Alchemist Class Guide | Dungeons & Dragons 5e

Excited to give it a spin!

purchased it yesterday and i love the concept! I sadly couldnt watch live through the creation process but ive still amassed some questions about it ! Might finally be the push i needed to use discord!

First time commenter but long time viewer. I'm a big fan of your works, however I'm not sure I'll be getting this one at least not immediately. Considering in one of your previous videos you mentioned Mage Hand Press's Alchemist how would you sell me on yours rather that one.
I hope this doesn't come off wrong I'm genuinely curious on what you felt was needed in an Alchemist that led you to making your own rather than continuing with MHP's?

Killin Taron! Keep em coming, hero!

i love this class, great job!

If someone could DM the 'Don't Say Vecna' setting again, but this time use all homebrew classes. It would be a cool livestream. Sadly I didn't get to playtest this class, but I will be purchasing it soon.

Loved seeing this class developed! I think the final product was amazing.

Great job, I think it turned out really well!

I really hope you do a video like this for the Merchant class. I bought it and really like the flavor but I still don't entirely get how you'll be acting in combat. Like, I know it's support but still. Additionally, I'd love a more explanatory video on the portable store front because it's incredibly cool but also confusing 😅

Always been interested in an alchemist class. The one thing that I knew was missing from D&D. The artificer butchered the classes potential. If this is the updated version of the alchemist I saw a few months ago. With the smoke bomb removing reactions and the whole class not needing to actually create anything, than this is a huge update. I am loving how this looks. Basically every bad expectation I had was blown away. I am wondering about mixing your alchemical items though. I did watch it on faster speed, but that was the one thing I missed. I hated the idea of an alchemist who doesn't actually create anything, and instead magics their items into existance with no materials. If you actually have some simple yet fun ingredient and mixtures listted somewher, this could be the alchemist class ive been dying to have. I will look at this more later and def get it if its as good as I think it is :) Great job. Everything jells well.

This is really cool. Just the other day I was looking in to what a poison-based character would look like. Toxicologist seems like a lot of what I was after.

I really like the 2nd level theories. I like the options they give you and how all of them seem like things you would pick and choose based on the situation. Especially being able to add effects in the moment. The formatting on them is a little inconsistent. For example Apothecary Honeycomb repeats the whole text + advantage, whereas Fulminare Quartz only lists the changes.

Fulminator Spontaneous Combustion seems pretty weak. I like the flavour of exploding dice for the bomb subclass, and sure, it can theoretically do infinite damage, but it's so rare. Consider doing 6d6 damage over some number of turns. At lvl 2, it turns into 7d6 effectively. Over time, once you do 36d6 damage, it turns into 42d6. At lvl 14, 6d6 turns into 7d6 and 36d6 turns into 43d6. It takes 36 d6 rolls on average to get an extra die. Compared to something like if rolling max gave you 2 new dice, 6d6 turns into 8d6 and 36d6 turns into 48d6.
Infinite damage sounds cool, but I don't know if the math backs it up. It seems like on the average, it adds so little damage, that it could even be part of the lvl 2 ability and you would barely notice? Except for the 1 in a million time you get 10 resets in a row and one-shot something with basically a cantrip.
Sablenist's lvl 14 Soul of Cinder is another really cool way to flavour these exploding dice. I like the design space.

I'm also a little unclear on some of the action economy. If you can take out 2 alchemical items from your bag at once as a free action and use one as an action and use the other as a bonus action, can you effectively toss 2 vials of something every turn? Assuming you prepared things beforehand so you don't need to use Catalyst to create stuff in combat.

Algorithm comment

Exceeded my already-high expectations, well done.

So I've been watching your series on making this class. Good watch, got so much more to go. I have a few questions though. Is there anything stopping an alchemist from learning to infuse different items into their class specialty? For example. As a fulminare, could you learn how to infuse your thunder pots with magnetic ashe, giving the enemy a chance of getting hit by a lightning bolt during a thunderstorm. Or simply learn to add one or two other elemental types to your instruments of destruction. I could see Cold bombs being a weird form of combustion, flash freezing in an area. The first spiderman movie with Toby maguire. Green goblin throwing bombs that turn people into skeletons being necrotic damage lol. Or as an apothecary, learn how to infuse fairy dust into their items to give whoever used it magic resistance for one round?

Also. I think this class is finished, but I'm still watching the livestreams. Did you consider giving the subclasses essentially a minor? Like college. Where at a later level, you could pick up a small bit, maybe one ability, or half an ability of one other subclass of your choice? For example. As a fulminare, getting the ability to count poisons as your alchemical feature, so you could make poison bombs more efficient. Or as an apothicary, you could make a small humunculous to help you, but without zeoic theory. ( Everyone wants a humunculous. Its really one of two things I think of when I think alchemist. Other than philosiphers stone.)

It seem as a design feature class role is getting consumed by subclass. Like every class can be any role from the subclass you pick. After enough design concepts, this seems to be inevitable. Good initial concept, but thst was my higher order concern

Also, doing 10 classes over 10 months, one month for feedback and revision, and one for the yearly compilation and break seems like a reasonable yearly flow.

A way to flavor the salbenist as non magic, the ritual involves oiling the blade but also lightly corroding the blade, not in a way to destroy it but to make it slightly more porous if that makes sense

Just bought the class tonight. My first purchase of DMsguild. I'm super excited to learn the mechanics and try it out in a campaign!!

First off I have to say I really like the work you've done here. It's a massive step in the right direction. I can't find your discord so I'm just going to leave my feedback here.

The biggest change I think needs to happen is with the Homunculus' attack. It essentially has a buffed Drow poison attack every turn as a free action. Considering if they fail this save once they are poisoned for the rest of combat with no save on top of potentially being knocked unconscious is just too powerful as a free action. I would just do a bit of damage and call it a day. You could add a reaction to compensate a bit for the power decrease. Similar to the steel defender for example.

Furthermore this outshines what the toxicologist can do with drow poison considering it costs them 100 gp, a bonus action, and an attack to attempt the same attack once. Meanwhile the homunculus is doing it every turn for free.

I feel the poisons are going to need a more personal touch. The durations and lack of multiple saves, like with "Malice" for example are just way too good. One failed save and they're poisoned and blinded for an hour is just too crazy. Especially when you consider there is no way to break concentration and that you can throw multiple Malices a turn.

I suggest making less powerful custom poisons with more that are below 50 gp. You could still use "Eureka" to get the as written poisons in a more limited capacity.

The tangle foot bag is also overpowered. I like it but maybe remove the restrained condition portion and just keep it to grappled. Even thats pretty dang strong.

I don't think you did but just in case I also wouldn't let any form of multiattack be used for the "Use item" action. including the Salbenist.

Any who just my two cents. I look forward to playing this is in a campaign!

Why didn't you add the bomb from the dmg.

I played alchemist class in some non English ttrpg, and there were similar rules, but there also was alchemist sling and crossbow, sling for throwing potions and bombs, and crossbow for shooting ,,syringes bolts,, , there was also rule on toxicity, you were limited how many potions character could consume ( based on constitution) which applied even to healing potions which made the game bit more hardcore-ish

the artificer alchemist was really disappointing to me. This fills me with joy. big shouts outs to writing in so much to do with materials and gathering.

Algorithm comment 2: The Meltdown

Hi Taron, I love this class concept and was wondering how we can implement this class in virtual tabletops? Are you planning on creating a module for this class in Roll20 or Foundry? Thanks and keep creating those classes!

Nice! I’ve been really hoping WotC would make a alchemist class. I don’t think a subclass of Artificer did alchemy justice.

this is a good class are you going to update this for foundry vtt?

Purchased this class and love it so far. Has anyone created it in DnD Beyond to use it in a game? Or is DND Beyond restricted to only sub classes :(

The thing that confuses me with creating potions is lets say a potion cost 100g. Does it take an alchemist 5g of material per long rest or 50 gold of material per long rest or am i using how many alchemical items i make per long rest for the cost.

I may be really stupid but how does the damage go up as you level. Like how spell casters get an additional damage die at level 5 or whatever

I bought this class recently, mainly since it was offered at a discount along with the Dancer and the Merchant class that Ginny Di made a video about, but I found myself taken with this class more than the other two, so it’s great to see the designer is so open about his design process. That being said, the dancer and the merchant are both awesome classes by the looks of them!

Love how you setup this class. This is what I was thinking about when it came to a Alchemist. 1 question how would you integrate this class into the D&D beyond app if at all?

I know you’ve quit5e design, but have you considered or conceptualized new subclasses for alchemist?