Well, usually D&D KZfaqrs who don't think you shoulde optimize characters end up... making some questionable claims E.g Davvy Chappy also saying Guidance is a terrible cantrip (a garunteed 5-20% increase on an ability check is really good) XP To Level 3 saying his fav Warlock subclass is Undying despite the fact that uh well, Undying needs some work But then again the fun of discussing mechanics is all our different takes on it so ye

@@KoryLunaa I mean, my favourite Ranger might be the Beastmaster. A subclass doesn't need to be good to be someone's favourite.

@@WinterPains thank you. "Favorite" =/= "best"

Alchemist had so much promise and no execution. We have acid flask, etc and this is THE subclass that should have been given something to make that a fighting style. But if there isn’t much in the way of Alchemist abilities that do anything, it’s pretty hard to build around. Every Alchemist is some other thing.

or you use them in combat more effectively, shorter actions & better ranges/ larger area effects/ improving damage output etc.

Wow, thanks!

Yep suporrt is great. The biggest problem I've had in play, and about.. 3/4ths folks I talked to thought so as well was that.. in battle you feel like an NPC who is just there, and not affecting the narritive with anything you're doing. Just plinking for moderate but very consistent and stable damage, picking up the players who can affect battle. Which is a problem for player enjoyment I think. Some folks are fine with plinker life, i've heard their stories its pretty great for them. But its a problem for a lot of folks to effectively be replaced an NPC in fights. (really would be fixed if their Elixir-Spell ratio was kinder. Since its focused. I wish that 1 spell slot gave you INT number of elixirs.. but that could also get messy easily with those tasty bonus). (Easiest method I think would be to increase their free ones up to 5. not 3, make that progression even (because its very odd progression), and restore that amount on short rest ending the last set but not any spent by spells)

The many-handed pouch really helps, too. Allows anyone in the party to reach into their pocket and pull out the potion they need.

@@omicdog I don't think the many handed pouch made it into the actual book

I don't think that the video necessarily communicated this super well, but based on Chris's other videos I think the concern is that, even when you include all the buffs you provide before combat to your allies, the Alchemist just doesn't contribute enough to have it be worth the player slot it takes up. Elixirs and spells and cantrip damage do technically contribute, just not as much as the same player could plying literally any other class/subclass in the game (except maybe the monk in general). You aren't boosting your allies damage enough to make up for how low your damage is. You aren't boosting their surviveability enough to make up for not being a tank or proper controller. The issue isn't that you don't contribute at all, but rather that you contribute less than other characters could without gaining significant benefits in other areas.

Yeah it's closer to the god wizard.

4 years later, but if you have an owl familiar you can have it do a flyby help action. As long as it comes within 5ft of an enemy it can use help and then exit its attack range without consequence. The only real danger is if a big AoE spell goes off with the familiar in range, or if they use their action trying to shoot down your owl. If they do the latter then they just burned an action taking out an enemy (you can resummon after) with 5hp.

omg thank you for this. :P

And infinite owls

I know this comment is many months old but I think you can get the both benefits by just the alchemist supplies and here is why: Enhanced Arcane Focus has to be a ROD, a staff, or a wand. And from XGtE it lists the alchemist supplies components: Alchemist's supplies include two glass beakers, a metal frame to hold a beaker in place over an open flame, a glass stirring ROD, a small mortar and pestle, and a pouch of common alchemical ingredients, including salt, powdered iron, and purified water. ~A GLASS STIRRING ROD~ So technically you infuse the rod which is still part of your alchemist supplies, which you use as your spellcasting focus, thereby meeting the requirements. Taadaa!!!

Emmanuel Morris yea, you should be able to deliver the potions as an alchemist as a BA.

@@AdamZollo and if they had a crossbow they could heal at a range.

I'd prefer the alchemist to simply be less of a potioneer. Alchemy really has almost nothing to do with potionmaking in the real life alchemical tradition.

Especially since magic initiate-find familiar is pretty much every build he does.

If that's what you think you haven't been watching most of his builds.

Elijah Meinzer even if it misses you get that bonus damage too. That’s kind of cool.

In a different group, that totally might have happened.

Treantmonk's Temple as long as the DM doesn’t count the player when making encounters and everyone is on board, it would work fine.

This is exactly what I've planned for and am currently playing (Currently 5BerserkerBarb/6Alch on a Forest Gnome). With Danger sense and gnomish racials you can get ADV on a bunch of saves (and flash of genius), plus 3 attacks with Rage/Frenzy. Went with 1h/shield for extra defense, which allows both the Enhanced Defense and Shield infusions for decent AC and raging for the resistances. 1 damage cantrip and the rest of your spells for control, then unleash the rage and wade on in. I've played him as a brilliant alchemist that was trying to invent basically D&D RedBull but went to far and invented a Rage potion instead. Unfortunately he's now addicted to it, and its slowly seeping into his system and he wil sometimes rage even without the potion. Working on a cure so other party members can use HIS bonus action to end the rage with a sedative dart. (He attacks generally the biggest things he can find - so party members aren't always safe).

But those are things a battlesmith or artillerist can do. That's not something unique to the alchemist.

I feel like the Alchemist is still worse than the other artificer subclasses and the niche it fills is dominated further by a life cleric.

Howard Yan the alchemist can do more healing than any other class 5th level and below. Healing word adds your intelligence modifier twice and gives you 9 health back no matter what. At 8th level it’s gives 11. Multiclass into life cleric it’s even bigger. It can make an amazing healer.

@@sharkforce8147 A 9th level alchemist can effectively give a downed character an average of 34.5 hitpoints back in a single round, at the expense of one or two first level spell slots, depending on their roll this morning.

I have a concept I’d love to play, assuming the DM is on board with the tweak. My idea is a Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde theme using Alchemist and Barbarian. The idea is they have injectors to administer the elixirs, and their homunculus has one too. Their rage comes from a concoction they’ve tailored to their own physiology and the bonus action is them injecting it into themselves. I’d love to do 3 levels of Barbarian and the rest in Alchemist, but that’s a lot of stats to care about 😅 My main concern is would it even be strong enough to be worthwhile 🤷‍♂️ So as a test I’ve decided to make him an NPC in a campaign I’m running now. It’s a pirate theme and he’s the ship’s surgeon. His main roll will be patching up and supporting the party, but if he ever has to get involved in combat we’ll see how he does there 😄

@@sharkforce8147 yeah that's my thought. It feels like the alchemist kind of gets caught in between. Like playing a support ranger, when you could have played a Druid and not wasted the combat proficiencies.

Yup, thats what the earlier UAs were, which is largely what we're using at my table. Our alchemist is usually chucking molotov cocktails and (literally) dropping acid on enemies, while also serving up healing potions. Works a lot better than the final version of the artificer imo

You can accomplish nearly the same thing with a rogue dip at level 1 using sneak attack with any race to not need elven accuracy. But I've been fixated on a pure alchemist build for the level 20 Soul of Artifice.

You can already do that, actually, by readying an action.

In my experience, even as a support, the subclass still comes off as really weak. I tried playing one in Storm King's Thunder and found it to be rather lacklustre. My main gripe is the limitations on the elixir feature, but also how underpowered it is compared to full caster supports such as bards, clerics, or druids which focus on the support aspect. I played alongside a lore bard with my alchemist and found that my healing effects were just as effective as theirs because they had more slots and can upcast to keep pace with the alchemical savant feature. They also had access to very strong spells like command as well as some high-level, damage-dealing spells like lightning bolt. In a game with a shepherd druid or life cleric, their specialized healing spells, subclass features, and buff spells would immediately make alchemists redundant and underpowered in comparison. As for the elixirs, the free random effects can lead to a waste of a limited resource if the effect is not what you need and a waste of an action if the wrong effect is gained in combat (most of the effects are combat-oriented, however, the chance of getting a useful effect is probably a 2/6 and the effect that you actually want or need is a 1/6 chance). The fact that the effects can be replicated as a guarantee by a 1st or 2nd level spell with less resource drain from a full-caster doesn't exactly help although the fact that these don't require concentration is a nice upside. The ability to create more using spell slots would also be nice if it weren't for the fact that the artificer has a pretty decent spell list designed around battlefield control and support, in most circumstances it is more effective to just cast spells instead of creating more elixirs. If the elixirs could be administered as a bonus action and could be chosen from the list as opposed to rolled it would bring it more in-line with the other artificer subclasses which (usually) get a bonus action feature which typically deals damage or some other effect and have longer/indefinite durations. Bear in mind that the effects all have durations of an hour or less and typically aren't any stronger than first level spells, I think that the subclass would actually be well balanced and worth taking without overshadowing the other subclasses with these features (even with three free uses of boldness you only effectively get 3 minutes of it at max level). The other issue is that these effects don't synergize well with any other class features until level 9. The level 5 feature itself is rather limiting in that it only gives a bonus to a small range of damage types and can only be applied to one roll of the spell. This does make it so that your damaging cantrips and healing spells are effectively hitting as if they had an extra dice on the roll which is nice but doesn't let you keep up with the damage or healing of designated full caster supports. The fact that this can't apply to healing elixirs is rather annoying because at this point cure wounds is automatically a better use of a spell slot than using the healing elixir because (assuming maxed INT) you will always heal at least 11 hit points. I never actually continued playing that character beyond level 7 but the subclass features still don't pick up much. The level 9 feature gives enough temp HP to tank maybe half the damage of an attack at that level, combined with the issues of the elixir feature and it doesn't appeal that much as a potent feature. Also, add on the fact that now there are a lot of ways to gain temp HP in the game now, this feature becomes slightly less powerful but is quite nice to have anyway. The additional effect of having lesser restoration on call up to 5x per long rest is nice however it is very situational and depends on how many diseases and conditions your DM throws at you. The 15th level feature is admittedly quite good, I would even say it is the best artificer subclass capstone, however, most games don't last until this period at which point you are getting this as a capstone to see very limited use after sinking a lot of time into a subpar subclass. While playing my alchemist I found myself falling back onto casting faerie fire, aid, and grease in combat for the party and then supplementing the team damage output with firebolt and acid splash when there were no more ways to debuff the enemy. I should mention these are all things that the normal artificer can do, if not do even better because their damage output is typically higher thanks to most of their subclass features using bonus actions. By the time I reached 4th level, I had virtually forgotten about the experimental elixirs feature simply because they were too inconsistent to validate using in combat as party/self buffs and while searching for combat the chances were likely that the effect would expire before initiative was rolled. Out of combat I had a few very interesting infusions which I'm certain the party appreciated although no infusions are exclusive to the alchemist subclass.

@@evanboeckh5033 thanks for your review. I myself am playing an armorer. We started at level 10 in our game, and currently at level 12. I'm having a blast with him, even though he isn't the highest damaging subclass. I actually started as an artillerist, but got bored with it pretty quick, even though I was outdamaging everyone in the party. But I think that was the problem. I like to build my characters off of RP value, even though we are very casual at RPing. My character and the mage are twin brothers, so he's the DPS, and I'm his personal protector. My character is not very good on doing damage, but he can step in and tank, when the main tank is out, and can help heal of needed. One thing playing the alchemist allows me to do is think outside the box, and if think with anyone playing them, this is what everyone should do. Work with your DM about things that might not be in the book. I'm going to have my character research on how to be able to see through my humunculus' eyes tgrough his armor, like a wizard can see through his familiar's eyes. I'm also going to ask my DM if I can research a way to change armor modes using an action and spell slot. Which I don't see to be unreasonable. One thing you can work with gour DM on is, seeing if you're able to change what your experimental elixirs are? Maybe work with him and make a new list that may be more useful to the party. Also what about just making potions in general? You should be able to eventually craft every potion in the game. Talk to your DM and work out what potions you can craft at what levels, how much it should cost, and how many can you craft a day? You can make collecting potion recipes like a wizard collects spells. Maybe by reverse engineering the potions you find or buy. Even the RP value of casting your spells can be cool. All your spells can be potions and bombs that your pull out of your bag of holding, and you can RP like you are confused on which ones you pull out, and just throw them too see what effect you get. What makes D&D great is, you're only limited by your imagination.

@@evanboeckh5033 also, there are a few cool new feats that your can take that aligns with the alchemist. The Poisoner's feat. You can make potent poisons for your rogue or melee combatants, the chef feat, you're the one cooking up some good food. Healer, you can give real HP from the healer's kit, which is a very cheap alternative to healing potions. And again, you may be the secondary to a lot of things, but the fact that your can step in positions when people go down makes you valuable to the group.

Doesn't exist in the published book though.

I haven't done the calculations. The damage will certainly be lower - especially at higher levels, but if you expend a haste that might close that gap somewhat...

@@TreantmonksTemple it won't do as much damage as this build, no! It should keep you at or above baseline, and let you play ranged and stay out of melee, if that's the way you want to go. A viable (if less effective) alternative.

Well I'm not great at optimization nor do I terribly enjoy it. The problem I've had is that in battle I have two actions only. Fire Strke/AidSplash/Bonfire (only one of those), and 1 or 2 Healing Words. basically I fight like an NPC the GM is using to help the group and is fccusing on making them not impact the narritive. Basically I can't actually have much of an effect on the narritive with my options. I'n battle I feel like the low level Escourt Quest NPC. Same action most rounds, very even damage (which is nice. Consitency in damage amount)

Zwordsman that would be so fun. start saying npc things. Be like “dwarves crafts fine dwarven crafts” or “press b to jump” or other npc stuff.

Agreed, I feel like if anything, if you really need to focus on combat at all, take the poisoner feat, it’s more thematic to the core of the class, and the poisoned condition isn’t anything to sneeze at. That way you always stay in theme instead of going with the overused magic initiate stock standard build

I wonder if you could "grenadier" Alchemist Fire & Catapult spell combo?

Umm I'm stupid, all the build needed was faerie fire LUL giving advantage to fire bolt and having Homunculus servant concentrate on faerie fire after lvl 11 while you use fire bolt and Homunculus attack at lower levels, then upgrade to flaming sphere or summon construct finally animate objects or bibgys hand, bonus actions after a summon/faerie fire turn and Homunculus is just extra support after that with unless you using summon construct levels 1-5 you are easily above the baseline from 5-7 you meet it basically exactly and dip below it from 8-11 but about 1 point of damage per round but from 11 up you will exceed the baseline again sadly i couldn't find a way to work hex with the extra +5 damage into this build so fey touched is unnecessary but still cool. all one needs to is max intelligence to 16 at lvl 1 then 18 at 4 and 20 at 8 everything else can be picked up by lvl 3. I.E. take fire bolt, take faerie fire spells and take Homunculus infusion its a strict kinda build in those respects but very open in the other spells and infusions you take and this is mostly based off using cantrips and hitting single targets so the damage could go if you multi hit with flaming sphere

Update part 2, using fey touched and hex with bonus action HS (homunculus servant) attack until lvl 11 then using faerie fire with HS and fire bolt with hex works until lvl 17. But if by then you have all-purpose tools you can use Eldritch blast as artificer cantrip 8 hours a day and surpass warlock doing same thing as it but with advantage and HS attack

I have a vid titled "calculating average damage" that goes over the process

@@TreantmonksTemple Right. I just checked it out. The video talks about damage delivered by attacks, but how do you calculate damage delivered via saving throw spells? Do you still assume 60% chance to save? And what're your thoughts on the support potential of a class?

I already explained how the alchemist at level 5 is our healing every single class in the game. He read it but didn’t mention it in this video. He seems to not like healing that much in 5e lol.

@@conradkorbol I mean, to be fair, healing is a sub-optimal strategy in 5e. Your healing may be good, but you aren't healing for as much damage as characters are receiving most of the time. Either your combats will have a few large enemies that overwhelm your healing in a single attack, or a large number of smaller enemies that can do the same in aggregate. This is why control characters that simply prevent damage en mass such as wizards tend to be much more effective. It's also hard to argue that Alchemists are some sort of amazing healer when Life Cleric 1 / Druid 1 is dropping 40 points of healing with a first level spell slot.

Shane Bernier the official ruling in the good berry is that life cleric only heals for one good berry. So that doesn’t work in a al. One cleric and 5 alchemist is actually the highest AL legal healing you can do. I assume that’s what you mean by 40 healing. It’s also not single target, the target has to be conscious to eat one berry and the berries all take an action to consume without House rules. So outside of combat that and healing spirit are amazing, but this is during healing. Healing is amazing if you have heavy armor master in your party or any barbarian. 10 points of healing is about two attack for most barbarians. Healing is amazing, but you have to carefully select who and when you heal.

@@sharkforce8147 Yeah sure, except it might not stand up to rain, or casual inspection since it's a skill check, and it will take at least a minute per party member (and that's a very generous DM), while the potions take... 1 action to drink if prepped before hand, 2 if not. And they can add bits to sell the disguise like... the ability to breathe water if you have to disguise yourself among Dagonites or sea elves... But yeah, I guess you could choose to be grossly reductive and pull the still significant advantage out of the context of the rest the feature has to offer to try and minimize it because everyone really wants to insist the Alchemist doesn't work at all or can be done better their way. I guess that's one interpretation. I like Treantmonk's videos, I disagree with some of his assertions at times, the fact a pure Alchemist will always come last in DPR is not something I'll disagree with. The notion that if they aren't tweaked to meet his arbitrary baseline for damage then they aren't satisfactorily contributing to combat I will disagree with and he agrees. It's clear from the story of a character that attacks party members being acceptable. If someone can sell a that boat anchor of a character, then you can sell a character that isn't optimal.

​@@sharkforce8147 In order: Waterbreathing is a ritual, requires 5th level, 10 minutes or a 3rd level slot. Elixirs don't. Yes, I'm sure water resistant pigments are widely available in most of these medieval fantasy settings when water resistant make-up didn't really become a thing companies like MAC felt confident advertising until the past few decades. And please, link the videos where a quick change artist spends a few seconds to disguise themselves as a lizardfolk or Drow or Mindflayer or Tabaxi. And yes, the advance preparation of... spending a spell slot and touching a vial vs ten minutes of ritual casting. And this is one widget of the broader feature which includes flight, no concentration bless, and healing. To me, it's like you're complaining to the dealership that the truck you bought has 10,000 horsepower when you personally think you'll only ever need 8000 and you want 2000 extra ostrich power instead. What's contrived in this back and forth is the Mission Impossible make-up jobs you insist are comparable to actual magic (and if that's how your DM plays it, more power to you). Watch a few videos of folks putting together film grade monster make-up though and the time save alone puts magic way out in the lead.

@@sharkforce8147 Your reply strikes me as just contrarianism. I said "it has its uses at low level doing things you can't normally do" you said "NUH UH, you CAN do that stuff for free in other ways", I countered "except those other ways require time you might not have and are explicitly not as good as magic" and now you've admitted I was right. I'm not gonna bother responding to the endless paragraph below that first sentence, I think we're done here.