Fighter (Living Crucible): Compounds (3rd party Fighter sub-class)

[Arkhios]

Hi,

I was wondering if I could request some aid in rating the Compounds (below in spoilers) of a Living Crucible Fighter (a Grim Hollow/3rd party D&D product's Fighter Subclass, able to create alchemical items that are usable only by themselves). From Best to Worst.
A Living Crucible can learn only a certain number of these compounds (Begins with 3, and learns additional two at 7th level, and again at levels 10th and 15th); That is, at most 9 (or at 18th level "all of them"; see below)

The reason behind this request is that even though I'm tempted to try this subclass, I might not want to take all levels in Fighter, and thus probably won't get all 9, let alone the 18th level feature which allows a Living Crucible to replace one known compound with another from the list per long rest; essentially learning all the remaining options but being able to "prepare" only a fixed number of them per day.

Edit#1: (Since this was asked further down in the thread)
The Compounds action economy and safe consumption limit:
"As a bonus action you can consume a single compound using this feature. You can safely consume a number of compounds up to 1 + your Constitution modifier (minimum of 1). Each compound you consume after that causes you to gain a level of exhaustion. When you finish a long rest, you regain the ability to safely consume compounds."
The safe limit goes up to 3 + your Con modifier at 10th level, and finally to 5 + Con modifier at 18th level.

Adrenal Injection. For the next minute, your movement speed is increased by 10 feet and your jumping distances are tripled.

Allsense Injection. For the next minute, you have blindsight out to a distance of 30 feet.

Arcane Eye Oil. For the next hour, you can sense magic as if you were under the effects of the detect magic spell.

Draught of Bull’s Strength. For the next 10 minutes, you have advantage on Strength ability checks and saving throws.

Draught of Cat’s Grace. For the next 10 minutes, you have advantage on Dexterity ability checks and saving throws.

Draught of Bear’s Endurance. For the next 10 minutes, you have advantage on Constitution ability checks and saving throws.

Draught of Fox’s Cunning. For the next 10 minutes, you have advantage on Intelligence ability checks and saving throws.

Draught of Owl’s Wisdom. For the next 10 minutes, you have advantage on Wisdom ability checks and saving throws.

Draught of Eagle’s Splendor. For the next 10 minutes, you have advantage on Charisma ability checks and saving throws.

Elfsight Oil. For the next 8 hours, you have darkvision out to a range of 120 feet.

Fleshknit Phosphate. For the next minute, if you have at least 1 hit point, you heal a number of hit points equal to your proficiency bonus at the start of each of your turns.

Ironmind Injection. For the next hour, you have advantage on saving throws made against being charmed or frightened.

Liquid Courage. You gain temporary hit points equal to your Constitution ability score plus twice your level in this class. You lose any remaining temporary hit points from this compound after 1 minute.

Liquid Rage. For the next minute, your weapon attacks deal an extra 1d4 damage.

Presto Powder. For the next 10 minutes, you have advantage on ability checks made to determine initiative and you can use a bonus action on each of your turns to take the Dash or Disengage action.

Spellshine Ointment. For the next minute, you have resistance to damage from spells.

Steelskin Ointment. For the next minute, you have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.

Tenmen Tincture. For the next hour, you count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity, and you ignore the heavy property of weapons.

Edit#2
Further Details about the character for those who are interested. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=25631401&postcount=8)

[ShadeRaven]

They cannot really be ranked in a vacuum. It very much depends on your ability scores, skill proficiencies, race, party composition and campaign style. Are you mostly ranged or mostly melee oriented, what class are you planning to multiclass into...

Without further details, Steelskin Ointment, Liquid Courage, Draught of Owl’s Wisdom, Allsense Injection, and Draught of Cat’s Grace seem the best to me. Get Insight and Perception from your class, and if you are Dex-oriented - pick Stealth and Thieves' Tools proficiency with your background.

Skip Draught of Cat’s Grace if you are not a light armor user and pick Draught of Bull’s Strength if you are into grappling and have athletics proficiency. Replace Draught of Owl’s Wisdom with Ironmind Injection if for some reason you don't have proficiency in Insight and Perception.

Elfsight Oil deserves a special metion if you don't have natural darkvision and most of the party does, but I would try and get Goggles of Night instead. Presto Powder is ok if you are an archer, but not a Crossbow Expert. If your bonus action is really contested (from the aforementioned Crossbow Expert, the Polearm/Shield Master feats or fighting with two weapons for example), consider ditching Liquid Courage for Fleshknit Phosphate and healing post combat (or when you have a bonus action to spare).

[Arkhios]

They cannot really be ranked in a vacuum. It very much depends on your ability scores, skill proficiencies, race, party composition and campaign style. Are you mostly ranged or mostly melee oriented, what class are you planning to multiclass into...

Without further details, Steelskin Ointment, Liquid Courage, Draught of Owl’s Wisdom, Allsense Injection, and Draught of Cat’s Grace seem the best to me. Get Insight and Perception from your class, and if you are Dex-oriented - pick Stealth and Thieves' Tools proficiency with your background.

Skip Draught of Cat’s Grace if you are not a light armor user and pick Draught of Bull’s Strength if you are into grappling and have athletics proficiency. Replace Draught of Owl’s Wisdom with Ironmind Injection if for some reason you don't have proficiency in Insight and Perception.

Elfsight Oil deserves a special metion if you don't have natural darkvision and most of the party does, but I would try and get Goggles of Night instead. Presto Powder is ok if you are an archer, but not a Crossbow Expert. If your bonus action is really contested (from the aforementioned Crossbow Expert, the Polearm/Shield Master feats or fighting with two weapons for example), consider ditching Liquid Courage for Fleshknit Phosphate and healing post combat (or when you have a bonus action to spare).

To fill in some of the blanks,

I rolled the ability scores (in order from highest to lowest): 18, 16, 15, 14, 13, 10, and I have only settled on a few of the ability scores: Str 18 and Con 16, and Cha is either 15 or 13. Others are still more or less looking for their place.

Skill Proficiencies are Arcana, Insight, Intimidation, Nature, Perception, and Religion.

Race is Reborn (human), with the +2 likely going to Con, and the +1 to an odd score (other than Cha, as I have other plans on that matter).

Party is a Human Bard, a Shadar-Kai Ranger, and a Human Artificer.

Campaign style is Dark and Grim, and Hollow.

I plan to use heavy melee weapons and heavy armor, preferably a maul and a plate armor, so it's quite likely that I'll put the lowest score in Dex.


Multiclass options that I have been considering are War Mage (Wizard) or Arcana Domain Cleric, up to 8th level, with the idea to grab the second extra attack from Fighter. I am however, willing to reconsider if it's actually worth it, and settle with just the normal extra attack and instead aim for a some sort of half-caster -ish combination (Fighter 10/Wizard 10 or Cleric 10).

[Yakk]

Is it a bonus action to use this? How many uses per rest?

I'll assume a bonus action to activate, and you get 2 uses per short rest.


Allsense Injection. For the next minute, you have blindsight out to a distance of 30 feet.
This is a very useful utility ability. It can depend a lot on the style of campaign.

Arcane Eye Oil. For the next hour, you can sense magic as if you were under the effects of the detect magic spell.
Detect Magic has lots of utility in some games, and little in others. A ritual caster can keep this up with concentration for free, so it becomes far less useful.

Draught of Bull’s Strength. For the next 10 minutes, you have advantage on Strength ability checks and saving throws.
Draught of Cat’s Grace. For the next 10 minutes, you have advantage on Dexterity ability checks and saving throws.
Draught of Bear’s Endurance. For the next 10 minutes, you have advantage on Constitution ability checks and saving throws.
Draught of Fox’s Cunning. For the next 10 minutes, you have advantage on Intelligence ability checks and saving throws.
Draught of Owl’s Wisdom. For the next 10 minutes, you have advantage on Wisdom ability checks and saving throws.
Draught of Eagle’s Splendor. For the next 10 minutes, you have advantage on Charisma ability checks and saving throws.

Also campaign dependent. Are encounters telegraphed? Is there lots of save-or-lose wisdom stuff? Etc.

Elfsight Oil. For the next 8 hours, you have darkvision out to a range of 120 feet.

There are lots of uses of darkvision, but it is common.

Fleshknit Phosphate. For the next minute, if you have at least 1 hit point, you heal a number of hit points equal to your proficiency bonus at the start of each of your turns.

So 20-60 HP healed. In a 3 round fight, 6-18 HP. Pretty small if there is any access to healing. If your game uses bonus action healing potions and they are cheap, the healing potion is a better action often. And that isn't all that good.

Ironmind Injection. For the next hour, you have advantage on saving throws made against being charmed or frightened.

Hour is cute, but worse than the Owl's Wisdom usually.

Liquid Courage. You gain temporary hit points equal to your Constitution ability score plus twice your level in this class. You lose any remaining temporary hit points from this compound after 1 minute.

Score is interesting. At low levels insanely strong. At higher levels, caps out at a bit under 60 HP.

Steelskin Ointment. For the next minute, you have resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage.

Usually at least half of your damage comes from BPS. So this often dominate the above, and also massively boosts healing on you.

Spellshine Ointment. For the next minute, you have resistance to damage from spells.

Some games have piles of spells, others never see them.

Presto Powder. For the next 10 minutes, you have advantage on ability checks made to determine initiative and you can use a bonus action on each of your turns to take the Dash or Disengage action.

Note that Dex above gives you advantage on initiative already. This adds bonus action Dash/Disengage; the use of that depends on what kind of fights your DM uses.

Injection. For the next minute, your movement speed is increased by 10 feet and your jumping distances are tripled.
Cute. Jumping distance will cap out at movement speed. Will depend a lot on what kind of terrain.

Liquid Rage. For the next minute, your weapon attacks deal an extra 1d4 damage.
On a 3 attack/round build this is ~5 damage per round. Nice, but not game breaking.

Tenmen Tincture. For the next hour, you count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity, and you ignore the heavy property of weapons.
Unless you are small, heavy as written has no downsides. So that feature looks useless. It even makes them not usable by great weapon master.

[ProsecutorGodot]

The resistance ointments seem fairly strong, even with short durations it's good enough if you know what type of damage you'll be taking. If you expect to be fighting any post MotM designed monsters though, Spellshine would be substantially worse.

The rest are generally just sort of... fine. The Enhance Ability Draught's will all be situationally dependent, it would be hard to use them defensively so they'd be best used for the ability check aspect. Liquid Courage can end up being a pretty sizeable amount of temp HP but I feel if your party is going to be "optimal" down the line then one of your party members will have Inspiring Leader and it might see scarce use, especially if your Artificer is going Artillerist. Fleshknit Phosphate is somewhat notable, regen abilities are generally pretty poor, this one is doing at most 2-6 healing per turn and requires you to have hit points at the start of your turn which at a glance looks pretty bad. That said, it's decent out of combat, which is really the only advantage it has, viewed instead as 20-60 hit points healed outside of combat for a resource cost that is frankly not all that competitive with its other uses.

The only one I'd actively avoid is Tenmen Tincture, because I wouldn't expect carrying capacity to be an issue and if it is it would be for longer than an hour.

So I'd say having 2 or 3 of these compounds would be okay, assuming the uses you have of them isn't limited by your class level too significantly.

My rough list would be:
Best: Steelskin Ointment
Good: Allsense Injection, Presto Powder, Elfsight Oil
Fine: The rest of them.
Bad: Tenmen Tincture

I'll say it - this is just the Order of the Mutant Blood Hunter on the Fighter. Your "compounds" are very comparable to the Mutagens, though they ignore level requirements and penalties in favor of having more limited durations.

I'll also say considering that - I've built a very similar character to the one you have brewing, as a Blood hunter 5/War Wizard 7, if the campaign had gone to 20 it would likely have been 10/10

I'd give it a shot, I'd always though at the end of the day that having Fighter would have been better over BH, Fighter's get a lot of useful things that.

[Gignere]

One thing to note is that elf sight does provide you with 120 feet DV if you can take advantage of the extra distance I would rank it as one of the better compounds. But if you are strict melee having 60 feet darkvision as a reborn is good enough.

[Arkhios]

Is it a bonus action to use this? How many uses per rest?

I'll assume a bonus action to activate, and you get 2 uses per short rest.

"As a bonus action you can consume a single compound using this feature. You can safely consume a number of compounds up to 1 + your Constitution modifier (minimum of 1). Each compound you consume after that causes you to gain a level of exhaustion. When you finish a long rest, you regain the ability to safely consume compounds."

It's worth noting that the safe limit goes up to 3 + your Con modifier at 10th level, and finally to 5 + Con modifier at 18th level.

While I looked that up, I noticed something else that helped me to further my plans. While the safe limit on consumption is based on my Con modifier, if someone else were to consume any of these compounds they'd have to succeed on a Con save, which DC is modified by my Intelligence. or become poisoned for 1 minute. With that in mind, I think the best multiclass option would be War Wizard. It seems kind of implied that one could use these compounds also as an offensive ability, as a poison, if one is able to convince/force another creature to consume them. And to make the saving throw DC high enough to be worthwhile would require a decent Intelligence score. And that in turn would encourage becoming a wizard (or an Arcane Trickster, but that's probably not worth it).

[Arkhios]

Now that I've more or less made up my mind about the classes (not quite about the level split yet, however) I'm wondering which compounds would be the best ones to grab, depending on the options and known details below. Best as in which order to take, and considering spells that I'm able to learn and cast to complement the compounds I know.

Character's Ability Scores (after racials):
Str 18
Dex 14
Con 18
Int 16
Wis 10
Cha 13

The party consists of the following and me:
A human bard (no clue as to which subclass they're going to choose)
A human artificer (will become a D&D Beyond homebrew Archanomechanist. Seems broken AF to me, but honestly, I don't care as long as they player is having fun and the DM is fine with it.)
A shadar-kai ranger (will become a Gloom Stalker)

My character's armor and weapon preferences, and skill proficiencies:
Heaviest Possible Armor, and two-handed melee weapons. Alternatively, medium armor and switching between two-handed melee and hand crossbow.
Arcana, Insight, Intimidation, Nature, Perception, and Religion.

Three Builds to choose from
These are the options I'm struggling with the most, but to be honest, I think I'll get clarity on this matter as soon as I can figure out which compounds I should get and how many I can safely leave aside. You are of course welcome to give your opinion about which one would you would choose.
Fighter (Living Crucible) 10 / Wizard (War Mage) 10:
ASI's: Str +2, Con +2, Int +4, Artificer Initiate: Alchemist's Supplies (feat).
One extra attack
Special: +2 AC and all saving throws while maintaining Concentration on a spell
Wizard Spells (and rituals) up to 5th level (4/3/3/3/2), able to use alchemist's supplies as spell foci.

7 compounds known; Safe Consumption Limit (3+Con mod)/long rest
3rd level Fighter: 3 compounds known
7th level Fighter: 5 compounds known
10th level Fighter: 7 compounds known


Fighter (Living Crucible) 12 / Wizard (War Mage) 8:
ASI's: Str +2, Con +2, Int +4, Artificer Initiate: Alchemist's Supplies (feat), Ritual Caster: Wizard (feat).
Special: Second Extra Attack.
Wizard Spells up to 4th level (4/3/3/2), Wizard Rituals up to as high as they go, able to use alchemist's supplies as spell foci.
7 compounds known; Safe Consumption Limit (3+Con mod)/long rest

3rd level Fighter: 3 compounds known
7th level Fighter: 5 compounds known
10th level Fighter: 7 compounds known


Fighter (Living Crucible) 15 / Wizard (War Mage) 5:
ASI's: Str +2, Con +2, Int +4, Artificer Initiate: Alchemist's Supplies (feat), Ritual Caster: Wizard (feat).
Special: Second Extra Attack. Ability to end the effects of a Poison to gain Temporary Hit Points equal to current Fighter Level
Wizard Spells up to 3rd level (4/3/2), Wizard Rituals up to as high as they go, able to use alchemist's supplies as spell foci.
9 compounds known; Safe Consumption Limit (3+Con mod)/long rest

3rd level Fighter: 3 compounds known
7th level Fighter: 5 compounds known
10th level Fighter: 7 compounds known
15th level Fighter: 9 compounds known



My character will undergo a Transformation, that will increase his Dexterity by 2 and Charisma by 1 (neither may be increased higher than 16 by this), and after the Transformation, his initial scores will look like this:

Str 18
Dex 16
Con 18
Int 16
Wis 10
Cha 14

The transformation has other boons and flaws as well, but I don't think they're relevant to list here. This is mostly for flavor for me.