Reanimator (5A)
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This is a work in progress.
This is an Artificer Specialization.
Resurrection and creating life is a millennia-old dream of both science and arcane magic. Divine magic can do this, but it vexes many wizards and artificers that they cannot. This is what the reanimator strives to overcome.
Medical Training
When you adopt this specialization at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in the Medicine skill. If you are already proficient in Medicine, you gain proficiency in another skill of your choice.
Medical Attention
If you or any friendly creatures you assist spend one or more Hit Dice to regain hit points at the end of the short rest, each of those creatures regains additional hit points equal to your proficiency bonus in Medicine.
Reanimator Spells
Starting at 3rd level, you always have certain spells prepared after you reach particular levels in this class, as shown in the Reanimator Spells table. These spells count as artificer spells for you, but they don’t count against the number of artificer spells you prepare.
| Artificer Level |
Spells |
| 1 | Sleep, Tenser's Floating Disk |
| 3 | Hold Person, Melf's Acid Arrow |
| 5 | Animate Dead, Life Transference |
| 7 | Aura of Life, Death Ward |
| 9 | Skill Empowerment, Danse Macabre |
Circus of Puppets
At 3rd level you learn to animate puppets of your own creation. At third level, you can animate one puppet. At level 5 you can animate two puppets, at level 9 you can animate three, and at level 15 you can animate four puppets. You can give orders to all of your puppets as a bonus action. If a puppet died within the last hour, you can use your weaver's tools as an action to revive it, provided you are within 5 feet of it and you expend a spell slot of 1st level or higher. The puppet returns to life after 1 minute with all its hit points restored.
When you cast a spell on one puppet, it affects all puppets within 30 ft. of you. This allows you to heal or enhance the abilities of all your puppets at once.
In most aspects this is like the Homunculus Servant infusion, with the changes noted here. A puppet does not need a gem for a heart and does not count against your limit on infused items. Instead it needs to remain within 30 ft. of you in order to take actions. A puppet that begins its turn more than 30 ft. away from you is incapacitated until it is again within range but can move towards you.
A puppet adds your proficiency bonus to its Armor Class. Each puppet has a number of d4 Hit Dice equal to your level and gains a bonus to its Hit Points each level equal to your Intelligence modifier. Due to its 12 Constitution this results in Hit Points equal to (3.5 + your Intelligence modifier) times your level (rounded down, minimum 10 Hit Points). A puppet can use its Force Strike as a melee attack.
Circus Spellcasting
At 5th level your puppets can form a circus to cast a spell that you have prepared. One or more puppets can use the Help action to help another puppet that uses the Cast a Spell Action to can cast a spell of a level up to the number of puppet that did Help. (This special Help action has no effect other than to enable spellcasting). The spell has effect as if you had cast it yourself and uses your spell slots. A puppet that does not get the Help of another puppet can cast a cantrip you know this way. This works as above, except that the puppet is considered to be 1st level to determine the effect of the cantrip.
Puppet Sacrifice
At 9th level, as an action, you can order a puppet to sacrifice itself. The puppet moves and either explodes, doing 6d6 fire damage to creatures within 5 ft. (Dexterity saving throw for half damage), or it can ram a single creature for 6d10 force damage on a hit. At level 15 the damage increases to 9 dice. At the end of the action, the puppet is killed.
Puppet Shield
At 15th level when you are attacked or within the area of an area attack, you can use a reaction to have a puppet interpose itself between you and the attack. Move the puppet adjacent to you. The attack now targets the puppet instead of you. Against an area attack, both you and the puppet must save and risks damage, but you gain the advantage of the puppet's Evasion ability.
Designer's Notes
Most artificer subclasses are all about pets, and the puppeteer takes this to an extreme, having 4 pets. To streamline this, the pets are identical. These pets can cast spells instead of the artificer themselves, making 2 spells per round possible and some concentration shenenigans. I may have to look into the control issue, but overall I feel this can work.