Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Operative word 'if"; you can cherry pick a campaign scenario where Infusions are marginalized, but as a rule of thumb a party will find having 5 extra magic items to be pretty beneficial even at level 14.
If we’re talking about Alchemists specifically if we use a general Artificer feature in a discussion of which subclass to pick
Fine. Let me remove the word "if'. In all the campaigns i have been in from 2014 rules and on, only one was a magically-scarce world, we had to.count ammo and all.food spells got.banned midcampaign so we had to spend a minute every long rest to have someone make a survivaal check to see if we ate. Mind you, we were mucking around in an endless forest teaming with wildlife (cause that wildlife regularly attacked us), but even with a ranger and a druid, we'd struggle to eat. Everyone got 1 magic item, a weapon, armor, or spellcasting focus. No bags of holding because then we'd just stock it full of rations. And the dm wanted those survival checks every long rest. He thought his was a "gritty" world. I thought it was arbitrary rules from a dm being silly so i left.
In THAT campaign, an artificer would have been like a god. A guaranteed bag of holding at level 2? Amazing! Except the dm would have never allowed that. He nerfed every players class features, he would arbitrary ban or nerf spells im the middle of combat, he gave us 1 magic item he deemed appropriate.
In every OTHER campaign, things are a bit more standard. 2014 has the magic item progression table in xanathers here:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/xgte/awarding-magic-items#MagicItemsAwardedbyRarity
In 2024 dmg, the table.is here:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/dmg-2024/treasure#MagicItemsAwardedbyLevelTable
In both cases, assuming a party of 4 or 5, the progrssion went something like this
Level 1-4: one common and one uncommon per player
Level 5-10: +2 common, +2 uncommon, +1 rare per player
Those are additional, not total, so by level 5-10 item totals are
3 common, 3 uncommon, 1 rare, per player.
In the campaign im in now, we arr level.9.and everyone has 3 attunement-required magic items. My artificer cant give anyone any attunement required items because everyone is out of attunement slots, and the infusions i can create at level 9 is mostly common rarity. No one was interested in a FREE magic item from their party's artificer. Because they already had what they wanted for attuned items, and i coulsnt offer much better. I was out of attunement slots too. So all my infusions are nonatuned items. One of which is a bag of holding because i dumped strength and even though my armorer plate armor has no strength requirement, it still.counts against my carry capacity,
So at level 9, my infusions are meh to have compared to.what i can just buy. Sure, we only get into a big town to buy a magic item maybe once every couple levels. But its not like i can just pick any infusion plan we need at the moment and make.it till wr get to town. I have to.pick the plans ahead of time and i can only change 1 plan per level.up. we ran into a water hazard. A ring of swimming would.have been nice, but not on my available plans. Next level up, i swap one plan for a ring of swimming. But we havent run into a water hazard since. Because a lot of campaigns throw in things like that to spice things up, add something new, ooh, heres a river you need to cross, some monsters in the river are now chasing you, no swim speed? Oh you have to fight.
Its new and different the first time. But feels copy/paste the second time.
I dont think i have ever used the feature that allows me to change one built infusion to a different plan. And ive been playing this artifixer for a year from level 1 to 9.
The magic item accumulation rate in this campaign feels similar to most campaigns ive been in. And that rate quickly outpaces what my artificer can build and offer to the party or myself. I stopped using the bag of holding infusion because i just bought one last time we were in town. Trying to free up plans so i could pick something useful, but it comes down to my plan accumulation rate is outpaced by the normal magic item accumulation rate. And a 3 attunement slot kimit means my plans are old hat. I couldnt give away one item i made because it needed attunement. And no one in the party had an attunement slot available.
You want to make infusions be useful, they need to kesp pace with the normal.magic item accumulation rates. Otherwise just buy what you want and dont bother with infusions.
The only other thing that might work is if artificer made magic items had a feature where each party member can attune to one artificer made plan without using an attunement slot. That would mean if everyoje bought 3 attuned items that were exactly what they wanted, they could still benefit from one magic.plan i made for them because it doesnt reauire attunement.
If each player could get one ignore-attunement plan item from an artificer, and its impossible for.them to buy something to do the same thing, then artificer infusions would still be useful even though they lag the normal accumulation rates.
It would be the artificers version of paladins aura of protection. Everyone benefits. And it encourages the artificer to share because they only get one-attunement-free item from their plans as well.
Again, this is just a general Artificer not an Alchemist specifically. You can do all that as an Artillerist, Armorer, or Battle Smith and still be more effective in a fight
Not picking you specifically, just your post to make a few points when others have expressed similar sentiments.
Taking a dip delays progression in higher level spells and other abilities, leaving the splashed class behind a straight class most of their adventuring career in order to cast spells the alchemist can already cast via the potions, which have the advantage of being used by any character instead of just the alchemist, being cast on a bonus action instead of a standard action, and not requiring concentration when the equivalent spells might.
Gaining the equivalent of a few random bonus spells each day plus the ability to cast a wider variety of spells with spell slot because of the 5 additional options is nearly as bad as people make it out to be.
We should be comparing this subclass to other artificer subclasses to rate it instead of full casters. The artificer limited spell progression is what add to the number of abilities on the class progression list as opposed to a wizard who really only adds more spells. We need to look at that bigger picture.
You can't counterspell a potion. A person should consider some of the smaller benefits too.
Having those elixirs gives the opportunity to prepare other spells instead for a wider variety of options available to the alchemist than other artificers.
The rest of your post seems like suggestions instead of discussion on the merits (or lack thereof) of alchemist so I'll ignore that. Moving beyond the quote...
Artificers in general get replicate magic item. It doesn't matter if the campaign is has a lot or not because replicate magic item is still more items and those item are selected instead of randomly found. It takes a monty haul campaign with magic shops and large amounts of gold to really trivialize that, and that's not the norm IME.
Artificers get Magic Item Tinker, which leverages using spell slots to charge items that produce higher level spells than those spell slots would have. Artificers don't just create a few magic items. They also create items faster in which they specialize (which is fast for alchemists and cartographers) but they can also leverage items to make better use of their spell slots. The Magic Item Adept line of abilities relates to this in allowing artificers to not be as limited in magic items being used as other classes.
Flash of Genius and Spell-Storing Item are good abilities.
Alchemists in particular begin with Experimental Elixir as their basic ability. These have been increased in the 2024 ruleset so that the elixir replicating Alter Self was replace with a choice and leaving 5 random options. That's like having 5 more additional spells known and from 2 to 5 additional random spells available to cast depending on level. One of those options is Flight Elixir, which grants flying without concentration as early as 3rd level on bonus action. That alone is worthwhile within the elixirs.
The elixirs also don't only increase in number with class level. They increase in the potency of their effectiveness. Why would I cast a Healing Word spell with a 1st level slot when that same 1st level slot to power a Healing Elixir that heals 4d8 + 2 x INT mod (at 15th level) instead of 2d4 + 2 x INT mod for that same alchemist? Or 2d4 + WIS mod for a cleric? Or 2d8 + mod for Cure Wounds from other casters? The only point in Healing Word for a higher level alchemist is the immediate range.
Why would I spend a 1st level spell slot to give someone a 10' move increase for an hour casting Longstrider when I can use that same slot to give someone a 20' move increase for an hour instead with the Swiftness Elixir? Or Bless when the Boldness Elixir lasts an hour and doesn't require concentration? The Resilience Elixir eventually lasts for 8 hours.
Every elixir type increases in the potency of it's effect at 9th and 15th level even though it's still powered by only a 1st level spell slot. The biggest issue with alchemists in 2014 rules was the low duration for the limited resource. This has been corrected by increasing the effectiveness or duration and adding additional elixirs. These are not poor options. These are adding versatility to the base class.
Alchemical Savant isn't bad. It's a cantrip spammer for damage type of ability but cantrip spamming isn't bad, and this is obviously a more support oriented choice. It's good enough for that style of a build. And it does contribute to a better healing bonus on spells.
Restorative Reagents is a bit mixed in my opinion. On one hand it's another spell that the alchemist doesn't need to prepare like other casters might, and it's slots that they don't need to spend; but it's not always useful. Fortunately, this is also the first level where the elixirs gain a bump to go with this ability and when 3rd level spells are gained so 9th level in total is a decent enough boost.
Chemical Mastery is also a bit mixed because I thought the spells granted in the 2014 version gave a single moment for an effect that would exceed the typical limits of the class, but Alchemical Eruption can be used much more consistently and with that same cantrip spamming option. Conjured Cauldron is much more versatile as well. It's an improvement overall. It's also the same level the elixirs increase in their effect again.
When we put these together then other artificer subclasses still have more use for their bonus action built into the subclasses so what that means is the alchemist needs to find a way to use that bonus action as often (which is possible), and it also restricts other artificer subclasses because they're bonus action is already dedicated to other abilities already.
One of the easiest ways to do this is with the Flaming Sphere spell. The low number of spell slots can limit this at lower levels, but the duration is good enough to matter and using the SSI for Flaming Sphere allows for consistent use throughout more than the adventuring day. Other artificers do not have a similar spell to leverage in the same way, and upcasting Flaming Sphere into a higher slot gives a limited time increase in damage.
All artificers can command their Homunculus with no action as well, which is eventually good for 1d6+5 force damage.
So at 15th level a typical expectation looks like...
That's before accuracy and I would argue that cartographers granting an initiative bonus through the Adventurer's Atlas and ability to spam Faerie Fire have a significant impact, but it gives a good general indication what to expect. Other artificer subclasses add flashier combat spells for occasional use but the alchemist focuses more on healing and support and this is okay. If that's not a particular player's preference then the solution is to play what that player wants instead of changing alchemists to cater to what that player wants. ;-)
Sample artificer at 15th level might look like this:
Spells...
Replicated magic items...
Note that the Helm of Teleportation lets the artificer recharge it using 1st level spell slots to cast Teleport as an example of leveraging spell slots and replicated magic item charges using Magic Item Tinker. The ability to replicate rare wonderous items and recharge them using spell slots has a lot of potential at high levels.
Having the Portable Hole and Bag of Holding plans makes for a way to create a portal to the Astral Plane if desired, included for kicks. ;-)
I would hardly call alchemists a weak option. They're a support option on a decent class that takes some system mastery to use well.
i love this that's what i do at the kitchen