Ever since being informed that my last attempt to fix the godawful worthless Eberron Rising Artificer was against site guidelines and I was not permitted to keep it, share it, promote it, or acknowledge in any way that the ER Alchemist is anything but perfect, I've been a little gun-shy about trying to fix the class. The old UA Alchemist is still my favorite of the lot, but man...when you get what amounts to DMCA takedown'd for trying to make what we got less worthless, it really spike's a gal's morale, y'know?
Nevertheless, I'm not done yet! I've decided that, rather than try and build something I can actually publish and share for folks, I'll simply offer some pointers on a funzies reflavoring and reinterpretation of the Alchemist and its subclass options for people who have no interest in a shitty Doc Brown knockoff and are looking for a shitty Wicked Witch knockoff, instead. Namely, the Witch.
This is gonna be easy-breezy, shoot-from-the-hip stuff. Because if I try and organize something well enough for other people to just use it I'll get Thunderbolt'd again, but maybe if I just discuss fun ways to remix the Alchemist into something actually useful without doing any actual homebrew editor work, that'll be allowed. So buckle up and prepare to Creatively Interpret with me.
Alternate Third-level Feature: Witch's Cauldron At third level, you create a Witch's Cauldron. The cauldron is a modified [gear]Iron Pot[/gear]; your Witch's Cauldron can be an ornate rune-covered vessel, a simple piece of camp cookwear, or anything else that can contain a gallon of liquid. At the end of a short or long rest, you can combine ingredients you've squirreled away during your adventures in your Witch's Cauldron to create an elixir from the Experimental Elixir list and fill an empty flask with it. You may describe the flavor of this elixir at the same time; the weirder and more unpalatable, the better.
You may spend ten uninterrupted minutes preparing a new elixir as a ritual, using your Witch's Cauldron to create the new elixir as per normal. If this ritual is interrupted, the unstable elixir in progress explodes and deals 2d6 poison damage to any creature within five feet of the cauldron, including you.
Your Witch's Cauldron counts as alchemist's supplies for the purposes of artificer spellcasting and spellcasting foci. In addition, you are considered proficienct in your Witch's Cauldron, which is an improvised melee weapon that deals 1d4+STR bludgeoning damage and 1 stanky (poison) damage on a hit.
Alternate Fifth-level Feature: Good Witch or Bad Witch? When you cast a spell that deals fire, acid, poison, or necrotic damage using alchemist's supplies as the spellcasting focus, you may add your Intelligence modifier to the damage of a single roll of that spell per round. When you cast a spell that heals a creature using alchemist's supplies as the spellcasting focus, you may add your Intelligence modifier to the total amount of healing the spell grants. When you deal melee attack damage to a creature with your Witch's Cauldron, you may increase the Stanky damage of the attack by an amount equivalent to your Intelligence modifier.
Additional Fifth-level Feature: Witch's Familiar Should your artificer select the Homunculus Servant infusion in the future, you can use that infusion to create a Witch's Homunculus instead. The Witch's Homunculus takes the form of a mechanical version of one of the creatures listed in the Find Familiar spell (though it still uses the Homunculus stat block), but it gains the ability to communicate with you via gesture, abbreviated sign language, and interpretive dance. The servant can only communicate relatively simple ideas this way, and it takes four times as long to do so as it would to communicate those ideas via ordinary speech.
In addition, when your Witch's Homunculus is active, it counts as an empty flask for the purposes of your Elixir creation. You may store one elixir at a time in your Homunculus, generally by stuffing it down the poor thing's throat with a funnel. As a bonus action, you may command the homunculus to deliver the elixir to a single target of your choice, which it usually does by vomiting the stored elixir all over them.
Alternative Ninth-level Feature: Broom, Cat, and Hat The Broom of Flying and Hat of Wizardry are added to your list of known infusions. They do not count towards your limit of known infusions, and you can create them without using up any of your Active Infusion slots. The hat of Wizardry created by this feature does not require attunement, though only you can wear it.
As an action, you can attach your Witch's Cauldron to the front of your Broom of Flying. The cauldron cannot be removed until you choose to do so as an action. While attached to the broom in this way, riding the broom with at least one hand on it counts as wielding the cauldron for the purposes of artificer spellcasting and spell foci. While attached to the broom, your Cauldron becomes a simple improvised weapon with the Versatile property, dealing 1d4 bludgeoning damage or 1d6 when swing with both hands.
While wearing your Hat of Wizardry, you may forego casting a cantrip from it, instead using that ability to draw a single witch's elixir from the hat as an action provided you still have an empty flask that theoretically could've been hiding in the hat the whole time. How it got in there, nobody knows, but it's here now so drink it.
Alternative Fifteenth-level Feature: "I'll get you, my pretty...!" You may spend eight hours conducting a ritual with your Witch's Cauldron and one empty flask. At the end of this ritual, roll an Intelligence saving throw against your own spell save DC. If your Witch's Familiar is active and with you for the entire duration of the ritual, you gain advantage on the saving throw. If you fail, the ritual fails and explodes, dealing 10d6 poison damage to everything within thirty feet of your Witch's Cauldron and inflicting the Poisoned condition for 24 hours. if you succeed, you create a Vile Brew on one empty flask in your possession.
Choose an effect from the [spell]Bestow Curse[spell] spell. A creature who ingests the Vile Brew is treated as though a Bestow Curse spell with the chosen effect was cast on it at ninth level; it makes its save against the curse with disadvantage. You may craft an elixir any time you could normally do so that has the sole function of removing your Vile Brew's effects when ingested, which you can use to blackmail the critter for everything you can or conveniently forget you can do at your whim. If you curse a member of your party in this way, the DM is encouraged to allow that party member to punch you in the mouth until you remove it if they believe the curse is undeserved. If the curse is not undeserved, you should probably find a new table.
***************
So yeah. Just a random idea banging around my head that refused to go away until I wrote it down. Have fun, and remember - no cursing party members. It's bad for morale.
Oh, I wasn't really concerned with balance. Nice if it's there, but let's face it - nobody gets to play an Alchemist of any sort these days that's balanced. Heh, mostly just threw this out there to give folks ideas on how to creatively vex their DMs.
I finally had a chance to sit down and read it. I wish to God (big G!) that you could publish this, I would add it in a heartbeat. (I would change the Homunculus though, my houserule is that Alchemists get a revision of the old Alchemical one, but instead of the salve they get the Administer Experimental Elixir action.) All in all I love it!
So.
Ever since being informed that my last attempt to fix the godawful worthless Eberron Rising Artificer was against site guidelines and I was not permitted to keep it, share it, promote it, or acknowledge in any way that the ER Alchemist is anything but perfect, I've been a little gun-shy about trying to fix the class. The old UA Alchemist is still my favorite of the lot, but man...when you get what amounts to DMCA takedown'd for trying to make what we got less worthless, it really spike's a gal's morale, y'know?
Nevertheless, I'm not done yet! I've decided that, rather than try and build something I can actually publish and share for folks, I'll simply offer some pointers on a funzies reflavoring and reinterpretation of the Alchemist and its subclass options for people who have no interest in a shitty Doc Brown knockoff and are looking for a shitty Wicked Witch knockoff, instead. Namely, the Witch.
This is gonna be easy-breezy, shoot-from-the-hip stuff. Because if I try and organize something well enough for other people to just use it I'll get Thunderbolt'd again, but maybe if I just discuss fun ways to remix the Alchemist into something actually useful without doing any actual homebrew editor work, that'll be allowed. So buckle up and prepare to Creatively Interpret with me.
Alternate Third-level Feature: Witch's Cauldron
At third level, you create a Witch's Cauldron. The cauldron is a modified [gear]Iron Pot[/gear]; your Witch's Cauldron can be an ornate rune-covered vessel, a simple piece of camp cookwear, or anything else that can contain a gallon of liquid. At the end of a short or long rest, you can combine ingredients you've squirreled away during your adventures in your Witch's Cauldron to create an elixir from the Experimental Elixir list and fill an empty flask with it. You may describe the flavor of this elixir at the same time; the weirder and more unpalatable, the better.
You may spend ten uninterrupted minutes preparing a new elixir as a ritual, using your Witch's Cauldron to create the new elixir as per normal. If this ritual is interrupted, the unstable elixir in progress explodes and deals 2d6 poison damage to any creature within five feet of the cauldron, including you.
Your Witch's Cauldron counts as alchemist's supplies for the purposes of artificer spellcasting and spellcasting foci. In addition, you are considered proficienct in your Witch's Cauldron, which is an improvised melee weapon that deals 1d4+STR bludgeoning damage and 1 stanky (poison) damage on a hit.
Alternate Fifth-level Feature: Good Witch or Bad Witch?
When you cast a spell that deals fire, acid, poison, or necrotic damage using alchemist's supplies as the spellcasting focus, you may add your Intelligence modifier to the damage of a single roll of that spell per round. When you cast a spell that heals a creature using alchemist's supplies as the spellcasting focus, you may add your Intelligence modifier to the total amount of healing the spell grants. When you deal melee attack damage to a creature with your Witch's Cauldron, you may increase the Stanky damage of the attack by an amount equivalent to your Intelligence modifier.
Additional Fifth-level Feature: Witch's Familiar
Should your artificer select the Homunculus Servant infusion in the future, you can use that infusion to create a Witch's Homunculus instead. The Witch's Homunculus takes the form of a mechanical version of one of the creatures listed in the Find Familiar spell (though it still uses the Homunculus stat block), but it gains the ability to communicate with you via gesture, abbreviated sign language, and interpretive dance. The servant can only communicate relatively simple ideas this way, and it takes four times as long to do so as it would to communicate those ideas via ordinary speech.
In addition, when your Witch's Homunculus is active, it counts as an empty flask for the purposes of your Elixir creation. You may store one elixir at a time in your Homunculus, generally by stuffing it down the poor thing's throat with a funnel. As a bonus action, you may command the homunculus to deliver the elixir to a single target of your choice, which it usually does by vomiting the stored elixir all over them.
Alternative Ninth-level Feature: Broom, Cat, and Hat
The Broom of Flying and Hat of Wizardry are added to your list of known infusions. They do not count towards your limit of known infusions, and you can create them without using up any of your Active Infusion slots. The hat of Wizardry created by this feature does not require attunement, though only you can wear it.
As an action, you can attach your Witch's Cauldron to the front of your Broom of Flying. The cauldron cannot be removed until you choose to do so as an action. While attached to the broom in this way, riding the broom with at least one hand on it counts as wielding the cauldron for the purposes of artificer spellcasting and spell foci. While attached to the broom, your Cauldron becomes a simple improvised weapon with the Versatile property, dealing 1d4 bludgeoning damage or 1d6 when swing with both hands.
While wearing your Hat of Wizardry, you may forego casting a cantrip from it, instead using that ability to draw a single witch's elixir from the hat as an action provided you still have an empty flask that theoretically could've been hiding in the hat the whole time. How it got in there, nobody knows, but it's here now so drink it.
Alternative Fifteenth-level Feature: "I'll get you, my pretty...!"
You may spend eight hours conducting a ritual with your Witch's Cauldron and one empty flask. At the end of this ritual, roll an Intelligence saving throw against your own spell save DC. If your Witch's Familiar is active and with you for the entire duration of the ritual, you gain advantage on the saving throw. If you fail, the ritual fails and explodes, dealing 10d6 poison damage to everything within thirty feet of your Witch's Cauldron and inflicting the Poisoned condition for 24 hours. if you succeed, you create a Vile Brew on one empty flask in your possession.
Choose an effect from the [spell]Bestow Curse[spell] spell. A creature who ingests the Vile Brew is treated as though a Bestow Curse spell with the chosen effect was cast on it at ninth level; it makes its save against the curse with disadvantage. You may craft an elixir any time you could normally do so that has the sole function of removing your Vile Brew's effects when ingested, which you can use to blackmail the critter for everything you can or conveniently forget you can do at your whim. If you curse a member of your party in this way, the DM is encouraged to allow that party member to punch you in the mouth until you remove it if they believe the curse is undeserved. If the curse is not undeserved, you should probably find a new table.
***************
So yeah. Just a random idea banging around my head that refused to go away until I wrote it down. Have fun, and remember - no cursing party members. It's bad for morale.
Please do not contact or message me.
I'll need some time to dig into the balance of this, but I'll say the concept seems reasonable on its face and pretty fun as well :)
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Oh, I wasn't really concerned with balance. Nice if it's there, but let's face it - nobody gets to play an Alchemist of any sort these days that's balanced. Heh, mostly just threw this out there to give folks ideas on how to creatively vex their DMs.
Please do not contact or message me.
I love the idea, I just need time to dig through the meat of it.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I finally had a chance to sit down and read it. I wish to God (big G!) that you could publish this, I would add it in a heartbeat. (I would change the Homunculus though, my houserule is that Alchemists get a revision of the old Alchemical one, but instead of the salve they get the Administer Experimental Elixir action.) All in all I love it!
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting