of relying on magical armaments, but that choice has been stripped from me so oh well.
Please do not contact or message me.
Totally agree with that. It goes back to my earlier complaint of the lack of Wand Prototype, and being able to store the damaging cantrip(s) in the wand, and have other cantrips memorized.
At least they aren't forced to spend it on mending, which has even less worth normally. Still, I feel that artificer will be getting its own cantrip that makes the alch level 5 worth it. At least, I hope so.
Are you kidding? Mending is one of the best utility cantrips in D&D. The fact that it can heal artificer constructs is icing on the cake. That cantrip can damn near work miracles if you're creative enough, and have enough time to spare for it.
Please do not contact or message me.
Heh, my artificer is in a Forgotten Realms setting. My DM threw out the idea of him somehow being planeshifted from Eberron and trying to get home.
"Can I have a Dragonmark then?"
"Sure"
"Woot! Mark of Making, free Mending cantrip!"
Oh, true. firebolt isnt a terrible cantrip to need to know tho (if you are gonna need to know a cantrip to deal damage, it should probably be firebolt if it can)
I feel like we have two different schools of thought here trying to fix the same problem: Bunsen is direct, very combat oriented and numbers heavy. I get that. where as Yurei is on the more creative end, trying to find out-side-the-box ways to solve issues. and I kind of like that. I think the homunculous gave more options that people gave it credit for, fit better than most people realized. The elixer right now could be good, but it is so limited in what it can do. and, yeah, artificers get nothing to do with our bonus action.
I just realized, Flaming Sphere was added to the Alchemist's spells. Action to cast, bonus action to use while concentrating...is that what Alchemists are meant to use for their bonus action now?