Talk:Apothecary (5e Class)

Ambiguousness

"any spell or cantrip that handles plants"

thats really vague

Re: ambiguous

The whole line is, "You choose cantrips and spells from the apothecary's spell list as described at the bottom of the page, as well as any spell or cantrip that handles plants."

Many classes use this terminology to describe other spells the caster may select from instead of listing all "plant based" spells.

For example cleric spellcasting descriptor from 3.5e reads, " A cleric casts divine spells, which are drawn from the cleric spell list. However, his alignment may restrict him from casting certain spells opposed to his moral or ethical beliefs; see Chaotic, Evil, Good, and Lawful Spells, below." If you're a good aligned cleric, you may only cast spells with the good descriptor.

The statement "that handles plants" is simply referring to any spell or cantrip that may have a plant descriptor. It is the same as saying any spell or cantrip that has to do with fire. That is, saying all fire spells are able to be chosen.

For example, the apothecary would be able to choose the spell "entangle" from the druidic spell list. This spell's descriptor implies that it is plant based.

This is a common way of describing other spells a spellcaster may choose from in other tabletop RPGs as well; such as "Iron Claw" and "Pathfinder."

This was my first Homebrew for 5e, so I apologize if this is not common for 5e.

-FoxezPawz-

Re:Apothecary Class

Added Missing Class Features: 9: Better Production 13: Amplifier 15: Dauntless Resiliency 17: Immunochemistry

Needs some work on wording and balance but over all I'm happy with it - Liebe

Protection Request & Look At Class

Since I was asked to lock this page twice, I will look at the class/situation and see whether it needs to be locked. To start with, the first time I was asked to lock this class, the class was clearly incomplete and its features still needed a decent bit of work. Because of this, and the fact that an anonymous user used inappropriate language, I simply locked the page from anonymous edits. However, I was recently asked to again lock this page when it is still incomplete and when looked at closely has a plethora of other issues. I will go over some of the issues below, but suffice to say that I will not be locking this class until its issues have been fixed and it has been some time since the class has had major changes(ie the page is in stable).

Let us first look at some of the class's wording. Overall, the wording is decent, however the class really needs to be run through several times to fix a number of grammatical errors and to fix some feature's wording. Some examples of things that need to be fixed include: incorrect capitalization in the class features section(skills and ability scores are capitalized, but besides that only the first letter of words in this section should be capitalized), creature types are not capitalized, class names are not capitalized, and numerous features butcher the proper wording for regaining use of a feature after you finish a long rest. Features should either use "Once you use this feature, you may not use it again until you finish a long rest." or the "You may use this feature a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier (a minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest." wording or something similar wording(ie combining the sentences). Besides that, multiple features have unclear wording which needs to be cleaned up.

Besides the wording which needs some tweaking, the class is heavily lacking in related background fluff, lore, and the quick build portion needs to be completed. Typically, the class itself needs a few sentences to a few paragraphs of fluff while subclasses at least needs some fluff.

As for the class's balance issues, it would not be an exaggeration to say that almost every single feature in this class has balance or other problematic issues. I will not go over all the class's issues, but I will try to cover most of the class itself minus the subclasses. Let us begin.

• Apothecary. This feature's problem is relatively straightforward. Having the option to simply pick all humanoids is way too strong. I would suggest the feature either does something similar to what ranger's favored enemey feature does or simply provide proficiency to Medicine checks and give you double proficiency if you already have proficiency in the skill.

• On the Field Study. This feature is weird and is both useful and not too useful for a number of reasons. It isn't that useful due to you only being able to use it when a creature is at 0 hit points, but the sheer number of uses you can get out of this feature is ridiculous. Overall, I would say that the number of uses shouldn't be based on those you heal(proficiency bonus uses every lr?) and the restriction to healing creatures only at 0 hit points should be lifted. Besides that though, the 2nd part of this feature makes up for apothecary's weakness of choosing creature types that isn't relevant and is a solid addition.

• Fundamental Alchemy. This feature's level is not listed and it is not listed in the class table. Besides that though this feature is very overpowered due to the fact that you are basically giving free health potions(extra gp) every day. Firstly, this feature doesn't make sense as the materials come out of no where and it is giving the player free items they could sell which a class should never do. Overall if kept this feature needs a lot of changes. You need to make it so there is a limit to the potions you can make each day/total and you need to not simply create health potions as that is too strong to due outside of crafting them regularly.

• Concoction. I do mostly like the concoctions you can make with this feature, but honestly the feature is a giant mess. First, a class should not ever say what items you get when harvesting and/or doing other background activities as that should entirely be under the purview of the DM. Besides that though, class features should have highly random number of uses. Some randomness might be ok though if it was say a moderate range (1d4 + 3 uses), but even then it is almost always better to have a set number of uses. Other issues this feature have include: no upper limit on the number of concoctions you can have, the feature doesn't explain how you choose a catalyst it just has a table, various concoctions are beyond overpowered at the level you get them, the concoctions fall off past the 3rd tier of play, ect.

• Hale and Hearty. Currently this feature is very unclear and seems to double all healing from all sources you receive. I believe the feature was intended to just double healing you receive from your concoctions, but that is still an issue as to keep the feature from being overpowered you would need to have lower healing on your concoctions which isn't beneficial to how much you can heal your party members. Overall, this feature probably just needs to give you a small bonus or be scrapped.

• Better Production. It is not clear what this feature does and I am not going to intercept the confusing language. Overall this feature just needs to have its wording massively cleaned up and then you can look at its balance.

• Vim and Vigor. Infinite healing with no limits is simply broken no two ways about it(especially before tier 4). Besides that though, the feature is extremely odd on how it goes about giving you that healing.

• Harvesters Luck. Same as concoctions, you can't make your DM give you something just because a feature says you can. It doesn't even make much sense either, how can there be more of a certain type of material in an area just because you say there is?

• Amplifier. This feature is extremely unclear about what exactly it does, but if it does multiply a potion's potency this is just broken. Not too much else to say besides that though.

• Dauntless Resiliency. I don't understand this feature as it appears to be using random/non-5e terminology. When you are subject to a condition, you have "Increased Physical Attack: From Physical Sources." or "Increased Concoction Potency: From Magical Sources.". "Either way, you add an amount of extra damage dice equal to one-fifth your Apothecary level.? Really, I don't have much more to say besides this feature simply does not make sense or work under the context of how stuff works in 5e.

• Immunochemistry. The giving of multiple resistances to damage types to friendly creatures or vulnerability to damage types to enemies when you use concoctions is broken by itself. To do this with no limit, for an hour at a time is game warpingly overpowered. There is a reason protection from energy is a 3rd level spell that requires concentration that can only protect one creature from a single damage type. In addition granting vulnerability to a damage type is by itself extremely powerful even with conditions applied to that vulnerability.

• Ect.

And that is all for my review/look through of the class. Refining and tweaking a class so it is playable can often take months and I would heavily recommend a decent amount of more time and work be put into this class before it is to be considered complete. As it currently stands, this class does need a lot of work and needs to have its multiple issues addressed before it is finished, and even then it may still need tweaks here and there long after it has been completed.--Blobby383b (talk) 20:14, 10 May 2021 (MDT)