Ever wanted to add a touch more Science! to your D&D? The Alchemist is a class that many people have invented and reinvented, converted and re-worked a number of times. For me, though, none of the 5e renditions of the class have ever managed to really capture the spread of options and the sheer flexibility that the class represents... So for a long while now, I've been working on this:
The Definitive Alchemist presents players a variety of options and choices, and different ways to combine them, that surpasses any other conversion you'll find out there, while still maintaining the feel and balance of 5e. Whether you want to brew potions, transform your body, or just blow things up, this class contains options for any flavour of alchemist.
Booklet Contains:
The Alchemist class, a full independent class from levels 1 to 20.
6 Archetypes, described as fields of specialisation
Over 40 Discoveries to choose from
1 new cantrip, alchemical bomb, which can be modified through field specialisations and discoveries.
Comprehensive tables and descriptions for craftable alchemical items, restoratives and poisons, useful for both players and DMs
At a first glance, the class is an Intelligence-based caster, with a slot progression that acts as something of a hybrid between Wizard and Warlock, using alchemist supplies and creating formulae instead of casting spells in the traditional fashion... but this only makes up one small part of the feel and flavour of the class; as well as your archetype choices, you'll have access to a broad selection of independent discoveries that will help further shape the unique feel of your alchemist and provide an astounding array of possibilities for long-lasting replayability.
- As a Destruction specialist, you can turn this simple science of bomb-making, which all alchemists know the basics of, into a flexible, potent, and terrifying art form.
- The field of Mutagenics lets alchemists perform art and science with their own bodies, changing themselves to adapt to almost any situation.
- The field of Blight-making lets you specialise in plagues and poisons; this archetype uses a few tricks in a concerted effort to make poisoning and poison use actually viable as a choice in 5e, as well as giving some extra attention to the use and function of diseases.
- As a Blight-breaker, you can focus on curing maladies, protecting your allies, restoring health and even returning life to the fallen.
- The field of Reanimation, lets you pervert life instead, and blur the barrier between life and undeath.
- While, with the field of Mechanism, you can simply build your own friends where fragile biological ones fail you.
With the ability to pursue any two of these disciplines, each alchemist you make can be unique and spectacular in their own personal way, offering a staggering opportunity for fresh and different characters.
Crafting and Brewing can be important parts of the class, for characters that chose to pursue those options: Supplementing the class itself, this document also provides extended tables for the crafting of alchemical items, poisons and restoratives, along with suggestions and guidelines for creating more, and can serve as a useful list for alchemists, non-alchemists and DMs alike.
The class is available for download on the guild, and it's PWYW; I'm more interested in sharing it with anyone who might find it to their tastes, than making a profit, though donations are welcome and comments or ratings, and especially feedback, are very much appreciated.
I want to say a big thanks to everyone who has downloaded and looked at my work so far! this class recently hit the first tier of best-seller badges on the guild, and I'm thrilled to think that so many people have taken a look at this, and hopefully enjoyed it!
Anyway, some play-testing later, and The Definitive Alchemist has just gotten a little more-so. The updated files are now available on the guild, ( https://www.dmsguild.com/product/286536/The-Definitive-Alchemist ) and the class is still Pay-What-You-Want. Here's the Change Log:
V1.05 Change Log
- Alchemy: Formula Use: Clarified that alchemist formulae still count as spells for most purposes, and as such are still susceptible to antimagic fields, dispel magic and counterspelling, etc.
- Field of Mechanism: Combat Prowess: Stalwart Defender no longer halves damage taken; being able to wear the attack for an ally was deemed strong enough on its own.
- Field of Mechanism: More Machines: Your secondary construct does not gain additional Ability Score Increases like your primary construct. It is now limited to a maximum of two construct upgrades; one at 14th level when you first complete it, and a second at 19th level.
- Field of Reanimation: Deathwatch: As a 1st level ability, this can still foil feign death, as that is very much its speciality area, but it can't overcome other spells or more powerful deception magic or items.
- Discovery: Bone Puppet Bombs: Bone Puppet Bombs cannot be used to raise undead or constructs, and the animation lasts for 1 minute.
- Discovery: Chromatic Bombs: With regret, removed Radiant and Necrotic as damage type options from this discovery.
- Discovery: Healing Bombs: Added an extra qualifier, requiring that the formulae used must not have any effect that deals damage; no more blast applications of Armour of Agathys, sorry.
- Discovery: Master of Creation: Clarified, you only gain the free formula once; exchanging and re-taking the discovery will not grant you a double-dip.
- Construct Upgrades: Adamantine Body: The perks of this body upgrade warranted an additional penalty. The sheer weight of an adamantine body now also reduces your construct's speed by 5 feet.
- Construct Upgrades: Extended Vaporiser: Clarified that the vaporiser works specifically with your alchemical bomb cantrip, and not any bomb you happen to make.
- Construct Upgrades: Flyby Enhancement: Modified so that the construct does not provoke an opportunity attack only if it enters and leaves the hostile creature's range on the same turn while flying. Elsewise, while flying, opportunity attacks it provokes are made at disadvantage.
- Construct Upgrades: Skill Improvement: integrating a tool when your construct gains proficiency or expertise now requires you to actually have a set of the tools to hand to integrate. Removed redundant note regarding expertise not stacking.
- Spells: Alchemical Bomb: For all it can do, a d8 was a bit too punchy. The cantrip damage die has been reduced by one step, from a d8 to a d6. The Destructive Bombs discovery has also had its bonus damage reduced from a d8 to a d6, in line with this change.
Thanks again to everyone who downloaded or shared my work! Hope you enjoy playing with the class.
Hey man, love this class so much! But I have a question. Exactly how many specialized Formulae are we allowed to have? For example, if one were to branch off into Mutagenics, how many mutagens could they carry on their person? Or is this simply included in the number of spells on the leveling chart?
Hey man, love this class so much! But I have a question. Exactly how many specialized Formulae are we allowed to have? For example, if one were to branch off into Mutagenics, how many mutagens could they carry on their person? Or is this simply included in the number of spells on the leveling chart?
Heya! Sorry for the long wait - I didn't get any kind of a ping about a comment here!
So, 'Specialised Formulae' are functionally just an expanded spell list feature; each discipline lists five particular formulae that an alchemist with that specialisation can learn, and which will count as alchemist formulae for them if they do choose to learn them. They use them like any other formula, using their formula slots. Each field of specialisation has a table that shows what their specialised formulae are.
Mutagens are something different, and are a feature of the mutagenics field. the feature itself explains how it all woks, but to clear up any confusion, this runs along with 5e's 'keep it simple' mentality: you don't need to prepare or brew or keep count of doses of mutagens in any tangible way, you just have a limit on how many times per rest period you can use that particular class ability. From an aesthetic/fluff aspect, this represents both you making and preparing the mutagenic compounds you use, and also the limit for how taxing it is on your body to use them.
Thanks again to everyone who has tried out the class and especially to those of you who have left ratings, reviews, or offered feedback. It's all very much appreciated!
The Definitive Alchemist has now been updated to version 1.06, and with this update, a couple of big changes intended to help make the class more accessible and easier to pick up and play!
The biggest change is that the main limitations on formula use have been removed; no more fussing about which formulae you can use at their listed range and targets and which ones you can't. Using your formulae now acts in all ways like spellcasting for other casters, with only a few minor flavour caveats.
As a result, several class and specialisation features were tweaked or changed, as some of their effects were now redundant, and a plethora of minor text and wording changes have been made throughout the document to reflect this update. The change log may look as though a lot was removed, but in reality this is just the effect of removing a restriction that various class features later bought you back out of; the restriction is gone, so the features that removed that restriction in part or in full got pruned as well. Other changes were made as necessary to maintain overall balance.
The updated files are now available on the guild, ( https://www.dmsguild.com/product/286536/The-Definitive-Alchemist ) and the class is still Pay-What-You-Want. The full change log is below. Thanks again to everyone who has had a look at or enjoyed the class!
-Erica
v1.06 Change Log
- Class Features: Alchemy: Minor text update to better reference the spellcasting rules as found in the player's handbook.
- Class Features: Formula Use: Restrictions on the range and targeting of your formulae have been removed. Alchemist formulae still always have somatic and material components, and never have verbal components, but otherwise they now function identically to the spellcasting feature of other full casters.
- Class Features: Cantrips: Text updated to reflect formula use changes.
- Class Features: Long Process Formulae: newly redundant sections removed, and wording tightened up for clarity. And alchemist's long process formulae now function more completely as ritual casting for other caster classes, with the extension that they can use the feature to use unprepared non-ritual formulae at greatly extended casting time, and with the use of an appropriate formula slot.
- Class Features: Specialised Formulae: Wording tightened up to reflect formula use changes.
- Class Features: Always Busy: Section rewritten for better clarity. Redundant sections removed. Brewing potions of your known formulae now correctly states that you do expend the appropriate formula slot when you finish brewing the potion.
- Class Features: Complex Formulae: Wording changes for improved clarity and removal of redundant lines to reflect formula use changes. Properly clarified that an advanced alchemist may know many different complex formulae of a particular spell level, and that they may use any of them – but still only one of each spell level per long rest.
- Field of Blight-Breaking: Healing Infusions: Removed now-redundant aspects of the feature, in line with formula use changes, and tightened up the wording for improved clarity.
- Field of Blight-Breaking: Potent Healing: Clarified that the Potent Healing feature applies both to your healing infusions, as well as your regular formulae.
- Field of Blight-Making: Necrotising Faciitis: Wording change to clarify that you determine the distribution of poison and necrotic dice at any time up to and including when you use the poison or it leaves your possession, and not when the damage itself is dealt.
- Field of Mechanism: Construct Ally: Wording tweak to better mach resting rules and hit dice – your construct regains half its maximum hit dice upon completing a long rest, as any other creature.
- Field of Mechanism: Constantly Improving: Separated the optional rule into its own heading to further distinct it from the base feature. The optional rule has a significant impact on the balance of the class, allowing for substantially more potent constructs, and breaking this away from the base feature more clearly seemed important.
- Field of Mechanism: Shared Infusions: Feature rewritten. Most elements of this feature were made redundant by the formula use changes. The feature remains to preserve the one aspect of it that remains relevant, and it was deemed that this alone was sufficient; the field of Mechanism is one of the stronger lines already, and it didn't need anything extra.
- Field of Mechanism: Stalwart Defender: Removed a redundant line, and clarified that this feature applies to your primary construct only.
- Field of Mutagenics: Mutagens: Removed restrictions on what attacks you can inherit from the template creature you use for mutation. You now gain access to all of the creature's attack actions, not just the melee ones.
- Field of Mutagenics: Splitting Mutation: Clarified wording to reflect that your belongings return to the remaining body if it is within 100 feet, regardless of how the effect ends.
- Field of Reanimation: Compliant Subjects: Wording neatened up to reflect formula use changes.
- Field of Reanimation: Living Undeath: The duration extension on revival applies to any time-limited effect that might restore you to life, not just spells.
- Discoveries: Wording tweaked to reflect formula use changes.
- Discoveries: Delayed Destruction: You only get to add one of the formula immediately for free the first time you take this discovery. If you swap it out and back in again, you don't get a double dip.
- Discoveries: Tested Formulae: This discovery was removed completely, as its effect is entirely eclipsed by the formula use changes. This was a case where a discovery could be taken to negate a restriction; the restriction is gone, and the discovery served no purpose.
- Grand Discoveries: Dedicate of Unlife: Your undead form grants resistance to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage, not immunity.
- General: Numerous typos and small wording errors cleaned up.
Thanks again to everyone who has had a look at this! The Definitive Alchemist recently hit Silver on the guild, and I'm elated that so many people have decided to have a look at it!
With this update, there are a few smaller balance and function changes, but most notably there have been changes to the Field of Mutagenics, to help make using your mutations a little bit more appealing and viable. Play-testers found themselves rarely using their mutagens, in favour of other choices, and this pass hopes to redress that, including the introduction of a new mutagenics Discovery. Minor changes for Mechanists are also in this version, as well as an assortment of typo fixes, clarifications and wording style fixes.
v1.07 Change Log
- Field of Blight-Breaking: Potent Healing: Fixed typos and wording errors.
- Field of Blight-Making: Plague-Seeker: Diseases you cultivate use your alchemist DC, unless the original DC of the disease is higher.
- Field of Mechanism: Construct Ally: Some rewording for established style and clarity.
- Field of Mechanism: Construct Ally: Construct base damage die reduced from a d8 to a d6.
- Field of Mechanism: Combat Prowess: Clarified that Stalwart Defender may be triggered on any creature within range.
- Field of Mutagenics: Mutagens: you now gain access to all of a mutation's listed actions, not just its attack actions.
- Field of Mutagenics: Mutagens: Restricted creature type options for mutagens. You can now reference any creature type excluding Fey, Fiend, Celestial, Construct or Undead.
- Field of Mutagenics: Mutagens: Hit point gain and loss between mutations is now more lenient – when you revert (except as a result of dropping to 0 hit points), you return to the number of hit points you had before mutating.
- Field of Mutagenics: Adaptive Mutatgens: Minor wording change to reflect established style.
- Discoveries: New discovery added: Impressive Physique allows mutagenics specialists to adopt sturdier mutations.
- General: Numerous typos and small wording errors cleaned up.
- General: Inserted version number on both the standard and print-friendly documents.
Because it's a full custom class (and I'm not a famous personality with actual legitimate affiliations ^.^) , I can't actually make or publish it here, I'm sorry to say.
If D&D beyond opens up their creation tool more thoroughly, lets us have access to everything that existing official classes and subclasses do, and give us the power to create full classes from scratch, I may be able to create a publication of the class here, but until then it's out of reach. Wish I could give you a better answer!
I'd just like to also take a moment here to say that The Defintive Alchemist recently reached Electrum Best-Seller on the guild, and I'm so happy that so many people have found and used this class! Thank you so much to every person who has downloaded this and tried it out! It means the world to me to know that folks like and enjoy my work, so I just want to say thanks again to everyone!
Many folks have told me that I should be charging an actual price amount for a work or this magnitude, but truthfully, I'm only interested in sharing my work with others and giving them the chance to try it out and hopefully enjoy it, so this class is and will remain PwyW on the guild - donations are always appreciated, of course, but are absolutely not necessary!
Hi there! I wanna start off by saying that I love this homebrew a lot, its intricacies really fulfill a void that I had been hoping alchemist artificer would fill and yet failed at. Secondly I wanted to ask permission to use the class for my character in an upcoming game that my friends and I will be recording and posting as a show. I also wanted to ask how you'd like to be credited if I am able to use it in the show!
Hey there! Glad to hear you're enjoying it! I'm more than happy for folks to use this as they see fit, absolutely ^.^ If you wanted to mention where it came from, then just my name (Erica Heathrow), and where folks can find it (DmsGuild) would be much appreciated.
This class seems so fun! I shared it with a friend and they said they're definitely going to use it for a future character.
I'm in the process of making my own character with it.
BTW I love how you have a class focused on poison, I cant say I've seen many things that make poison a good way of attack, aside from a couple spells. Definitely going to try it out
I'm interested in what made you pick having player chose two fields, and how you were able to balance it.
Hello, Field_of_Heather AKA Erica! I'm just curious how many shillings I have to throw you for you to consider revising this for the 2024 edition of 5E?
Thanks for the interest! I'm afraid that my life had become quite full of lots of other things and has moved on a fair bit, so doing a conversion to the new edition is not really on my radar at the moment (Most of the folks I play with are not keen on the new edition and we just cherry-pick a few of the updates and improvement that we like and otherwise stick with 5e), however as long as you're familiar with the the way terminology has been changed, the majority of it should be more or less cross-compatible with those adjustments in wording.
Some aspects may suffer a bit - since 2024 essentially removed disease and diseases from the game, that part of the blight-maker's kit would require the DM's buy in for playing in a world where disease is actually still a thing that exists, for example. Other style and design alterations include things like the new version's disinclination to label attacks as magical, and instead simply changing their damage type, so you could transfer that change as well - things like the Mechanist's construct gaining magical attacks at 6th level would be a change to force damage instead, in the 2024 style rules, for example.
I hope that's at least a little helpful; it should mostly still work out of the box with 2024, as long as you recognise the change in game language and terminology. Sorry I can't give you a more promising answer, but with my life as it is right now, working on a system revision for this isn't really within my limits.
Hey folks!
Ever wanted to add a touch more Science! to your D&D? The Alchemist is a class that many people have invented and reinvented, converted and re-worked a number of times. For me, though, none of the 5e renditions of the class have ever managed to really capture the spread of options and the sheer flexibility that the class represents... So for a long while now, I've been working on this:
- As a Destruction specialist, you can turn this simple science of bomb-making, which all alchemists know the basics of, into a flexible, potent, and terrifying art form.
- The field of Mutagenics lets alchemists perform art and science with their own bodies, changing themselves to adapt to almost any situation.
- The field of Blight-making lets you specialise in plagues and poisons; this archetype uses a few tricks in a concerted effort to make poisoning and poison use actually viable as a choice in 5e, as well as giving some extra attention to the use and function of diseases.
- As a Blight-breaker, you can focus on curing maladies, protecting your allies, restoring health and even returning life to the fallen.
- The field of Reanimation, lets you pervert life instead, and blur the barrier between life and undeath.
- While, with the field of Mechanism, you can simply build your own friends where fragile biological ones fail you.
With the ability to pursue any two of these disciplines, each alchemist you make can be unique and spectacular in their own personal way, offering a staggering opportunity for fresh and different characters.
Hey again folks!
I want to say a big thanks to everyone who has downloaded and looked at my work so far! this class recently hit the first tier of best-seller badges on the guild, and I'm thrilled to think that so many people have taken a look at this, and hopefully enjoyed it!
Anyway, some play-testing later, and The Definitive Alchemist has just gotten a little more-so. The updated files are now available on the guild, ( https://www.dmsguild.com/product/286536/The-Definitive-Alchemist ) and the class is still Pay-What-You-Want. Here's the Change Log:
V1.05 Change Log
- Alchemy: Formula Use: Clarified that alchemist formulae still count as spells for most purposes, and as such are still susceptible to antimagic fields, dispel magic and counterspelling, etc.
- Field of Mechanism: Combat Prowess: Stalwart Defender no longer halves damage taken; being able to wear the attack for an ally was deemed strong enough on its own.
- Field of Mechanism: More Machines: Your secondary construct does not gain additional Ability Score Increases like your primary construct. It is now limited to a maximum of two construct upgrades; one at 14th level when you first complete it, and a second at 19th level.
- Field of Reanimation: Deathwatch: As a 1st level ability, this can still foil feign death, as that is very much its speciality area, but it can't overcome other spells or more powerful deception magic or items.
- Discovery: Bone Puppet Bombs: Bone Puppet Bombs cannot be used to raise undead or constructs, and the animation lasts for 1 minute.
- Discovery: Chromatic Bombs: With regret, removed Radiant and Necrotic as damage type options from this discovery.
- Discovery: Healing Bombs: Added an extra qualifier, requiring that the formulae used must not have any effect that deals damage; no more blast applications of Armour of Agathys, sorry.
- Discovery: Master of Creation: Clarified, you only gain the free formula once; exchanging and re-taking the discovery will not grant you a double-dip.
- Construct Upgrades: Adamantine Body: The perks of this body upgrade warranted an additional penalty. The sheer weight of an adamantine body now also reduces your construct's speed by 5 feet.
- Construct Upgrades: Extended Vaporiser: Clarified that the vaporiser works specifically with your alchemical bomb cantrip, and not any bomb you happen to make.
- Construct Upgrades: Flyby Enhancement: Modified so that the construct does not provoke an opportunity attack only if it enters and leaves the hostile creature's range on the same turn while flying. Elsewise, while flying, opportunity attacks it provokes are made at disadvantage.
- Construct Upgrades: Skill Improvement: integrating a tool when your construct gains proficiency or expertise now requires you to actually have a set of the tools to hand to integrate. Removed redundant note regarding expertise not stacking.
- Spells: Alchemical Bomb: For all it can do, a d8 was a bit too punchy. The cantrip damage die has been reduced by one step, from a d8 to a d6. The Destructive Bombs discovery has also had its bonus damage reduced from a d8 to a d6, in line with this change.
Thanks again to everyone who downloaded or shared my work! Hope you enjoy playing with the class.
-Erica
Hey man, love this class so much! But I have a question. Exactly how many specialized Formulae are we allowed to have? For example, if one were to branch off into Mutagenics, how many mutagens could they carry on their person? Or is this simply included in the number of spells on the leveling chart?
Heya! Sorry for the long wait - I didn't get any kind of a ping about a comment here!
So, 'Specialised Formulae' are functionally just an expanded spell list feature; each discipline lists five particular formulae that an alchemist with that specialisation can learn, and which will count as alchemist formulae for them if they do choose to learn them. They use them like any other formula, using their formula slots. Each field of specialisation has a table that shows what their specialised formulae are.
Mutagens are something different, and are a feature of the mutagenics field. the feature itself explains how it all woks, but to clear up any confusion, this runs along with 5e's 'keep it simple' mentality: you don't need to prepare or brew or keep count of doses of mutagens in any tangible way, you just have a limit on how many times per rest period you can use that particular class ability. From an aesthetic/fluff aspect, this represents both you making and preparing the mutagenic compounds you use, and also the limit for how taxing it is on your body to use them.
Update Time!
Thanks again to everyone who has tried out the class and especially to those of you who have left ratings, reviews, or offered feedback. It's all very much appreciated!
The Definitive Alchemist has now been updated to version 1.06, and with this update, a couple of big changes intended to help make the class more accessible and easier to pick up and play!
The biggest change is that the main limitations on formula use have been removed; no more fussing about which formulae you can use at their listed range and targets and which ones you can't. Using your formulae now acts in all ways like spellcasting for other casters, with only a few minor flavour caveats.
As a result, several class and specialisation features were tweaked or changed, as some of their effects were now redundant, and a plethora of minor text and wording changes have been made throughout the document to reflect this update. The change log may look as though a lot was removed, but in reality this is just the effect of removing a restriction that various class features later bought you back out of; the restriction is gone, so the features that removed that restriction in part or in full got pruned as well. Other changes were made as necessary to maintain overall balance.
The updated files are now available on the guild, ( https://www.dmsguild.com/product/286536/The-Definitive-Alchemist ) and the class is still Pay-What-You-Want. The full change log is below. Thanks again to everyone who has had a look at or enjoyed the class!
-Erica
v1.06 Change Log
- Class Features: Alchemy: Minor text update to better reference the spellcasting rules as found in the player's handbook.
- Class Features: Formula Use: Restrictions on the range and targeting of your formulae have been removed. Alchemist formulae still always have somatic and material components, and never have verbal components, but otherwise they now function identically to the spellcasting feature of other full casters.
- Class Features: Cantrips: Text updated to reflect formula use changes.
- Class Features: Long Process Formulae: newly redundant sections removed, and wording tightened up for clarity. And alchemist's long process formulae now function more completely as ritual casting for other caster classes, with the extension that they can use the feature to use unprepared non-ritual formulae at greatly extended casting time, and with the use of an appropriate formula slot.
- Class Features: Specialised Formulae: Wording tightened up to reflect formula use changes.
- Class Features: Always Busy: Section rewritten for better clarity. Redundant sections removed. Brewing potions of your known formulae now correctly states that you do expend the appropriate formula slot when you finish brewing the potion.
- Class Features: Complex Formulae: Wording changes for improved clarity and removal of redundant lines to reflect formula use changes. Properly clarified that an advanced alchemist may know many different complex formulae of a particular spell level, and that they may use any of them – but still only one of each spell level per long rest.
- Field of Blight-Breaking: Healing Infusions: Removed now-redundant aspects of the feature, in line with formula use changes, and tightened up the wording for improved clarity.
- Field of Blight-Breaking: Potent Healing: Clarified that the Potent Healing feature applies both to your healing infusions, as well as your regular formulae.
- Field of Blight-Making: Necrotising Faciitis: Wording change to clarify that you determine the distribution of poison and necrotic dice at any time up to and including when you use the poison or it leaves your possession, and not when the damage itself is dealt.
- Field of Mechanism: Construct Ally: Wording tweak to better mach resting rules and hit dice – your construct regains half its maximum hit dice upon completing a long rest, as any other creature.
- Field of Mechanism: Constantly Improving: Separated the optional rule into its own heading to further distinct it from the base feature. The optional rule has a significant impact on the balance of the class, allowing for substantially more potent constructs, and breaking this away from the base feature more clearly seemed important.
- Field of Mechanism: Shared Infusions: Feature rewritten. Most elements of this feature were made redundant by the formula use changes. The feature remains to preserve the one aspect of it that remains relevant, and it was deemed that this alone was sufficient; the field of Mechanism is one of the stronger lines already, and it didn't need anything extra.
- Field of Mechanism: Stalwart Defender: Removed a redundant line, and clarified that this feature applies to your primary construct only.
- Field of Mutagenics: Mutagens: Removed restrictions on what attacks you can inherit from the template creature you use for mutation. You now gain access to all of the creature's attack actions, not just the melee ones.
- Field of Mutagenics: Splitting Mutation: Clarified wording to reflect that your belongings return to the remaining body if it is within 100 feet, regardless of how the effect ends.
- Field of Reanimation: Compliant Subjects: Wording neatened up to reflect formula use changes.
- Field of Reanimation: Living Undeath: The duration extension on revival applies to any time-limited effect that might restore you to life, not just spells.
- Discoveries: Wording tweaked to reflect formula use changes.
- Discoveries: Delayed Destruction: You only get to add one of the formula immediately for free the first time you take this discovery. If you swap it out and back in again, you don't get a double dip.
- Discoveries: Tested Formulae: This discovery was removed completely, as its effect is entirely eclipsed by the formula use changes. This was a case where a discovery could be taken to negate a restriction; the restriction is gone, and the discovery served no purpose.
- Grand Discoveries: Dedicate of Unlife: Your undead form grants resistance to nonmagical bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage, not immunity.
- General: Numerous typos and small wording errors cleaned up.
A new update, v1.07, is now available!
Thanks again to everyone who has had a look at this! The Definitive Alchemist recently hit Silver on the guild, and I'm elated that so many people have decided to have a look at it!
With this update, there are a few smaller balance and function changes, but most notably there have been changes to the Field of Mutagenics, to help make using your mutations a little bit more appealing and viable. Play-testers found themselves rarely using their mutagens, in favour of other choices, and this pass hopes to redress that, including the introduction of a new mutagenics Discovery. Minor changes for Mechanists are also in this version, as well as an assortment of typo fixes, clarifications and wording style fixes.
v1.07 Change Log
- Field of Blight-Breaking: Potent Healing: Fixed typos and wording errors.
- Field of Blight-Making: Plague-Seeker: Diseases you cultivate use your alchemist DC, unless the original DC of the disease is higher.
- Field of Mechanism: Construct Ally: Some rewording for established style and clarity.
- Field of Mechanism: Construct Ally: Construct base damage die reduced from a d8 to a d6.
- Field of Mechanism: Combat Prowess: Clarified that Stalwart Defender may be triggered on any creature within range.
- Field of Mutagenics: Mutagens: you now gain access to all of a mutation's listed actions, not just its attack actions.
- Field of Mutagenics: Mutagens: Restricted creature type options for mutagens. You can now reference any creature type excluding Fey, Fiend, Celestial, Construct or Undead.
- Field of Mutagenics: Mutagens: Hit point gain and loss between mutations is now more lenient – when you revert (except as a result of dropping to 0 hit points), you return to the number of hit points you had before mutating.
- Field of Mutagenics: Adaptive Mutatgens: Minor wording change to reflect established style.
- Discoveries: New discovery added: Impressive Physique allows mutagenics specialists to adopt sturdier mutations.
- General: Numerous typos and small wording errors cleaned up.
- General: Inserted version number on both the standard and print-friendly documents.
I can't want to check this out!
Thanks! I hope you find it fun and useful ^.^
is there a way to use this on dnd beyond?
Sadly not - at least not yet!
Because it's a full custom class (and I'm not a famous personality with actual legitimate affiliations ^.^) , I can't actually make or publish it here, I'm sorry to say.
If D&D beyond opens up their creation tool more thoroughly, lets us have access to everything that existing official classes and subclasses do, and give us the power to create full classes from scratch, I may be able to create a publication of the class here, but until then it's out of reach. Wish I could give you a better answer!
I'd just like to also take a moment here to say that The Defintive Alchemist recently reached Electrum Best-Seller on the guild, and I'm so happy that so many people have found and used this class! Thank you so much to every person who has downloaded this and tried it out! It means the world to me to know that folks like and enjoy my work, so I just want to say thanks again to everyone!
Many folks have told me that I should be charging an actual price amount for a work or this magnitude, but truthfully, I'm only interested in sharing my work with others and giving them the chance to try it out and hopefully enjoy it, so this class is and will remain PwyW on the guild - donations are always appreciated, of course, but are absolutely not necessary!
Thanks again, everyone!
-Erica
Hi there! I wanna start off by saying that I love this homebrew a lot, its intricacies really fulfill a void that I had been hoping alchemist artificer would fill and yet failed at. Secondly I wanted to ask permission to use the class for my character in an upcoming game that my friends and I will be recording and posting as a show. I also wanted to ask how you'd like to be credited if I am able to use it in the show!
Thanks a lot,
Avery
Hey there! Glad to hear you're enjoying it! I'm more than happy for folks to use this as they see fit, absolutely ^.^ If you wanted to mention where it came from, then just my name (Erica Heathrow), and where folks can find it (DmsGuild) would be much appreciated.
This class seems so fun! I shared it with a friend and they said they're definitely going to use it for a future character.
I'm in the process of making my own character with it.
BTW I love how you have a class focused on poison, I cant say I've seen many things that make poison a good way of attack, aside from a couple spells. Definitely going to try it out
I'm interested in what made you pick having player chose two fields, and how you were able to balance it.
Hello, Field_of_Heather AKA Erica! I'm just curious how many shillings I have to throw you for you to consider revising this for the 2024 edition of 5E?
Hey there!
Thanks for the interest! I'm afraid that my life had become quite full of lots of other things and has moved on a fair bit, so doing a conversion to the new edition is not really on my radar at the moment (Most of the folks I play with are not keen on the new edition and we just cherry-pick a few of the updates and improvement that we like and otherwise stick with 5e), however as long as you're familiar with the the way terminology has been changed, the majority of it should be more or less cross-compatible with those adjustments in wording.
Some aspects may suffer a bit - since 2024 essentially removed disease and diseases from the game, that part of the blight-maker's kit would require the DM's buy in for playing in a world where disease is actually still a thing that exists, for example. Other style and design alterations include things like the new version's disinclination to label attacks as magical, and instead simply changing their damage type, so you could transfer that change as well - things like the Mechanist's construct gaining magical attacks at 6th level would be a change to force damage instead, in the 2024 style rules, for example.
I hope that's at least a little helpful; it should mostly still work out of the box with 2024, as long as you recognise the change in game language and terminology. Sorry I can't give you a more promising answer, but with my life as it is right now, working on a system revision for this isn't really within my limits.
Aww, you don't need to apologise; no worries! Thank you for the reply and for the awesome class. I'm wishing you well :)