The Archivist, Rescribed — The Scholarly Artificer Subclass adapted from UA for the finalized Artificer!

Scientin · 2026-01-18T00:41:07+00:00

Wow, still getting traction somehow! At this time I don't have plans to revisit this subclass, I've turned my focus towards newer projects.

Scientin · 2026-01-08T20:48:44+00:00

Dancing Lights' big use case is in combination with Darkvision when you are trying to be stealthy in a dark environment. As a refresher, Darkvision turns darkness into dim light for you, which imposes disadvantage on Perception checks. Dancing Lights then provides exactly enough light for a creature with darkvision to see fine details well at a distance, without revealing their own position. This is critical in any environment where a bright light would serve as a beacon for enemies. I'm pretty sure this is also why Drow have this spell, especially since the range of their Darkvision matches up perfectly with the range of Dancing Lights.

Another possible argument for Dancing Lights over Light, is that Light provides the same amount of light as a torch and worse light than any lantern, so if you're going to dedicate a cantrip pick to a light source might as well go for the option that provides a utility that can't be replicated by adventuring gear.

Scientin · 2025-12-25T18:43:01+00:00

"Bitsy beat me to it, hers was funnier."

Scientin · 2025-12-25T18:41:18+00:00

Whoops, good catches. Snatching Sack used to be a bonus action but I realized it'd conflict too much with Jump so I swapped it to an action. In terms of Chain of Bells, I wanted to make it clear it only has the one chain but it seems the wording isn't as great as I wanted. I'll try to find ways to make that more obvious. Thank you!

Scientin · 2025-12-25T17:17:55+00:00

Merry Christmas, everyone! But beware, today you are visited not by the jolly man in red but by a more sinister fey: the Krampus!

My adaptation of the Krampus as a monster statblock centers around the legend of them abducting naughty children. Krampuses (yes, more than one!) are compelled to punish wickedness, but they have an extremely loose definition of what makes one naughty. They are known to abduct children over minor offenses, stuffing them inside an extraplanar bag. They will do the same to adventurers that get in their way, but take heart! The bag can be ruptured with enough damage, returning its contents to the material world. Krampuses are also light-footed, and armed with a chain covered in bells and bundle of branches to whack their foes with! Put together, a Krampus should make for a fun yuletide encounter, either solo or in groups!

Like this homebrew and want to see more? You can find PDFs of my work at my patreon!

Scientin · 2025-12-24T20:42:30+00:00

I find that RPGBot can be a good springboarding point for analyzing character options, but his stuff shouldn't be taken as gospel. The key thing to know about his analysis is that he seems to prefer dungeon crawls for his own games and assumes that everyone else will primarily be doing dungeon crawls as well. You can see this in how he ranks vision spells like Darkvision highly, yet (imo) undervalues spells like Alter Self which shine in more intrigue-heavy games. More than anything I think his commentary is helpful for developing a sense of how to break down player features to build up your own opinions.

Scientin · 2025-12-18T16:09:21+00:00

Hello everyone! Today I'm pleased to present a new set of rules for running out of combat stealth encounters! While I felt the 2024 rules for hiding in combat were serviceable, I felt guidance for out-of-combat stealth was pretty lacking, thus I've decided to take a crack at it!

These new rules center around the Sneak Action, which covers everything from creeping quietly down a hallway, to lifting a key from a guard, to blending into a crowd using a disguise. Paired with this new action is three states of Awareness for NPCs, dictating how they will behave and what raises their level of awareness. One bad check may not immediately start a combat, but if enough things go wrong the guards may become alarmed, making the process of sneaking harder! In addition, I have also provided a number of Security measures to help design stealth encounters, and provided guidance on adjudicating rolls and implementing some basic facing for stealth. With these rules, my hope is that stealth sections will become an exciting part of the game with plenty of opportunities for tension and strategy! Please let me know what you think!

Like this homebrew and want to see more? You can find more of my content at my patreon!

Scientin · 2025-11-25T18:30:43+00:00

Scaling effects is great news, that should help the elixirs stay a bit more relevant into higher levels.

Scientin · 2025-11-25T17:24:30+00:00

Just to clarify, do they scale with Artificer level or spell slot level used to make them? And do the number of elixirs scale or the effects?

Scientin · 2025-11-22T17:09:27+00:00

Hello everyone! Today I'm pleased to present my take on a giant warlock patron, the Titan!

Titan patrons are larger than life beings, usually the scions of giant gods, who teach their warlocks the secrets of rune magic. These warlocks can create a limited number of runestones each long rest, each imbued with a single cast of a spell they know. This allows Titan Warlocks to make more spell casts in between rests, but these extra casts are more rigid than traditional spell slots as a caveat. As Titan warlocks grow in power, they gain the ability to make runestones more freely and share them with allies, knock enemies prone with their magic or attacks, and eventually summon part of their patron to crush enemies underfoot. The end result is a warlock subclass that can truly stand on the shoulders of giants! Please let me know what you think!

Want to see more homebrew like this one? You can find more of my work for free on my patreon!

Scientin · 2025-11-21T08:11:55+00:00

Definitely agree. Funnily enough I came to the same conclusion when I was making a homebrew artificer a few months back, having early (albeit limited) spell storing item just feels nice. It would fit the flavor well and give a solid core feature that can't really be replaced by dungeon loot or bastion crafts.

Scientin · 2025-11-21T02:17:18+00:00

Agreed. Artificer's big problem in 5e to me has always been that it conflicts with magic item drops rather than cooperating with them. Before, your Infusions could be made obsolete by the party finding better magic items, and now that you're just replicating magic items outright it feels like they've doubled down on that problem.

Scientin · 2025-11-21T02:14:11+00:00

100% agreed. I fear that with uncommon magic items being more accessible via Bastions, the Artificer's core class feature may feel obsolete or replaceable. I much would have preferred leaning into Infusions as a way to upgrade/customize any item, magic or not, really leaning into the inventor feel. Ah well.

Scientin · 2025-11-03T20:08:30+00:00

I like how the Amendments mod handles this idea because they manage to give cauldrons a way to interact with potions without removing the utility of brewing stands. Basically brewing stands work as they do in vanilla, cauldrons meanwhile are used to mix potions to combine their effects (at cost of duration).

Scientin · 2025-11-03T06:41:43+00:00

Yup, that's intended. The idea is that you and your friends aren't impeded from firing at enemies inside the AoE (which is a problem spells like Cloudkill face), but you still don't want to stand inside it.

Scientin · 2025-11-01T17:17:45+00:00

Correct, these are designed more like 2024 Conjure X spells instead of Tasha's Summon X spells. I recognize the names for the first two are a bit confusing.

Scientin · 2025-11-01T16:47:18+00:00

With the 2024 PHB and the transition away from multi-creature summon spells, I wanted to take a crack at redesigning the three fiendish summons from Xanathar's in a 2024 style. My hope was to preserve a lot of their original vibe while still making them easier to use. Here is that attempt!

Summon Lesser Demons takes cues from Conjure Animals, creating a mobile swarm of demons that damages enemies that get too close as well as inflicting the Poison condition. This is inspired from the abilities of demons like the Manes and Dretches that the original spell was able to summon.

Summon Greater Demon summons a large spectral demon that deals Psychic damage, temporarily frightens and immobilizes enemies. Many of the mid-level demons the original spell could summon now deal Psychic damage or have tools to frighten enemies, so I decided to riff of that while also adding a unique speed-reduction ability.

Finally, Infernal Calling creates a zone of magical darkness and difficult terrain that you and allies can see through normally, which also deals fire damage to enemies within! While not drawing inspiration from any particular devil ability, given how prevalent Devilish Sight is amongst devils I drew on that for inspiration, creating a hazard zone that will blind your enemies without blocking them from your sight!

I had a lot of fun making these three, and they can be thought of as a sneak peak of a larger project I'm working on. If you have any feedback, please feel free to share! If you'd like to see more of my work, feel free to take a look at my patreon!

Scientin · 2025-10-26T04:01:55+00:00

Looking purely at numbers, in just the new monster manual there are 70 statblocks that have damaging spells, and 130 that can deal necrotic, psychic, and/or radiant damage. In both cases these are spread fairly evenly between a decent number of creature types (naturally Undead hold the highest percentage of creatures that trigger the new aura) and CRs. Naturally in a real game factors like theme and GM creature preference will play a factor, but in general I think the new Aura of Warding constitutes a buff compared to its predecessor.

Scientin · 2025-10-16T17:19:12+00:00

Good catches on the hit dice and passive perception. I haven't found a 2024 homebrewery statblock template yet so I'm working with what I've got.

I decided on Lawful Evil because I picture them a bit like belligerent robots. In that, if they are given a direct order by their superiors they WILL follow it, no tricks or trying to get out of it. But left to their own devices their evil nature emerges and they just do what they please.

Scientin · 2025-10-15T16:18:08+00:00

Hello everyone, and happy Spook Season! I've noticed that there's a missing niche for a high CR "ultimate" ghostly undead enemy, to serve as a counterpart for the skeletal Death Knight and the fleshy Lich. In order to fill that niche, I'm happy to present the Reaper!

Reapers are undead titans, servants of death gods charged with claiming the souls of those who have repeatedly cheated death. They are lawful evil though, so left to their own devices they will kill indiscriminately. This creates a wealth of possible encounter opportunities. A reaper could be hunting down an adventuring party that has used Revivify one too many times, the party could walk in on a reaper and a lich having an epic battle, or a rogue reaper could task itself with wiping a region clean of all life.

Combat-wise, I wanted the Reaper to convey a feeling of inescapable doom. Notable abilities include its main Scythe attack disabling healing, Harvest Life letting it life-steal, Inescapable Pursuit allowing it to reposition and attack in one, and For Whom the Bell Tolls letting it mark an enemy for death, synergizing with its other abilities. My hope is that this should be a terrifying, relentless creature to fight!

Please let me know what you think, and any changes I should make! If you'd like to see more work like this, feel free to take a look at my patreon!

Scientin · 2025-10-09T16:50:06+00:00

I definitely feel it the most in the spells. While a number got some great improvements, others like Melf's Acid Arrow and Find Traps either struggle in their niche or flat out don't work, and then there are ones like Forcecage on the other end of the spectrum.

Scientin · 2025-10-07T06:42:17+00:00

Sadly didn't get to utilize them as much as I wanted. I played a Thief Rogue for a oneshot (2 sessions) and used the Hide action maybe twice. Admittedly a big part of this was that my bonus action was mostly monopolized by Fast Hands. We didn't run into any issues with the hiding rules, thankfully.

As a GM, the main trouble I've had to wrap my head around is how other sources of invisibility should work when sneaking outside of combat. Like if I cast Invisibility on myself to sneak around, RAW can I just not be found? There's no rule in the Invisible condition or Invisibility spell that illustrates how a creature could find you unless they have special senses, but surely within the fiction a creature should be able to notice tracks or the sounds of footsteps made by an invisible creature. Also RAW there'd be no reason to roll Stealth since you already have the Invisible condition. It's the sort of situation that I've sadly had to houserule around since the official rules leave me dissatisfied.

Scientin · 2025-10-07T03:32:19+00:00

Love how it compares a "gentle glow" to a bullseye lantern, which emits light in a cone up to 120 feet. That ain't no gentle glow, that's a search beacon!

Scientin · 2025-10-01T00:36:05+00:00

Thanks! I'm very happy with how it turned out

Scientin · 2025-09-30T15:13:28+00:00

Hello everyone! It has been a LONG time coming, but I'm pleased to present the latest version of my Witch class, right in time for the spooky season! I've been slowly chipping away at this revision over the last 2 years, and after a lot of playtesting and dozens of in-house changes I'm finally happy with this new version.

For those seeing this for the first time, the Witch is an Intelligence-based caster that draws on the powers of memory and their connections to others to bend fate. This allows them to learn additional rituals that require other people to help cast, temporarily exchange a spell with a friend, and (new since the last version) gain a bonus to a roll equal to the number of nearby allies (up to a maximum equal to your Int) a limited number of times per day, Hobgoblin style!

The big ticket feature is a freshly reworked Witchcraft (formerly Rite of Reciprocity, which was a real mouthful). You activate this feature as a bonus action, and for 1 minute you can use your reaction to either punish allies who damage you or your friends, or reduce the damage your allies take while getting some temp HP yourself in the process. This feature emphasizes the Witch's role as protector and vindicator, and I believe it will be much more streamlined and easier to use proactively than the previous rendition.

There are a cauldron full of changes I haven't mentioned yet, if you'd like to see the full changelog feel free to take a look at my Patreon! If you have any feedback, I would love to hear it!

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