I notice that when it mentions using a spell slot to predictable create a potion with Experimental Elixer, it doesn't specify that you have to use Alchemist slots. If you take two levels of Warlock, it seems like you can use pact spells to basically mass produce elixers of your choice at a rate of 2 per short rest. It seems like this could be a little crazy at 5th level to just be steadily churning out Elixers during downtime.
Of course, since these would be made using Pact slots, the elixers might taste a little... funny. But I'm sure they're safe, right?
Having Eldrich Blast out of a fancy sniping staff is just icing on the cake next to having a production line of potions to pass around. Has anyone tried this?
I notice that when it mentions using a spell slot to predictable create a potion with Experimental Elixer, it doesn't specify that you have to use Alchemist slots. If you take two levels of Warlock, it seems like you can use pact spells to basically mass produce elixers of your choice at a rate of 2 per short rest. It seems like this could be a little crazy at 5th level to just be steadily churning out Elixers during downtime.
Of course, since these would be made using Pact slots, the elixers might taste a little... funny. But I'm sure they're safe, right?
Having Eldrich Blast out of a fancy sniping staff is just icing on the cake next to having a production line of potions to pass around. Has anyone tried this?
This is certainly interesting, but Elixers only last until your next long rest. Getting Eldritch Blast is certainly powerful, but keys off Charisma instead of Intelligence. These are good stats for a Yuan-ti Pureblood, or Tiefling, however.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
You'd need to be taking a whole lot of short rests throughout the day to get any mileage out of those elixirs. And also you'd need to persuade your BBEG to only fight you late in the evening.
This is certainly interesting, but Elixers only last until your next long rest. Getting Eldritch Blast is certainly powerful, but keys off Charisma instead of Intelligence. These are good stats for a Yuan-ti Pureblood, or Tiefling, however.
Yeah, the short expiration date means you have to make a several hour routine at the start of the day making potions. Getting the most out of Eldritch Blast from the dip does require a little MADness, but even then only for one attack. Like I said having that is underwhelming compared to having as twice as many potions as you have hours of downtime. If you want to go all out with building up potions, you can get a third level of Warlock, get Pact of the Tome and Aspect of the Moon to simply never need sleep. But this is really only about taking a two-level dip.
You'd need to be taking a whole lot of short rests throughout the day to get any mileage out of those elixirs. And also you'd need to persuade your BBEG to only fight you late in the evening.
True, a lot of things are countered by the BBEG just ambushing the party while they prepare for battle, this really only works when the party is often planning a raid or battle in advance. Also, short rests are an hour of light activity, and "keeping watch" is explicitly noted as being light rest activity. Making sure your alchemist warlock is the on the last watch while everyone sleeps and they can use that time to take around three or four short rests and have six to eight extra potions during the following day.
I think you'd get more out of two levels of wizard. while only a single spell slot arcane recovery will give you an extra elixir a day and the spell casting keys off the same casting stat.
find familiar comes with it as well and with SSI it's one of the single biggest boosts for you.
Two levels of wizard only gives you one slot back on a short rest, and three slots base, so if you have more than 2 hours of downtime you can use to make potions at the start of the day, you get more potions out of the Warlock. Now, if you were making a primarily wizard with a three level dip in Artificer, I'd agree it gets a lot better, but this isn't that discussion.
Can't argue with combining Find Familiar with Spell Storing Item. In theory also obtainable via a third level in warlock, either by getting a Pact of the Chain or a Pact of the Tome and the Book of Ancient Secrets invocation.
...Actually, a three level dip into Tome Warlock looks really nice for an Alchemist because of those two Invocations.
1 level into life cleric would be decent dip for noosing your healing abilities.
•disciple of life: Also starting a t 1st level, your healing spells are more effective. Whenever you use a spell of 1st level or higher to restore hit points to a creature, the creature regains additional hit points equal to 2 + the spell's level.
• gains heavy armor proficiency at first level.
• 3 additional cantrips that can be used to supplement the small amount of cantrips the artificer can use at any one time. Guidance, mending, thaumaturgy, or resistance might be cool choices since they don’t rely on wisdom.
• the likely 2-3 prepared spells you get can also be spells that are effective that dont rely on your wisdom, such as shield of faith or protection from good and evil. Or you could prepare rituals to stretch out your low spell slots like detect magic, detect poison and disease, or purify food or drink. The rituals are also on theme with an alchemist in my opinion.
•cure wounds is a bit of a waste as a domain spell, but bless is pretty potent and also stacks with your boldness potion.
Would probably work quite well on a dwarf since they can make use of the heavy armor without needing to meet strength requirements. Hill dwarf for more hitpoints and a bump to wisdom. dwarf mark of warding for potent intelligence boosting featuresa few free spell castings per day, and potentially an expanded spell list.
Okay, so... a slow day at work causes the mind to contemplate builds, this one is to maximize the Alchemist's possible potions per hour, while also being a (kind of) halfway decent multiclass that does what it's supposed to do by level 5 and while it progresses more slowly than the rest of the party, they'll always appreciate him being there.
Race: Aasimar
Attrib (after racial adjustments): S10 D12 C11 I15 W10 Ch17 This build never goes over level 3 in Artificer and is basically a sub-optimal Sorclock build geared toward generating the maximum number of 1st level spells on each short rest.
L1-L3: Artificer(Alchemist)1-3: Cantrips(Mage Hand, Guidance), Infusions(E.Arcane Focus, E.Defense, E.Weapon, RME: Perfume of Bewitching), 1st level spells can be changed on a long rest, but are mostly unimportant.
L4-L7: Warlock(Celestial)1-4: Cantrips(Eldritch Blast, Minor Illusion, Sword Burst), Pact Spells(Armor of Agathys, Guiding Bolt, Puppet, Flock of Familiars, Misty Step), Pact of the Tome(Thorn Whip, Vicious Mockery, Shillelagh), Invocations(Agonizing Blast, Aspect of the Moon), ASI: Int+1, Cha+1
At this point, things are pretty straightforward, Agonizing Eldrich Blast with an extra +1 to hit that ignores half cover is nothing to sneeze at. Since 5th Level, you've been putting out 2 potions per hour of downtime, of which you have plenty after 6th level now that you don't have to sleep while the rest of the team does. But soon it gets a little more tricky.
Cure Wounds is free with a Good Alignment and Divine Soul, Lots of flavor here, but there's nothing really boosting the potion making ability of the character in these four levels, Rather, having the levels in Sorcerer sets the stage for the next stages back into Warlock. It should be noted that while there are only four levels in Sorcerer, the class has effectively two more caster levels from Artificer, so when the Warlock levels access 3rd level spells, the character has Sorcerer slots ready to use with them.
Now we're really starting to go places, each hour of short rest, you can turn your two level 4 Pact Spells into 4 level 1 Sorcerer Spells and then likewise into 4 potions, doubling your potion output from level 5... Oh, also you're looking through walls, bringing back the dead, shooting enemies at 480' with a 4d6+20Radiant Distant Guiding Bolt and a 3d10+15Force Quickened Agonizing Eldritch Blast at advantage if the bolt hit.
L16-L17: Sorcerer 5-6: Spells(Fireball, Beacon of Hope)
Level 16, you FINALLY have Fireball. You also get the Sorcerous Origin feature "Empowered Healing" which sounds great, but only has a 5' range, so it's pretty niche on this build. At this point pure builds have really pulled away from this one, but you're still sniping and producing 4 potions every hour that you're not fighting to stay alive. It should be noted that while these potions mostly have dropped off in relative effectiveness by this point, Potions of Boldness are still downright fantastic, and will stack with pretty much everything else being handed out on the field.
These levels are about making more potions, At 18, you're making 5 potions per hour, at 20 you're making either 7 or 8 potions per hour, depending on if you have a Spell point left over from the last hour.
The 10th and 11th levels of Warlock could just as easily be spent on Artificer levels 4th and 5th so that your 5th level Warlock spells can have an additional 5th level Spell Slot to use. You'd be trading the Cantrip, the Mystic Arcanum, the Otherworldly Patron Feature(Celestial Resistance), and one of your Pact spells for an ASI(Int+2), one more level 1 Artificer spell 2 level 2 artificer spells, and the Alchemical Savant class feature. This would be a flavorful kind of "retirement from the Arcane" with a host of utility spells to choose from on that very rare long rest that weren't available before, but nothing really lifechanging, and while it doesn't reach the full potential for potions per hour, it helps with healing from the many other means at hand. IMO, your mileage may vary, and most campaigns aren't going to be playing into these really high levels anyway.
The main thing this build does early on is getting loads of good Cantrips from many different places. It has a good mix of healing and blasting outside of just churning out potions. It really peaks in effectiveness around level 15 and not long after that a pure Artificer pulls ahead of it with regards to overall casting and by the time it gets Fireball, pure sorcerers are casting Wish. The only thing it mostly keeps pace with is the Warlock side of the build, only because Eldrich Blast was practically made for multiclassing.
I notice that when it mentions using a spell slot to predictable create a potion with Experimental Elixer, it doesn't specify that you have to use Alchemist slots. If you take two levels of Warlock, it seems like you can use pact spells to basically mass produce elixers of your choice at a rate of 2 per short rest. It seems like this could be a little crazy at 5th level to just be steadily churning out Elixers during downtime.
Of course, since these would be made using Pact slots, the elixers might taste a little... funny. But I'm sure they're safe, right?
Having Eldrich Blast out of a fancy sniping staff is just icing on the cake next to having a production line of potions to pass around. Has anyone tried this?
This is certainly interesting, but Elixers only last until your next long rest. Getting Eldritch Blast is certainly powerful, but keys off Charisma instead of Intelligence. These are good stats for a Yuan-ti Pureblood, or Tiefling, however.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
You'd need to be taking a whole lot of short rests throughout the day to get any mileage out of those elixirs. And also you'd need to persuade your BBEG to only fight you late in the evening.
Yeah, the short expiration date means you have to make a several hour routine at the start of the day making potions. Getting the most out of Eldritch Blast from the dip does require a little MADness, but even then only for one attack. Like I said having that is underwhelming compared to having as twice as many potions as you have hours of downtime. If you want to go all out with building up potions, you can get a third level of Warlock, get Pact of the Tome and Aspect of the Moon to simply never need sleep. But this is really only about taking a two-level dip.
True, a lot of things are countered by the BBEG just ambushing the party while they prepare for battle, this really only works when the party is often planning a raid or battle in advance. Also, short rests are an hour of light activity, and "keeping watch" is explicitly noted as being light rest activity. Making sure your alchemist warlock is the on the last watch while everyone sleeps and they can use that time to take around three or four short rests and have six to eight extra potions during the following day.
Two levels of wizard only gives you one slot back on a short rest, and three slots base, so if you have more than 2 hours of downtime you can use to make potions at the start of the day, you get more potions out of the Warlock. Now, if you were making a primarily wizard with a three level dip in Artificer, I'd agree it gets a lot better, but this isn't that discussion.
Can't argue with combining Find Familiar with Spell Storing Item. In theory also obtainable via a third level in warlock, either by getting a Pact of the Chain or a Pact of the Tome and the Book of Ancient Secrets invocation.
...Actually, a three level dip into Tome Warlock looks really nice for an Alchemist because of those two Invocations.
1 level into life cleric would be decent dip for noosing your healing abilities.
•disciple of life: Also starting a t 1st level, your healing spells are more effective. Whenever you use a spell of 1st level or higher to restore hit points to a creature, the creature regains additional hit points equal to 2 + the spell's level.
• gains heavy armor proficiency at first level.
• 3 additional cantrips that can be used to supplement the small amount of cantrips the artificer can use at any one time. Guidance, mending, thaumaturgy, or resistance might be cool choices since they don’t rely on wisdom.
• the likely 2-3 prepared spells you get can also be spells that are effective that dont rely on your wisdom, such as shield of faith or protection from good and evil. Or you could prepare rituals to stretch out your low spell slots like detect magic, detect poison and disease, or purify food or drink. The rituals are also on theme with an alchemist in my opinion.
•cure wounds is a bit of a waste as a domain spell, but bless is pretty potent and also stacks with your boldness potion.
Would probably work quite well on a dwarf since they can make use of the heavy armor without needing to meet strength requirements. Hill dwarf for more hitpoints and a bump to wisdom. dwarf mark of warding for potent intelligence boosting featuresa few free spell castings per day, and potentially an expanded spell list.
Okay, so... a slow day at work causes the mind to contemplate builds, this one is to maximize the Alchemist's possible potions per hour, while also being a (kind of) halfway decent multiclass that does what it's supposed to do by level 5 and while it progresses more slowly than the rest of the party, they'll always appreciate him being there.
Race: Aasimar
Attrib (after racial adjustments): S10 D12 C11 I15 W10 Ch17 This build never goes over level 3 in Artificer and is basically a sub-optimal Sorclock build geared toward generating the maximum number of 1st level spells on each short rest.
L1-L3: Artificer(Alchemist)1-3: Cantrips(Mage Hand, Guidance), Infusions(E.Arcane Focus, E.Defense, E.Weapon, RME: Perfume of Bewitching), 1st level spells can be changed on a long rest, but are mostly unimportant.
L4-L7: Warlock(Celestial)1-4: Cantrips(Eldritch Blast, Minor Illusion, Sword Burst), Pact Spells(Armor of Agathys, Guiding Bolt, Puppet, Flock of Familiars, Misty Step), Pact of the Tome(Thorn Whip, Vicious Mockery, Shillelagh), Invocations(Agonizing Blast, Aspect of the Moon), ASI: Int+1, Cha+1
At this point, things are pretty straightforward, Agonizing Eldrich Blast with an extra +1 to hit that ignores half cover is nothing to sneeze at. Since 5th Level, you've been putting out 2 potions per hour of downtime, of which you have plenty after 6th level now that you don't have to sleep while the rest of the team does. But soon it gets a little more tricky.
L8-L11: Sorcerer(Divine Soul)1-4: Cantrips(Word of Radiance, Virtue, Thaumaturgy, Prestidigitation, Mold Earth), Spells(Cure Wounds*, Command, Divine Favor, Shield, Web, Warding Bond), Metamagic(Quickened Spell, Distant Spell), ASI: Spell Sniper
Cure Wounds is free with a Good Alignment and Divine Soul, Lots of flavor here, but there's nothing really boosting the potion making ability of the character in these four levels, Rather, having the levels in Sorcerer sets the stage for the next stages back into Warlock. It should be noted that while there are only four levels in Sorcerer, the class has effectively two more caster levels from Artificer, so when the Warlock levels access 3rd level spells, the character has Sorcerer slots ready to use with them.
L12-L15: Warlock 5-8: Pact Spells(Revivify, Counterspell, Dimension Door, Guardian of Faith), Invocations(Eldritch Spear, Ghostly Gaze), ASI: Cha+2
Now we're really starting to go places, each hour of short rest, you can turn your two level 4 Pact Spells into 4 level 1 Sorcerer Spells and then likewise into 4 potions, doubling your potion output from level 5... Oh, also you're looking through walls, bringing back the dead, shooting enemies at 480' with a 4d6+20Radiant Distant Guiding Bolt and a 3d10+15Force Quickened Agonizing Eldritch Blast at advantage if the bolt hit.
L16-L17: Sorcerer 5-6: Spells(Fireball, Beacon of Hope)
Level 16, you FINALLY have Fireball. You also get the Sorcerous Origin feature "Empowered Healing" which sounds great, but only has a 5' range, so it's pretty niche on this build. At this point pure builds have really pulled away from this one, but you're still sniping and producing 4 potions every hour that you're not fighting to stay alive. It should be noted that while these potions mostly have dropped off in relative effectiveness by this point, Potions of Boldness are still downright fantastic, and will stack with pretty much everything else being handed out on the field.
L18-L20 Warlock 9-11: Cantrip(Green Flame Blade), Pact Spells(Greater Restoration, Contact Other Plane), Invocation(Otherworldly Leap), Mystic Arcanum (Mass Suggestion)
These levels are about making more potions, At 18, you're making 5 potions per hour, at 20 you're making either 7 or 8 potions per hour, depending on if you have a Spell point left over from the last hour.
The 10th and 11th levels of Warlock could just as easily be spent on Artificer levels 4th and 5th so that your 5th level Warlock spells can have an additional 5th level Spell Slot to use. You'd be trading the Cantrip, the Mystic Arcanum, the Otherworldly Patron Feature(Celestial Resistance), and one of your Pact spells for an ASI(Int+2), one more level 1 Artificer spell 2 level 2 artificer spells, and the Alchemical Savant class feature. This would be a flavorful kind of "retirement from the Arcane" with a host of utility spells to choose from on that very rare long rest that weren't available before, but nothing really lifechanging, and while it doesn't reach the full potential for potions per hour, it helps with healing from the many other means at hand. IMO, your mileage may vary, and most campaigns aren't going to be playing into these really high levels anyway.
The main thing this build does early on is getting loads of good Cantrips from many different places. It has a good mix of healing and blasting outside of just churning out potions. It really peaks in effectiveness around level 15 and not long after that a pure Artificer pulls ahead of it with regards to overall casting and by the time it gets Fireball, pure sorcerers are casting Wish. The only thing it mostly keeps pace with is the Warlock side of the build, only because Eldrich Blast was practically made for multiclassing.