In General: Probably going to reverse Tainted Love a bit. Rather "when you're Adrenaline Surging you count as Poisoned", rewrite it to "when you're Poisoned, you also experience an Adrenaline Surge". That feels a lot cleaner to me, and more logical, too - being healed a lot doesn't really work as a method for triggering a toxin rejection response, but somebody who's this ****ed up on poison all the time getting a big adrenaline kick off of being Poisoned definitely sounds plausible. DM is concerned Tainted Love is too narrow - unless the artificer invests in a way outside the subclass to Poison themselves, his concern is a Toxicologist at 15+ could go half a dozen games without ever using that benefit. Thoughts on this concern?
Update: What if at one of the earlier stages you gained an additional bandolier concoction that you can only use on yourself; not sure of an ideal effect, but the side-effect would be that at this level it would also poison you, so it'd be something you'd only use in a desperate situation. However when Tainted Love comes along it becomes safe. Probably would be something you could only use on yourself (or another toxicologist), I'm thinking like a Witcher potion (maybe even more than one)? Only idea I've had so far is:
Burst of Speed: You may consume this concoction yourself to gain an extra action on each of your turns and become Poisoned for the duration. The additional action may only be used to Dash, Disengage, or Hide. These effects last a number of rounds equal to half your Intelligence modifier (rounded up), after which you remain Poisoned for one minute.
Not sure about the balance of that; it's a short lived knock-off Haste primarily for becoming super mobile/evasive for a few rounds (2 at INT +3/4, 3 at INT +5/6) so ideal for running away or chasing something (though not if you need to fight after you catch up).
It should mesh well with Tainted Love though as it immediately poisons you, and the poisoned condition lasts for a reasonable amount of time to discourage abuse at earlier levels, and to get more out of with Tainted Love.
Also considering reining in Venomous Treatment. Right now, as written, it allows somebody to whammy a poison-immune critter with Purple Worm Poison and/or anything else they can affix to their blade. Admittedly, PWP is outrageously expensive, but the point remains that many DMs will not love me for allowing players to bypass poison immunity. Pondering whether it should be changed from "damage from attacks with this weapon" to "damage from this weapon". Tightens it up a bit and gives the Poisoner feat more room to play, though I'm also wary of making Poisoner too attractive a pick. The Toxicologist should be able to stand on its own without the feat; Poisoner can certainly help but it shouldn't feel mandatory.
Update: Hmm, yeah, thinking about it more, bypassing poison immunity is a bit of a tricky issue anyway, as a number of things immune to poison are immune because they've no living organic body to speak of. Maybe it should just be limited to only ignoring resistance again, as if it's only for the weapon itself then the poisoner feat is still useful for bypassing resistances on your spells etc.
What if instead you made Venomous Treatment "Corrosive & Venomous Treatments" and expand to include one acid treatment and one poison treatment, each of which can be applied to a different martial weapon or group of up to twenty pieces of ammunition. This way you've always got the ability to switch, which lets you bypass an immunity, unless the target is immune to both (are there many monsters immune to both?)
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I'm in the progress of building out the Toxicologist for public homebrew use. I've assembled a...tolerable...ESL using the Basic Rules, and am working on a final balance and adjustment pass alongside catching spelling and formatting errors.
CHANGELOG (For shits):
3rd: 'Venomous Treatment' is being name-changed to 'Toxic Armory'. I like the idea of the artificer getting to pick two different options and am incorporating that as a 9th-level upgrade. At 9th the Toxicologist gets to have both a poison weapon and an acid weapon, or 20 pieces of ammunition of either type. In exchange, the resistance piercing effect is limited to damage rolls for the treated weapon/ammo, and the ability loses immunity reduction. People can homebrew that back onto the Toxicologist if they want.
I've also decided that the Fermented Funk on the Bandolier needs to go. Cute idea, but too much work to be worth it. Contemplating replacing it with either 'Liquid Courage', a shot that poisons the drinker for 1 minute but makes them immune to fear while poisoned that way, or a reworked Funk that's less obnoxious and prone to screwballery. Liquid Courage seems cool but is also a pretty bald-faced excuse to turn on Tainted Love at 15th, it seems pretty pointless before then since the shit you want to be immune to fear (allies) hate being Poisoned and the shit you want poisoned (enemies) don't need to be immune to Fear. Unsure where to go with that one, will spitball it.
5th, 9th: Unchanged, so far anyways, aside from wording revision.
15th: Tainted Love now induces an Adrenaline Surge when you're poisoned instead of the other way around; that just works better. I decided that the 'Purge Poison' special action was going to be a bonus action to try and clear an existing poison, instead. This is the Toxicologist, the master of poisons, toxins, venoms and corrosives. If flat-out immunity to being poisoned is fine for the alchemist, then the Toxicologist can flush a poison with a bonus and it won't be overpowered.
Once final cleanup is complete and I figure out how to get everything to bloody work properly in the builder, I'll release it for public consumption and we'll see how it fares. It's not an anime meme so no Homebrew Spotlight for me, but it's still a cool little project I hope at least one person out there has some fun with.
I might have missed it somewhere in the thread so far, but doesn't the lvl 9 feature just give the artificer a 10 ft range 2d12 (or more leveling up) heal just by learning the poison spray cantrip? Seems a bit broken to have unlimited heals on a character below lvl 10 no less. I'd suggest changing the wording to a limitation like "spells that use a spellslot of 1st level or higher" to circumvent this issue. Heads up :)
I might have missed it somewhere in the thread so far, but doesn't the lvl 9 feature just give the artificer a 10 ft range 2d12 (or more leveling up) heal just by learning the poison spray cantrip? Seems a bit broken to have unlimited heals on a character below lvl 10 no less. I'd suggest changing the wording to a limitation like "spells that use a spellslot of 1st level or higher" to circumvent this issue. Heads up :)
The feature is limited to INT uses per long rest which I think avoids this problem? While poison spray can be used to avoid any additional costs, it only provides healing, whereas a higher level ray of sickness would also provide advantage for a time, so there's still value in spending a spell slot?
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Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
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Update: What if at one of the earlier stages you gained an additional bandolier concoction that you can only use on yourself; not sure of an ideal effect, but the side-effect would be that at this level it would also poison you, so it'd be something you'd only use in a desperate situation. However when Tainted Love comes along it becomes safe. Probably would be something you could only use on yourself (or another toxicologist), I'm thinking like a Witcher potion (maybe even more than one)? Only idea I've had so far is:
Not sure about the balance of that; it's a short lived knock-off Haste primarily for becoming super mobile/evasive for a few rounds (2 at INT +3/4, 3 at INT +5/6) so ideal for running away or chasing something (though not if you need to fight after you catch up).
It should mesh well with Tainted Love though as it immediately poisons you, and the poisoned condition lasts for a reasonable amount of time to discourage abuse at earlier levels, and to get more out of with Tainted Love.
Update: Hmm, yeah, thinking about it more, bypassing poison immunity is a bit of a tricky issue anyway, as a number of things immune to poison are immune because they've no living organic body to speak of. Maybe it should just be limited to only ignoring resistance again, as if it's only for the weapon itself then the poisoner feat is still useful for bypassing resistances on your spells etc.
What if instead you made Venomous Treatment "Corrosive & Venomous Treatments" and expand to include one acid treatment and one poison treatment, each of which can be applied to a different martial weapon or group of up to twenty pieces of ammunition. This way you've always got the ability to switch, which lets you bypass an immunity, unless the target is immune to both (are there many monsters immune to both?)
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
UPDATE:
I'm in the progress of building out the Toxicologist for public homebrew use. I've assembled a...tolerable...ESL using the Basic Rules, and am working on a final balance and adjustment pass alongside catching spelling and formatting errors.
CHANGELOG (For shits):
3rd: 'Venomous Treatment' is being name-changed to 'Toxic Armory'. I like the idea of the artificer getting to pick two different options and am incorporating that as a 9th-level upgrade. At 9th the Toxicologist gets to have both a poison weapon and an acid weapon, or 20 pieces of ammunition of either type. In exchange, the resistance piercing effect is limited to damage rolls for the treated weapon/ammo, and the ability loses immunity reduction. People can homebrew that back onto the Toxicologist if they want.
I've also decided that the Fermented Funk on the Bandolier needs to go. Cute idea, but too much work to be worth it. Contemplating replacing it with either 'Liquid Courage', a shot that poisons the drinker for 1 minute but makes them immune to fear while poisoned that way, or a reworked Funk that's less obnoxious and prone to screwballery. Liquid Courage seems cool but is also a pretty bald-faced excuse to turn on Tainted Love at 15th, it seems pretty pointless before then since the shit you want to be immune to fear (allies) hate being Poisoned and the shit you want poisoned (enemies) don't need to be immune to Fear. Unsure where to go with that one, will spitball it.
5th, 9th: Unchanged, so far anyways, aside from wording revision.
15th: Tainted Love now induces an Adrenaline Surge when you're poisoned instead of the other way around; that just works better. I decided that the 'Purge Poison' special action was going to be a bonus action to try and clear an existing poison, instead. This is the Toxicologist, the master of poisons, toxins, venoms and corrosives. If flat-out immunity to being poisoned is fine for the alchemist, then the Toxicologist can flush a poison with a bonus and it won't be overpowered.
Once final cleanup is complete and I figure out how to get everything to bloody work properly in the builder, I'll release it for public consumption and we'll see how it fares. It's not an anime meme so no Homebrew Spotlight for me, but it's still a cool little project I hope at least one person out there has some fun with.
Please do not contact or message me.
Hey there.
I might have missed it somewhere in the thread so far, but doesn't the lvl 9 feature just give the artificer a 10 ft range 2d12 (or more leveling up) heal just by learning the poison spray cantrip? Seems a bit broken to have unlimited heals on a character below lvl 10 no less. I'd suggest changing the wording to a limitation like "spells that use a spellslot of 1st level or higher" to circumvent this issue. Heads up :)
The feature is limited to INT uses per long rest which I think avoids this problem? While poison spray can be used to avoid any additional costs, it only provides healing, whereas a higher level ray of sickness would also provide advantage for a time, so there's still value in spending a spell slot?
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
i think it looks good