Alchemist

Alchemists are the inquisitive eccentrics of the world who have managed to comprehend the arcane systematizations of the material world that the various orders, cults, and universities have described, and as such have obtained a new way of viewing the world; one in which they begin to ask how the world can be remade by their science.

alchemy points

At 1st level, gain access to Alchemy Points(AP), you gain a number of AP equal to your intelligence bonus + your proficiency bonus each rest, and can store up to as many as your total intelligence + your wisdom bonus(min 0.)

art of alchemy consists of 3 types of alchemical secrets, the art of extraction, refinement, and creation. At 1st level, you know 1 art of each, and 2 arts of choice, and you learn 2 of choice more every level.

Alchemical extraction

At 1st alchemist level, you can spend 1 AP during a rest, or 1 rest dice over a 1 hour process if outside a rest, to extract alchemical material from an adequate source. 

Extracting them requires access to an alchemists set or tools. Per 6 carried alchemical essences, a creature infers 1 bulk:

• Necrotic essence - Requires an undead or adequately putrid source. 

  • 2d6 necrotic damage

  • contact: dim light / darkvision

  • duration +1 size increment (round > minute > hour)

  • Flammable

• Volatile essence - Requires adequate ripe, alcoholic, or reactive source. 

  • 1d10 poison damage

  • Flammable

  • Cold resistance

  • rotate damage/effect type of item or essence (... > necrotic > healing > temporary HP > poison > fire > lightning > psychic > cold > ...)

• Vital essence - Requires adequate plant, fungal, or vital source. 

  • 1d10 temporary health

  • contact: oily difficult terrain / covered in oil

  • contact: encourage plant growth

  • duration X3

• Caustic essence - Requires an adequately venomous, poisonous, caustic or acidic source. 

  • 2d6 acid damage

  • dice size category +1

  • contact: rust (item damage 1d4)

  • obscuring smoke 1 minute

• Spectral essence - Requires an adequate crystaline, elemental, or arcane source, or 1 phial of mana. 

  • 1d8 lightning damage

  • 1d4 arcane health

  • contact: light / darkvision

  • stun (1 round)

• Warping essence - Requires an adequate eldritch, aberrant, or fiendish source. 

  • 1d10 cold damage

  • Fire resistance

  • range/area +10ft

  • contact: Icy difficult terrain / chilled

Alchemical refinement

At 1st alchemist level, you can spend 1 AP during a rest or 1 rest dice over a 1 hour process if outside rest, to modify an alchemical essence. A modified alchemical essence has its effects altered, and they carry over when it is used in alchemical creations.

Essenses become harder to refine per times they have been refined, becoming unusable past a point. Past a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, you must make a DC 20 alchemists tools check, which increases by 5 per further increment. On a failed check, the involved essences fizzle, go bad, or apply one of their effects to the alchemist(Subject to GM.)

• Distill power - Modify an alchemical essence, increasing its dice size by 1 size category.

• Heighten purity - Modify an alchemical essence, increasing its duration by 1(rounds/minutes) and its area of effect, if any, by 5ft / 1 tile.

• Catalyze - Modify an alchemical essence, also expending a bag of iron shavings in the process. The modified essence may grant an additional other effect to alchemical items created from them. The modification can only be applied once.

• Infuse - Modify an alchemical essene and sacrifice another alchemical essence, granting the modified essence one of the sacrficed essences properties.

• Admix - Modify an alchemical essence and sacrifice another, combining a contact or non-dice effect from both essences into a single effect.

• Dilute - Duplicate an alchemical essence, but remove one effect(the same effect) from both essences.

• Airation - Modify up to 2 alchemical essences, granting them both either flammable, or increasing a non-hostile dice effect by 1 dice count.

• Sublimate - Modify up to 2 alchemical essences and sacrifice one. Of the two non-sacrifices essences, one must be chosen as the target. Grant the target a combination of 2 effects from the other 2 essences.

• Mana filtration - Modify a warping, spectral, or necrotic essence, removing one effect from it but granting it(or increasing a preexisting area effect) "area effect +15ft." Doing so requires sacrificing a mana potion or a spectral essence.

• Fermentation - Modify a vital, necrotic, or spectral essence. The modified essence loses 1 effect but allows its use in two alchemical items before it is expended. It is otherwise a single essence item. An alchemical essence cannot be modified with this more than once.

• Anti-formulation - Modify an alchemical essence, changing resistance to damage vulnerability.

• Crystalization - modify an alchemical essence that has not yet been refined. Lock in one of its effects, it will always be applied, when applicable, with alchemical items created(in addition to the base chosen effects of the item)

Alchemical items

At 1st alchemists level, you can spend 1 AP during a rest or 1 rest dice over a 1 hour process if outside rest, to create an alchemical item:

• Bomb - Requires expending flammable essence. Can be thrown at a range of 30/60 as a thrown weapon, dealing 1d6 + your int bonus fire damage to creatures in a 5ft radius. May emplace another essence, applying a hostile effect dice or exposure/effect from the second essence to creatures hit, or to the area affected, or alternatively, modifying the bomb with a property from the second essence(Subject to GM.) Creatures can make a dexterity save to halve the damage. Tile effects last 1 minute.

• Reactive flask - Expend an essence, creating a flask, allowing it to be poured up to 2d3+1 tiles to apply a chosen contact effect from the essence, or thrown at a target at a 30/60 range as a thrown weapon, dealing the substances effect dice to the target hit, or applying a contact effect to the covered tiles. Exposed tiles retain the alchemical effect for 1 minute.

• Potion - Emplace an essence in a potion and refine it, placing a single effect from the essence into the potion, and granting it to the consumer for a number of minutes equal to your intelligence bonus (min 1.)

• Alchemical dust - Emplace an essence in special filings(requires spending iron/metal filings or fine chalk powder) allowing it to be sprinkled on up to 4 tiles, or sprayed in a 15ft cone, applying one effect or effect dice from the essence to target and tiles in the range. Any lasting effect of the dust lasts 1 round when sprinkled.

• Alchemical bolts - Expend an alchemical essence, creating 1d4+1 alchemical bolts. Alchemical bolts apply one hostile chosen effect from the essence to the target, in addition to the bolts base damage. The type is chosen when the bolt is created, and it is applied to all bolts created.

• Alchemical weapon oil - Expend two alchemical essences, creating a flask of alchemical weapon oil. A flask has 1d3 uses, and when applied(as an action, baseline) will enhance the weapons next 1d4+1 attacks with a property or effect dice from one of the essences. If both essences consumed are of the same kind, two effects or effect dice can be chosen.

• Elixir - Expend two alchemical essences, creating an elixir which can be consumed to grant one property to the consumer for 1 minute, treating the consumer as the alchemical item being modifier(Subject to GM. This may result in taking the effect dice damage of the alchemical essence.)

• Phials - Expend an alchemical essence, creating 1d3 + int bonus(min 0.) phials of the essence, which can be emptied to cover a tile with a contact or damage effect of the essence, or it can be thrown as a 30/60 thrown weapon, dealing the essences damage dice effects, if any, which are reduced by 2 dice size categories. 

At 1st alchemical, gain access to the alchemical methods upgrade list below. Pick 2 upgrades at lvl 1.

• Alchemical bolt improvement - Requires knowing the alchemical bolt item recipe. When producing bolts, increase the dice used for determining the amount of bolts created by 1 size category. Can be taken an additional time to increase it by 1 extra dice, and to allow picking a different effect per bolt.

• Alchemical dust improvement - Requires alchemical dust recipe. Alchemical dusts that you create have their sprinkle range increased by 5ft, 1 tile, and their effects instead last 1d3 rounds.

• Alchemic necromancy fundamentals - You can produce 1 potent necrotic essence if you have acess to exotic undead, humanoid, dragon, eldrich, monstrocity, or beast remains. Items created from this essence may have one of the following:

  • Choose one additional effect from the essence to grant to the item, so long as it is valid(Subject to GM.) 

  • If the item created would deal necrotic or poison damage, you may instead alter it to change the damage to necrotic(if poison) and increase it by 1 dice. 

  • If the item would heal, it instead grants arcane health.

• Auto-still modification - You may modify a set of alchemists tools by spending 2 AP during a test. This increases its bulk by 1 while carried, and may be used to create a free vital essence or volatile essence, and requires clear water and suitable plant material to function. It can be altered during a rest to instead permit using 1 AP to purify a barrel of water. If adequate exotic plant or fungal material is instead used, 4 necrotic essences can be produced during a long rest.

• Bombmaker - Requires knowing how to craft alchemical bomb items. Once per rest, you may produce an alchemical bomb item without paying the 1 AP cost, so long as you have the requires materials. Can be taken twice to increase the number of bombs created when doing so to 3.

• Calculated angle - You can treat total cover as half cover so long as the targets top is not covered. Your ranged weapon attack range is increased by 10ft per int modifier(min 1.)

• Educated approach - choose one skill that would otherwise use charisma or wisdom. You can use intelligence for this skill. 

• Elixir infusion - Requires knowing the elixir item recipe. When producing an elixir, allows sacrificing a third essence to double one of the effects, so long as the essence is of the same type as the one from which the effect is taken. Can be taken an additional time to allow creating an extra elixir of the same kind when doing so.

• Experience with explosions - Gain a +2 bonus to saves vs AOE effects and explosion effects.

• Extra recipe - learn 3 extra alchemy recipes(essence, refinement, or item in any combination) 

• Liquid preparation - Requires flask, potion, or phial recipe. When creating a reactive flask, potion, or phials, you may do one of the following to all the items created, up to 4 times per long rest:

  • Increase any associated DCs by 2.

  • Increase number of items created by 1.

  • Increase the duration of an associated effect by 1 (round/minute/hour.)

  • Increase the number of tiles covered by 1d3+1.

• Mule - Reduce bulk by 1. Gain a +1 bonus to deception and stealth checks.

• Protective gear - You gain proficiency with medium armor and light shields. If already proficient with medium armor, reduce all poison and acid damage taken by 1. If already proficient with light shields, gain heavy shield proficiency.

• Rapid craft - You can spend 1 rest dice and 1 AP as a full round action to create an alchemical item worth 1 AP. You can repeat this again on the next round without the rest dice cost.

• Scavenging - Gain 2 extra alchemy points every rest.

• Secret Alchemical Refining recoipes - Learn 1 new refining recipe from the list below. Can be taken more than once:

  • Herbalization - If you have access to a herbalists kit and sufficient plant material, enhance the healing, temorary HP, or arcane HP granted by the essence. If the essence is used to create a potion that bestows resistance to damage, double the duration of the potion.

  • Polarization - Modify essence, removing condition effects, but doubling other non-dice effects. Cannot be applied more than once.

  • Coagulation - Modify an essence that is either flammable or has an oily effect. Sacrifice 2 of its effects, increase others by 1(size, duration, dice size category, range or stat bestowed, etc)

  • Violent admixture - Modify an essence and sacrifice the other into it. Add a "3d6 fire damage" effect if sacrificed essence is volatile or necrotic, and "2d8 lightning damage" if the sacrificed essence is warping or etheric, and 1d8 acid damage if the sacrifice essence is caustic.

  • Polymerize - Modify a flammable essence, or an essence with a light contact effect, removing it and granting it 1 of the following contact effects instead:

    • Difficult terrain sticky / sticky ( -10 movement speed,  +1 vs disarm effects, disarm or unequip is a full round action.)

    • Difficult terrain flammable / flammable (when ignited, targets in tile or affected targets take 1d4 fire damage.)

    • Difficult terrain oiled / covered in oil (DC 15 athletics or accrobatics check when moving more than 15 ft to not fall prone.)

  • Invigorate - Modify an essence that has at least one of the listed effects, replacing it with the listed corresponding effect:

    • Fire damage and cold damage -> healing of combined worth, reduced by 1 dice.

    • Lightning damage -> clarity (+2 constitution and +2 wisdom.)

    • Poison damage or necrotic damage -> temporary health of equivalent worth.

    • fire damage, lightning damage, poison damage -> vigor (+2 strength and +2 dexterity.)

    • temporary health, healing, and arcane health -> cunning (+2 intelligence and +2 charisma.)

• Secret Alchemical Item recipes - you know the gist:

  • Alchemists torch - Expend 1 flammable essence, or an essence with fire damage dice effects. The torch can be ignited as a bonus action, at which point it remains lit for 2d4 + 1 rounds. While lit, it burns in a small 5ft narrow cone out of the torch. Creatures exposed must make a dexterity save, taking 2d6 fire damage. The wielder can poke a melee creature with a torch, incuring disadvantage and dealing double damage, as though it were a critical strike, on a nat 1 on the save.The torch also absorbs one other property or effect from the essence, except for cold damage dice or beneficial effect.

  • Reactive Salts - Expend 1 essence, creating a consumable powder which can be either consumed as an action, bestowing a lasting alchemical effect from the essence for a minute, or thrown/sprinkled in a 10ft cone, applying an alchemical effect immediately to all creatures in the cone, though any lasting effects are reduced to 1d4 rounds Both applications can have differing effects from the expended essence. If a consumable effect would grant resistance or vulnerability to a damage type, it instead grants +2 to an attribute depending on damage type (str - fire, dex - lightning, necrotic - con, acid - int, poison - wis, healing - cha) 

  • Lode-stone - Expend 1 alchemical essence that either has a lightning or fire dice effect, and create a small stone that can either be crushed in hand or on a solid surface within 15ft, or fired by a launched weapon. It applies one effect of the essence in a 15ft radius immediately, but it cannot deal damage.

  • Protectove face-mask - Requires adequate leather reasources and access to leatherworkers tools. Create a mask which has a special compartment which can be filled with an alchemical essence and turned on and off by the wearer as a bonus action, granting the wearer up to 3d4 rounds(rolled when equipped) rounds of a chosen benefit(when applied) of the essence to the wearer.

  • Burn coil - Expend 1 alchemical essence that is flammable or has fire damage dice effects, and sacrifice 5ft of rope. A burn coil can be applied to a fire weapon as a full round action, and lasts 1 minute when ignited. The ignite effect of the weapon is increased by 1, and one hostile essence effect is applied to unblocked creatures hit. If the additional effect is a damage effects, its damage dice are reduced by 1 dice size category. Cannot apply cold damage, fire resistance, or stun on hit. If the stun property is chosen, it is instead applied on a crit with the weapon.

• Specialization - Pick one alchemy creation recipe you know. Every rest, you have 1 extra AP which can be spent to create the chosen recipe.

Whenever you gain a feat or ability score improvement, gain an extra upgrade.

At 2nd, 5th, 8th, and 11th level, gain a +2 bonus to an ability score, or gain a feat.

Also whenever you would gain an ability score improvement, gain an extra Alchemy method upgrade.

At 3rd alchemist level, choose one tool of choice:

• Launchers - You can modify a crossbow to give it the launcher property by spending 1 AP during a rest. Liquid alchemical weapons splash in a cone that is 5ft smaller than their baseline, and bombs (items with "bomb" in their name) deal an extra dice of their base damage.

• Fire - All fire damage you deal is increased by 1. You can modify a polearm or melee piercing or bludgeoning weapon to grant it ignite 1d8, or increase a non-modified ignite weapons ignite dice by 1 size category by spending 1 AP during a rest. You can spend a bonus action to link a bomb with your modified weapon, allowing your next attack with it that lands to deal the bombs damage in addition to the attack. This adds your 2 to the DC of the attacks block check. 

• Special ammunition - When creating a bomb, you can instead choose to create 1d3+1 pieces of ammunition, granting the bombs impact effect to the ammunition, but reducing all dice used in the bomb by 2 dice size categories (min 1d3.) Alternatively, you can choose to place the bomb or flask at the end of a bolt or arrow when creating it, thus creating a special piece of ammunition that triggers the bomb on impact in addition to the ammunitions baseline effect, but has a -2 penalty to hit. A bolt or arrow modified in this way cannot be modified again.

• Explosives - Requires knowing bomb recipe. When creating a bomb, its blast area radius is increased by 5ft and have their damage increased by 1 dice.

• Flasks - Requires knowing flask recipe. Flasks apply both the damage effect, and a contact effect when thrown. You may make a thrown attack as a movement action by expending 1 AP, 1 rest dice, or taking 1 damage to fatigue. 

• Shovel - The base damage of shovels you wield is increased to 1d8. The base tool bonus from shovels is +3 while you wield them. You gain a +2 bonus to nature and investigation checks made in regards to matters of earth, dirt, and stone. Your AP maximum is increased by 1, and you gain 1 more AP every rest.

At 4th alchemist level, choose your 1st archetype:

• Brewer

• powder-keeper

• Experimentor

• Mycologist

At 7th level, choose your 2nd archetype:

• Engineer

• Smuggler

At 6th level, your rest dice maximum is increased by 2.

At 9th level, choose your 3rd archetype