You have to use the alchemist supplies as the focus.
From Alchemical Savant: " Whenever you cast a spell using your alchemist’s supplies as thespellcasting focus, you gain a bonus to one roll of the spell."
From both spells: "You brandish the weapon used in the spell’s casting and make a melee attack with it against one creature within 5 feet of you."
Those statements aren't mutually exclusive.
You can brandish a weapon "used in the spell's casting" even when it's not being "used as a spellcasting focus."
If a spell can have multiple material components (many do) and those spells aren't impossible to cast either with a focus or without then clearly a spell can require both a weapon and a focus and be perfectly castable as such.
You just have a weapon in one hand, and your alchemist's supplies in the other.
Thematically, I agree with you. Mechanically and RAW those are mutually exclusive.
Thematically, I can see going after someone with a broken Erlenmeyer flask dripping green flames and using alchemist supplies as the improvised weapon.
Mechanically Greenflame Blade has components: S, M* - with M* defined as * - (a melee weapon worth at least 1 sp)
The weapon is the material component used to cast and attack. "You brandish the weapon used in the spell’s casting and make a melee attack with it against one creature within 5 feet of you."
One other note, I"m not sure how booming blade got caught up in the mix since it does thunder damage and Alchemical Savant doesn't affect thunder damage. I know you can dip 2 levels of sorcerer or take the metamagic feat to change the damage type but that seems kinda pointless for two melee attacks/day.
Indeed, the (assumed) reason that the material component of the Blade cantrips was errata-ed to a weapon that has a 1sp cost was to prevent the casting of it with a focus (Ed: that is not also a weapon).
Booming blade works if you have a poison weapon. Like the magic items "poison dagger" or several other options because the spell has you make the attack.
The cost was added so you have to possess a weapon instead of using the focus to magically replace the weapon. The weapon out of nowhere was the problem not focuses in general. There is a vid of jc talking about it. if I can find it links will be added.
The section on components just says you must " have" the costly component but you can still cast through a focus. Especially artificers since they must use a focus or infusion RAW.
Material (M)
Casting some spells requires particular objects, specified in parentheses in the component entry. A character can use a component pouch or a spellcasting focus (found in chapter 5, “Equipment”) in place of the components specified for a spell. But if a cost is indicated for a component, a character must have that specific component before he or she can cast the spell. {note how it doesn't exempt a focus only saying you "have " the costly item.}
If a spell states that a material component is consumed by the spell, the caster must provide this component for each casting of the spell.
A spellcaster must have a hand free to access a spell’s material components — or to hold a spellcasting focus — but it can be the same hand that he or she uses to perform somatic components
Booming blade works if you have a poison weapon. Like the magic items "poison dagger" or several other options because the spell has you make the attack.
No, Alchemical Savant states: "Whenever you cast a spell using your alchemist’s supplies as the spellcasting focus, you gain a bonus to one roll of the spell."
Adding poison to a weapon, or using a magic weapon that produces poison doesn't add the + Int from Alchemical savant as neither are spell effects causing that damage.
The section on components just says you must " have" the costly component but you can still cast through a focus. Especially artificers since they must use a focus or infusion RAW.
Right, but specific beats general. The spell specifically states: "You brandish the weapon used in the spell’s casting and make a melee attack with it against one creature within 5 feet of you."
You must have a weapon. It is explicitly used as the spell focus and used in the attack.
Using a spellcasting focus means replacing a material component of a spell with the object that is the spellcasting focus.
A material component with a gold cost cannot be replaced by a spellcasting focus.
The Tools Required feature states that ALL spells an artificer casts with their spellcasting feature must cast using a spellcasting focus. It further goes on to clarify with the following "(meaning the spell has an 'M' component when you cast it)." In other words, even when a spell doesn't have a material component when an artificer casts it as an artificer spell it gains one. Thus the specific rule of Tools Required adds a material component to spells that cannot be cast with a spellcasting focus. That material component being the spellcasting focus itself.
Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade both have a material components, yes. That material component has a listed cost, yes. That component cannot be replaced by a spellcasting focus, yes. But Tools Required states that the artifcer MUST use a spellcasting focus to cast an artificer spell.
How do you resolve this? The solution is simple. You don't replace the weapon with a focus. You just add another material component to the spell, that component being the spellcasting focus itself.
It's the same solution as you'd do with an artificer casting a verbal and somatic only spell. Just because it already has one listed M component doesn't mean you can't add another instead of attempting to replace a spell component you can't replace. In fact you MUST because Tools Required specifically states that an Artificer MUST.
Ordinarily, you can't just add extra components to a spell (I assume). The Artificer Tools Required Feature is a specific exception that overrides the general rules on how a spellcasting focus works.
If a DM rules that Artificer couldn't cast a spell with a costly M component and use a spellcasting focus then here's the list of artificer spells that the combination of that ruling and the Tools Required feature would make impossible for them to cast:
Clearly if it were intended for it to be impossible for an Artificer to cast these spells than WOTC would not have bothered adding them to the Artificer list, right?
So if the spell requires a weapon to be used in its casting, and it lists that weapon as a component that cannot be replaced, but your Tools Required feature literally adds an additional material component to spells that can't otherwise be cast with a spellcasting focus... Then, very clearly, an Alchemist can cast Booming Blade with both a weapon and alchemist supplies albeit it might take two hands to accomplish. And if they can do that, then they can very clearly get the benefit of Alchemical Savant to casting Greenflame blade.
And if you continue to disagree with this Discfan2, I do not know the words that will convince you and I give up. In any scenario I wish you well.
Using a spellcasting focus means replacing a material component of a spell with the object that is the spellcasting focus.
A material component with a gold cost cannot be replaced by a spellcasting focus.
The Tools Required feature states that ALL spells an artificer casts with their spellcasting feature must cast using a spellcasting focus. It further goes on to clarify with the following "(meaning the spell has an 'M' component when you cast it)." In other words, even when a spell doesn't have a material component when an artificer casts it as an artificer spell it gains one. Thus the specific rule of Tools Required adds a material component to spells that cannot be cast with a spellcasting focus. That material component being the spellcasting focus itself.
Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade both have a material components, yes. That material component has a listed cost, yes. That component cannot be replaced by a spellcasting focus, yes. But Tools Required states that the artifcer MUST use a spellcasting focus to cast an artificer spell.
How do you resolve this? The solution is simple. You don't replace the weapon with a focus. You just add another material component to the spell, that component being the spellcasting focus itself.
It's the same solution as you'd do with an artificer casting a verbal and somatic only spell. Just because it already has one listed M component doesn't mean you can't add another instead of attempting to replace a spell component you can't replace. In fact you MUST because Tools Required specifically states that an Artificer MUST.
Ordinarily, you can't just add extra components to a spell (I assume). The Artificer Tools Required Feature is a specific exception that overrides the general rules on how a spellcasting focus works.
If a DM rules that Artificer couldn't cast a spell with a costly M component and use a spellcasting focus then here's the list of artificer spells that the combination of that ruling and the Tools Required feature would make impossible for them to cast:
Clearly if it were intended for it to be impossible for an Artificer to cast these spells than WOTC would not have bothered adding them to the Artificer list, right?
So if the spell requires a weapon to be used in its casting, and it lists that weapon as a component that cannot be replaced, but your Tools Required feature literally adds an additional material component to spells that can't otherwise be cast with a spellcasting focus... Then, very clearly, an Alchemist can cast Booming Blade with both a weapon and alchemist supplies albeit it might take two hands to accomplish. And if they can do that, then they can very clearly get the benefit of Alchemical Savant to casting Greenflame blade.
And if you continue to disagree with this Discfan2, I do not know the words that will convince you and I give up. In any scenario I wish you well.
That is a very convincing straw man argument.
Note: the discussion was about Alchemical Savant and out of the list of spells you posted the only spell that realistically benefits is Greenflame blade. Booming blade does thunder damage which isn’t covered by alchemical supplies. Only one option of Glyph of Warding does fire.
I’ll point out that the basic artificer can cast all those spells, as they may use a tool, or imbued item and adding an additional M component handles that nicely; whether that be incorporating it into the tool set or including it in tool supplies (alchemical supplies) like diamond dust (Glyph of Warding) or ruby dust (continual flame).
The issue is with the spell itself. Alchemical Savant supports spell attacks and while Greenflame Blade is a melee attack spell the alchemist isn’t intended to be a primary melee combatant; no extra attack.
General to specific:
PHB > TCoE (class) > Single Spell
I would say WotC never intended an alchemist to cast Greenflame Blade.
One other thing, no matter how much play testing is done, there are going to be situations that occur that were never intended. And based on the specific sub-class in question and the one ability interacting with a single spell, I bet it never came up. Especially considering what the Alchemist started out as in the UA.
I don't consider taking the logic your argument presented to it's natural conclusion a straw man... but okay, let's narrow the focus back down to specifically Alchemical Savant and Green-Flame blade.
The issue is with the spell itself. Alchemical Savant supports spell attacks and while Greenflame Blade is a melee attack spell the alchemist isn’t intended to be a primary melee combatant; no extra attack.
Alchemical Savant doesn't care what kind of attack is involved in a spell, be it a ranged attack/melee attack or a weapon attack/spell attack. It has no affect on attack rolls at all.
It only cares about damage rolls of specific types (which includes fire) or rolls that restore hit points and even then the bonus is applied only to a single roll of a spell. Green-Flame blade (when cast by a 5th level character) does 1d8 of fire damage to one target and 1d8 + spellcasting modifier to a second target (if there is one). It has two damage rolls which do fire when cast by a character at the same level as when an Alchemist gets the Alchemical Savant feature.
Ostensibly all Alchemical Savant would do in this scenario is add a damage bonus to one of those rolls equal to the Alchemist's INT modifier.
Green-Flame Blade is a spell, check. Green-Flame Blade has at least one fire damage roll when cast by a 5th level or higher character, check. Casting Green-Flame Blade does not preclude the use of Alchemist's Supplies as a spellcasting focus, check.
Thus the logical conclusion: An Alchemist can cast Green-Flame Blade and add the bonus to one damage roll from Alchemical Savant.
It might take them two hands to do it, it might thus preclude the use of a shield at the same time. But it works.
Real talk? If the fact that it was a "weapon attack" was the hang up you were having on this spell's interaction with Alchemical Savant, I apologize. I did not catch that from your posts at all.
I can see how you'd consider my post a strawman argument now.
Alchemical Savant supports spell attacks and while Greenflame Blade is a melee attack spell the alchemist isn’t intended to be a primary melee combatant; no extra attack.
This line doesn't make sense to me. The phrase "spell attack" doesn't appear anywhere within the text of alchemical savant. There's nothing to support that it's only intended to work with spells like that. Would you say it shouldn't work with fireball? I can't see anything even remotely supporting the idea.
Furthermore, saying they don't get extra attack is completely irrelevant. Greenflame and Booming Blade don't work with Extra Attacks, having extra attack devalues the spell... and the spell was originally a sorcerer/warlock/wizard ability, classes that don't get extra attacks normally.
speaking of strange interactions with the 5th level alchemist feature; nothing in the feature says that the spell you cast has to be an artificer spell, so if you have the Artificer Initiate feat (allowing you to use a single tool as your casting focus for all int-spells) and you multiclass into wizard, you can apply the int bonus to damage dealt by wizard spells. A 1-level dip into wizard directly after 5th could give you burning hands, shield and toll the dead, get a spare 1st level slot for potion use via arcane recovery, and potentially free up some cantrip slots so that you have more room to specialize your two artificer cantrips for more utilitarian stuff such as guidance. Beyond just that a lunatic who goes evocation wizard 10 / artificer 5 could deal an extra 10 points of damage with each fireball, fire bolt or burning hands they cast (at the cost of not having 8th level spells like a 15th level wizard or any of the cool shit artificers get at higher levels, probably not worth it, but it is neat), and of course a alchemist artificer multiclassing into transmutation wizard will have a lot of thematic overlap as well.
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i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Real talk? If the fact that it was a "weapon attack" was the hang up you were having on this spell's interaction with Alchemical Savant, I apologize. I did not catch that from your posts at all.
I can see how you'd consider my post a strawman argument now.
Correct. The spell itself imposes the limitation not Alchemical Savant. The spell forces the use of a weapon as both the material component and the weapon used to attack. See my previous example of using a flask (alchemical supplies) as a improvised weapon to cast and attack.
Alchemical Savant supports spell attacks and while Greenflame Blade is a melee attack spell the alchemist isn’t intended to be a primary melee combatant; no extra attack.
This line doesn't make sense to me. The phrase "spell attack" doesn't appear anywhere within the text of alchemical savant. There's nothing to support that it's only intended to work with spells like that. Would you say it shouldn't work with fireball? I can't see anything even remotely supporting the idea.
Furthermore, saying they don't get extra attack is completely irrelevant. Greenflame and Booming Blade don't work with Extra Attacks, having extra attack devalues the spell... and the spell was originally a sorcerer/warlock/wizard ability, classes that don't get extra attacks normally.
After re-reading what I wrote, I can see I made to many assumptions. Mainly to avoid repeating what had already been said.
Alchemical Savant: "Whenever you cast a spell using your alchemist’s supplies as the spellcasting focus, you gain a bonus to one roll of the spell. That roll must restore hit points or be a damage roll that deals acid, fire, necrotic, or poison damage, and the bonus equals your Intelligence modifier "
Meaning it only adds +int to spells either doing one of the specified damage types or healing that results in a roll.
The 'melee attack spell' - melee attack is superfluous and the phrase can be restated as Greenflame Blade is a spell. It does one of the specified damage types. However, the spell itself (which is more specific) imposes additional limitations primarily being that the material component must be the weapon used to attack.
Green-Flame Blade: "You brandish the weapon used in the spell’s casting and make a melee attack with it against one creature within 5 feet of you. and Component: M*: * - (a melee weapon worth at least 1 sp)
Now to the rest: AFAIK Green-Flame Blade and Booming Blade were made specifically for Bladesingers (although eldritch knights and at least 1 bard sub-class benefit) as the Bladesinger can cast and attack. The not intended as primary melee is based on every other class and sub-class designed for melee has an extra attack. While some get extra attack and interact with spells/spell slots in a different manner due to a class/sub-class ability (paladin smite, EK, bladesinger, etc.) Sure druids, warlocks (except hexblade) and others can benefits from using either of those spells, its an add-on and not designed as a primary form of attack for them.
The spell itself imposes the limitation not Alchemical Savant. The spell forces the use of a weapon as both the material component and the weapon used to attack.
More correctly, it forces the use of a weapon as a material component, not the material component. As an artificer spell, it can be cast using the weapon as a material component (per the intent of GFB) and using tools (e.g. Alchemical Supplies) as the focus (per the intent of all Artificer Spells).
True, but the spell still forces the use of a weapon for the casting and the subsequent attack.
Yes. It does. No disagreements here.
Using alchemy supplies means, per the spell, you have to attack with those same supplies.
No. That's an additional requirement you're reading into the spell. That specific requirement doesn't exist.
Alchemy supplies do not and cannot replace the weapon needed for Green-Flame blade. Adding "Alchemist Supplies" as an additional material component to the spell (per Tools Required) does not remove or replace the weapon component nor does it rewrite what the spell does. Using Alchemist Supplies to cast green flame blade does NOT mean the alchemist supplies have to replace the weapon brandished as part of casting the spell. It means that the spell has an additional material component when cast by an Artificer.
The components of Green-Flame Blade are:
Ordinarily (non-Artificer): S, M (a melee weapon worth at least 1 sp) When cast by an Artificer: S, M (a melee weapon worth at least 1 sp, a spellcasting focus) When cast by an Alchemist seeking to get the benefits of Alchemical Savant: S, M (a melee weapon worth at least 1 sp, alchemist's supplies)
When an alchemist casts the spell they need both a weapon and alchemist supplies in hand. Per the wording of the spell they brandish the weapon. Mechanically the alchemist supplies need only be "in hand" there's no requirement that the tools also be brandished or be used to make a weapon attack. What a player does when describing how they cast the spell is up to them.
Having it on their spell list doesn't change that alchemist weren't designed to be primary melee combatants.
Ordinarily (non-Artificer): S, M (a melee weapon worth at least 1 sp) When cast by an Artificer: S, M (a melee weapon worth at least 1 sp, a spellcasting focus) When cast by an Alchemist seeking to get the benefits of Alchemical Savant: S, M (a melee weapon worth at least 1 sp, alchemist's supplies)
When an alchemist casts the spell they need both a weapon and alchemist supplies in hand. Per the wording of the spell they brandish the weapon. Mechanically the alchemist supplies need only be "in hand" there's no requirement that the tools also be brandished or be used to make a weapon attack. What a player does when describing how they cast the spell is up to them.
I agree, but if I'm not mistaken this will also mean that you are going into melee and holding a weapon in one hand, and alchemy tools which means you give up using your shield. This is obviously not ideal, especially since you will need to be MAD if you are going melee with an Alchemist.
I think the big design flaw in terms of cantrips/sustained contribution in combat is that you either need to: -Be MAD, and give up your shield, to cast greenflame so you can use a weapon infusion. -Use ranged cantrips, so you are using your tools to cast though, meaning you cant use enhanced arcane focus for an infusion (Needing to hold alchemist tools also means that you cant use a lot of magic wands, staffs etc, unless you give up your shield.)
Both of these kind of have the alchemist mechanics tripping over itself and it is objectively worse than battlesmith
Thematically, I agree with you. Mechanically and RAW those are mutually exclusive.
Thematically, I can see going after someone with a broken Erlenmeyer flask dripping green flames and using alchemist supplies as the improvised weapon.
Mechanically Greenflame Blade has components: S, M* - with M* defined as * - (a melee weapon worth at least 1 sp)
The weapon is the material component used to cast and attack. "You brandish the weapon used in the spell’s casting and make a melee attack with it against one creature within 5 feet of you."
One other note, I"m not sure how booming blade got caught up in the mix since it does thunder damage and Alchemical Savant doesn't affect thunder damage. I know you can dip 2 levels of sorcerer or take the metamagic feat to change the damage type but that seems kinda pointless for two melee attacks/day.
Indeed, the (assumed) reason that the material component of the Blade cantrips was errata-ed to a weapon that has a 1sp cost was to prevent the casting of it with a focus (Ed: that is not also a weapon).
Booming blade works if you have a poison weapon. Like the magic items "poison dagger" or several other options because the spell has you make the attack.
The cost was added so you have to possess a weapon instead of using the focus to magically replace the weapon. The weapon out of nowhere was the problem not focuses in general. There is a vid of jc talking about it. if I can find it links will be added.
The section on components just says you must " have" the costly component but you can still cast through a focus. Especially artificers since they must use a focus or infusion RAW.
No, Alchemical Savant states: "Whenever you cast a spell using your alchemist’s supplies as the spellcasting focus, you gain a bonus to one roll of the spell."
Adding poison to a weapon, or using a magic weapon that produces poison doesn't add the + Int from Alchemical savant as neither are spell effects causing that damage.
Right, but specific beats general. The spell specifically states: "You brandish the weapon used in the spell’s casting and make a melee attack with it against one creature within 5 feet of you."
You must have a weapon. It is explicitly used as the spell focus and used in the attack.
The following is true:
Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade both have a material components, yes. That material component has a listed cost, yes. That component cannot be replaced by a spellcasting focus, yes. But Tools Required states that the artifcer MUST use a spellcasting focus to cast an artificer spell.
How do you resolve this? The solution is simple. You don't replace the weapon with a focus. You just add another material component to the spell, that component being the spellcasting focus itself.
It's the same solution as you'd do with an artificer casting a verbal and somatic only spell. Just because it already has one listed M component doesn't mean you can't add another instead of attempting to replace a spell component you can't replace. In fact you MUST because Tools Required specifically states that an Artificer MUST.
Ordinarily, you can't just add extra components to a spell (I assume). The Artificer Tools Required Feature is a specific exception that overrides the general rules on how a spellcasting focus works.
If a DM rules that Artificer couldn't cast a spell with a costly M component and use a spellcasting focus then here's the list of artificer spells that the combination of that ruling and the Tools Required feature would make impossible for them to cast:
Booming Blade
Green-Flame Blade
Identify(Technically, it also has an owl feather as an additional component and the feather doesn't have a listed cost.)Continual Flame
Magic Mouth
Glyph of Warding
Revivify
Leomund's Secret Chest
Stoneskin
Summon Construct
Greater Restoration
Clearly if it were intended for it to be impossible for an Artificer to cast these spells than WOTC would not have bothered adding them to the Artificer list, right?
So if the spell requires a weapon to be used in its casting, and it lists that weapon as a component that cannot be replaced, but your Tools Required feature literally adds an additional material component to spells that can't otherwise be cast with a spellcasting focus... Then, very clearly, an Alchemist can cast Booming Blade with both a weapon and alchemist supplies albeit it might take two hands to accomplish. And if they can do that, then they can very clearly get the benefit of Alchemical Savant to casting Greenflame blade.
And if you continue to disagree with this Discfan2, I do not know the words that will convince you and I give up. In any scenario I wish you well.
That is a very convincing straw man argument.
Note: the discussion was about Alchemical Savant and out of the list of spells you posted the only spell that realistically benefits is Greenflame blade. Booming blade does thunder damage which isn’t covered by alchemical supplies. Only one option of Glyph of Warding does fire.
I’ll point out that the basic artificer can cast all those spells, as they may use a tool, or imbued item and adding an additional M component handles that nicely; whether that be incorporating it into the tool set or including it in tool supplies (alchemical supplies) like diamond dust (Glyph of Warding) or ruby dust (continual flame).
The issue is with the spell itself. Alchemical Savant supports spell attacks and while Greenflame Blade is a melee attack spell the alchemist isn’t intended to be a primary melee combatant; no extra attack.
General to specific:
PHB > TCoE (class) > Single Spell
I would say WotC never intended an alchemist to cast Greenflame Blade.
One other thing, no matter how much play testing is done, there are going to be situations that occur that were never intended. And based on the specific sub-class in question and the one ability interacting with a single spell, I bet it never came up. Especially considering what the Alchemist started out as in the UA.
I don't consider taking the logic your argument presented to it's natural conclusion a straw man... but okay, let's narrow the focus back down to specifically Alchemical Savant and Green-Flame blade.
Alchemical Savant doesn't care what kind of attack is involved in a spell, be it a ranged attack/melee attack or a weapon attack/spell attack. It has no affect on attack rolls at all.
It only cares about damage rolls of specific types (which includes fire) or rolls that restore hit points and even then the bonus is applied only to a single roll of a spell. Green-Flame blade (when cast by a 5th level character) does 1d8 of fire damage to one target and 1d8 + spellcasting modifier to a second target (if there is one). It has two damage rolls which do fire when cast by a character at the same level as when an Alchemist gets the Alchemical Savant feature.
Ostensibly all Alchemical Savant would do in this scenario is add a damage bonus to one of those rolls equal to the Alchemist's INT modifier.
Green-Flame Blade is a spell, check.
Green-Flame Blade has at least one fire damage roll when cast by a 5th level or higher character, check.
Casting Green-Flame Blade does not preclude the use of Alchemist's Supplies as a spellcasting focus, check.
Thus the logical conclusion: An Alchemist can cast Green-Flame Blade and add the bonus to one damage roll from Alchemical Savant.
It might take them two hands to do it, it might thus preclude the use of a shield at the same time. But it works.
Real talk?
If the fact that it was a "weapon attack" was the hang up you were having on this spell's interaction with Alchemical Savant, I apologize.
I did not catch that from your posts at all.
I can see how you'd consider my post a strawman argument now.
This line doesn't make sense to me. The phrase "spell attack" doesn't appear anywhere within the text of alchemical savant. There's nothing to support that it's only intended to work with spells like that. Would you say it shouldn't work with fireball? I can't see anything even remotely supporting the idea.
Furthermore, saying they don't get extra attack is completely irrelevant. Greenflame and Booming Blade don't work with Extra Attacks, having extra attack devalues the spell... and the spell was originally a sorcerer/warlock/wizard ability, classes that don't get extra attacks normally.
speaking of strange interactions with the 5th level alchemist feature; nothing in the feature says that the spell you cast has to be an artificer spell, so if you have the Artificer Initiate feat (allowing you to use a single tool as your casting focus for all int-spells) and you multiclass into wizard, you can apply the int bonus to damage dealt by wizard spells. A 1-level dip into wizard directly after 5th could give you burning hands, shield and toll the dead, get a spare 1st level slot for potion use via arcane recovery, and potentially free up some cantrip slots so that you have more room to specialize your two artificer cantrips for more utilitarian stuff such as guidance. Beyond just that a lunatic who goes evocation wizard 10 / artificer 5 could deal an extra 10 points of damage with each fireball, fire bolt or burning hands they cast (at the cost of not having 8th level spells like a 15th level wizard or any of the cool shit artificers get at higher levels, probably not worth it, but it is neat), and of course a alchemist artificer multiclassing into transmutation wizard will have a lot of thematic overlap as well.
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Correct. The spell itself imposes the limitation not Alchemical Savant. The spell forces the use of a weapon as both the material component and the weapon used to attack. See my previous example of using a flask (alchemical supplies) as a improvised weapon to cast and attack.
After re-reading what I wrote, I can see I made to many assumptions. Mainly to avoid repeating what had already been said.
Alchemical Savant: "Whenever you cast a spell using your alchemist’s supplies as the spellcasting focus, you gain a bonus to one roll of the spell. That roll must restore hit points or be a damage roll that deals acid, fire, necrotic, or poison damage, and the bonus equals your Intelligence modifier "
Meaning it only adds +int to spells either doing one of the specified damage types or healing that results in a roll.
The 'melee attack spell' - melee attack is superfluous and the phrase can be restated as Greenflame Blade is a spell. It does one of the specified damage types. However, the spell itself (which is more specific) imposes additional limitations primarily being that the material component must be the weapon used to attack.
Green-Flame Blade: "You brandish the weapon used in the spell’s casting and make a melee attack with it against one creature within 5 feet of you. and Component: M*: * - (a melee weapon worth at least 1 sp)
Now to the rest: AFAIK Green-Flame Blade and Booming Blade were made specifically for Bladesingers (although eldritch knights and at least 1 bard sub-class benefit) as the Bladesinger can cast and attack. The not intended as primary melee is based on every other class and sub-class designed for melee has an extra attack. While some get extra attack and interact with spells/spell slots in a different manner due to a class/sub-class ability (paladin smite, EK, bladesinger, etc.) Sure druids, warlocks (except hexblade) and others can benefits from using either of those spells, its an add-on and not designed as a primary form of attack for them.
True, but the spell still forces the use of a weapon for the casting and the subsequent attack.
Using alchemy supplies means, per the spell, you have to attack with those same supplies.
Having it on their spell list doesn't change that alchemist weren't designed to be primary melee combatants.
More correctly, it forces the use of a weapon as a material component, not the material component. As an artificer spell, it can be cast using the weapon as a material component (per the intent of GFB) and using tools (e.g. Alchemical Supplies) as the focus (per the intent of all Artificer Spells).
Yes. It does. No disagreements here.
No. That's an additional requirement you're reading into the spell. That specific requirement doesn't exist.
Alchemy supplies do not and cannot replace the weapon needed for Green-Flame blade. Adding "Alchemist Supplies" as an additional material component to the spell (per Tools Required) does not remove or replace the weapon component nor does it rewrite what the spell does. Using Alchemist Supplies to cast green flame blade does NOT mean the alchemist supplies have to replace the weapon brandished as part of casting the spell. It means that the spell has an additional material component when cast by an Artificer.
The components of Green-Flame Blade are:
Ordinarily (non-Artificer): S, M (a melee weapon worth at least 1 sp)
When cast by an Artificer: S, M (a melee weapon worth at least 1 sp, a spellcasting focus)
When cast by an Alchemist seeking to get the benefits of Alchemical Savant: S, M (a melee weapon worth at least 1 sp, alchemist's supplies)
When an alchemist casts the spell they need both a weapon and alchemist supplies in hand. Per the wording of the spell they brandish the weapon. Mechanically the alchemist supplies need only be "in hand" there's no requirement that the tools also be brandished or be used to make a weapon attack. What a player does when describing how they cast the spell is up to them.
Sure.
I agree, but if I'm not mistaken this will also mean that you are going into melee and holding a weapon in one hand, and alchemy tools which means you give up using your shield. This is obviously not ideal, especially since you will need to be MAD if you are going melee with an Alchemist.
I think the big design flaw in terms of cantrips/sustained contribution in combat is that you either need to:
-Be MAD, and give up your shield, to cast greenflame so you can use a weapon infusion.
-Use ranged cantrips, so you are using your tools to cast though, meaning you cant use enhanced arcane focus for an infusion
(Needing to hold alchemist tools also means that you cant use a lot of magic wands, staffs etc, unless you give up your shield.)
Both of these kind of have the alchemist mechanics tripping over itself and it is objectively worse than battlesmith