My character comes from a family of alchemists, so she also an alchemist herself. She's also a bounty hunter/private investigator. I wanna flavor most of her spells as potions and I wand fire, cold, acid, and poison damage. I want potions that make plants grow, a sleeping potion, a smoke bomb, and invisibility potions.
She's also got like this parasol where she can use it like a gun, a club and can shield herself with it.
I've tried a lot of builds and none of them quite work for me either mechanically speaking, thematically speaking, or both lol. Does Anyone here have any ideas? I WAS gonna use School of Theurgy wizard but it's dead unearthed arcana and not available on dndbeyond.
Any ideas...? I planned on flavoring the parasol as a staff.
Artificer has to be the low-hanging fruit here. What part of your idea gives you trouble when you build it as an Artificer? I don't recommend an actual Alchemist, but Artillerist could do this nicely.
Flavoring spells a as potions seems fun, just talk it through with your DM, since their opinion is what matters. Have you looked at Druid, they have lots of elemental damage spells. Or sorcerer. Or, as quindraco suggests, an artificer. The biggest problem I’m seeing is the gun/club/shield. First, we’ll assume guns exist in the world. Beyond that, there’s a lot of mechanics that revolve around what you can hold and only having two hands. You can probably work around them, something like needing to use your action to swap from one to the other. Again, though, it’s going to be something you need to homebrew with your DM.
And you’ll need a spell focus, which the staff could be, but you need to have one and be able to touch it when you cast.
The Gun/Club/Shield thing is pretty doable as an artificer (artillerist).
Ordinarily, Artificers just use tools as spell foci. At 5th level, however, an Artillerist learns to make an "arcane firearm"
Arcane Firearm
5th-level Artillerist feature
You know how to turn a wand, staff, or rod into an arcane firearm, a conduit for your destructive spells. When you finish a long rest, you can use woodcarver’s tools to carve special sigils into a wand, staff, or rod and thereby turn it into your arcane firearm. The sigils disappear from the object if you later carve them on a different item. The sigils otherwise last indefinitely.
You can use your arcane firearm as a spellcasting focus for your artificer spells. When you cast an artificer spell through the firearm, roll a d8, and you gain a bonus to one of the spell’s damage rolls equal to the number rolled.
What's the difference between a staff and a parasol? Maybe just a curved handle on one side and some artificer gizmo nonsense on the other? So that takes care of "gun" mode, if you're casting something like Fire Bolt or even Eldritch Blast through it.
While you will get some pushback from some folks (who are wrong), a staff, wooden staff, and wooden Quarterstaff are fairly interchangeable RAI-and-arguably-RAW. So long as your "parasol" is made of wood, I really don't see a reasonable DM telling you that you can't use Shillelagh on it to be able to whack with it. So there's club mode.
To some extent, your AC is always representing you taking defensive measures, including parrying/blocking with whatever is in your hand. But if you want the parasol to be a little more overtly shield-ish... at Artificer 11, you unlock Spell-Storing Item , which allows you to store a 1st or 2nd level spell within a weapon or spell focus (your parasol), which you can cast without spell slots Intelligence x 2 /long rest. Stick Shield in there!
There you go, a parasol that's a club, a gun, and a shield
I've gotta say, the Utility-Umbrella concept also makes me think of Artillerist Artificer... which is kind of funny because everything else in yoru character description says Alchemist Artificer to me, but unless your DM just wants to give you a super versatile weapon you can accomplish a lot of what you're describing with Artillerist abilities. Chicken_Champ has some good ideas for creating a more permanent weapon, but something that comes to mind is the Artillerist's 3rd level ability to create an Eldritch Cannon. Normally it's meant to appear as a brand new object created by the ability itself, but I think you could reflavor it as activating a new mode in your parasol. It basically lets you use the gun as a bonus action each round, either as a flamethrower, a force cannon, and it even has a Shield mode (although functionally it just gives you temp HP instead of increasing AC or anything like that).
Other than that, I'd say if you'd rather be more combat-oriented I would just go for Eldritch Knight, and see if your DM will allow you to flavor a shield and staff as a single object, and the "gun" function would just be satisfied mechanically by using the staff as a focus to cast Firebolt.
I agree that Artificer and Druid make the most sense, but I have a different build for you.
Ranger. Go with the druidic warrior and make sure tasha's expanded spell list is cleared by DM. Invest in shadow touch and magic initiate(druid) feats. I suggest hunter Archetype and will explain why.
Alchemist/bounty hunter/investigator. Customize your preferred background for alchemist Supplies and/or herbalism kit proficiencies. I suggest investigation and survival proficiency for skills.
Potion spells. This build will give you four druid cantrips. One must be shillelagh for the parasol. That leaves you 3 cantrips for your cold/fire/acid/poison potions. I know missing one but I think is worth the loss. Alternatively you can two level dib into land druid instead of magic initiate.
Specialty spell potions. You'll have access to fog cloud(smoke bomb), entangle, spike growth and eventually plant growth(plant growth potion). The shadow touch feat grants you invisibility(invisibility potion) and you can take sleep(sleep potion) as the 1st level spell with the feat.
Parasol. Yes the staff spell focus works great as long as dm signs off on it. Shillelagh(club) and a magic initiate catapult spell or forgoing another elemental cantrip for magic stone(shooting) can give you a fun range option. So shielding with the parasol without the shield spell seems like a fail. I get it, this is why I suggest the hunter archetype. Roleplaying the level seven and fifteen features as using and umbrella sounds awesome to me. Deflecting a lightning bolt(evasion) or holding back an onslaught(multiattack defense) by opening up your parasol. Even some of the offensive features ar levels three and eleven can be described in a similar fashion.
Conclusion. This build will have some of the same pluses as the artificer; like one ability score dependance(wisdom), versatility and most things you're looking for in one class. But it has similar drawbacks; like recurring investments in feats or dipping to get everything you want.
Huh, that Ranger approach wasn't on my radar at all. That's really cool 3Pete.
My mind jumped to Artillerist immediately, as it seems others did as well. I'd avoid Alchemist like the plague because it's a terribly designed subclass that doesn't actually give you mechanics to help with the toolkit you want.
The Arcane Firearm is perfect for creating your Parasol gun. Firebolt, Acid Splash, Thunderwave, Magic Missile, Shatter, Fireball and Cone of Cold is a very nice suite of blasts that covers everything except poison. Thunder is cooler anyways. I love Transformer's idea of making the Elrditch Cannons functions of the parasol as well. Brilliant. The Shield spell covers your parasol defense technique. Booming Blade and starting with 16 Strength is the last piece of the puzzle that makes the parasol a viable melee weapon as well since Arcane Firearm boosts the damage from BB. You can even go down the rabbithole with a Booming Blade focused build that picks up the feats Crusher, War Caster and Polearm Master to build some seriously mean opportunity attacks.
Where artillerist has a harder time delivering is with the specific potion spell effects you want. Web can easily be reflavored to be vines and other tangling vegetation, but doesn't satisfy the concept nearly as well as having access to the spell literally named Plant Growth. Fog Cloud and Sleep cover your other too perfectly and can be picked up with a one level dip into wizard or sorcerer (preferably wizard). I'm not a huge fan of dipping on artillerists, but it does technically cover everything you're looking for.
I think a better way to handle sleep is to talk to your DM about your character discovering/creating recipes for potions and poisons, one of which is a sleep effect. The sleep spell is only good for about two to three levels and then is virtually useless. It isn't a great spell to dip for. As for fog cloud, I love fog cloud, but I still don't think the dip is worth it mechanically, especially because getting to Arcane Firearm is very important to the build concept.
As an alternative to dipping for fog cloud, I really enjoy Eldritch Adept: Misty Visions. You can make illusions of smoke or whatever you like to help with concealment and subterfuge. Giving your parasol a hologram projector seems pretty sick to me.
As an alternative to the Artillerist, I think a Hexblade Warlock 2-3/ Bard X multiclass would also fit quite well. You can make a quarterstaff your hex warrior weapon so that melee attacks are viable (with booming blade in the mix). Eldritch Blast is gun mode. The Shield spell is once again covering defense. Misty Visions invocation for the hologram projector in place of fog cloud again.
Where Bard comes in is with the heavy hitting third level spells (and convenient charisma synergy). Plant Growth and Hypnotic Pattern are excellent control spells. Plant Growth is obvious, but Hypnotic Pattern is on my radar because it is like Sleep with big boy pants on. It may not be actual sleep, but it's a great spell and the stupifying effect is similar enough to be worth mentioning.
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Okay. I need help with a specific build.
My character comes from a family of alchemists, so she also an alchemist herself. She's also a bounty hunter/private investigator. I wanna flavor most of her spells as potions and I wand fire, cold, acid, and poison damage. I want potions that make plants grow, a sleeping potion, a smoke bomb, and invisibility potions.
She's also got like this parasol where she can use it like a gun, a club and can shield herself with it.
I've tried a lot of builds and none of them quite work for me either mechanically speaking, thematically speaking, or both lol. Does Anyone here have any ideas? I WAS gonna use School of Theurgy wizard but it's dead unearthed arcana and not available on dndbeyond.
Any ideas...? I planned on flavoring the parasol as a staff.
Artificer has to be the low-hanging fruit here. What part of your idea gives you trouble when you build it as an Artificer? I don't recommend an actual Alchemist, but Artillerist could do this nicely.
Flavoring spells a as potions seems fun, just talk it through with your DM, since their opinion is what matters. Have you looked at Druid, they have lots of elemental damage spells. Or sorcerer. Or, as quindraco suggests, an artificer.
The biggest problem I’m seeing is the gun/club/shield. First, we’ll assume guns exist in the world. Beyond that, there’s a lot of mechanics that revolve around what you can hold and only having two hands. You can probably work around them, something like needing to use your action to swap from one to the other. Again, though, it’s going to be something you need to homebrew with your DM.
And you’ll need a spell focus, which the staff could be, but you need to have one and be able to touch it when you cast.
The Gun/Club/Shield thing is pretty doable as an artificer (artillerist).
Ordinarily, Artificers just use tools as spell foci. At 5th level, however, an Artillerist learns to make an "arcane firearm"
What's the difference between a staff and a parasol? Maybe just a curved handle on one side and some artificer gizmo nonsense on the other? So that takes care of "gun" mode, if you're casting something like Fire Bolt or even Eldritch Blast through it.
While you will get some pushback from some folks (who are wrong), a staff, wooden staff, and wooden Quarterstaff are fairly interchangeable RAI-and-arguably-RAW. So long as your "parasol" is made of wood, I really don't see a reasonable DM telling you that you can't use Shillelagh on it to be able to whack with it. So there's club mode.
To some extent, your AC is always representing you taking defensive measures, including parrying/blocking with whatever is in your hand. But if you want the parasol to be a little more overtly shield-ish... at Artificer 11, you unlock Spell-Storing Item , which allows you to store a 1st or 2nd level spell within a weapon or spell focus (your parasol), which you can cast without spell slots Intelligence x 2 /long rest. Stick Shield in there!
There you go, a parasol that's a club, a gun, and a shield
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I've gotta say, the Utility-Umbrella concept also makes me think of Artillerist Artificer... which is kind of funny because everything else in yoru character description says Alchemist Artificer to me, but unless your DM just wants to give you a super versatile weapon you can accomplish a lot of what you're describing with Artillerist abilities. Chicken_Champ has some good ideas for creating a more permanent weapon, but something that comes to mind is the Artillerist's 3rd level ability to create an Eldritch Cannon. Normally it's meant to appear as a brand new object created by the ability itself, but I think you could reflavor it as activating a new mode in your parasol. It basically lets you use the gun as a bonus action each round, either as a flamethrower, a force cannon, and it even has a Shield mode (although functionally it just gives you temp HP instead of increasing AC or anything like that).
Other than that, I'd say if you'd rather be more combat-oriented I would just go for Eldritch Knight, and see if your DM will allow you to flavor a shield and staff as a single object, and the "gun" function would just be satisfied mechanically by using the staff as a focus to cast Firebolt.
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I agree that Artificer and Druid make the most sense, but I have a different build for you.
Ranger. Go with the druidic warrior and make sure tasha's expanded spell list is cleared by DM. Invest in shadow touch and magic initiate(druid) feats. I suggest hunter Archetype and will explain why.
Alchemist/bounty hunter/investigator. Customize your preferred background for alchemist Supplies and/or herbalism kit proficiencies. I suggest investigation and survival proficiency for skills.
Potion spells. This build will give you four druid cantrips. One must be shillelagh for the parasol. That leaves you 3 cantrips for your cold/fire/acid/poison potions. I know missing one but I think is worth the loss. Alternatively you can two level dib into land druid instead of magic initiate.
Specialty spell potions. You'll have access to fog cloud(smoke bomb), entangle, spike growth and eventually plant growth(plant growth potion). The shadow touch feat grants you invisibility(invisibility potion) and you can take sleep(sleep potion) as the 1st level spell with the feat.
Parasol. Yes the staff spell focus works great as long as dm signs off on it. Shillelagh(club) and a magic initiate catapult spell or forgoing another elemental cantrip for magic stone(shooting) can give you a fun range option. So shielding with the parasol without the shield spell seems like a fail. I get it, this is why I suggest the hunter archetype. Roleplaying the level seven and fifteen features as using and umbrella sounds awesome to me. Deflecting a lightning bolt(evasion) or holding back an onslaught(multiattack defense) by opening up your parasol. Even some of the offensive features ar levels three and eleven can be described in a similar fashion.
Conclusion. This build will have some of the same pluses as the artificer; like one ability score dependance(wisdom), versatility and most things you're looking for in one class. But it has similar drawbacks; like recurring investments in feats or dipping to get everything you want.
Huh, that Ranger approach wasn't on my radar at all. That's really cool 3Pete.
My mind jumped to Artillerist immediately, as it seems others did as well. I'd avoid Alchemist like the plague because it's a terribly designed subclass that doesn't actually give you mechanics to help with the toolkit you want.
The Arcane Firearm is perfect for creating your Parasol gun. Firebolt, Acid Splash, Thunderwave, Magic Missile, Shatter, Fireball and Cone of Cold is a very nice suite of blasts that covers everything except poison. Thunder is cooler anyways. I love Transformer's idea of making the Elrditch Cannons functions of the parasol as well. Brilliant. The Shield spell covers your parasol defense technique. Booming Blade and starting with 16 Strength is the last piece of the puzzle that makes the parasol a viable melee weapon as well since Arcane Firearm boosts the damage from BB. You can even go down the rabbithole with a Booming Blade focused build that picks up the feats Crusher, War Caster and Polearm Master to build some seriously mean opportunity attacks.
Where artillerist has a harder time delivering is with the specific potion spell effects you want. Web can easily be reflavored to be vines and other tangling vegetation, but doesn't satisfy the concept nearly as well as having access to the spell literally named Plant Growth. Fog Cloud and Sleep cover your other too perfectly and can be picked up with a one level dip into wizard or sorcerer (preferably wizard). I'm not a huge fan of dipping on artillerists, but it does technically cover everything you're looking for.
I think a better way to handle sleep is to talk to your DM about your character discovering/creating recipes for potions and poisons, one of which is a sleep effect. The sleep spell is only good for about two to three levels and then is virtually useless. It isn't a great spell to dip for. As for fog cloud, I love fog cloud, but I still don't think the dip is worth it mechanically, especially because getting to Arcane Firearm is very important to the build concept.
As an alternative to dipping for fog cloud, I really enjoy Eldritch Adept: Misty Visions. You can make illusions of smoke or whatever you like to help with concealment and subterfuge. Giving your parasol a hologram projector seems pretty sick to me.
As an alternative to the Artillerist, I think a Hexblade Warlock 2-3/ Bard X multiclass would also fit quite well. You can make a quarterstaff your hex warrior weapon so that melee attacks are viable (with booming blade in the mix). Eldritch Blast is gun mode. The Shield spell is once again covering defense. Misty Visions invocation for the hologram projector in place of fog cloud again.
Where Bard comes in is with the heavy hitting third level spells (and convenient charisma synergy). Plant Growth and Hypnotic Pattern are excellent control spells. Plant Growth is obvious, but Hypnotic Pattern is on my radar because it is like Sleep with big boy pants on. It may not be actual sleep, but it's a great spell and the stupifying effect is similar enough to be worth mentioning.