Taking Another Look at the Reanimator Post-FotA

 Ok, yeah, I'm a bit fixated on Artificers at the moment.

When I was playing Curse of Strahd, I came up with an idea for a back-up character should my klutzy (7 Dexterity) Paladin meet an unfortunate fate. With Van Richten either about to come out or having just came out, I had the idea of playing a Battle Smith Artificer from Lamordia, with the idea that his steel defender was actually something like a flesh golem (Lamordia being the domain of Viktra Mordenheim, the setting's equivalent of Victor Frankenstein).

Back in May of this year, we got a UA for "Horror Subclasses" that included various reprints and revisions (among them the Necromancer Wizard and Undead Patron Warlock - both subclasses I'd be eager to try). But we also got a brand new Artificer subclass that more or less goes the Frankenstein route, giving you a battle pet in the form of a Reanimated Companion.

Naturally, this will draw comparisons with the Battle Smith as the other subclass with a pet (the Artillerist is nearly like that as well, though its "pet" (or pets at level 15) are objects with less autonomy). The Reanimator doesn't got the martial route that the Battle Smith takes, remaining a more dedicated spellcaster like the Alchemist, Artillerist, and Cartographer.

I did my analysis of the subclass back when the UA came out, so I'm not going to just reiterate the entire argument I made then. We had gotten a UA of the revised Artificer by then, but I think my recent investigation into the final version of the FotA Artificer has given me a few special things to focus on that we can address here:

Spell-Storing Item Spell to Store in an Item:

For damage-output, the spell-storing item can create a massive increase if we have a good 3rd level damage spell to plug into it. The Reanimator, thankfully, does get such a spell! It's Lightning Bolt, which it shares with the Armorer.

Lightning and Frankensteinian flesh constructs are, of course, a classic combination. In a vacuum, I think that there are arguments to be made regarding whether Fireball or Conjure Barrage is the better spell for this feature, but I think Lightning Bolt probably falls into a happy third place in either case. The line shape of the spell makes it very hard to hit more than two targets with it, though it's also easier to avoid friendly fire with it than Fireball (the real appeal for Conjure Barrage is that it's both easy to hit lots of targets and it also automatically avoids friendly fire, its only mark against it being the somewhat lower damage).

Still, that third place is a coveted position compared to the options the Alchemist and Cartographer get, so we can count this possibly on these merits alone as being pretty good.

Level Five Damage Bump:

While Spell-Storing Item can be our main tier 3 damage boost, each Artificer also gets a boost to damage output at level 5, either via Extra Attack or some kind of bonus to our spell damage. Reanimators get something similar to Alchemists - you get to add your Intelligence modifier to a roll from a spell, but it's conditional: in this case, the spell needs to be either evocation or necromancy (put a pin in that) and your companion must be alive and within 120 feet of you. You can also cast spells from your companion's space. And then, finally, the companion gets two attacks when commanded rather than 1.

I actually think that, given that later bonus, this might wind up being quite good.

Let's talk about the spell boost first:

As we've observed, the Artificer spell list's only directly damaging spells are cantrips. And I believe the entire Reanimator spell list is just Evocation and Necromancy (at least, for certain, the ones that deal damage). Thus, the only thing we need to look out for is cantrips that aren't of those schools. The only damaging cantrips that aren't in those schools are Thorn Whip (Transmutation) and True Strike (Divination).

So, just steer clear of those cantrips and you'll be fine. The main benefit of True Strike (other than taking advantage of magic weapons) is to be able to add your Intelligence to the damage, so you'll just be using something else.

For the companion's sort of extra attack feature, we should note that its Dreadful Swipe does a little less damage than a Steel Defender's Force-Empowered Rend - it does 1d4+2+your Int, while the Steel Defender does 1d8+2+Int, but with two attacks, it clearly overtakes the other subclass' option.

Extra Attack is generally going to outpace cantrip scaling, but we can at least close the gap a little with a feature like this one - a Battle Smith using a 2d6 weapon with +4 to Int at level 5 is going to do two attacks for 11 apiece, or about 22, plus the steel defender's attack for 1d8+6, or around 10.5, so 32.5 (this is assuming everything hits).

For a Reanimator using, say, Fire Bolt, at level 5 we'd get 2d10+5 from the spell (16 average) and then 1d4+6, or 8.5, twice, for 17, giving us a total damage output (again, assuming all hits) of 33. Honestly pretty damn close, and slightly better for the Reanimator.

The one downside is that the Companion is slightly less resilient, with a lower AC and HP than the Steel Defender. The good news, though, is that the companion has some damage resistances, and it can also be easily healed via lightning damage. We can do this via Witch Bolt as early as 3rd level, or with lightning bolt later on (a second reason to put it in the spell-storing item). Jolt to Life, the feature that lets Spare the Dying deal a little lightning damage to nearby creatures, could also be used to give a little bit of healing to our pet by just having it elect to fail the saving throw.

I wonder, though, if in an actual printing, if the subclass will get the usual 2d6 healing from Mending that the Steel Defender and Eldritch Cannons do.

One thing to note is that if we hand off our Spell-Storing Item to a Homunculus Servant, it won't get the boost from our Intelligence. That boost can be very nice when spread over all the targets of a big AoE. If we line up an amazing shot (and perhaps get our Companion in there as well for healing) we might just have our Homunculus hand over the item for the turn to get it off, but I still think we can go with a standard protocol of letting the homunculus shoot off the lightning bolts.

    I was a bit worried about power level in my initial review, but I do think this "hack" (which might be considered more just the new SOP for Artificers) raises the overall power of the class (at least for 3/5 and with this 4/6 of the subclasses) enough that I'm not terribly worried that this won't prove itself decent at the very least.

    I also hope it's a sign of future inclusion for Artificer subclasses, spells, and other items when other rules-expansion sourcebooks come out.