Guide talk:Thrileon's Guide to Double alchemy crafts

I think you don't really need the Cleric levels; Guidance isn't really necessary if you're a Halfling with +13 to Medicine and Advantage. Transmutation Wizard 2 / Any Bard 10 gets you Experimental Alchemy, Expertise in Medicine at Bard 3, Enhance Ability at Bard 3, 2 ASIs at Bard 4 and 8 for +2 Wisdom each. This build almost guarantees a successful check. The only way to fail would be to roll 2 1's with advantage and then roll another 2 1's for the Halfling Luck rerolls.

Level 3 early Act 1 method

This can be improved upon by a lot with a little better optimization.

You can do the exact same chance with using 2 characters one level earlier. Hire Brenna Brightsong at level 9 hireling and a level 1 Cleric/Druid or a level 3 Tomelock for Guidance, or level 3 Bard/ Cleric/ Druid/ Sorcerer for Enhance Ability. Use Wizard 2 (Transmuter) for the ability, Rogue 1 for expertise, Fighter 6 for the 2 ASI to bring up to Wis 20 on the Halfling hireling.

If you want to stack Guidance along with Enhance Ability, you can just use 2 other characters to cast them and/or use one other character & loan/use some of the Magic Items that grant the spell(s). There are items that can be found very early game that help. One allows anyone wearing it to cast Guidance, and another gives the same effect that also stacks with Guidance if you are shapeshifted/disguised (netting +2d4 instead of +1d4).

With those items and one other character to cast Enhance ability you can have roughly a similar chance at level 3: The Halfling Transmuter 2 / Rogue 1, & one level 3 of a class that can cast Enhance Ability (Bard, Cleric, Druid, or Sorcerer). 7 +2d4 with advantage and Halfling Luck at level 3. 99.64% only a 0.11% worse chance than the author’s method, 7 levels earlier.

At level 9 that is virtually a guaranteed success at 99.999375% success, with only 1/160,000 chance of failure. And that is where it caps out at.

TL;DR: Level 3. Use Brenna Brightsong and make her a Wizard (Transmuter) 2/ Rogue 1; have her take Expertise in Medicine proficiency and have her take disguise self as a spell; wear the Shapeshifter’s Boon ring and shapeshift her to anything else; cast Guidance and Enhance Ability using 1 other character and the Silver Pendant or 2 other characters. Profit. 68.96.182.147 20:40, 29 July 2024 (CEST)

Just a suggestion. Most of this duplicates the previous comment.

No need for the halfing racial lucky to reroll. No need for the enhance ability spell for advantage. 100% chance to succeed at level 9.

5 levels wizard as outlined. Medicine skill. All points in wisdom not intelligence. ASI in wisdom.

4 levels of bard. Medicine expertise. ASI in wisdom.

• +5 from wisdom modifier
• +4 from proficiency
• +4 from expertise
• +1+ from guidance (from silver pendent or another character)
• +1+ from shapeshifter boon ring (mask of shapeshifting or disguise self spell to activate)

that's +15-21 to your roll, so even if you roll a 1 your result will be 16 and you pass the check.

This build does a LOT more than just double alchemy, especially if you level wizard 1 more level (for the 6th level transmuter stone).

• This character gives the party an extra short rest. That's huge, especially for fighters, warlocks, monks, moon druids, beastmaster rangers, bards, plus the channel divinity and oath for cleric and paladin and all the other gear and things that recharge on short rest. Plus, all the free healing from the rest itself (let alone short rest recharge on life cleric or ancients paladin).
• This character can use their spell slots to remove curse. Not huge, but it saves you a 3rd level spell slot and those are in high demand.
• This character has spell slots that can be used for healing. Again, not huge, but they're free and available every day, plus arcane recovery to get back even more spell slots. Peraipt of wound closure (or whatever it's called) and even first level cure wounds isn't so bad, plus the other healing items if you want to maximize these with extra heals and temp hit points (10 health and 3 temp hit points guaranteed from a first level spell slot).
• This character has access to a handful of support spells that last the day. Longstrider, darkvision, magic weapon (and more I imagine).
• This character has access to a handful of spells that can be used with abuse of the camp system to provide buffs in fights (things like enlarge, and jump, and a ton of other 10 turn duration spells).
• At character level 10 they would have access to the stone. This can be given to another player each day and it lasts a full day. It's a pretty big buff. Proficiency in constitution saving throws for casters to maintain concentration. An extra 3m of movement. Resistance to several types of damage.
• With two more levels of bard at character level 12 now they have access to secret magic for more options (like the 10 round paladin heal).

This is a lot of stuff going on with a 12th level character. But, you can hit that pretty early into act 3 and still have all of these benefits for the last 20% of the game or so. Technically, I think people have gotten to level 12 in act 2 ... but that's not normal. And the level 9 core of this build is available into act 2. 73.223.60.34 23:24, 21 August 2024 (CEST)