Artificer Specialist: Alchemist 5e

Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold

There is an aesthetic that goes alongside the alchemist; clean black gloves, a taught mask to keep the noxious chemicals at bay, a belt full of vials, and scalpels and bunsen burners at the ready to craft dangerous explosives. The fantasy wants to regularly throw acid into enemy eyes, catch things on fire with incendiary devices, and cure ailments afflicting their allies with miraculous draughts of health. Unfortunately, the Alchemist artificer specialty doesn’t come anywhere close to nailing this fantasy, as it just has far too few options to support it with a pitiful amount of usable potions.

3rd Level: Tool Proficiency, Alchemist Spells, and Experimental Elixir

Tool Proficiency gives you proficiency in alchemist’s supplies if you lack them, or another artisan’s tool if you have that proficiency already. Xanathar’s Guide to Everything expanded tool proficiency to have better, clearer rules for crafting with and using these tools for exploration purposes, which does meaningfully empower this option. With Alchemical Crafting, you can spend gold on raw materials to make acid, alchemist’s fire, antitoxin, oil, perfume, or soap at half price, which is something, and also have base uses for creating puffs of thick smoke, starting fires, and identifying substances and poisons.
I can’t recommend these expanded tool rules enough; they meaningfully add a great amount of both flavor and utility to tools.
Alchemist Spells are bonus spells always prepared by you akin to cleric domain spells. They are Healing Word, Ray of Sickness, Flaming Sphere, Melf’s Acid Arrow, Gaseous Form, Mass Healing Word, Death Ward, Blight, Cloudkill, and Raise Dead.
Of this list, Healing Word stands out the most, as going from needing to prepare Cure Wounds to get people off of zero to automatically having its upgrade is a massive shift in power via flexibility in combat. Ray of Sickness, Flaming Sphere, Blight, and Melf’s Acid Arrow range between utterly useless and underwhelming, with only Gaseous Form at 9th level offering you some means of exploring the world outside of combat.
4th-level spells at 13th level and 5th-level spells at 17th level will rarely feel great, making the bulk of the importance in the lower tier selections. Sure, Healing Word is exceptional, as can be Mass Healing Word, with the lackluster damage options and single reasonable world exploration tool, I’m not thrilled with their spells.
Experimental Elixir is what we’re left with to feel like a potion brewer at third level. This is supposed to define what the class is going to be doing past this point seeing as the base artificer is stuck as a half-caster with no extra attack. What makes up for these two massive holes in power? Certainly not this.
You get a random potion once a long rest, and can spend spell slots to make more. You know, spell slots you’re getting half as many of compared to wizards, sorcerers, clerics, druids, and bards.
The potion effects aren’t even good; you get access to the weakest Potion of Healing, a Longstrider potion, a +1 AC potion, +1d4 on saving throws for a minute, a 10 ft. fly speed potion, and an Alter Self potion.
You don’t get any new or fancy potions as the game progresses. These don’t improve their base effects after level 3. These effects are, on average, worse than 1st level spells, are determined at random, and are limited to once per long rest, then costing you your precious few spell slots to create.
Yes, you to make an extra potion per long rest at 6th and 15th level, but if we were to simply call these equivalents to 1st level spell slots (which they cost to create, yet perform worse than their competition), you’re functionally getting two bonus 1st level spell slots in exchange for full casting. What a joke.

5th Level: Alchemical Savant

Alchemical Savant is competing with Extra Attack from Battle Smith and Armorer; what it offers is adding your Int mod to your spells healing and damage rolls. +3-5 damage to something like Ray of Sickness isn’t coming anywhere close to upper-tier spell slots, nor getting an entire extra weapon attack every round. It doesn’t even enhance your potions, which are supposed to be the entire base of this option. Imagine being 13th level and casting a slightly empowered Blight when your wizard ally is casting Crown of Stars; you’re getting 8d8+5. They’re getting seven instances of 4d12 radiant damage for their bonus action. Better yet, they just spend a lower-level slot for Disintegrate, getting 10d6+40. What’s your big damage option at 11th level? Ashardalon’s Stride?

9th Level: Restorative Reagents

Restorative Reagents adds 2d6+ your Int mod temp HP to each of your Experimental Elixirs and gives you your Int mod uses of free Lesser Restorations. Of the features so far this is the biggest bump you get, but with Lesser Restoration not being an effect I’m thrilled to use in combat on anything but paralysis for my action, your left with 2d6+5 temporary hit points to two creatures per long rest. Is this remotely cool or powerful enough to make up for the rest of this option’s failings? Nope! Not even close!

15th Level: Chemical Mastery

Chemical Mastery rounds out the subclass with immunity to the poisoned condition, resistance to acid and poison damage, and a free cast of Greater Restoration and Heal once per long rest. Basically, a fixed bonus 5th and 6th level slot for each. Meanwhile, your other full-caster buddies are getting 8th-level slots. Your martial companions are making even more attacks. You’re left with a 5th level slot that is a side-grade to your Lesser Restoration option with often fewer total cases it’s castable, and a reasonable action that grants 70 hit points with some small upsides. I’m not a major advocate for Heal, even less so Greater Restoration, and with the other boon you’re getting here being a minor passive that’ll affect less than 1/10 encounters you’re likely to face, this capstone, like the rest of this subclass, is a complete joke.

All Together

Alchemist commits many sins. As far as giving a character tools to craft and use potions, the best option you get is the freaking tool proficiency. Experimental Elixir fails spectacularly at being a reasonable method to make and use potions. This subclass doesn’t even give you ways to improve in using acid and alchemist’s fire, the bread-and-butter options you’d expect this kind of character to fall back on in combat.

Honestly, the Thief rogue subclass will make a better low tier alchemist than this does. Fast Hands lets you use potions as a bonus action, making acid and alchemist’s fire you make far more effective, and Expertise offers a way to get double your proficiency bonus in checks made using the tools.

This feels like it's trying to be the “caster” version of artificer and failing to come anywhere near its competition in the full-casters and warlocks. There isn’t any reason to play this option. None. I’d highly recommend either multi-classing rogue to bring this fantasy out with a different subclass than this in artificer, or seeking out 3rd party options, many of which I’ve seen be excellent alternatives.

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