I’ve been trying to workshop ways to improve an alchemist artificer (5e). I’ve played him to level 9 and feel like I’ve hit a wall. He’s the party’s only medic and the campaign is hard enough that I feel like I ens up dumping all of my spell slots into healing potions most days. I need some way to improve the character because I can’t stand just being an Acid Splash turret and healbot for the rest of the game.
The catch is that my stats only allow me to multiclass either Barbarian, Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard. It’s a homebrew campaign that’s very slow to level up and I’m at a loss for how to improve things. It heavily involves wilderness survival and time constraints, which severely limits my ability to have money or time for item crafting.
I’ve been sincerely considering just going barbarian from here, converting all my spell slots into healing potions each morning and then playing as a poor man’s barb because that would at least be something different (but not having extra attack until level 14 would be awful. I’m kind of at a loss and would like help on how yo fix this character.
1) Why is your party healing using the Alchemist's healing potions? That's the least efficient way to do it. Use those spellslots for Healing Word once they have gone down instead to bring them back up, and make them take short rests to heal outside of combat.
2) What is the composition of your party that noone else can heal? A Fighter has Second Wind, a Paladin has Lay on Hands, Bards, Druids, and Clerics all get tons of healing spells, Wizards and Sorcerers can pick up Life Transference for healing, and Rangers can get Goodberry. Tell your party you don't want to be a heal bot and that one of them will have to pick up some healing.
3) Ask your DM to allow you to change your infused items and make sure you have: Resistant Armor/Mind Sharpener, Spell Re-Fueling Ring, and a Homunculus.
4) For spells make sure you are packing Faerie Fire, Haste, Vortex Warp, Web.
For multiclassing:
Wizard - War Magic - this gives you a nice unlimited defensive buff, it won't necessarily make your combat more exciting but it will make you one tough nut to crack. - unfortunately there's not a lot of 1st level Wizard spells that are really impressive, if you are using 2024 rules then Hideous Laughter or Sleep could be a good choice, Silvery Barbs is pretty good if your DM allows it, Protection from Good/Evil is ok if you cant find anything better.
Rogue - Swashbuckler - take Green-Flame-Blade from your Artificer cantrips then combo GFB + Rapier to get 1d8+DEX+Sneak Attack + INT + secondary target(1d8+INT), I think this is the only way you have a chance at being a reasonable damage dealer.
I am using Healing Word in fights, but the party likes having the potions between fights. We’re running full adventuring days with 5 or 6 fights happening on many days. We’re using short rests but the hit dice are exhausted if we get multiple days like that in a row.
The other party members are a fighter, a barbarian, and a (very blasty) sorcerer. Second Wind helps but it’s ultimately a small amount of HP for only the fighter. I have to spend multiple slots between fights if we don’t want the sorcerer to go down in one hit or for the barb to have enough health to do his job. Even with a spell-refueling ring, the 8 slots per day haven’t been enough and we’ve had to outright abandon multiple quests in order to survive at points because out health drains too quickly and we can’t get a long rest freely whenever we want to. The extra 2 slots from reaching level 9 will probably help but I frankly need to save at least one for Revivify at all times.
I’ve been using Vortex Warp, Fairy Fire, and Web. There’s just so many enemies on the tougher days that control spells are proving ineffective with so few slots.
we’ve had to outright abandon multiple quests in order to survive
That sounds like you need to talk to your DM. Either your parties needs to level up more, or they need to rebalance their encounters if your party is abandoning quests.
if we don’t want the sorcerer to go down in one hit
Why is that a problem? If they are a blasty sorcerer then they don't need to stay conscious except to take their turn. And at 9th level 2d4+INT isn't going to keep them up anyway. Even with the tpHP that's what? 25 hp per potion, and a CR 5 Bulette deals 30 damage per hit.
There’s just so many enemies on the tougher days that control spells are proving ineffective
Sorry what? More enemies means AoE control spells should be way more effective than healing. Avoiding 1 hit from a Bulette saves more damage than you heal with a potion, and concentration AoE control spells that last the whole combat - like Web - should be preventing at least 2 hits per casting. Faerie Fire allows the Barb to avoid Reckless which should save multiple hits. Is your DC really low? At 9th level you should have maxed out your INT.
I’ve been using Vortex Warp, Fairy Fire, and Web
But then what is the problem? You said you were using all your spellslots for potions which you found really boring and frustrating.
We’re running full adventuring days with 5 or 6 fights happening on many days.
Many of those encounters should be Medium then so should be lasting less than 2 full rounds. How is your party getting so hurt? Maybe consider changing your strategy to do more sneaking around (surprise usually means close to 0 damage taken) or long-range combat (3/4 cover avoids a lot of damage). There's lots of weapons that the Bard & Fighter could throw rather than get into melee. Or lure enemies into choke points or use terrain / traps etc...
But anyway, the short answer is that multiclassing probably won't increase the damage you deal in combat, nor will it increase your healing or number of viable actions in combat. Artificer is a versatile utility character, and Alchemist mainly buffs its support ability, it will never do good damage no matter how you build it. A Homunculus + Cantrip will get you ok damage, but you're never going to be stand out.
So far in this campaign, ambushes/unavoidable fights are kind of the norm. Several per day. Stealth proves ineffective when half the party has constant disadvantage from armor.
Control spells like Web are great when you can catch enemies in them. When there’s 10 enemies that are spread out, I’m lucky to get two in a casting. Even with maxed INT, things can make saves as well, so the spells are never as effective in practice as they should be on paper. My attempts at using these spells often lead to wasted slots or 1-2 enemies losing a single turn. The group absolutely plays sub-optimally (the sorcerer has a tendency to cast Mage Armor during combat, to give you an idea of hoe sub-optimally).
Nobody wants to be going down every turn, especially if they’re potentially dying because enemies kept attacking them while they were down is a possibility. Part of this has been that going through levels 5-8 without Revivify on hand is hell, but keeping people from going down has been a practical concern.
It could very easily be that the enemy forces are just very overtuned, but it has felt like I can cast a control spell turn 1 and pray it helps, and then have to heal every turn to keep people from dying. Acid Splash fills time when enemies miss or it’s early in the adventuring day or I’m out of slots. But I run through all my slots trying to keep people up while there are still fights to go, and this is with people spending all their hit dice on short rests. I largely feel like that’s my fault we abandon quests for not picking a more dedicated medic like a Cleric at campaign start. The answer could be that there is no answer, but I was hoping I was missing information and that there were better ways to optimize healing output I couldn’t see.
Oh, if we want to optimize healing output then you've got Wizard for more slots but that's about it. Thief Rogue + the Healer feat is ok but not very good at these levels.
In general in-combat healing is suboptimal and never keeps up with enemy damage. The vast majority of healing in D&D is and should be out-of-combat primarily using hit dice. If the party is consistently out of hit dice and people are still constantly going down then the encounters are most likely overtuned, clearly your DM wants you to struggle or they would have given you e.g. a Staff of Healing, or allow you to long rest more so even if you optimize healing they would probably just up the difficulty again anyway.
Revivify generally isn't worth it while inside of combat, as they come up at 1hp and will immediately go back down again and likely die again, it is far more productive to kill 3 enemies than to revivify 1 person. Revivify is generally something you do right at the end of combat after the bulk of the enemies are dead.
If disadvantage on stealth is the problem, consider grabbing infusions like Cloak of Elvenkind to negate that disadvantage, or use strategy to funnel enemies into a small area where you can more easily pick them off. However, if your party is suboptimal in combat that's just the way it is and the only solution is to talk to the DM about lowering the difficulty. Players who make suboptimal decisions usually do that because they don't care about "strategic challenging combat" they just want to RP their character and do funny / silly things so it sounds like a style mismatch between what the party wants and what the DM is designing. It's why pretty much all video games have a difficulty setting, not every player wants the same thing out of the game, so just talk to the DM about your concerns. You could even suggest solutions like the Staff of Healing, or a customized Necklace of Prayer Beads, or being able to buy more healing potions in towns.
I’ve been trying to workshop ways to improve an alchemist artificer (5e). I’ve played him to level 9 and feel like I’ve hit a wall. He’s the party’s only medic and the campaign is hard enough that I feel like I ens up dumping all of my spell slots into healing potions most days. I need some way to improve the character because I can’t stand just being an Acid Splash turret and healbot for the rest of the game.
The catch is that my stats only allow me to multiclass either Barbarian, Fighter, Rogue, and Wizard. It’s a homebrew campaign that’s very slow to level up and I’m at a loss for how to improve things. It heavily involves wilderness survival and time constraints, which severely limits my ability to have money or time for item crafting.
I’ve been sincerely considering just going barbarian from here, converting all my spell slots into healing potions each morning and then playing as a poor man’s barb because that would at least be something different (but not having extra attack until level 14 would be awful. I’m kind of at a loss and would like help on how yo fix this character.
1) Why is your party healing using the Alchemist's healing potions? That's the least efficient way to do it. Use those spellslots for Healing Word once they have gone down instead to bring them back up, and make them take short rests to heal outside of combat.
2) What is the composition of your party that noone else can heal? A Fighter has Second Wind, a Paladin has Lay on Hands, Bards, Druids, and Clerics all get tons of healing spells, Wizards and Sorcerers can pick up Life Transference for healing, and Rangers can get Goodberry. Tell your party you don't want to be a heal bot and that one of them will have to pick up some healing.
3) Ask your DM to allow you to change your infused items and make sure you have: Resistant Armor/Mind Sharpener, Spell Re-Fueling Ring, and a Homunculus.
4) For spells make sure you are packing Faerie Fire, Haste, Vortex Warp, Web.
For multiclassing:
Wizard - War Magic - this gives you a nice unlimited defensive buff, it won't necessarily make your combat more exciting but it will make you one tough nut to crack. - unfortunately there's not a lot of 1st level Wizard spells that are really impressive, if you are using 2024 rules then Hideous Laughter or Sleep could be a good choice, Silvery Barbs is pretty good if your DM allows it, Protection from Good/Evil is ok if you cant find anything better.
Rogue - Swashbuckler - take Green-Flame-Blade from your Artificer cantrips then combo GFB + Rapier to get 1d8+DEX+Sneak Attack + INT + secondary target(1d8+INT), I think this is the only way you have a chance at being a reasonable damage dealer.
I am using Healing Word in fights, but the party likes having the potions between fights. We’re running full adventuring days with 5 or 6 fights happening on many days. We’re using short rests but the hit dice are exhausted if we get multiple days like that in a row.
The other party members are a fighter, a barbarian, and a (very blasty) sorcerer. Second Wind helps but it’s ultimately a small amount of HP for only the fighter. I have to spend multiple slots between fights if we don’t want the sorcerer to go down in one hit or for the barb to have enough health to do his job. Even with a spell-refueling ring, the 8 slots per day haven’t been enough and we’ve had to outright abandon multiple quests in order to survive at points because out health drains too quickly and we can’t get a long rest freely whenever we want to. The extra 2 slots from reaching level 9 will probably help but I frankly need to save at least one for Revivify at all times.
I’ve been using Vortex Warp, Fairy Fire, and Web. There’s just so many enemies on the tougher days that control spells are proving ineffective with so few slots.
That sounds like you need to talk to your DM. Either your parties needs to level up more, or they need to rebalance their encounters if your party is abandoning quests.
Why is that a problem? If they are a blasty sorcerer then they don't need to stay conscious except to take their turn. And at 9th level 2d4+INT isn't going to keep them up anyway. Even with the tpHP that's what? 25 hp per potion, and a CR 5 Bulette deals 30 damage per hit.
Sorry what? More enemies means AoE control spells should be way more effective than healing. Avoiding 1 hit from a Bulette saves more damage than you heal with a potion, and concentration AoE control spells that last the whole combat - like Web - should be preventing at least 2 hits per casting. Faerie Fire allows the Barb to avoid Reckless which should save multiple hits. Is your DC really low? At 9th level you should have maxed out your INT.
But then what is the problem? You said you were using all your spellslots for potions which you found really boring and frustrating.
Many of those encounters should be Medium then so should be lasting less than 2 full rounds. How is your party getting so hurt? Maybe consider changing your strategy to do more sneaking around (surprise usually means close to 0 damage taken) or long-range combat (3/4 cover avoids a lot of damage). There's lots of weapons that the Bard & Fighter could throw rather than get into melee. Or lure enemies into choke points or use terrain / traps etc...
But anyway, the short answer is that multiclassing probably won't increase the damage you deal in combat, nor will it increase your healing or number of viable actions in combat. Artificer is a versatile utility character, and Alchemist mainly buffs its support ability, it will never do good damage no matter how you build it. A Homunculus + Cantrip will get you ok damage, but you're never going to be stand out.
Perhaps I explained poorly.
So far in this campaign, ambushes/unavoidable fights are kind of the norm. Several per day. Stealth proves ineffective when half the party has constant disadvantage from armor.
Control spells like Web are great when you can catch enemies in them. When there’s 10 enemies that are spread out, I’m lucky to get two in a casting. Even with maxed INT, things can make saves as well, so the spells are never as effective in practice as they should be on paper. My attempts at using these spells often lead to wasted slots or 1-2 enemies losing a single turn. The group absolutely plays sub-optimally (the sorcerer has a tendency to cast Mage Armor during combat, to give you an idea of hoe sub-optimally).
Nobody wants to be going down every turn, especially if they’re potentially dying because enemies kept attacking them while they were down is a possibility. Part of this has been that going through levels 5-8 without Revivify on hand is hell, but keeping people from going down has been a practical concern.
It could very easily be that the enemy forces are just very overtuned, but it has felt like I can cast a control spell turn 1 and pray it helps, and then have to heal every turn to keep people from dying. Acid Splash fills time when enemies miss or it’s early in the adventuring day or I’m out of slots. But I run through all my slots trying to keep people up while there are still fights to go, and this is with people spending all their hit dice on short rests. I largely feel like that’s my fault we abandon quests for not picking a more dedicated medic like a Cleric at campaign start. The answer could be that there is no answer, but I was hoping I was missing information and that there were better ways to optimize healing output I couldn’t see.
Oh, if we want to optimize healing output then you've got Wizard for more slots but that's about it. Thief Rogue + the Healer feat is ok but not very good at these levels.
In general in-combat healing is suboptimal and never keeps up with enemy damage. The vast majority of healing in D&D is and should be out-of-combat primarily using hit dice. If the party is consistently out of hit dice and people are still constantly going down then the encounters are most likely overtuned, clearly your DM wants you to struggle or they would have given you e.g. a Staff of Healing, or allow you to long rest more so even if you optimize healing they would probably just up the difficulty again anyway.
Revivify generally isn't worth it while inside of combat, as they come up at 1hp and will immediately go back down again and likely die again, it is far more productive to kill 3 enemies than to revivify 1 person. Revivify is generally something you do right at the end of combat after the bulk of the enemies are dead.
If disadvantage on stealth is the problem, consider grabbing infusions like Cloak of Elvenkind to negate that disadvantage, or use strategy to funnel enemies into a small area where you can more easily pick them off. However, if your party is suboptimal in combat that's just the way it is and the only solution is to talk to the DM about lowering the difficulty. Players who make suboptimal decisions usually do that because they don't care about "strategic challenging combat" they just want to RP their character and do funny / silly things so it sounds like a style mismatch between what the party wants and what the DM is designing. It's why pretty much all video games have a difficulty setting, not every player wants the same thing out of the game, so just talk to the DM about your concerns. You could even suggest solutions like the Staff of Healing, or a customized Necklace of Prayer Beads, or being able to buy more healing potions in towns.