Ok, I know I did an artificer build already, but I'm quite enamored with the Reanimator Artificer - I doubt it's the most powerful Artificer subclass, but it's got a lot of flexibility that I think could be super fun.
My initial backup character in our Curse of Strahd campaign was going to be a Battle Smith Artificer from Lamordia, flavoring his Steel Defender as a flesh golem. But this subclass fits that archetype even better (it's the most Lamordia subclass).
There will be a lot of overlap here with the Armorer build we started this series off with. Once again, it'll be pretty optimal once we hit level 11 to hand a spell-storing item to our Homunculus Servant with Lightning Bolt in it, but we're doing this at level 10.
There will also be a little more of an action-economy pile-up because this is a pet class and thus regularly demands our bonus action. Let's get into it:
Reanimated Companion:
Each time we create a companion, we can choose some options for how to customize it. While I think Gaunt is a good option much of the time, against a Death Knight that has immunity to fear, I'd probably lean toward either Moist or Bloated - the former dealing more damage if the Death Knight attacks it, but the latter giving us some more battlefield control.
We will also pretty much always want to take Arcane Conduit, which will let us add some damage to our Evocation and Necromancy spells.
Spells:
I actually think Shocking Grasp works really well as a cantrip for this subclass, as once we have Arcane Conduit, we can always cast it through our companion, making the melee range less of a problem. We'll pack Fire Bolt as an alternative just in case (we don't go True Strike because it's a Divination spell and thus doesn't get the damage bump).
Now, Animate Dead might feel sort of outdated now that Summon Undead is a thing. We do need to use a bonus action to command our undead minion from this as well, but we can give a broad command that they'll follow on subsequent turns. Thus, I'd probably try to get a Skeleton and just have them stand off at max range and keep shooting at the Death Knight. It's not a ton of damage, given the low hit chance, though.
Actually, if we figure that the Skeleton's hitting for 1d6+3, or 6.5 on average, versus just hitting the DK with a lightning bolt, which deals 28 average damage on a failed save, it would take a lot of attacks on average to match that damage output. Over a whole adventuring day, the Skeleton might be better overall, but in a boss fight, we might want to just favor damage-per-round over damage-per-day.
As before, we can slap Dragon Breath on our Homunculus Servant. This does mean we delay sending in our companion, but their damage is pretty low on its own, so I don't know that that's a huge problem.
Weirdly, we don't actually have a concentration spell in this case. We could slap Enlarge any of our friends who make lots of attacks - a dual-wielder is probably the best choice here, but mainly anyone with Extra Attack. But I won't include that in the calculation here. It does mean that we basically just get started on turn 1.
Magic Items:
Mainly, I'd get a +2 Wand of the War Mage to boost our spell attacks (this will also boost our companion's attacks, I believe). Defensively, we can get +1 Half Plate and a +2 Shield, which can get our AC to 22.
We might consider a Wand of Magic Missiles as well, and give it to the Homunculus. If we do, we'd skip Dragon's Breath. The damage on Dragon's Breath will be 10.5 on a failed save, while a 1st level Magic Missile will be 10.5 guaranteed (well, on average). Hey, you know what? We're totally doing that. (We could upcast it too, but we'll assume we're spreading out the uses to maximize its damage potential just for our purposes here). This then also opens up our bonus action to send our companion in immediately.
Depending on what else we want to do, we have some options: Mind Sharpener could be very helpful if we get hit with a Hellfire Orb, but generally, we're going to try to stay out of melee range, and thus we might not worry so much about our AC and favor instead a Cloak of Protection or even some Half Plate of Necrotic Resistance - something that's probably worth picking up if you're in an undead-heavy campaign (unless you're an Aasimar or Chthonic Tiefling, of course).
Feats:
I was tempted to get Elemental Adept for Lightning damage, but this really only barely improves our damage - a d4 goes from 2.5 on average to 2.75, and a d6 goes from 3.5 to 3.67. It does let us bypass resistance, which could be good against incorporeal undead, but I think there are better choices.
Naturally, we grab Warcaster at 4, and then at 8, we could either cap our Int or grab another General Feat. I liked taking Fey Touched for this (maybe the Fey are spooky wicker-man types, and the Misty Step spell is related to the Mists of Ravenloft). This does mean our Int is only 19 by level 10, but we compensate for this a bit by grabbing a +2 Wand of the War Mage.
Attack Sequence:
Going all out, we're going to already have our Homunculus at the ready with their Wand of Magic Missiles. With six charges on the wand, we can probably afford to upcast the spell each turn by at least a bit, but I wouldn't go higher than 2nd level. I'm going to assume we're just doing this at 1st level. The damage calculation here is super-easy - each does 1d4+1 damage and we get 3 darts, so that's 3.5x3, or 10.5 damage each round, for up to 6 rounds, which I'd certainly hope would be more than enough to take out the Death Knight.
We have a +10 to hit with spells thanks to our Wand of the War Mage, though our spell save DC is just 16. The spell attack bonus should carry over to our companion.
So, we'll be starting off with our action to cast Lightning Bolt on turns 1 and 2. It's actually fine (even good) if we let this pass through our reanimated companion, as they can choose to fail and get healed up for our roll, so we actually want to try to position our companion directly between us and the Death Knight (or alternatively, put the Death Knight precisely between us and our companion). If we have low initiative and the companion takes damage, we can send them in first.
I'd never waste a spell purely on healing the companion, as it's just an action and a spell slot of any level to get a new one, though we can Shocking Grasp them to pump a little healing into them (it's effectively a 1st level Cure Wounds to them at this level).
Then, with a bonus action, we command our pet to run up to the Death Knight and hit them with their Dreadful Swipe. If there's extra movement, we should try to have the companion move away from any allies - they'll prevent opportunity attacks if they hit with their attack - because their Death Burst does not distinguish friend from foe.
Damage Calculation:
First off, we get an average of 10.5 damage from our Homunculus.
Our companion will hit for 1d4+4 Necrotic damage. Unfortunately, Death Knights are immune to this. Hm. Well, let's assume it's some equivalent-difficulty foe that isn't. That's 6.5 damage on a hit and an extra 2.5 on a crit. With a +10 to hit, we're talking about a 55% hit chance. 6.5x55% is 3.575 and then 2.5x5% is .125, so that's 3.7 damage.
Note that if we do want to account for this damage immunity, we could cast Dragon's Breath on our companion (or on the homunculus and give our companion the wand). We'd delay our Lightning Bolts for a turn, and the companion would still need another turn to get in range, but once they did. At 2nd level, that does 3d6 damage on a failed save or half as much on a success. The DK has a +6 to dex saves and magic resistance, so that's a 20.25% chance to fail and a 79.75% chance to succeed. So, 20.25%x10.5 is 2.13ish and 5.25x79.75% is 4.19ish, so we've got about 6.32 damage per round. It's a bit of a toss-up, as you're also delaying some stuff by doing this. I'm going to just take the simple route and assume we're using the same normal attack.
Now, on turns 1 and 2, we'll be casting Lighting Bolt. Thanks to Arcane Conduit, we can add 4 to the damage. This thus does 32 damage on a failed save or half as much on a success. (I realized we can just cut the success chance in half and multiply it by the total damage to get the same thing). So, 39.875% (half of 79.75%) plus 20.25% is 60.125%, and that times 32 is 19.24 damage.
Thus, all of these taken together are 10.5 from the Wand of Magic Missiles, 3.7 from our companion's attack, and 19.24 from our Lightning Bolt, for a total of 33.44.
Alternatively, if we have our companion use the wand and our homunculus fire its normal attacks, they do 1d6+2 force damage on a hit if cast at base level, but we'll probably try to have them cast at 3rd level instead by this point, if we can cast it before we have a long rest, which would make it do 1d6+3, which is actually the same hit damage and a little better crit damage. Mainly, this gets rid of our last source of Necrotic damage and so it should all hit the DK fine.
Also, if we have Magic Missile upcast at 2nd level, its damage becomes 14, so a flat 3.5 damage increase per turn (but only sustainable for 3 turns). That would put us to 36.94, and then again a bit of a bump if we shuffle the roles of our two pets.
Honestly, that's not too bad.
However, after turn 2, we will be out of 3rd level spell slots. Now, Witch Bolt is an option - cast at 2nd level, we'd deal 3d12 damage on a hit and the could use a bonus action to do 1d12 damage automatically to the Death Knight. To do so, we'd be unable to command our companion, but that might change our strategy.
Instead, we have the companion use 3 charges on turns 1 and 2, doing 17.5 damage. On turn three, now out of Lightning Bolts, we cast Witch Bolt at level 2. This does 2d12+4 lightning if it hits, or 17 damage, with an extra 13 damage on a crit. We have a 55% chance to hit, so that's 17x55% plus 13x5%, or 10 damage on average. We then, I guess, just use a bonus action to tell our companion to find some place safe to hide. Then, on turns 3 onward, we use a bonus action to deal 6.5 damage to the Death Knight and I guess save spell slots for healing or something and shoot Fire Bolts, dealing 2d10+4 damage on a hit (15 average) and 11 more on a crit (8.8 average damage).
It's a bit of a mess to figure out precisely what we get "per turn," given how much our actions change, but certainly in those first two turns, we're probably looking at somewhere around 40, which is very respectable.
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