2nd Level: Infusions. You start with four known instead of three, armblades can be one of them if you're a warforged/know a warforged, and there's apparently also a 'Prosthetic Limb' infusion. No deets on that, but color the Fullmetal Alchemist fan in me intrigued.
3rd Level: 'Right Tool for the Job' - spend an hour to magically create a set of tools, which can be done during a rest. Seems to be per the earlier Gamehole Con preview, you can just make a set of tools you don't happen to have. Whoo? Also your subclass and associated subclass features, as per the Gamehole Con preview.
4th Level: ASI
5th Level: Subclass Feature. Battlesmith gets Extra Attack - not "Arcane Assault', just straight-up Extra Attack - Artillerist gets to inscribe a wand, staff, or rod with an arcane sigil and turn it into an 'Arcane Firearm', making in an artificer casting focus and adding 1d8 to one damage roll of a spell cast through it. Artificers get to add their INT modifier to an acid, poison, necrotic, or healing roll for any spell they cast. As expected, no real benefit to either of the caster-y guys that remotely competes with Arcane Armament. So...huzzah.
6th Level: Tool Expertise. Late, but at least they didn't nix it completely. You're still down a toolkit from your subclass you'll have to make up somewhere, but at least artificers can still eventually aspire to be good at making shit.
7th Level: Brand new feature called "Flash of Genius'. As a reaction, add your INT modifier to any ability check or saving throw you or a creature within thirty feet of you makes. You get INT modifier number of uses per long rest, to keep artificers from just adding their INT bonus to every ability check they make ever outside of combat. That's...honestly kind of cool. I can't help but picture an artificer yelling "NO DUMBASS, TRY...!" when they're watching someone do something dumb. Combined with Guidance spam and/or Bardic Inspiration, and you can start getting some seriously juiced ability checks. Not awful, especially when you're desperately trying to make a key save or hit a critical check.
8th Level: ASI
9th Level: Subclass Feature. -Alchemists: Anyone that drinks one of your Shitty Elixir Things gets 2d6+INT temp HP, which is oddly significant, and you can cast lesser Restoration INT modifier number of times per long rest for free, as per the UA doc. -Artillerists add 1d8 to their cannon rolls (so 3d8 per cannon activation) and they can detonate the cannon to deal 3d8 force, or Dex save for half, in 20 feet -Battlesmiths get Arcane Jolt for 2d6 force or healing, INT mod number of times.
10th Level: You gain a fourth attunement slot. HUZZAH, THEY BROUGHT IT BACK! Also you can create LITERALLY ANY common or uncommon magical item in a quarter of the time at half the cost. That's...pretty huge. Yeah, it takes a gorram while to get to and honestly I'm not sure if getting everything at 10th is better than your specialty at 3rd, but frankly the only people who were likely to use magic item crafting at 3rd were Alchemists, anyways. At 10th, you may actually have the scratch to do cool shit with this. Gotta say, not displeased with this decision.
11th Level: Spell-Storing Item moved down here. You can do either a first or second-level artificer spell that costs one action to cast (no Shield, sorry bros). They can cast it INTx2 number of times, or until you use it again. Significantly, the spells do NOT go away when you Long Rest. Dunno if that's important, but it's there. The spell's cast using your spell mod, so whatever your INT modifier is, and SSI also doesn't say it dies when you do. So, if you could stick a third-level spell in it, you could hand your party a Stick of Revivify Welcome Back, Friend and have them revive you with your own spell. But it's cut off at 2nd level so you don't get to do that. Still probably going to be the most powerful way an Alchemist or Artillerist gets to fight, since their cantrip damage is dickballs and they don't get weapon combat anymore.
12th Level: ASI
13th Level: Fourth-level spells, no special boost.
14th Level: A fifth attunement slot, and you can ignore race/class/spell/level requirements when attuning. Just, like, **** all'a it. Staff of Power? Yoink'd. Holy Avenger? Yoink'd. Rod of the Pact Keeper? Dunno why you'd want it, but yoink'd. Anything you bloody well feel like attuning to, you can attune to it. I don't see that being particularly juicy, but it's a nice feature that makes a lot of sense for the Masters of Magical Items to get, and the fifth attunement slot is a doozy.
15th Level: Subclass feature -Alchemists: Resistance to poison and acid damage, immunity to the Poisoned condition (and thus the increasing number of critters with nasty 'While poisoned this way...' riders). Gain one cast per long rest of both Greater Restoration AND Heal, no components required for either. Heal's a big one, that's 70HP just sitting there in your back pocket for when you need it, and Greater Resto is the Penicillin of D&D - you can never have too much of it. -Artllerists: half-cover to anything within ten feet of your arcane cannon (including the handheld version), and you can double your cannons. You can create both with the same action, though it takes a spell slot for each one past the first per rest as normal, and trigger each one with the same bonus action. So 6d8 bonus damage per turn on the Artillerist at 15th. Oof. -Battlesmith: Arcane Jolt goes to 4d6 force damage/healing. The Steel Defender gets +2 to its AC (at 15th? Whoo?), and when it uses its Defensive Pounce it deals 1d4 plus your INT modifier.
16th Level: ASI
17th Level: fifth-level Artificer spells, no special bonus
18th Level: You gain your sixth attunement slot. *All the magic swag*.
19th Level: ASI
20th Level: You gain +1 to saving throws per magic item you're attuned to, and if you go to 0 HP, you can choose to use your reaction to end an infusion on one of your currently infused items. If you do, you bounce back to 1HP instead.
Other: New/more infusions, though the information isn't clear where they come in. Reddit seems to think you learn 12 total throughout 2 to 20, with six infusions active at a time. There's talk of an 'Arcane Propulsion Arm', which is labeled "cool rocket fist attack". If so, I have a new goal in life. Magic at the standard half-caster levels, the Known Spells List for each subclass got adjusted (Shield on Artillerist and Fattlesmith, Healing Word on Alchemist, so forth).
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So the saves on a max-level Artificer are nutballs. +6 to everything plus that Flash of Genius thing means you can add +11 to any given save on top of what you normally roll for that save once per turn at max level, which makes for a slippery little squirrel indeed.
It's awesome to see Improved Attunement diffused back throughout the artificer again instead of clumped up into a capstone ninety-nine percent of players will never see.
Alchemist got hardcore turbo nerfed q_q. Absolutely nothing in that subclass makes up for the loss of the homunculus, especially since it's now the only artificer subclass with no use whatsoever for its bonus action (don't talk to me about Healing Word spam, that's not a legit always-ready BA use and you know it). Sucks especially hard since the class lost access to Arcane Assault and can no longer fight with weapons, either. Alchemist has basically zero damage output and its spell slots are too scant for it to spend every turn making weak-ass elixirs it then needs to spend ANOTHER action feeding to people. The class could tolerate losing Arcane Assault or its homunculus, not both. No, the fact that the homunculus is now a weak, useless infusion good for nothing but fluff does not help.
Artillerists, on the other hand, get to carry their dumb turrets around now and double up on them, on top of getting extra scaling. Those mother****ers can vomit a somewhat terrifying amount of ordinance late-game - two 3d8 cannons on a bonus action, plus their mildly augmented main action cantrip. More the ORA ORA method of Artillerizing than the KABOOM method, but hell - if it works, it works.
SSI is at 11 now, so people who liked it can huzzah, I suppose. It's about the only way an Alchemist is going to contribute in a heavy combat, buncha Melf's Acid Arrow spam and hope for the best. Otherwise it's the 5e version, a shitload of one spell rather than a wide variety of single-use nonsense like the 2017 UA/original, but nothing says the item can't be passed around if you want to store a buff spell for everyone to concentrate on before combat. Enlarge/Reduce, Invisibility, and Spider Climb are all there; the artificer could Swolify her entire party immediately before a fight, get everybody past a checkpoint with an Invis-O-Stick, or turn her party into a bunch of ceiling sniping ******** if you're one of those players who believes that 'Support' means "I give my resources to my allies and expect them to haul my ass around while I watch", the way some folks seem to mean.
Overall? Not as powerful as the 2019 UA, but not a complete disaster unless you enjoyed the 2019 Alchemist. Attunement Master and SSI are less obnoxious, a few extra infusions, and the ability to demi-BI a critical save or check. They did lose all possible weapon combat outside of the Battlesmith though, they lost a tool and their critical Tool Expertise got pushed back hard, and holy shit on a stick do those Alchemist nerfs burn like acid.
Actually, acid splash at that level would be better than melfs acid arrow (assuming the two creatures are next to each other). There is also Vit sphere, ray of sickness, heat metal, blight, cloudkill, mass healing word (average of 13 hp around as a bonus action is nice) and a few others that are good (melfs acid arrow is just a trash spell that is only good for screwing up concentration spellcasters). the real thing to do with spell storing as an alchemist is to attach all your cure wounds into there, and be giving out 1d8+10 cure wounds 10 times per long rest, no spell slot required. Alchemist seems pretty potent post level 9 (gives a better reason to actually expend spell slots to make elixirs, and makes them more likely to be drunk in combat). I personally expect that the homunculus will actually be a SUPER powerful infusion, especially for the level it is at, with the caveat that it requires a bonus action to use. Now, anyone can make a homunculus, but if only one of these subclasses didn't have a reason to be using their bonus action every round...
Right Tool for the Job would be potentially cool...if it didn't take you an hour to squeeze the toolset in question out past the constipation.
As it stands, artificers still basically require a Bag of Holding to cart around their various toolkits, unless they have a dedicated traveling-lab wagon or the like. RTftJ seems to me to mostly be a precuation against losing your tools completely, a'la the opening for a couple of adventures. In that vein it has extremely niche-y but useful application. Still, I would not care to rely on it, especially since the tools disappear if you use the feature again, and/or anyone bothers with a Dispel Magic or shit.
@Bunsen: Man, doesn't it say something that friggin Acid Splash is the best an alchemist can do in a scrap?
You have a very odd and twisted idea of 'support class' that is unfortunately widespread. Or...not twisted, I suppose, more than too shallow. 'Support' means "I want to help my friends", which is cool. That's a thing lots of classes in D&D can do, and be very good at. Here's the thing: when you give 100% of your resources to "helping my friends", devote every inch of your class and background to being Best Buff Boi...you are a hindrance, not a help, because then your party has to spend time, effort, and their own resources watching over your utterly helpless, completely useless, absolutely worthless self.
It's the thing I spent so long railing at people on in the other thread. You cannot have a character whose sole existence is devoted to Making Cool Shit For Its Friends, because then that character has no business being in the bloody dungeon in the first place. The best you can hope for is sticking them in the up-armored lab wagon at the entrance to the dungeon and feeding critter bits back to them in order to claim potions.
A character needs to be able to pull its weight and support itself first and its allies second. One of the very first things they teach paramedics and other rescue personnel is "do not add to the victim count." If you are inadequately able to help, the absolute best thing you can do in an emergency situation is stay away from it and not make the emergency response personnel's jobs harder. This new Alchemist does not meet that bar. No amount of magical weapons fixes it, it lost the homunculus that allowed it to harass enemies from the rear, it does not gain enough combat magic to be able to rely on magical attacks, and the whole "I get ten superpowered Cure Wounds thing!" is both lame and not enough to justify the presence of the character in an 11th-level party. It cannot support itself. It is a drag on its party, and its allies will resent it, not feel grateful for the 'generosity' of a character too stupid to learn how to adventure properly in the first place.
This Alchemist is weak. I can fix it, but I kinda resent having to, and mercifully I'm not alone in that - there were a good few comments in the original Reddit thread along the lines of "man, I sure am glad everybody *****ed about the homunculus not fitting, so we could instead get a weaker version of the same thing with limited uses".
When did i say that thats what i wanted from the alchemist? A healer that does not deal damage often is not useless to a party, it is incredibly helpful. And i would say that 2d6+10 damage is fine for a build not built around dealing damage. 4d6+20 split between two creatures if you position it right.
Ok, so, here is what the alchemist can do. With +5 INT, they can deal 2d6+5 acid damage, average of 12, and this goes up to 16 and 19 at higher levels, if the enemy fails their DEX save. If they have +44 INT (I find the idea of an alchemist having this at level 5 more likely), they can deal 2d6+4, average of 11, with acid splash. However, if they manage to position themselves in the right space, with the enemies within 5 feet of each other (situational), at level 5 (assuming +5 INT, subtract damage if lower stat), they can deal double that average (you only roll once for acid splash, I think) to an average of 24, up to 32 and 38 damage at higher levels (assuming enemy fails their saving throw, if only artificer could know bane). However, you can also use firebolt with this, which, provided you have +5 int, would deal an average of 16 damage (for an attack roll, which is usually better), which goes up to 22 and 27 at higher levels. Is this objectively worse than extra attack? Yes. (cont in next post)
I am pretty sure that the alchemist is not supposed to be a big damage dealer, and focus more on support, with buffs and healing. This is not terrible average damage, but it is not great. I hope the homunculus is designed to be powerful but only works really well with the alchemist, so that they get something. The niche the alchemist seems to fill is a sort of doctor for the party. They get good healing spells, and these become super powerful at 5th level (average 15 healed for a 1st level cure wounds). The issue is, they do not actually get the spell slots to actually USE THIS. If you want to make as effective a use of your subclass features as the other subclasses, you had better hope that your DM lets you get a ring of spell storing. Experimental elixir is ok at lower levels (if it didn't cost spell slots to gain more, but was instead another, larger resource, I'd say it was great at lower levels). But the other artificer subclasses are GREAT at lower levels. The alchemist should have also gotten some form of arcane recovery at level 3. After your 5th level feature, the experimental elixirs go from "niche but decently useful" to "why would I waste a spell slot on this when I could use a superpowered cure wounds/healing word?" The only ones that have ANY value when you get your 5th level feature are the +1 AC (which I could see coming in handy), stackable Longstrider without Conc in a VERY niche scenario, the flying one, stackable Bless without Conc, and Alter Self if you gave all your infused items to the other party members except your (probably less useful unless it is clearly designed to be good for the alchemist) homunculus. (and alter self for disguise, or water breathing, that isn't bad). (cont in next post)
At 9th level your elixirs start having value again, giving high temp HP, so they will be more likely to be drunk in combat for an emergency. This would be ok if it was part of the feature at 3rd level, or if elixirs didn't cost a SPELL SLOT to make (which is by far the most limited resource of the artificer. the other subclasses that "run on spell slots" do not, really. Artillerist becomes useful for an hour, and is more potent than any of the elixirs, and battle smith only costs a spell slot to revive your companion. This requires a spell slot to use your fairly weak niche feature more than once per long rest). I also feel that there should be way more kinds of experimental elixirs. Like, a d6? That should be a d10 at minimum, maybe even a d12. Also, you get lesser restoration a bunch of times, so you can make it so your party basically never gets sick. Yeah I am ok with that part of the feature, it thematically makes sense and feels decently powerful, as well as generally useful enough to justify it. At 11th level, put cure wounds into your spell storing item. FINALLY you can spend some spell slots to make experimental elixirs without wasting your healing abilities, if only it came at an earlier level. At 15th level. You can now make 3 randomized elixirs at the end of a long rest without expending a spell slot. The alchemist should have had 3 at level 3. We should be able to craft like, 7 by this point for free. The rest of the feature I am ok with. You get some good resistances, and immunity to poison (with free lesser restoration, screw over literally every poisoner enemy). You get greater restoration for free once per long rest (and 2 levels before you would actually be able to cast it with a spell slot), and get a 6th level spell you can cast once per long rest, the only artificer subclass to be able to cast a 6th level spell. Thats... honestly cool. It is a nice feature, but the alchemist really suffers from getting crap low level features, so the powerful features aren't really as good as they should be, because they do not have really anything else to support it. For the effort they gave to artillerist to make the cannons scale, they clearly gave no such thought to the alchemist. I hope that somehow the infusions, or maybe some new artificer spells in the book, manage to save the alchemist somehow. But I am worried that they won't, and alchemist will be the 4 elements monk of the artificer.
I will do my best to remain optimistic that somehow the homunculus infusion saves the alchemist (because it would require a bonus action to use, which would not be as useful for the artillerist or battle smith, maybe it would be designed especially to fit with the alchemists style, like casting a cantrip you know that deals fire, poison, acid, or necrotic damage as a bonus action). More likely it will just be a familiar with some potential offensive options.
Fire is not one of the alchemist's bonus-INT damage types. Acid, poison, and necrotic. The last being super ironic, because there is not a single necrotic damage spell in the entirety of the artificer spell list that we currently have access to. Not one.
Healing in 5e is specifically - and correctly - designed as a last resort. Truly powerful healing abilities are rare and generally require expensive or high-level resources; low-level healing options are a stopgap intended more to slow down the rate of attrition than to reverse it. Even the weakest of monsters can more-or-less match the healing output of a basic Cure Wounds with their basic attacks, and pretty much anything with a non-fractional CR can deal more damage than Cure Wounds can erase more than once or twice a day.
The MMO tank-spank-heal trinity does not and should not apply in a 5e game. The best support is preventing damage in the first place via offensive control spells or protective enchantments. One well-placed Stinking Cloud can eat more damage than a dozen Cure Wounds by simply preventing the attacks that would've inflicted that damage in the first place. It's why the purely reactive red-bars-go-up healbots are so terrible - it's the least efficient and effective use of 'support' resources you can get, and no amount of adding INT to healing spells twice fixes that. You're still not a Life cleric, and even Life clerics are better off reserving their healing for times of desperation.
It's cool that you're recognizing how weak and ineffectual Experimental Elixir is, but unfortunately the realization came too late. The people who believe that "support" means "I wanna be the potionmaker heal*****" got their wish, and now the alchemist is horrendously weak and does not get much better as it levels up. It's not honestly much better than simply not selecting a subclass at all until you get to 15th level, where the free Greater Resto and Heal means you have two opportunities in a day to make a real difference.
Why you continue to believe the homunculus infusion will be anything but a low-budget familiar with absolutely no function or presence whatsoever is beyond me. everybody in existence - including you - complained that they hated the homunculus, that it didn't feel good, that they didn't want a stupid pet getting in the way of their healboi-ing, and that it should really just go away and die. Welp. it went away and died. Its dead zombified husk is now an infusion one can use for flavor if they're in a game where they can tolerate wasting an infusion on purely roleplaying side critter, because the version of the homunculus that could actually be useful to the player and her party Tested Poorly(C).
So it was removed. Never mind that its removal broke the subclass, it Tested Poorly(C) so it died. We have yet more evidence of why game design by committee is a failure. Oh well. Battlesmith all day erry day it is, at least until the homebrew revamp goes live sometime in 2022 and I can fix the alchemist subclass properly myself.
Fire is one of the damage types, I have read the actual leaked document. I used to think experimental elixir was good because you also still had the ability to spam out healing potions. Potions should have been what the ability was based around. This is a terrible incarnation of that. The only way it would have worked was if the elixirs:
a. either did not cost spell slots to make more OR you got some form of arcane recovery, considering you will need spell slots for everything.
b. were much MUCH more powerful than what they are
c. had way more options and could be made on the fly, instead of getting one niche format.
I dislike the homunculus being the 3rd level feature for the alchemist. I do not dislike the idea of using a homunculus on an artificer. The homunculus felt like it was at sacrifice to, for a subclass that would be what many people would asssociate with potions, having their primary, iconic ability not be potion related, instead forcing the idea of the artificer as a "pet class". Experimental Elixir is a shit version of what could have been. A potion of healing is one of the most iconic dnd items, and rpg items in general, it makes sense that the alchemy (commonly associated with potions) would be focused more on healing and support than on damage. Artificer seems to be a "support/damage" class. But this? This is dumb. When the artillerist can be a better support subclass by using their defender turret to give everyone within 10 feet of them temporary HP every round as a bonus action, we clearly have a problem here.
Alchemist should have been a subclass designed around buffing, with abilities relating to that. But 5e doesn't really have much a focus on buffs besides temp hp, healing, and adding to ability checks, so they made it all about that.
And Yurei, I know how you feel about having potion related abilities, and keep describing them as "stupid drunk scientist" and "hur hur now i can use potion". Can I describe how I see the homunculus? It is a tacked on random pet that you are FORCED into making that you have vomit acid on people to deal more damage, and has some random buff abilities tacked onto it for no real reason, with no real explanation as to how it works.
I want to be a potion maker, I don't want to be forced into creating a life so that we can conform to a pet subclass format, but I want an ability relating to making potions that is WORTH A DAMN. Experimental Elixir is horrible. The rest of the features I am surprisingly ok with (although considering the artillerist is just the level 5 but better, maybe make it your INT modifier *2 instead). The experimental elixir related features though, I find absolutely disgustingly weak, and wish they would be replaced with an actual way to make potions work. I will release a homebrew fix for the alchemist about a week after the book comes out, because it is so close, SO CLOSE, to being competent, but it refuses to be so. Unless somehow the infusions are an "eldritch blast" situation where the experimental elixir can be super buffed and actually be worth a damn, this is the worst artificer subclass by far.
We do not know how the homunculus is going to be. Personally, I hope it is very powerful, but requires a bonus action to use, that way only the alchemist gets a real use out of it. If it really is just "find familiar at the end of every long rest", then **** that noise.
This subclass would be great on a full caster. Really. This could actually work as a druid subclass (scaled for levels). But you really don't get much of anything until you can use your spell storing item, at level 11.
. .. ...off topic for a moment: you do know you can post all at once, right? Like...put all your thoughts in one place, instead of replying to yourself half a dozen times for reasons I cannot fathom?
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Read a leaked version of the artificer from 1-20. Don't worry, they did. They straight up deleted Right Cantrip for the Job.
Summary, for those who don't like bothering with Reddit/want something to quote:
1st Level: Unchanged; Magical Tinkering (YAY SOMETHING AT LEAST), spellcasting, artificer junk.
2nd Level: Infusions. You start with four known instead of three, armblades can be one of them if you're a warforged/know a warforged, and there's apparently also a 'Prosthetic Limb' infusion. No deets on that, but color the Fullmetal Alchemist fan in me intrigued.
3rd Level: 'Right Tool for the Job' - spend an hour to magically create a set of tools, which can be done during a rest. Seems to be per the earlier Gamehole Con preview, you can just make a set of tools you don't happen to have. Whoo? Also your subclass and associated subclass features, as per the Gamehole Con preview.
4th Level: ASI
5th Level: Subclass Feature. Battlesmith gets Extra Attack - not "Arcane Assault', just straight-up Extra Attack - Artillerist gets to inscribe a wand, staff, or rod with an arcane sigil and turn it into an 'Arcane Firearm', making in an artificer casting focus and adding 1d8 to one damage roll of a spell cast through it. Artificers get to add their INT modifier to an acid, poison, necrotic, or healing roll for any spell they cast. As expected, no real benefit to either of the caster-y guys that remotely competes with Arcane Armament. So...huzzah.
6th Level: Tool Expertise. Late, but at least they didn't nix it completely. You're still down a toolkit from your subclass you'll have to make up somewhere, but at least artificers can still eventually aspire to be good at making shit.
7th Level: Brand new feature called "Flash of Genius'. As a reaction, add your INT modifier to any ability check or saving throw you or a creature within thirty feet of you makes. You get INT modifier number of uses per long rest, to keep artificers from just adding their INT bonus to every ability check they make ever outside of combat. That's...honestly kind of cool. I can't help but picture an artificer yelling "NO DUMBASS, TRY...!" when they're watching someone do something dumb. Combined with Guidance spam and/or Bardic Inspiration, and you can start getting some seriously juiced ability checks. Not awful, especially when you're desperately trying to make a key save or hit a critical check.
8th Level: ASI
9th Level: Subclass Feature.
-Alchemists: Anyone that drinks one of your Shitty Elixir Things gets 2d6+INT temp HP, which is oddly significant, and you can cast lesser Restoration INT modifier number of times per long rest for free, as per the UA doc.
-Artillerists add 1d8 to their cannon rolls (so 3d8 per cannon activation) and they can detonate the cannon to deal 3d8 force, or Dex save for half, in 20 feet
-Battlesmiths get Arcane Jolt for 2d6 force or healing, INT mod number of times.
10th Level: You gain a fourth attunement slot. HUZZAH, THEY BROUGHT IT BACK! Also you can create LITERALLY ANY common or uncommon magical item in a quarter of the time at half the cost. That's...pretty huge. Yeah, it takes a gorram while to get to and honestly I'm not sure if getting everything at 10th is better than your specialty at 3rd, but frankly the only people who were likely to use magic item crafting at 3rd were Alchemists, anyways. At 10th, you may actually have the scratch to do cool shit with this. Gotta say, not displeased with this decision.
11th Level: Spell-Storing Item moved down here. You can do either a first or second-level artificer spell that costs one action to cast (no Shield, sorry bros). They can cast it INTx2 number of times, or until you use it again. Significantly, the spells do NOT go away when you Long Rest. Dunno if that's important, but it's there. The spell's cast using your spell mod, so whatever your INT modifier is, and SSI also doesn't say it dies when you do. So, if you could stick a third-level spell in it, you could hand your party a Stick of
RevivifyWelcome Back, Friend and have them revive you with your own spell. But it's cut off at 2nd level so you don't get to do that. Still probably going to be the most powerful way an Alchemist or Artillerist gets to fight, since their cantrip damage is dickballs and they don't get weapon combat anymore.12th Level: ASI
13th Level: Fourth-level spells, no special boost.
14th Level: A fifth attunement slot, and you can ignore race/class/spell/level requirements when attuning. Just, like, **** all'a it. Staff of Power? Yoink'd. Holy Avenger? Yoink'd. Rod of the Pact Keeper? Dunno why you'd want it, but yoink'd. Anything you bloody well feel like attuning to, you can attune to it. I don't see that being particularly juicy, but it's a nice feature that makes a lot of sense for the Masters of Magical Items to get, and the fifth attunement slot is a doozy.
15th Level: Subclass feature
-Alchemists: Resistance to poison and acid damage, immunity to the Poisoned condition (and thus the increasing number of critters with nasty 'While poisoned this way...' riders). Gain one cast per long rest of both Greater Restoration AND Heal, no components required for either. Heal's a big one, that's 70HP just sitting there in your back pocket for when you need it, and Greater Resto is the Penicillin of D&D - you can never have too much of it.
-Artllerists: half-cover to anything within ten feet of your arcane cannon (including the handheld version), and you can double your cannons. You can create both with the same action, though it takes a spell slot for each one past the first per rest as normal, and trigger each one with the same bonus action. So 6d8 bonus damage per turn on the Artillerist at 15th. Oof.
-Battlesmith: Arcane Jolt goes to 4d6 force damage/healing. The Steel Defender gets +2 to its AC (at 15th? Whoo?), and when it uses its Defensive Pounce it deals 1d4 plus your INT modifier.
16th Level: ASI
17th Level: fifth-level Artificer spells, no special bonus
18th Level: You gain your sixth attunement slot. *All the magic swag*.
19th Level: ASI
20th Level: You gain +1 to saving throws per magic item you're attuned to, and if you go to 0 HP, you can choose to use your reaction to end an infusion on one of your currently infused items. If you do, you bounce back to 1HP instead.
Other: New/more infusions, though the information isn't clear where they come in. Reddit seems to think you learn 12 total throughout 2 to 20, with six infusions active at a time. There's talk of an 'Arcane Propulsion Arm', which is labeled "cool rocket fist attack". If so, I have a new goal in life. Magic at the standard half-caster levels, the Known Spells List for each subclass got adjusted (Shield on Artillerist and Fattlesmith, Healing Word on Alchemist, so forth).
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So the saves on a max-level Artificer are nutballs. +6 to everything plus that Flash of Genius thing means you can add +11 to any given save on top of what you normally roll for that save once per turn at max level, which makes for a slippery little squirrel indeed.
It's awesome to see Improved Attunement diffused back throughout the artificer again instead of clumped up into a capstone ninety-nine percent of players will never see.
Alchemist got hardcore turbo nerfed q_q. Absolutely nothing in that subclass makes up for the loss of the homunculus, especially since it's now the only artificer subclass with no use whatsoever for its bonus action (don't talk to me about Healing Word spam, that's not a legit always-ready BA use and you know it). Sucks especially hard since the class lost access to Arcane Assault and can no longer fight with weapons, either. Alchemist has basically zero damage output and its spell slots are too scant for it to spend every turn making weak-ass elixirs it then needs to spend ANOTHER action feeding to people. The class could tolerate losing Arcane Assault or its homunculus, not both. No, the fact that the homunculus is now a weak, useless infusion good for nothing but fluff does not help.
Artillerists, on the other hand, get to carry their dumb turrets around now and double up on them, on top of getting extra scaling. Those mother****ers can vomit a somewhat terrifying amount of ordinance late-game - two 3d8 cannons on a bonus action, plus their mildly augmented main action cantrip. More the ORA ORA method of Artillerizing than the KABOOM method, but hell - if it works, it works.
SSI is at 11 now, so people who liked it can huzzah, I suppose. It's about the only way an Alchemist is going to contribute in a heavy combat, buncha Melf's Acid Arrow spam and hope for the best. Otherwise it's the 5e version, a shitload of one spell rather than a wide variety of single-use nonsense like the 2017 UA/original, but nothing says the item can't be passed around if you want to store a buff spell for everyone to concentrate on before combat. Enlarge/Reduce, Invisibility, and Spider Climb are all there; the artificer could Swolify her entire party immediately before a fight, get everybody past a checkpoint with an Invis-O-Stick, or turn her party into a bunch of ceiling sniping ******** if you're one of those players who believes that 'Support' means "I give my resources to my allies and expect them to haul my ass around while I watch", the way some folks seem to mean.
Overall? Not as powerful as the 2019 UA, but not a complete disaster unless you enjoyed the 2019 Alchemist. Attunement Master and SSI are less obnoxious, a few extra infusions, and the ability to demi-BI a critical save or check. They did lose all possible weapon combat outside of the Battlesmith though, they lost a tool and their critical Tool Expertise got pushed back hard, and holy shit on a stick do those Alchemist nerfs burn like acid.
Still...coulda been worse, I suppose.
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Actually, acid splash at that level would be better than melfs acid arrow (assuming the two creatures are next to each other). There is also Vit sphere, ray of sickness, heat metal, blight, cloudkill, mass healing word (average of 13 hp around as a bonus action is nice) and a few others that are good (melfs acid arrow is just a trash spell that is only good for screwing up concentration spellcasters). the real thing to do with spell storing as an alchemist is to attach all your cure wounds into there, and be giving out 1d8+10 cure wounds 10 times per long rest, no spell slot required. Alchemist seems pretty potent post level 9 (gives a better reason to actually expend spell slots to make elixirs, and makes them more likely to be drunk in combat). I personally expect that the homunculus will actually be a SUPER powerful infusion, especially for the level it is at, with the caveat that it requires a bonus action to use. Now, anyone can make a homunculus, but if only one of these subclasses didn't have a reason to be using their bonus action every round...
If only you didn't need to already have tinkers tools to use right tool for the job...
Right Tool for the Job would be potentially cool...if it didn't take you an hour to squeeze the toolset in question out past the constipation.
As it stands, artificers still basically require a Bag of Holding to cart around their various toolkits, unless they have a dedicated traveling-lab wagon or the like. RTftJ seems to me to mostly be a precuation against losing your tools completely, a'la the opening for a couple of adventures. In that vein it has extremely niche-y but useful application. Still, I would not care to rely on it, especially since the tools disappear if you use the feature again, and/or anyone bothers with a Dispel Magic or shit.
@Bunsen: Man, doesn't it say something that friggin Acid Splash is the best an alchemist can do in a scrap?
You have a very odd and twisted idea of 'support class' that is unfortunately widespread. Or...not twisted, I suppose, more than too shallow. 'Support' means "I want to help my friends", which is cool. That's a thing lots of classes in D&D can do, and be very good at. Here's the thing: when you give 100% of your resources to "helping my friends", devote every inch of your class and background to being Best Buff Boi...you are a hindrance, not a help, because then your party has to spend time, effort, and their own resources watching over your utterly helpless, completely useless, absolutely worthless self.
It's the thing I spent so long railing at people on in the other thread. You cannot have a character whose sole existence is devoted to Making Cool Shit For Its Friends, because then that character has no business being in the bloody dungeon in the first place. The best you can hope for is sticking them in the up-armored lab wagon at the entrance to the dungeon and feeding critter bits back to them in order to claim potions.
A character needs to be able to pull its weight and support itself first and its allies second. One of the very first things they teach paramedics and other rescue personnel is "do not add to the victim count." If you are inadequately able to help, the absolute best thing you can do in an emergency situation is stay away from it and not make the emergency response personnel's jobs harder. This new Alchemist does not meet that bar. No amount of magical weapons fixes it, it lost the homunculus that allowed it to harass enemies from the rear, it does not gain enough combat magic to be able to rely on magical attacks, and the whole "I get ten superpowered Cure Wounds thing!" is both lame and not enough to justify the presence of the character in an 11th-level party. It cannot support itself. It is a drag on its party, and its allies will resent it, not feel grateful for the 'generosity' of a character too stupid to learn how to adventure properly in the first place.
This Alchemist is weak. I can fix it, but I kinda resent having to, and mercifully I'm not alone in that - there were a good few comments in the original Reddit thread along the lines of "man, I sure am glad everybody *****ed about the homunculus not fitting, so we could instead get a weaker version of the same thing with limited uses".
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When did i say that thats what i wanted from the alchemist? A healer that does not deal damage often is not useless to a party, it is incredibly helpful. And i would say that 2d6+10 damage is fine for a build not built around dealing damage. 4d6+20 split between two creatures if you position it right.
Yes, damage is important, but the alchemist is clearly focusing on a build not dedicated entirely around dealing damage in combat.
That being said, their third level still sucks though, now that they cant healing potion spam/
Ok, so, here is what the alchemist can do. With +5 INT, they can deal 2d6+5 acid damage, average of 12, and this goes up to 16 and 19 at higher levels, if the enemy fails their DEX save. If they have +44 INT (I find the idea of an alchemist having this at level 5 more likely), they can deal 2d6+4, average of 11, with acid splash. However, if they manage to position themselves in the right space, with the enemies within 5 feet of each other (situational), at level 5 (assuming +5 INT, subtract damage if lower stat), they can deal double that average (you only roll once for acid splash, I think) to an average of 24, up to 32 and 38 damage at higher levels (assuming enemy fails their saving throw, if only artificer could know bane). However, you can also use firebolt with this, which, provided you have +5 int, would deal an average of 16 damage (for an attack roll, which is usually better), which goes up to 22 and 27 at higher levels. Is this objectively worse than extra attack? Yes. (cont in next post)
I am pretty sure that the alchemist is not supposed to be a big damage dealer, and focus more on support, with buffs and healing. This is not terrible average damage, but it is not great. I hope the homunculus is designed to be powerful but only works really well with the alchemist, so that they get something. The niche the alchemist seems to fill is a sort of doctor for the party. They get good healing spells, and these become super powerful at 5th level (average 15 healed for a 1st level cure wounds). The issue is, they do not actually get the spell slots to actually USE THIS. If you want to make as effective a use of your subclass features as the other subclasses, you had better hope that your DM lets you get a ring of spell storing. Experimental elixir is ok at lower levels (if it didn't cost spell slots to gain more, but was instead another, larger resource, I'd say it was great at lower levels). But the other artificer subclasses are GREAT at lower levels. The alchemist should have also gotten some form of arcane recovery at level 3. After your 5th level feature, the experimental elixirs go from "niche but decently useful" to "why would I waste a spell slot on this when I could use a superpowered cure wounds/healing word?" The only ones that have ANY value when you get your 5th level feature are the +1 AC (which I could see coming in handy), stackable Longstrider without Conc in a VERY niche scenario, the flying one, stackable Bless without Conc, and Alter Self if you gave all your infused items to the other party members except your (probably less useful unless it is clearly designed to be good for the alchemist) homunculus. (and alter self for disguise, or water breathing, that isn't bad). (cont in next post)
At 9th level your elixirs start having value again, giving high temp HP, so they will be more likely to be drunk in combat for an emergency. This would be ok if it was part of the feature at 3rd level, or if elixirs didn't cost a SPELL SLOT to make (which is by far the most limited resource of the artificer. the other subclasses that "run on spell slots" do not, really. Artillerist becomes useful for an hour, and is more potent than any of the elixirs, and battle smith only costs a spell slot to revive your companion. This requires a spell slot to use your fairly weak niche feature more than once per long rest). I also feel that there should be way more kinds of experimental elixirs. Like, a d6? That should be a d10 at minimum, maybe even a d12. Also, you get lesser restoration a bunch of times, so you can make it so your party basically never gets sick. Yeah I am ok with that part of the feature, it thematically makes sense and feels decently powerful, as well as generally useful enough to justify it. At 11th level, put cure wounds into your spell storing item. FINALLY you can spend some spell slots to make experimental elixirs without wasting your healing abilities, if only it came at an earlier level. At 15th level. You can now make 3 randomized elixirs at the end of a long rest without expending a spell slot. The alchemist should have had 3 at level 3. We should be able to craft like, 7 by this point for free. The rest of the feature I am ok with. You get some good resistances, and immunity to poison (with free lesser restoration, screw over literally every poisoner enemy). You get greater restoration for free once per long rest (and 2 levels before you would actually be able to cast it with a spell slot), and get a 6th level spell you can cast once per long rest, the only artificer subclass to be able to cast a 6th level spell. Thats... honestly cool. It is a nice feature, but the alchemist really suffers from getting crap low level features, so the powerful features aren't really as good as they should be, because they do not have really anything else to support it. For the effort they gave to artillerist to make the cannons scale, they clearly gave no such thought to the alchemist. I hope that somehow the infusions, or maybe some new artificer spells in the book, manage to save the alchemist somehow. But I am worried that they won't, and alchemist will be the 4 elements monk of the artificer.
I will do my best to remain optimistic that somehow the homunculus infusion saves the alchemist (because it would require a bonus action to use, which would not be as useful for the artillerist or battle smith, maybe it would be designed especially to fit with the alchemists style, like casting a cantrip you know that deals fire, poison, acid, or necrotic damage as a bonus action). More likely it will just be a familiar with some potential offensive options.
Fire is not one of the alchemist's bonus-INT damage types. Acid, poison, and necrotic. The last being super ironic, because there is not a single necrotic damage spell in the entirety of the artificer spell list that we currently have access to. Not one.
Healing in 5e is specifically - and correctly - designed as a last resort. Truly powerful healing abilities are rare and generally require expensive or high-level resources; low-level healing options are a stopgap intended more to slow down the rate of attrition than to reverse it. Even the weakest of monsters can more-or-less match the healing output of a basic Cure Wounds with their basic attacks, and pretty much anything with a non-fractional CR can deal more damage than Cure Wounds can erase more than once or twice a day.
The MMO tank-spank-heal trinity does not and should not apply in a 5e game. The best support is preventing damage in the first place via offensive control spells or protective enchantments. One well-placed Stinking Cloud can eat more damage than a dozen Cure Wounds by simply preventing the attacks that would've inflicted that damage in the first place. It's why the purely reactive red-bars-go-up healbots are so terrible - it's the least efficient and effective use of 'support' resources you can get, and no amount of adding INT to healing spells twice fixes that. You're still not a Life cleric, and even Life clerics are better off reserving their healing for times of desperation.
It's cool that you're recognizing how weak and ineffectual Experimental Elixir is, but unfortunately the realization came too late. The people who believe that "support" means "I wanna be the potionmaker heal*****" got their wish, and now the alchemist is horrendously weak and does not get much better as it levels up. It's not honestly much better than simply not selecting a subclass at all until you get to 15th level, where the free Greater Resto and Heal means you have two opportunities in a day to make a real difference.
Why you continue to believe the homunculus infusion will be anything but a low-budget familiar with absolutely no function or presence whatsoever is beyond me. everybody in existence - including you - complained that they hated the homunculus, that it didn't feel good, that they didn't want a stupid pet getting in the way of their healboi-ing, and that it should really just go away and die. Welp. it went away and died. Its dead zombified husk is now an infusion one can use for flavor if they're in a game where they can tolerate wasting an infusion on purely roleplaying side critter, because the version of the homunculus that could actually be useful to the player and her party Tested Poorly(C).
So it was removed. Never mind that its removal broke the subclass, it Tested Poorly(C) so it died. We have yet more evidence of why game design by committee is a failure. Oh well. Battlesmith all day erry day it is, at least until the homebrew revamp goes live sometime in 2022 and I can fix the alchemist subclass properly myself.
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Fire is one of the damage types, I have read the actual leaked document. I used to think experimental elixir was good because you also still had the ability to spam out healing potions. Potions should have been what the ability was based around. This is a terrible incarnation of that. The only way it would have worked was if the elixirs:
a. either did not cost spell slots to make more OR you got some form of arcane recovery, considering you will need spell slots for everything.
b. were much MUCH more powerful than what they are
c. had way more options and could be made on the fly, instead of getting one niche format.
I dislike the homunculus being the 3rd level feature for the alchemist. I do not dislike the idea of using a homunculus on an artificer. The homunculus felt like it was at sacrifice to, for a subclass that would be what many people would asssociate with potions, having their primary, iconic ability not be potion related, instead forcing the idea of the artificer as a "pet class". Experimental Elixir is a shit version of what could have been. A potion of healing is one of the most iconic dnd items, and rpg items in general, it makes sense that the alchemy (commonly associated with potions) would be focused more on healing and support than on damage. Artificer seems to be a "support/damage" class. But this? This is dumb. When the artillerist can be a better support subclass by using their defender turret to give everyone within 10 feet of them temporary HP every round as a bonus action, we clearly have a problem here.
Alchemist should have been a subclass designed around buffing, with abilities relating to that. But 5e doesn't really have much a focus on buffs besides temp hp, healing, and adding to ability checks, so they made it all about that.
And Yurei, I know how you feel about having potion related abilities, and keep describing them as "stupid drunk scientist" and "hur hur now i can use potion". Can I describe how I see the homunculus? It is a tacked on random pet that you are FORCED into making that you have vomit acid on people to deal more damage, and has some random buff abilities tacked onto it for no real reason, with no real explanation as to how it works.
I want to be a potion maker, I don't want to be forced into creating a life so that we can conform to a pet subclass format, but I want an ability relating to making potions that is WORTH A DAMN. Experimental Elixir is horrible. The rest of the features I am surprisingly ok with (although considering the artillerist is just the level 5 but better, maybe make it your INT modifier *2 instead). The experimental elixir related features though, I find absolutely disgustingly weak, and wish they would be replaced with an actual way to make potions work. I will release a homebrew fix for the alchemist about a week after the book comes out, because it is so close, SO CLOSE, to being competent, but it refuses to be so. Unless somehow the infusions are an "eldritch blast" situation where the experimental elixir can be super buffed and actually be worth a damn, this is the worst artificer subclass by far.
We do not know how the homunculus is going to be. Personally, I hope it is very powerful, but requires a bonus action to use, that way only the alchemist gets a real use out of it. If it really is just "find familiar at the end of every long rest", then **** that noise.
This subclass would be great on a full caster. Really. This could actually work as a druid subclass (scaled for levels). But you really don't get much of anything until you can use your spell storing item, at level 11.
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...off topic for a moment: you do know you can post all at once, right? Like...put all your thoughts in one place, instead of replying to yourself half a dozen times for reasons I cannot fathom?
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