Zardnaar
Legend
This thread is about the Alchemist from the Wayfinders guide to Eberron as I have not yet acquired the hardcover.
At a quick glance several things stood out.
1. Not a primary spellcaster
2. Not a warrior/skirmisher type
3. d8 hit dice, half caster.
So its seems to be comparable to nothing, they usually compensate a lack of primary casting with a lot of combat ability eg damage (Fighters, Rogues, Monks) and the existing half casters are warrior types.
proficiency in con saves AKA the best one and proficiency in intelligence saves AKA the worst one. Medium armor plus shields but you're not a primary caster so you're kind of competing with Bards and Clerics in that area. Medium armor spellcaster also tends to MAD except its a half caster. You're probably better rolling for cash vs the starting equipment as most things you would use are cheap.
This was my initial impressions, obviously you have to dig deeper. Not good at dealing damage, not a primary caster big warning signs. I expect a hell of a skill monkey here but we have the Rogue for that and they can deal reasonable damage.
You pick up two extra skills and 3 tools including thieves tools (but you're not dex based) so better than a Rogue in tools, about equal in skills except no expertise. You get magical tinkering which is really some toys. You get two infusions and two cantrips as well though and guidance stands out, leaving one other cantrip and since you can use simple weapons a crossbow is probably the better choice vs a ranged cantrip. With the default array you probably want your best 3 stats to be 16 int, 14 con/dex after racials and assign the rest how you like. You have a few to many abilities keyed off intelligence later to try and be clever dumping it or having it as a secondary or tertiary stat. You get a decent selection of cantrips. At level one this class seems outright bad especially when compared to Bards and Knowledge clerics who get similar skill based boosts but can cast as a primary caster. Level 1 I would go as fa as saying this class sucks. Thankfully level 1 doesn't last to long one way or another.
At level 2 you know 4 infusions and can use two. You could start the game infusing a weapon and armor or something like a +1 crossbow with repeating shot infusion. Or you could be something like a High elf and pick up green flame blade and infuse a rapier. You're not going to rock at combat but every little bit helps. Racial weapon proficiency will help a lot here especially with a race with an intelligence bonus. Or you could go pure support and give the infused equipment to other PCs. You also pick up a couple of spells. You have some decent options here with Faerie Fire and Absorb elements as stand outs. Any spell requiring concentration is better for you than most other casters due to constitution save proficiency. At level 2 you're not looking to bad IMHO, skills and utility. You can also duplicate some basic magic items instead of weapons and armor. Bag of holding, water breathing, darkvison all have uses. Kind of reminds me of the invocations from the warlock.
At level 3 you can basically conjure tools and pick up the alchemist subclass. You acquire healing word and ray of sickness but being a half caster healing word is a lot less useful but you also get Experimental elixir where you get a random quasi potion. You can expend a spell slot to get more and you get to choose your effect. Here you can double down on the support roll, unfortunately it doesn't matter what level spell you sacrifice to get an experimental elixir. You have 3 level 1 spells, and level 4 you get the ye olde ASI a'la every other class in the game.
Level 5 you get alchemical savant which lets you add your intelligence modifier to you to healing or spell that deals acid, fire, necrotic or poison damage. This probably means firebolt or acid splash for cantrips. It has interesting interaction with Green Flame Blade as well so if you acquire that somehow you will be slightly worse than a rogue in combat but the high elf with the right infusions could probably do a respectable job there. Magic initiate feat would also be a good pick at 4 or 1 if you're a vuman. The damage only applies once on spells such as flaming sphere however which is still useful and its an artificer spell. Flaming sphere+ GFB is your combo for a melee artificer along with infused weapon and armor. You get flaming sphere and melfs acid arrow for free, and you have some decent utility spells on the alchemist list. Level 6 is tool expertise with all tools so its a great upgrade on tool checks including thieves tools. Being intelligence based you will be better in some ways that the rogue in a few skill checks, not as good at the sneaky part probably and you can pick up guidance so you're probably a bit better at that, less damage though short of GFB abuse. You can also get new infusions at level 6 and an extra one. You can go for utility items or use a radiant blade which combos with GFB for an exploding lightsaber that can blind you. The alchemist might not be designed for combat early on but magic weapon, armor, plus utility item you can at least not suck at it.
At level 7 you pick up flash of genius which lets you grant your allies your intelligence bonus on a save or ability check a number of time per long rest equal to your intelligence modifier. More support and utility, nothing to exciting but on saves that is very good. Level 8 is another ASI. Level 9 you get to use lesser restoration equal to your intelligence modifier/long rest and any elixir you craft grants additional temporary hit points (2d6+int mod). A level 1 spell slot can heal 2d+2+int mod and then grant these additional hit points. Not bad and puts the actual cure spell to shame. You also pick up a level 3 spell which can include haste, see previous comment about the beatdown build. Level 10 grants another cantrip+ infusion and lets you attune up to 4 items and craft uncommon and common magic items at half price and a quarter of the time. This means you can easily and rapidly craft Gauntlets of Ogre Power or just replicate them. No ASI is needed to buff an attack stat, everything can key off intelligence. This combines with at level 11 you can put a level 1 or 2 spell into an item and use it up to twice your intelligence modifier per long rest. That is probably 8 or 10 uses of a level 2 spell. That is enough to use a flaming sphere or whatever in every combat or gain a lot of uses of some of your utility spells.
I'll leave my impression there at level 11, its not a level 1-20 guide just a few things I noticed. I think the class is leaning heavily into the skill monkey role with a side helping of support and some nova damage. There also a beatdown build in there as well using green flame blade and various infusions. The class in underpowered IMHO at level 1 but ramps up rapidly from there. How good the artificer is will vary and I think the obvious replacement is the rogue or adding an artificer as a 5th member of a 4 person group that has got a warrior, artillery, support, skirmisher covered. If you double down on the support part and give your infusions away. Or you can use a homonculous to grant advantage via the help action or use it as a weak spiritual weapon type effect. Some of the items you can replicate are also things such as girdles of hill giant strength or amulets of health so having 21 strength or 19 con is very very useful. Overall a very interesting class.
At a quick glance several things stood out.
1. Not a primary spellcaster
2. Not a warrior/skirmisher type
3. d8 hit dice, half caster.
So its seems to be comparable to nothing, they usually compensate a lack of primary casting with a lot of combat ability eg damage (Fighters, Rogues, Monks) and the existing half casters are warrior types.
proficiency in con saves AKA the best one and proficiency in intelligence saves AKA the worst one. Medium armor plus shields but you're not a primary caster so you're kind of competing with Bards and Clerics in that area. Medium armor spellcaster also tends to MAD except its a half caster. You're probably better rolling for cash vs the starting equipment as most things you would use are cheap.
This was my initial impressions, obviously you have to dig deeper. Not good at dealing damage, not a primary caster big warning signs. I expect a hell of a skill monkey here but we have the Rogue for that and they can deal reasonable damage.
You pick up two extra skills and 3 tools including thieves tools (but you're not dex based) so better than a Rogue in tools, about equal in skills except no expertise. You get magical tinkering which is really some toys. You get two infusions and two cantrips as well though and guidance stands out, leaving one other cantrip and since you can use simple weapons a crossbow is probably the better choice vs a ranged cantrip. With the default array you probably want your best 3 stats to be 16 int, 14 con/dex after racials and assign the rest how you like. You have a few to many abilities keyed off intelligence later to try and be clever dumping it or having it as a secondary or tertiary stat. You get a decent selection of cantrips. At level one this class seems outright bad especially when compared to Bards and Knowledge clerics who get similar skill based boosts but can cast as a primary caster. Level 1 I would go as fa as saying this class sucks. Thankfully level 1 doesn't last to long one way or another.
At level 2 you know 4 infusions and can use two. You could start the game infusing a weapon and armor or something like a +1 crossbow with repeating shot infusion. Or you could be something like a High elf and pick up green flame blade and infuse a rapier. You're not going to rock at combat but every little bit helps. Racial weapon proficiency will help a lot here especially with a race with an intelligence bonus. Or you could go pure support and give the infused equipment to other PCs. You also pick up a couple of spells. You have some decent options here with Faerie Fire and Absorb elements as stand outs. Any spell requiring concentration is better for you than most other casters due to constitution save proficiency. At level 2 you're not looking to bad IMHO, skills and utility. You can also duplicate some basic magic items instead of weapons and armor. Bag of holding, water breathing, darkvison all have uses. Kind of reminds me of the invocations from the warlock.
At level 3 you can basically conjure tools and pick up the alchemist subclass. You acquire healing word and ray of sickness but being a half caster healing word is a lot less useful but you also get Experimental elixir where you get a random quasi potion. You can expend a spell slot to get more and you get to choose your effect. Here you can double down on the support roll, unfortunately it doesn't matter what level spell you sacrifice to get an experimental elixir. You have 3 level 1 spells, and level 4 you get the ye olde ASI a'la every other class in the game.
Level 5 you get alchemical savant which lets you add your intelligence modifier to you to healing or spell that deals acid, fire, necrotic or poison damage. This probably means firebolt or acid splash for cantrips. It has interesting interaction with Green Flame Blade as well so if you acquire that somehow you will be slightly worse than a rogue in combat but the high elf with the right infusions could probably do a respectable job there. Magic initiate feat would also be a good pick at 4 or 1 if you're a vuman. The damage only applies once on spells such as flaming sphere however which is still useful and its an artificer spell. Flaming sphere+ GFB is your combo for a melee artificer along with infused weapon and armor. You get flaming sphere and melfs acid arrow for free, and you have some decent utility spells on the alchemist list. Level 6 is tool expertise with all tools so its a great upgrade on tool checks including thieves tools. Being intelligence based you will be better in some ways that the rogue in a few skill checks, not as good at the sneaky part probably and you can pick up guidance so you're probably a bit better at that, less damage though short of GFB abuse. You can also get new infusions at level 6 and an extra one. You can go for utility items or use a radiant blade which combos with GFB for an exploding lightsaber that can blind you. The alchemist might not be designed for combat early on but magic weapon, armor, plus utility item you can at least not suck at it.
At level 7 you pick up flash of genius which lets you grant your allies your intelligence bonus on a save or ability check a number of time per long rest equal to your intelligence modifier. More support and utility, nothing to exciting but on saves that is very good. Level 8 is another ASI. Level 9 you get to use lesser restoration equal to your intelligence modifier/long rest and any elixir you craft grants additional temporary hit points (2d6+int mod). A level 1 spell slot can heal 2d+2+int mod and then grant these additional hit points. Not bad and puts the actual cure spell to shame. You also pick up a level 3 spell which can include haste, see previous comment about the beatdown build. Level 10 grants another cantrip+ infusion and lets you attune up to 4 items and craft uncommon and common magic items at half price and a quarter of the time. This means you can easily and rapidly craft Gauntlets of Ogre Power or just replicate them. No ASI is needed to buff an attack stat, everything can key off intelligence. This combines with at level 11 you can put a level 1 or 2 spell into an item and use it up to twice your intelligence modifier per long rest. That is probably 8 or 10 uses of a level 2 spell. That is enough to use a flaming sphere or whatever in every combat or gain a lot of uses of some of your utility spells.
I'll leave my impression there at level 11, its not a level 1-20 guide just a few things I noticed. I think the class is leaning heavily into the skill monkey role with a side helping of support and some nova damage. There also a beatdown build in there as well using green flame blade and various infusions. The class in underpowered IMHO at level 1 but ramps up rapidly from there. How good the artificer is will vary and I think the obvious replacement is the rogue or adding an artificer as a 5th member of a 4 person group that has got a warrior, artillery, support, skirmisher covered. If you double down on the support part and give your infusions away. Or you can use a homonculous to grant advantage via the help action or use it as a weak spiritual weapon type effect. Some of the items you can replicate are also things such as girdles of hill giant strength or amulets of health so having 21 strength or 19 con is very very useful. Overall a very interesting class.
At low levels, an extra d6 of damage of your choice ain't nothing too sneeze at. The Battle Smith I am told still has "attack with your Int when your weapon is magical", but I suppose infusions can fill that gap well enough.
