Hi, please excuse my spelling! (im no wizard haha!)
has the artificer class been updated on beyond to be in line with the new Eberron suppliment? I want to know if i need to re-create my current Alchamist so it shows all the updated rules etc.
For the most part, yes. The current DDB Artificer is in accordance with the rules presented in Eberron: Rising from the Last War.
Note that the Alchemist in Rising is extremely terrible - if you do not need to update to the new class rules yet, you may not want to. Your existing UA Alchemist sheet should still be usable.
The Alchemist no longer has a second attack, so if you were relying on something like Repeating Shot, you can't do that anymore. The Alchemist also no longer has an Alchemical Homunculus; instead it has an Experimental Elixir ability that is essentially one randomized, weakened first-level spell per long rest. The Homunculus is now a level 6 minimum infusion that is significantly weaker than the old Alchemical Homunculus. It's not really okay, but it's what we have.
The Alchemist no longer has a second attack, so if you were relying on something like Repeating Shot, you can't do that anymore. The Alchemist also no longer has an Alchemical Homunculus; instead it has an Experimental Elixir ability that is essentially one randomized, weakened first-level spell per long rest. The Homunculus is now a level 6 minimum infusion that is significantly weaker than the old Alchemical Homunculus. It's not really okay, but it's what we have.
Three years ago WotC made some attempt to make some slight correction for all of the wrong they have done to our collective wallets over the years* by giving us the Revised Ranger. I still hold out the faintest sliver of hope that one day they might do so again in the near future by presenting us an Amended Artificer.
*WotC put their hand in my pocket almost 30 years ago when MTG Revised Edition came out. Then they started dipping back in four times a year, because Type 2 Tournament was the AL for MtG at that time. Is it stil? I eventually decided to start spending my money on more practical things like the real world and was able to kick the habit.
Then they got me again when the purchased the rights to D&D after TSR shuttered up and published 3e. I barely had time to actually get accustomed to the new rules before I had to buy all those new books because 3.5 absolutely had to happen... right? When they dropped 4e on us not too many years later I finally decided to remove their hand from my pocket once and for all.... I held out against 4e. I resisted the temptation to fall back down this rabbit hole by pretending Pathfinder didn’t exist. I contented myself with old editions of Shadowrun and the World of Darkness.
But then they finally suckered me back in with what I can legitimately say is the cleanest, most well worded RPG i have ever seen: 5e. I was dazzled by the gleam of well written, unambiguous rules. A game where RAW actually reflects RAI so well/often that I see very little point in that debate if one just reads the actual specific wording for things.
Inevitably, soon thereafter, the shine finally faded enough for me to see that the only gorram class that doesn’t run on the same gorram platform as ever other class is the gorram Warlock! (Note, I said Class not subclass for anyone who was going to bring up the handful of gems like the Battle Master.)
I’m sorry, I think I might be dealing with some repressed emotions about the whole thing. At least when TSR published new stuff they had the common curtesy to pretend all those different books written by all of those different people were supposed to be compatible with each other. 🤫
Heh. I'm the wrong person to discuss a Revised Ranger-esque take on the Alchemist with. More and more as time goes on, I find myself hating the Revised Ranger and wishing it could just fade from collective memory. The latest UA doc's Alternative Features is a better take on a "fix'd" ranger, and even then I'm hoping for at least one polish pass before any of it goes live.
Though why I'm hoping that given what they did to the Alchemist and the Artillerist, I don't really know.
The Alchemist also no longer has an Alchemical Homunculus; instead it has an Experimental Elixir ability that is essentially one randomized, weakened first-level spell per long rest.
Yes and no. The "free" daily potion you can create is rolled on the random table, but you can also use spell slots to create specific potions from the table.
You can create additional experimental elixirs by expending a spell slot of 1st level or higher for each one. When you do so, you use your action to create the elixir in an empty flask you touch, and you choose the elixir’s effect from the Experimental Elixir table.
The ability to create healing potions, potions of flight, and other buffs, on the fly at 3rd level is nothing to sneer at.
This is me, sneering. All of the Experimental Elixir effects save for Alter Self and Buoyancy (which, may I remind you, we used to have THREE shots of, on command, per rest) are weakened first-level spells at best. Consuming a spell slot, which the artificer is not plentifully supplied with in the first place, to create a weakened first-level spell is not 'nothing to sneer at'. It's basic spellcasting, save less functional, with weird requirements, and requiring two separate actions to actually administer the buff instead of just casting the damn spell on the damn target.
Experimental Elixir is terrible. Absolutely terrible. It's enormously weaker than the Alchemical Homunculus was, it's weaker than the third-level abilities of both other artificer subclasses by far, and it is in fact weaker than just having first-level spells.
Heh. I'm the wrong person to discuss a Revised Ranger-esque take on the Alchemist with. More and more as time goes on, I find myself hating the Revised Ranger and wishing it could just fade from collective memory. The latest UA doc's Alternative Features is a better take on a "fix'd" ranger, and even then I'm hoping for at least one polish pass before any of it goes live.
Though why I'm hoping that given what they did to the Alchemist and the Artillerist, I don't really know.
Really? I must say that I’m surprised to hear that. Two of my players are using the PHB printed Ranger in another person’s campaign and when I showed them the Revised Ranger they both read it and agreed that it was an improvement. I must admit that I was an indoor kid myself, so I have never personally felt drawn to the Ranger (nor the Druid) and have no firsthand experience playing either version in 5e. The nerd in me who actually thinks poring over RPG textbooks is fun thinks that the Revised looks better (easier to run and more thematic) on paper at least. What is it about the Revised that you don’t like?
As to your point about the alternative features, I personally feel that it doesn’t go quite far enough. A good start to be sure, but the overall lack of player agency beyond 3rd level (1st or 2nd for some classes!) makes most characters feel undistinguished from each other. You and I have discussed how every Champion feels like pretty much every other Champion in another forum if you recall. My hope is that WotC will add even more actual options to the Class/Sub features, not just upgrades or replacements.
My point however, was that they actually tried to respond to the community’s feelings about that class, and that I hope they will hear the community feedback about the Artificer and maybe try again.
Can the Alchemist sit on their Elixirs and walk around with a bag full of them, or do they only last for a short time?
If they can continue to make them every day for free and keep collecting them to save for the right occasion then they would essentially be storing up prepared 0.75ish level Spell Slots in bottles the way a Coffeelock stores Sorcery Points. If that’s the case you might want to reconsider that sneer. If they only last a day then you’re probably correct and the Elixirs are basically bottles of sometimes useful who knows what.
I already gave my opinion on this in another thread but since it's so relevant here I'll just copy-paste what I said.
Tbh the alchemist in it's original state wasn't very good either. It was a half-assed homunculus, mixed with a half-assed skeleton for the potion alchemist everyone actually wanted. Depending on how you view it, it's a unique homunculus focused subclass dragging around the dead weight of the potion stuff everyone associates with an alchemist, or a cool potion focused artificer weighed down by a pointless familiar that doesn't have a single interesting thing done with it, and that only has number scaling as it's claim to growing stronger alongside the player.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Giant flaming rocks filled with tarrasques fall, everyone dies.
That doesn't make Experimental Elixir good. Nor does it make the horrible jank-assed "Homunculus Servant" they put in the sixth-level infusions any less of a cruel joke. The "potion alchemist everyone wanted" did extensive and difficult to repair damage to the Alchemist subclass, which people who simply happily, quietly played the original will be surprised with in this new book because folks who decided they hated being effective in diverse situations heaped abuse on Wizards until they got exactly what they wanted - a "potion Alchemist" that is absolutely terrible at adventuring.
That doesn't make Experimental Elixir good. Nor does it make the horrible jank-assed "Homunculus Servant" they put in the sixth-level infusions any less of a cruel joke. The "potion alchemist everyone wanted" did extensive and difficult to repair damage to the Alchemist subclass, which people who simply happily, quietly played the original will be surprised with in this new book because folks who decided they hated being effective in diverse situations heaped abuse on Wizards until they got exactly what they wanted - a "potion Alchemist" that is absolutely terrible at adventuring.
Thanks, 5e Playerbase. Y'all are peaches.
Ahh, the perils of design by committee. Just about as effective as deciding how best to wage war by committee. That’s probably why politicians hire generals to fight their wars. Maybe the playerbase should think about hiring some professional game designers to design games for us.... 🤔
In one of the YouTube videos before Eberron came out (I don't remember which one), they said that a lot of stuff in UA is overpowered on purpose. 1) They find it easier to reduce things in power rather than increase them and 2) they said that they have better playtest results if an ability "looks cool." Sometimes they want to test a mechanism more than a die roll, so they make the abilities more enticing than they need to be.
I'm also thinking that they overload a playtest knowing that they're going to move the ability later on. I'm basing this opinion solely on the Wayfinder's Guide Warforged losing "Powerful Build" and seeing that given to Eberron Orcs instead, so that might now be true at all.
I guess I'm one of the few people that think the subclass isn't bad. For 3 levels you make one per long rest. After that you're making 2, which means for most of the playtime you'll have two. The effects are pretty good, especially for free or a first level spell. The fact you can spend spell slots to give you more is great, because it saves the artificer's action, as long as you make them outside of combat, and it is concentration free flight. The temp hit points at level 9 are just icing. The bonus spells are solid. And, adding your int to your damage spells means they'll always do solid damage, and doubling your int on most heals means you'll have great heals. And, at higher levels a cost free greater restoration is amazing.
I don't think it's perfect, I think it should have one more elixir, and the elixir should scale with spell slots, but overall I think the design is solid. And the power for the subclass is there. Whether the flavor is right is debatable and personal opinion, but it isn't weak. Almost universally, people think the support subclasses are weak. The same applies here.
I think it's a decent blend of the original artificer UA and the new one. And the distaste for the original homunculus was pretty obvious and widespread. So putting it as an infusion, and increasing the power of the base class and increasing the amount of infusions more than offsets the loss of the powers of the homunculus.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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Hi, please excuse my spelling! (im no wizard haha!)
has the artificer class been updated on beyond to be in line with the new Eberron suppliment?
I want to know if i need to re-create my current Alchamist so it shows all the updated rules etc.
Many thanks!
Jack
For the most part, yes. The current DDB Artificer is in accordance with the rules presented in Eberron: Rising from the Last War.
Note that the Alchemist in Rising is extremely terrible - if you do not need to update to the new class rules yet, you may not want to. Your existing UA Alchemist sheet should still be usable.
Please do not contact or message me.
Yeah i still have use of the UA one. Why is the class terrible?
The Alchemist no longer has a second attack, so if you were relying on something like Repeating Shot, you can't do that anymore. The Alchemist also no longer has an Alchemical Homunculus; instead it has an Experimental Elixir ability that is essentially one randomized, weakened first-level spell per long rest. The Homunculus is now a level 6 minimum infusion that is significantly weaker than the old Alchemical Homunculus. It's not really okay, but it's what we have.
Please do not contact or message me.
Three years ago WotC made some attempt to make some slight correction for all of the wrong they have done to our collective wallets over the years* by giving us the Revised Ranger. I still hold out the faintest sliver of hope that one day they might do so again in the near future by presenting us an Amended Artificer.
*WotC put their hand in my pocket almost 30 years ago when MTG Revised Edition came out. Then they started dipping back in four times a year, because Type 2 Tournament was the AL for MtG at that time. Is it stil? I eventually decided to start spending my money on more practical things like the real world and was able to kick the habit.
Then they got me again when the purchased the rights to D&D after TSR shuttered up and published 3e. I barely had time to actually get accustomed to the new rules before I had to buy all those new books because 3.5 absolutely had to happen... right? When they dropped 4e on us not too many years later I finally decided to remove their hand from my pocket once and for all.... I held out against 4e. I resisted the temptation to fall back down this rabbit hole by pretending Pathfinder didn’t exist. I contented myself with old editions of Shadowrun and the World of Darkness.
But then they finally suckered me back in with what I can legitimately say is the cleanest, most well worded RPG i have ever seen: 5e. I was dazzled by the gleam of well written, unambiguous rules. A game where RAW actually reflects RAI so well/often that I see very little point in that debate if one just reads the actual specific wording for things.
Inevitably, soon thereafter, the shine finally faded enough for me to see that the only gorram class that doesn’t run on the same gorram platform as ever other class is the gorram Warlock! (Note, I said Class not subclass for anyone who was going to bring up the handful of gems like the Battle Master.)
I’m sorry, I think I might be dealing with some repressed emotions about the whole thing. At least when TSR published new stuff they had the common curtesy to pretend all those different books written by all of those different people were supposed to be compatible with each other. 🤫
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
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Heh. I'm the wrong person to discuss a Revised Ranger-esque take on the Alchemist with. More and more as time goes on, I find myself hating the Revised Ranger and wishing it could just fade from collective memory. The latest UA doc's Alternative Features is a better take on a "fix'd" ranger, and even then I'm hoping for at least one polish pass before any of it goes live.
Though why I'm hoping that given what they did to the Alchemist and the Artillerist, I don't really know.
Please do not contact or message me.
Yes and no. The "free" daily potion you can create is rolled on the random table, but you can also use spell slots to create specific potions from the table.
You can create additional experimental elixirs by expending a spell slot of 1st level or higher for each one. When you do so, you use your action to create the elixir in an empty flask you touch, and you choose the elixir’s effect from the Experimental Elixir table.
The ability to create healing potions, potions of flight, and other buffs, on the fly at 3rd level is nothing to sneer at.
This is me, sneering. All of the Experimental Elixir effects save for Alter Self and Buoyancy (which, may I remind you, we used to have THREE shots of, on command, per rest) are weakened first-level spells at best. Consuming a spell slot, which the artificer is not plentifully supplied with in the first place, to create a weakened first-level spell is not 'nothing to sneer at'. It's basic spellcasting, save less functional, with weird requirements, and requiring two separate actions to actually administer the buff instead of just casting the damn spell on the damn target.
Experimental Elixir is terrible. Absolutely terrible. It's enormously weaker than the Alchemical Homunculus was, it's weaker than the third-level abilities of both other artificer subclasses by far, and it is in fact weaker than just having first-level spells.
Please do not contact or message me.
Really? I must say that I’m surprised to hear that. Two of my players are using the PHB printed Ranger in another person’s campaign and when I showed them the Revised Ranger they both read it and agreed that it was an improvement. I must admit that I was an indoor kid myself, so I have never personally felt drawn to the Ranger (nor the Druid) and have no firsthand experience playing either version in 5e. The nerd in me who actually thinks poring over RPG textbooks is fun thinks that the Revised looks better (easier to run and more thematic) on paper at least. What is it about the Revised that you don’t like?
As to your point about the alternative features, I personally feel that it doesn’t go quite far enough. A good start to be sure, but the overall lack of player agency beyond 3rd level (1st or 2nd for some classes!) makes most characters feel undistinguished from each other. You and I have discussed how every Champion feels like pretty much every other Champion in another forum if you recall. My hope is that WotC will add even more actual options to the Class/Sub features, not just upgrades or replacements.
My point however, was that they actually tried to respond to the community’s feelings about that class, and that I hope they will hear the community feedback about the Artificer and maybe try again.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
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Hardcovers, DDB & You
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Can the Alchemist sit on their Elixirs and walk around with a bag full of them, or do they only last for a short time?
If they can continue to make them every day for free and keep collecting them to save for the right occasion then they would essentially be storing up prepared 0.75ish level Spell Slots in bottles the way a Coffeelock stores Sorcery Points. If that’s the case you might want to reconsider that sneer. If they only last a day then you’re probably correct and the Elixirs are basically bottles of sometimes useful who knows what.
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They last until you complete a long rest
Revised Ranger discussion is for another thread. But yes. Any elixirs you make lose their potency and disappear on a long rest, no stockpiling.
Please do not contact or message me.
You are correct about the Ranger discussion, please PM me. As to the Elixirs, see my previous post #12.
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I already gave my opinion on this in another thread but since it's so relevant here I'll just copy-paste what I said.
Tbh the alchemist in it's original state wasn't very good either. It was a half-assed homunculus, mixed with a half-assed skeleton for the potion alchemist everyone actually wanted. Depending on how you view it, it's a unique homunculus focused subclass dragging around the dead weight of the potion stuff everyone associates with an alchemist, or a cool potion focused artificer weighed down by a pointless familiar that doesn't have a single interesting thing done with it, and that only has number scaling as it's claim to growing stronger alongside the player.
Giant flaming rocks filled with tarrasques fall, everyone dies.
That doesn't make Experimental Elixir good. Nor does it make the horrible jank-assed "Homunculus Servant" they put in the sixth-level infusions any less of a cruel joke. The "potion alchemist everyone wanted" did extensive and difficult to repair damage to the Alchemist subclass, which people who simply happily, quietly played the original will be surprised with in this new book because folks who decided they hated being effective in diverse situations heaped abuse on Wizards until they got exactly what they wanted - a "potion Alchemist" that is absolutely terrible at adventuring.
Thanks, 5e Playerbase. Y'all are peaches.
Please do not contact or message me.
Ahh, the perils of design by committee. Just about as effective as deciding how best to wage war by committee. That’s probably why politicians hire generals to fight their wars. Maybe the playerbase should think about hiring some professional game designers to design games for us.... 🤔
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
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Man, having your game designed by professional game designers instead of a mindless faceless Internet mob?
Wouldn't that be nice? Total pipe dream, though...
Please do not contact or message me.
Only in the age of the internet....
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
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In one of the YouTube videos before Eberron came out (I don't remember which one), they said that a lot of stuff in UA is overpowered on purpose. 1) They find it easier to reduce things in power rather than increase them and 2) they said that they have better playtest results if an ability "looks cool." Sometimes they want to test a mechanism more than a die roll, so they make the abilities more enticing than they need to be.
I'm also thinking that they overload a playtest knowing that they're going to move the ability later on. I'm basing this opinion solely on the Wayfinder's Guide Warforged losing "Powerful Build" and seeing that given to Eberron Orcs instead, so that might now be true at all.
Gnome Armorist - Artificer Subclass Homebrew
I guess I'm one of the few people that think the subclass isn't bad. For 3 levels you make one per long rest. After that you're making 2, which means for most of the playtime you'll have two. The effects are pretty good, especially for free or a first level spell. The fact you can spend spell slots to give you more is great, because it saves the artificer's action, as long as you make them outside of combat, and it is concentration free flight. The temp hit points at level 9 are just icing. The bonus spells are solid. And, adding your int to your damage spells means they'll always do solid damage, and doubling your int on most heals means you'll have great heals. And, at higher levels a cost free greater restoration is amazing.
I don't think it's perfect, I think it should have one more elixir, and the elixir should scale with spell slots, but overall I think the design is solid. And the power for the subclass is there. Whether the flavor is right is debatable and personal opinion, but it isn't weak. Almost universally, people think the support subclasses are weak. The same applies here.
I think it's a decent blend of the original artificer UA and the new one. And the distaste for the original homunculus was pretty obvious and widespread. So putting it as an infusion, and increasing the power of the base class and increasing the amount of infusions more than offsets the loss of the powers of the homunculus.