I haven't really read through Archivist, but it just sounds like a Wizard. Battle Smith is just a Cleric with a Mechanical Servant from the looks of it. Artillerist I just hate the Turret. But for Alchemist, well I just loved the old one with the Alchemist's Satchel, and instead they added a Familiar with similar attacks.
I'm playing an Alchemist in the next Campaign I'm in, and I've been slowly making a Homebrew Class that fixes some problems with the 2, and soon to be 3 Editions of this Class.
The issue with making the alchemical homunculus an Infusion is that Infusions aren't allowed to be specific to certain subclasses of artificer. Because Patron-specific Invocations "tested poorly" with Wizards the one time due to the playerbase being utterly myopic and having no freaking clue what "Fun" means. So whatever homunculus we're getting in Rising is going to be stripped of its interesting alchemical abilities and just kinda...kinda be a thing. A thing that maybe does stuff if you homebrew it but otherwise doesn't do anything but kinda flap around and be present. No special abilities, no cool tricks - because special abilities and cool tricks would require it to actually be SPECIFIC TO SOMETHING - just...there.
Hogwash.
And instead we get the god damned satchel, because...no. No. You ranted that rant once Yurei, knock it off. Just...
Suffice it to say that if all Alchemists are now required to be crazed lunatics flinging unstable compounds every turn, I'm going to have to rebuild my own beloved artificer into a Battlesmith, instead. Because despite the common opinion of "when someone says Alchemist, everybody thinks of THE POTION GUY", that is not, in fact, what everyone thinks of, and some people hate the dumpy tropes associated with Video Game Potion Guys.
How does the satchel make you crazed? I saw it as mixing compounds carefully and choosing an effect. I hope the satchel isnt what it used to be, just a cantrip shooter with cantrips scaled to Sneak Attack, and has actual, varied effects. Probably stuff like creating potions like the ones the homonculus gives out, as well as some scaled healing, and MAYBE some damaging stuff, but like, poisons/cursed potions, not explosions. They might remove the iron defender from the battle smith as well (so you cant have two animal companions), and have the homonculus infusion be a reskinned iron defender construct, that you can cast spells out of? Also, i think in dnd, tropes are what they design subclasses and classes after.
Also the fact that "everyone thinks of potions when they think of alchemist" is by far the popular belief, that proves itself that that is what, at the very least, MOST people think of when they think of alchemist.
I actually like the homoculus, a lot, I just don't like how it seems to be the main subclass feature of the alchemist, replacing the satchel. As an infusion, I think it would work.
The Alchemist's Satchel is designed specifically to appeal to the Emmit Brown/Rick-and-Morty style players who see alchemists/scientists as twitchy-faced, crazy-eyed, frizzy-haired madmen whose entire thing is just hurling semi-random chemicals around whilst cackling maniacally because "Mad Scientists are funny!"
I hate that trope with the scourging fury of a thousand bee-stung orcs. it is thoroughly awful, it is not funny in the slightest, and I honestly flat-out refuse to allow Wizards to force me to play my alchemist that way because everybody else wants to be an insult to intelligence. So, looks like I get to be a Battlesmith instead. And if they killed the Iron Defender too, well **** me sideways then.
How does it appeal to the ememt brown type? And what about those chemicals were random? You chose one from a list of options. There is NOTHING about the alchemists satchel that was random. In addition, those throwing chemicals were because you did not get cantrips, with cantrips, they likely would not exist. Instead it would be the other features, such as potions to heal, potions that gave you more movement, and chemical reactant based effects (smoke, heavy goop, non damaging explosion that knocks people away). There is NOTHING in there that says it is random, or even semi random.
I have my own issues with the alchemists satchel from there, namely it replaces all other subclass features and focuses JUST on potions, which i do dislike. It absolutely needed to be reworked, and i pray that they do instead of copy pasting the same features, and removing everything else. The homonculus felt as if it was forcing you to shift to a style where you had a pet, with nothing else major at 3rd level. Battle smith at least got Battle Ready, i would have the same problems with the iron defender as i do the homonculus if you just got the iron defender at 3rd level (along with tool proficiencies and spells, yes, i know). If it was a 6th level feature and we got some potion based ability (not even the satchel, just some more uses of cure wounds/enhance ability per long rest id be fine with) at 3rd level, i would be absolutely fine with the homonculus being a subclass feature.
For someone who is thinks the Artificer should be able to fo anything and everything all at once you aren’t really giving much credit to the idea that a retextured Homunculus can easily be more applicable to any background and any character type.
Also, when i say ‘subclass infusions’ I understand that cant work, but a Very valid prerequisite could be ‘proficiency in *blank* tools’ which effectively makes it like that but not requiring the actual subclass
AND ALSO I have never i my days thought that an alchemist can only be a mad scientist (even tho yes that is the trope this entire class was birthed from) and the thought that an alchemist who only uses potions isnt a real alchemist is totally backwards. Yes the Homonculus is an aspect of it, and one they put way too much emphasis on in the subclass, but guess what? You can still get it as an infusion if u want
Nah, they are pretty useful. Artillerist can create an object that casts what is essentially a first level spell EVERY ROUND, and move along with you, for 10 minutes. And you can have this run on spell slots, as well as getting ones for free. And at 14th level you can have 2 of them. 6th level feature is basically potent cantrip, however it grants you an extra cantrip instead of effecting all cantrips, letting you fill your cantrip slots with utility cantrips. Battle Smith gets to use INT for magic weapon attacks, which is HUGE for an INT based class. They also get an iron defender who can attack, assist them with Help if needed, and use defensive pounce as a reaction to defend the artificer and party members. At higher levels, they continue to improve, dealing extra damage on hits with arcane jolt, and letting defensive pounce deal damage, giving them a potential DPR (with the right infusions and spells) about equal to the paladin. Alchemist, for the flack it gets (and deserves) still is pretty useful. The homonculus, although i agree with the issues with it, can be useful, assisting with Help on ability checks and the alchemical salves are free buff spells (although resilience should be actual hitpoints, not just temporary). Lesser restoration for free INT times is great, as is greater restoration once per long rest with no material components. Alchemical mastery is pretty good, letting you buff your healing spells to be more efficient with your lower spell slots, i just wish it was for all elemental damage, not just acid and poison (which still makes narrative sense, and is really not that OP). Chemical savant is cool, with its resistances, and it would be a bit overpowered if it was all elemental damage. Also, immunity to poisoned is good. i do wish chemical savant had a little more oomph to it, ig the greater restoration is that, but alas. My problem with the alchemist is that i honestly miss the satchel, at least in concept. the homonculus is nice in idea, but would probably work better as an infusion. If alchemical mastery was all elemental damage, hell, I would have no real problem with the alchemist, but it kinda felt like they were forcing you to specialize in acid and poison spells. Alchemists and other subclasses are each designed for a specific style of play, yes, but they did not get this specific. Wand prototype didn't say "any cantrip that deals fire or lighting damage", for example, and Battle Ready didnt say "INT modifier for any ranged magic weapon". But idk.
The turret is good early on, I believe u said that. The issue is nothing scales to get better so its a little overpowered early on and almost useless later, cause you still have to spend a bonus action to tell it what to do, whereas Sorcerers can metamagic into a bonus action and wizards can cast actual first level spells for free. Also you fo get 2 turrets, but only once. Choose wisely.
As for the wand thing, its a nice idea but the subclass tries to do too much and does nothing well. That my complaint for a lot if this class but this one in particular.
While having lesser restoration is useful to an extent so many other classes and even a few races don't even need to worry about poison and disease so it doesn’t help all that much. Greater restoration is great to use for free, but you really just don't get much whatsoever from an of the features that can actually make you good in any given situation (which is what everyone keeps telling me the Artificer is supposedly really good at) so thats what irritates me.
Honestly my biggest quarrel with iron defender is it doesn’t feel good to me. Again you need to use a bonus action to activate its actions, but its a lot better for team play than a beast master. I really don’t understand how they justify it being able to heal but whatever
My hope is that the homunculus infusion keeps some customizability to it even if it's just a list from several options like with Resistance Armor. The ability to reconfigure a homunculus on a long rest could be fantastic. I know that basically makes it a glorified familiar... but honestly I'd be okay with that.
One downside to the homunculus as an infused item instead of a class feature is that if you die your homunculus's days are limited. When the infusion runs out its dead. I was entertaining the idea of continuing past death as a soul inside a ring of spell storing worn by the homunculus. This puts a time limit on that idea. (Granted I would probably be seeking a revival of some way anyway).
One upside to the homunculus as an infused item is the ability use it as a spellcasting focus. Considering this... maybe there will be an option to cast spells from it's location INT mod times a day like the Archivist's Manifest Mind?
Greater restoration is one of the most useful healing spells in the game. Every high level spell mechanic that has a long lasting negative effect, every trap, petrification, most instakill stuff honestly can be cured by greater restoration
And yeah, 7th level is just boring. You learn a new infusion, but you dont get to use any extra ones and it cant be one of the 8th level or higher ones that come a level later
And the level 14 ability is the turret scaling, as well as using spell slots to do it more times. The fact that it uses a bonus action is irrelevant to whether or not it is good, that is only a debuff if you are suggesting that it can do it for free with no action.
I dont think its irrelevant. Especially as a spell caster there are a lot of things you could be during as a bonus action instead of commanding a lack luster turret
It is more of an issue with the Iron Defender tho, because smite spells also take a bonus action to cast. I guess it doesn’t matter tho cause the Iron Defender is pretty much only there to give anyone that tries to hit you disadvantage
also i imagine arcane firearm will just be a reskinned wand prototype, where you get to decide what it looks like
I haven't really read through Archivist, but it just sounds like a Wizard. Battle Smith is just a Cleric with a Mechanical Servant from the looks of it. Artillerist I just hate the Turret. But for Alchemist, well I just loved the old one with the Alchemist's Satchel, and instead they added a Familiar with similar attacks.
I'm playing an Alchemist in the next Campaign I'm in, and I've been slowly making a Homebrew Class that fixes some problems with the 2, and soon to be 3 Editions of this Class.
The issue with making the alchemical homunculus an Infusion is that Infusions aren't allowed to be specific to certain subclasses of artificer. Because Patron-specific Invocations "tested poorly" with Wizards the one time due to the playerbase being utterly myopic and having no freaking clue what "Fun" means. So whatever homunculus we're getting in Rising is going to be stripped of its interesting alchemical abilities and just kinda...kinda be a thing. A thing that maybe does stuff if you homebrew it but otherwise doesn't do anything but kinda flap around and be present. No special abilities, no cool tricks - because special abilities and cool tricks would require it to actually be SPECIFIC TO SOMETHING - just...there.
Hogwash.
And instead we get the god damned satchel, because...no. No. You ranted that rant once Yurei, knock it off. Just...
Suffice it to say that if all Alchemists are now required to be crazed lunatics flinging unstable compounds every turn, I'm going to have to rebuild my own beloved artificer into a Battlesmith, instead. Because despite the common opinion of "when someone says Alchemist, everybody thinks of THE POTION GUY", that is not, in fact, what everyone thinks of, and some people hate the dumpy tropes associated with Video Game Potion Guys.
Ugh.
Please do not contact or message me.
How does the satchel make you crazed? I saw it as mixing compounds carefully and choosing an effect. I hope the satchel isnt what it used to be, just a cantrip shooter with cantrips scaled to Sneak Attack, and has actual, varied effects. Probably stuff like creating potions like the ones the homonculus gives out, as well as some scaled healing, and MAYBE some damaging stuff, but like, poisons/cursed potions, not explosions. They might remove the iron defender from the battle smith as well (so you cant have two animal companions), and have the homonculus infusion be a reskinned iron defender construct, that you can cast spells out of? Also, i think in dnd, tropes are what they design subclasses and classes after.
Also the fact that "everyone thinks of potions when they think of alchemist" is by far the popular belief, that proves itself that that is what, at the very least, MOST people think of when they think of alchemist.
I actually like the homoculus, a lot, I just don't like how it seems to be the main subclass feature of the alchemist, replacing the satchel. As an infusion, I think it would work.
The Alchemist's Satchel is designed specifically to appeal to the Emmit Brown/Rick-and-Morty style players who see alchemists/scientists as twitchy-faced, crazy-eyed, frizzy-haired madmen whose entire thing is just hurling semi-random chemicals around whilst cackling maniacally because "Mad Scientists are funny!"
I hate that trope with the scourging fury of a thousand bee-stung orcs. it is thoroughly awful, it is not funny in the slightest, and I honestly flat-out refuse to allow Wizards to force me to play my alchemist that way because everybody else wants to be an insult to intelligence. So, looks like I get to be a Battlesmith instead. And if they killed the Iron Defender too, well **** me sideways then.
Please do not contact or message me.
How does it appeal to the ememt brown type? And what about those chemicals were random? You chose one from a list of options. There is NOTHING about the alchemists satchel that was random. In addition, those throwing chemicals were because you did not get cantrips, with cantrips, they likely would not exist. Instead it would be the other features, such as potions to heal, potions that gave you more movement, and chemical reactant based effects (smoke, heavy goop, non damaging explosion that knocks people away). There is NOTHING in there that says it is random, or even semi random.
a revised alchemists satchel would probably be like the alchemical salves from the homonculus, but with more options, and able to be used more times
I have my own issues with the alchemists satchel from there, namely it replaces all other subclass features and focuses JUST on potions, which i do dislike. It absolutely needed to be reworked, and i pray that they do instead of copy pasting the same features, and removing everything else. The homonculus felt as if it was forcing you to shift to a style where you had a pet, with nothing else major at 3rd level. Battle smith at least got Battle Ready, i would have the same problems with the iron defender as i do the homonculus if you just got the iron defender at 3rd level (along with tool proficiencies and spells, yes, i know). If it was a 6th level feature and we got some potion based ability (not even the satchel, just some more uses of cure wounds/enhance ability per long rest id be fine with) at 3rd level, i would be absolutely fine with the homonculus being a subclass feature.
Like which guy crawling?
oh, im sorry, my computer doesnt load images sometimes
Yurei
For someone who is thinks the Artificer should be able to fo anything and everything all at once you aren’t really giving much credit to the idea that a retextured Homunculus can easily be more applicable to any background and any character type.
Also, when i say ‘subclass infusions’ I understand that cant work, but a Very valid prerequisite could be ‘proficiency in *blank* tools’ which effectively makes it like that but not requiring the actual subclass
AND ALSO I have never i my days thought that an alchemist can only be a mad scientist (even tho yes that is the trope this entire class was birthed from) and the thought that an alchemist who only uses potions isnt a real alchemist is totally backwards. Yes the Homonculus is an aspect of it, and one they put way too much emphasis on in the subclass, but guess what? You can still get it as an infusion if u want
Yeah. They might have new crafting rules designed with the artificer class in mind.
The turret is good early on, I believe u said that. The issue is nothing scales to get better so its a little overpowered early on and almost useless later, cause you still have to spend a bonus action to tell it what to do, whereas Sorcerers can metamagic into a bonus action and wizards can cast actual first level spells for free. Also you fo get 2 turrets, but only once. Choose wisely.
As for the wand thing, its a nice idea but the subclass tries to do too much and does nothing well. That my complaint for a lot if this class but this one in particular.
While having lesser restoration is useful to an extent so many other classes and even a few races don't even need to worry about poison and disease so it doesn’t help all that much. Greater restoration is great to use for free, but you really just don't get much whatsoever from an of the features that can actually make you good in any given situation (which is what everyone keeps telling me the Artificer is supposedly really good at) so thats what irritates me.
Honestly my biggest quarrel with iron defender is it doesn’t feel good to me. Again you need to use a bonus action to activate its actions, but its a lot better for team play than a beast master. I really don’t understand how they justify it being able to heal but whatever
My hope is that the homunculus infusion keeps some customizability to it even if it's just a list from several options like with Resistance Armor. The ability to reconfigure a homunculus on a long rest could be fantastic. I know that basically makes it a glorified familiar... but honestly I'd be okay with that.
One downside to the homunculus as an infused item instead of a class feature is that if you die your homunculus's days are limited. When the infusion runs out its dead. I was entertaining the idea of continuing past death as a soul inside a ring of spell storing worn by the homunculus. This puts a time limit on that idea. (Granted I would probably be seeking a revival of some way anyway).
One upside to the homunculus as an infused item is the ability use it as a spellcasting focus. Considering this... maybe there will be an option to cast spells from it's location INT mod times a day like the Archivist's Manifest Mind?
Greater restoration is one of the most useful healing spells in the game. Every high level spell mechanic that has a long lasting negative effect, every trap, petrification, most instakill stuff honestly can be cured by greater restoration
And yeah, 7th level is just boring. You learn a new infusion, but you dont get to use any extra ones and it cant be one of the 8th level or higher ones that come a level later
And the level 14 ability is the turret scaling, as well as using spell slots to do it more times. The fact that it uses a bonus action is irrelevant to whether or not it is good, that is only a debuff if you are suggesting that it can do it for free with no action.
I dont think its irrelevant. Especially as a spell caster there are a lot of things you could be during as a bonus action instead of commanding a lack luster turret
It is more of an issue with the Iron Defender tho, because smite spells also take a bonus action to cast. I guess it doesn’t matter tho cause the Iron Defender is pretty much only there to give anyone that tries to hit you disadvantage