Not to resurface a settled thread, but I really don't see the spell as being as powerful as other people do--Don’t get me wrong, I really like the spell and its concept, I just don’t like the spell slot cost. It has its strengths when compared to Familiars (1), but are those strengths worth 5 extra spell levels (2)?
This is the wrong scope to view the spell's worth through. Read the thread.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Goodboy pretty clearly did read the thread, and offered some pretty detailed and well thought out observations that poke some holes in a lot of the celebration of Homonculus others were throwing around.
They're a slower, less reliable, more expensive, more likely to be discovered, and more easily deceived Scrying spell. They're a scout that's outclassed by a level 3 chainlock's familiar. They potentially use up your attunement slots if you try to give them fun items, which your DM may not even allow you to do. Basically, they're a big pain in the ass, and while they have plenty of uses on paper, in practical application they're a vanity project that isn't going to provide you a concrete mechanical advantage at the table.
It's okay in theory, but it doesn't need to be 6th level, and most Wizards will probably never bother learning it.
This is the wrong scope to view the spell's worth through.
I feel like the comparison between the two is pretty important given that they're both magical little creatures you get with spells, but obviously they have differences which I tried to explain in the post. I probably could have worded that first bit better to communicate that I wasn't going to focus solely on that, especially considering how long the post is. I guess I shouldn't expect people to 2. Read the post. lol
I'll revise it when I have a minute--it was mostly a rhetorical question anyway.
It's okay in theory, but it doesn't need to be 6th level, and most Wizards will probably never bother learning it.
Pretty much my thoughts exactly. It can be fun to come up crafty ideas for how to abuse the spell, but I really think the practical, RAW/I uses should be what influences the spell cost. Unfortunately high level spells don't see a lot of use anyway as not many campaigns are played in higher levels, and therefore not as many people have experience with them in order to discuss their first-hand usefulness. This is doubly so for the Xanathar's spells because they haven't be available as long. Like you said I doubt the spell sees much use, unless the player likes the flavor (which for the record I do really like). Thanks for your kind response :)
The materials consumed by the spell have no cost, the dagger mentioned is the same cost as scrying's material cost. So 1000gp for all future castings of the spell paid upfront. The specific wording mentions some materials, then that those materials are consumed, and finally mentions the dagger. That clearly implies the dagger is NOT consumed by the spell.
Can a Homunculus provide flank, and therefore advantage?
If you are playing with optional flanking rules from the DMG, then any allied creature can provide that bonus. A familiar can provide a flanking bonus also.
I feel like it’s better than a permanent scry because for starters it’s not just anchored onto one creature you can see and since you instantly know everything that the homunculus knows the moment it finds out about it it’s basically like having a third eye in a location that you are constantly in tune with there’s also no wisdom saving so for specific targets
The author tremendously underestimated the huge cost and risk of the travel time of the creature. As is, it is basically an unlimited scrying on locations you know how to get to within 1 mile of your location. Which is a 4th level spell in my opinion.
For anyone who has ever seen the anime How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, the Create Homunculus spell shares a lot of similarities to the main character Kazuya Souma's Dark Element magic 'Living Poltergeist'. If you haven't seen the anime it's not the greatest in the world, but worth a quick watch. A quick rundown of Living Poltergeist though (and by extension ideas for what you could do with Create Homonculous):
Summary --> The ability to manipulate objects by transferring the user's consciousness into them. In the anime this ability is used to make quills write out legalese for Kazuya while Kazuya is doing something else, to have an adventuring 'doll' participate in fights for him, and to have small wooden mice search a landslide for survivors alongside him, checking areas too dangerous for him to search, and also doubling his potential searched area.
Create Homunculus is similar in that, when you create the homunculus, it shares all of your thoughts, senses, and languages, differing in that you can only have one homunculus at a time. As has been mentioned by others in this thread though, this is still incredibly useful, taking into consideration the following uses:
Much like Kazuya, you could use the homunculus to draft legalese while you are otherwise engaged, and it would have all the knowledge you have while doing so. How cool would it be to have a conversation with a Lord of Lady where you're extremely attentive and affective in negotiations, and then immediately after negotiations have ended, you summon your homunculus with a ready to go contract?
There's the obvious use-case of deflecting danger from your person in traveling or searching. Obviously there are other spells capable of this (numerous summoning and divination spells) but where they differ from Create Homunculus, is that your homunculus can speak any language you speak. You could send it in your place to a dangerous negotiation where you're worried you might be ambushed - or with it's immunity to the charmed affect, have it deal with the Fae for instance, protecting yourself from trickery. On the more mundane side of things it can be used as a (somewhat pricey) expendable meatbag to scout ahead or search through ruins - situationally with it's poison immunity it would be of great use in clearing any area covered in poison fog.
As mentioned by Onyx in an earlier comment, if you have a home base, you could leave it behind with valuable texts or other sources of information that you don't want to put at risk, and have immediate access to that information for reference essentially no matter where you are, provided you're on the same plane of existence as your homunculus. In one of the campaigns I'm currently playing in we're lugging around somewhere around 20-30 different texts with invaluable information concerning the 'Blight' that we're trying to stop. Not only is that a lot of unnecessary weight, but if those books/scrolls get stolen, or damaged by water or fire, we lose a lot of progress/credibility in our knowledge of the Blight and how to stop it.
This last one can be pretty dependent on your DM, but where Create Homunculus truly shines in comparison to a spell such as Find Familiar, is in the homunculus' ability to be made better, or to be improved. By default the homunculus is a 'Tiny Construct', but who's to say (other than your DM) that you couldn't craft a larger one? Slap some armor on it for better survivability. Have it attune to some extra magic items you have lying around. Have it attune to magic items before you do to check them for curses (since the Identify spell doesn't always reveal curses). Have it carry around a buff item such as the Banner of Krig Rune for you and your companions. Have it remain at your base practicing with a variety of weapons and/or tools to gain proficiencies over time (if your DM is really nice a case could even be made for you to gain these proficiencies as your homunculus does since you share thoughts and senses with it).
Create Homunculus is one of those spells that's somewhat lackluster when taken at surface value, but if you put your imagination behind it it truly begins to shine.
There's a big problem I have with a lot of the reasoning people give in defense of Create Homonculus. Anything it can do can also be done with Find Familiar in some way with one exception, the HP. Even considering that you have to repay the gold cost for find familiar each time, it's still almost never going to cost more in the long run. On top of that, the familiar can even be made to deliver touch spells for you at a range. If it could do something unique I could understand, but instead it can do less ... at least less with utility. Especially by the time, you would need it considering how once you're casting 6th level spells you can probably just set aside a couple-hundred pounds of one of your party's bag of holding for the important books from the library everyone keeps bringing up... Also, stuff that you would have to do over multiple in-game years like having a base you'd want something like a homunculus for(Let's face it, a level 1-5 wizard doesn't have a base with anything important to guard or useful to look at ... and it's a terrible guard anyways guys...) isn't gonna happen in the vast majority of groups. And the ones where it does still don't excuse the cost of entry really... My point is, why would you buy into learning a spell, buying a 1k dagger pretty much exclusively for it, and then hurting yourself just for what it provides? I'm especially unconvinced since the original reason the spell is so high level is just because of the supposed unlimited scry which ... sure in the most technical kind of way that it would usually be better to just use a communication spell to do and that it has already been mentioned multiple times that pact of the chain can do. You can talk about all the other non-combat/utility things it can do, but I just can't excuse it being above 3rd level if it's just the stuff being talked about. honestly just make it a 2nd level with a more limited telepathy that can be increased with upcasting. A simple (except that the range of its telepathy is x instead of anywhere on the same plane of existence) would have fixed it.
For anyone who has ever seen the anime How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, the Create Homunculus spell shares a lot of similarities to the main character Kazuya Souma's Dark Element magic 'Living Poltergeist'. If you haven't seen the anime it's not the greatest in the world, but worth a quick watch. A quick rundown of Living Poltergeist though (and by extension ideas for what you could do with Create Homonculous):
Summary --> The ability to manipulate objects by transferring the user's consciousness into them. In the anime this ability is used to make quills write out legalese for Kazuya while Kazuya is doing something else, to have an adventuring 'doll' participate in fights for him, and to have small wooden mice search a landslide for survivors alongside him, checking areas too dangerous for him to search, and also doubling his potential searched area.
Yeah ... but a much weaker version of his already considered weak ability in the original that you can do better with a pact of the chain warlock. Other than the breadth of language I guess, but common usually does the trick(Which some familiars get), and understanding but not speaking by sharing its senses covers most of the rest. People are surprised at how clever he is with it sure, but it's never considered especially strong by himself or others ... Also, most of his uses are better for a different kind of system with more politics and mundanity focus ... You should probably be playing a different system than D&D to get more out of those. If you're doing more of that than combat/adventuring in D&D then it's probably crippling your group in getting the most fun out of their sessions. It's a combat system first, an adventuring system second, and everything else as an afterthought IMO.
Also, most intelligent creatures will be offended if you send your ugly pet for negotiations, even if it can speak. That and there are already rules for familiar armor(See barding in PHB). Adventurer's league has some simple rules for familiar magic item uses that suggest intelligent enough ones can even attune magic items, but it counts towards your attunement slots (See earlier posts in this thread). The size and shape thing being DM-dependent applies to familiars as well since that's well into homebrew territory already (Though I'll give a slight edge to the Homonculus there because of existing real-world lore that applies to it and doesn't take as much reworking) and can be worked around with spells like polymorph/true polymorph anyways. And then weapon and tool proficiencies ... Assuming your DM allows it at all, hirelings and sidekicks can generally do the job better unless the you gaining them caveat applies but ... I guess that would work both ways then? It's heavily DM-dependent, but I guess that could make it worth it if it does work both ways? maybe even just the homunculus learning skills for you might be enough in the few campaigns that go on long enough to get that benefit ... assuming you are both playing that kind of campaign AND it'll continue being that type after you get high enough level to cast the spell and for long enough to gain at least 1 proficiency that you actually get to use for a decent amount of time? Anyways, it has quite a few what-ifs, but I can kinda see the one where it can train for you, but only if you actually have the "really nice" DM that lets you get the proficiencies.
It's a way for a friendless Wizard to have at least one person in his court.
Really, it's one of those plot spells. NPCs use it and sometimes it's fun to have specific rules for how NPCs are gonna use it. My party discovered that a presumed-dead mage was in fact alive, because we found their living homunculus, for example.
As a spell for players... It's just not that good.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
Goodboy pretty clearly did read the thread, and offered some pretty detailed and well thought out observations that poke some holes in a lot of the celebration of Homonculus others were throwing around.
They're a slower, less reliable, more expensive, more likely to be discovered, and more easily deceived Scrying spell. They're a scout that's outclassed by a level 3 chainlock's familiar. They potentially use up your attunement slots if you try to give them fun items, which your DM may not even allow you to do. Basically, they're a big pain in the ass, and while they have plenty of uses on paper, in practical application they're a vanity project that isn't going to provide you a concrete mechanical advantage at the table.
It's okay in theory, but it doesn't need to be 6th level, and most Wizards will probably never bother learning it.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I feel like the comparison between the two is pretty important given that they're both magical little creatures you get with spells, but obviously they have differences which I tried to explain in the post. I probably could have worded that first bit better to communicate that I wasn't going to focus solely on that, especially considering how long the post is. I guess I shouldn't expect people to 2. Read the post. lol
I'll revise it when I have a minute--it was mostly a rhetorical question anyway.
Pretty much my thoughts exactly. It can be fun to come up crafty ideas for how to abuse the spell, but I really think the practical, RAW/I uses should be what influences the spell cost. Unfortunately high level spells don't see a lot of use anyway as not many campaigns are played in higher levels, and therefore not as many people have experience with them in order to discuss their first-hand usefulness. This is doubly so for the Xanathar's spells because they haven't be available as long. Like you said I doubt the spell sees much use, unless the player likes the flavor (which for the record I do really like). Thanks for your kind response :)
The materials consumed by the spell have no cost, the dagger mentioned is the same cost as scrying's material cost. So 1000gp for all future castings of the spell paid upfront. The specific wording mentions some materials, then that those materials are consumed, and finally mentions the dagger. That clearly implies the dagger is NOT consumed by the spell.
Can a Homunculus provide flank, and therefore advantage?
If you are playing with optional flanking rules from the DMG, then any allied creature can provide that bonus. A familiar can provide a flanking bonus also.
I feel like it’s better than a permanent scry because for starters it’s not just anchored onto one creature you can see and since you instantly know everything that the homunculus knows the moment it finds out about it it’s basically like having a third eye in a location that you are constantly in tune with there’s also no wisdom saving so for specific targets
The author tremendously underestimated the huge cost and risk of the travel time of the creature. As is, it is basically an unlimited scrying on locations you know how to get to within 1 mile of your location. Which is a 4th level spell in my opinion.
For anyone who has ever seen the anime How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom, the Create Homunculus spell shares a lot of similarities to the main character Kazuya Souma's Dark Element magic 'Living Poltergeist'. If you haven't seen the anime it's not the greatest in the world, but worth a quick watch. A quick rundown of Living Poltergeist though (and by extension ideas for what you could do with Create Homonculous):
Summary --> The ability to manipulate objects by transferring the user's consciousness into them. In the anime this ability is used to make quills write out legalese for Kazuya while Kazuya is doing something else, to have an adventuring 'doll' participate in fights for him, and to have small wooden mice search a landslide for survivors alongside him, checking areas too dangerous for him to search, and also doubling his potential searched area.
Create Homunculus is similar in that, when you create the homunculus, it shares all of your thoughts, senses, and languages, differing in that you can only have one homunculus at a time. As has been mentioned by others in this thread though, this is still incredibly useful, taking into consideration the following uses:
Create Homunculus is one of those spells that's somewhat lackluster when taken at surface value, but if you put your imagination behind it it truly begins to shine.
There's a big problem I have with a lot of the reasoning people give in defense of Create Homonculus. Anything it can do can also be done with Find Familiar in some way with one exception, the HP. Even considering that you have to repay the gold cost for find familiar each time, it's still almost never going to cost more in the long run. On top of that, the familiar can even be made to deliver touch spells for you at a range. If it could do something unique I could understand, but instead it can do less ... at least less with utility. Especially by the time, you would need it considering how once you're casting 6th level spells you can probably just set aside a couple-hundred pounds of one of your party's bag of holding for the important books from the library everyone keeps bringing up... Also, stuff that you would have to do over multiple in-game years like having a base you'd want something like a homunculus for(Let's face it, a level 1-5 wizard doesn't have a base with anything important to guard or useful to look at ... and it's a terrible guard anyways guys...) isn't gonna happen in the vast majority of groups. And the ones where it does still don't excuse the cost of entry really... My point is, why would you buy into learning a spell, buying a 1k dagger pretty much exclusively for it, and then hurting yourself just for what it provides? I'm especially unconvinced since the original reason the spell is so high level is just because of the supposed unlimited scry which ... sure in the most technical kind of way that it would usually be better to just use a communication spell to do and that it has already been mentioned multiple times that pact of the chain can do. You can talk about all the other non-combat/utility things it can do, but I just can't excuse it being above 3rd level if it's just the stuff being talked about. honestly just make it a 2nd level with a more limited telepathy that can be increased with upcasting. A simple (except that the range of its telepathy is x instead of anywhere on the same plane of existence) would have fixed it.
Yeah ... but a much weaker version of his already considered weak ability in the original that you can do better with a pact of the chain warlock. Other than the breadth of language I guess, but common usually does the trick(Which some familiars get), and understanding but not speaking by sharing its senses covers most of the rest. People are surprised at how clever he is with it sure, but it's never considered especially strong by himself or others ... Also, most of his uses are better for a different kind of system with more politics and mundanity focus ... You should probably be playing a different system than D&D to get more out of those. If you're doing more of that than combat/adventuring in D&D then it's probably crippling your group in getting the most fun out of their sessions. It's a combat system first, an adventuring system second, and everything else as an afterthought IMO.
Also, most intelligent creatures will be offended if you send your ugly pet for negotiations, even if it can speak. That and there are already rules for familiar armor(See barding in PHB). Adventurer's league has some simple rules for familiar magic item uses that suggest intelligent enough ones can even attune magic items, but it counts towards your attunement slots (See earlier posts in this thread). The size and shape thing being DM-dependent applies to familiars as well since that's well into homebrew territory already (Though I'll give a slight edge to the Homonculus there because of existing real-world lore that applies to it and doesn't take as much reworking) and can be worked around with spells like polymorph/true polymorph anyways. And then weapon and tool proficiencies ... Assuming your DM allows it at all, hirelings and sidekicks can generally do the job better unless the you gaining them caveat applies but ... I guess that would work both ways then? It's heavily DM-dependent, but I guess that could make it worth it if it does work both ways? maybe even just the homunculus learning skills for you might be enough in the few campaigns that go on long enough to get that benefit ... assuming you are both playing that kind of campaign AND it'll continue being that type after you get high enough level to cast the spell and for long enough to gain at least 1 proficiency that you actually get to use for a decent amount of time? Anyways, it has quite a few what-ifs, but I can kinda see the one where it can train for you, but only if you actually have the "really nice" DM that lets you get the proficiencies.
It's a way for a friendless Wizard to have at least one person in his court.
Really, it's one of those plot spells. NPCs use it and sometimes it's fun to have specific rules for how NPCs are gonna use it. My party discovered that a presumed-dead mage was in fact alive, because we found their living homunculus, for example.
As a spell for players... It's just not that good.
Good point.