u/snikler

Many people have argued that the push mastery by making two enemies occupy the same space can make them prone at the end of your turn. Here I'd like to argue that rules as written (RAW) most probably does not support it and that rules as intended (RAI) obviously does not support it.

RAW. The interpretation that push mastery can make two enemies prone comes from this text:

"Moving around Other Creatures

During your move, you can pass through the space of an ally, a creature that has the Incapacitated condition (see the rules glossary), a Tiny creature, or a creature that is two sizes larger or smaller than you.

Another creature’s space is Difficult Terrain for you unless that creature is Tiny or your ally.

You can’t willingly end a move in a space occupied by another creature. If you somehow end a turn in a space with another creature, you have the Prone condition (see the rules glossary) unless you are Tiny or are of a larger size than the other creature."

The proposed interpretation: if you move a creature to an occupied space, both will become prone at the end of the turn.

Observe that the whole section is written with you in mind. It's about your own movement. In no moment forced movement is mentioned or what happens to other creatures when you move them. Designers probably didn't consider that in this text.

So, what happens to creatures when they are moved against another creature: the only RAW information is that we do not know. I couldn't find any text that says that they can occupy the same square on a grid or that alternatively they stay on the next square.

However, multiple abilities in the game, including high level spells like etherealness and blink move you to the next square when you return to the same square of someone else. So, why would a first level mastery force two creatures to stay in the same space?

RAI: there is a very strong mastery that requires a save to make people prone. Its name is topple. Why would the designers bother to make such a strong mastery when another one moves enemies and can make two or three enemies prone at the same time? Of course, size restriction and positioning would matter more, but the ceiling of a level 1 mastery would be disproportional. This sounds like people trying to kill BBEGs at tier 3 suffocating them with the Shape Water cantrip. Don't be this person.

Conslusion:

There is no RAW support for the interpretation that push mastery causes enemies to be prone and RAI is clear when one considers the mastery system as a whole.

Edit: for clarity, as this has been asked multiple times . "You" here means any willingly moving creature, the active voice of the sentence. It can be a PC or a NPC. The point is that this section would not have the receivers of an action in mind, in other words, those suffering from forced movement.

Based on some reactions I've seen so far about the newly dropped feat, Shifting Combatant, there has been more discussion about the confusion over whether Push mastery could already knock enemies prone than about the effectiveness or power of the feat itself.

Shifting Combatant gives you two abilities. One allows you to potentially knock two enemies prone at the same time while moving one of them. Bonus points if you move a large creature and bowl over two enemies. The second ability makes enemies attack you with disadvantage if you make a long jump and land within 5 feet of at least two enemies.

What this feat does in practice is give martials a small area control tool, something they mostly lack, that keeps enemies from moving effectively. On top of that, it also protects you. So it protects both your party and yourself, exactly what a tank needs.

While having to end up close to at least two enemies is a fairly demanding requirement for the second feature, you should already be using Push tactics and repositioning enemies whenever possible. Altogether, this makes combat highly tactical, forcing players to think carefully about movement and positioning, which is a lot of fun for players who enjoy more dynamic combat. It's not for everyone but I believe many will love having this option.

A couple of features of 5e inquisitive rogue ended up in the feats section of Villanous Options Update

Inquisitive's Steady Eye

At 9th level, you gain advantage on any Wisdom (Perception) or Intelligence (Investigation) check if you move no more than half your speed on the same turn.

UA - feat - Trapper - swift tracker

You don’t have Disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception or Survival) checks while traveling at a Fast pace, and you have Advantage on such checks while traveling at a Normal pace.

UA feat - Trapper - Eye for Detail. (Same name of another inquisitive rogue feature)

You have Advantage on any Intelligence (Investigation) check you make as part of the Study action.

Inquisitive's Unnering eye

At 13th level, your senses are almost impossible to foil. As an action, you sense the presence of illusions, shapechangers not in their original form, and other magic designed to deceive the senses within 30 feet of you, provided you aren't blinded or deafened. You sense that an effect is attempting to trick you, but you gain no insight into what is hidden or into its true nature.

UA - Boon of unwavering devotion - see through illusions

Visual illusions appear transparent to you, and you automatically succeed on saving throws against them.

This makes me think that Inquisitive rogue will either never be reprinted or, if it is, it will be completely overhauled.

Hi there, in this text I'd like to argue that the designers have some sort of golden rule for approaching the offensive capabilities of classes when taking damage-over-time emanation spells into account.

The rule is simple: if you receive an emanation effect that causes damage over time, such as Spirit Guardians or Conjure Woodland Beings, you do not receive Extra Attack. If you do, there needs to be some form of mitigation.

Below I discuss some cases.

Circle of the Moon Druid and Circle of the Titan (UA)

A common complaint about the Moon Druid is that its chance to hit is low and that the fantasy of playing an unstoppable beast is not really there. During the development of 5.5e, the designers tested Wild Shape stat blocks, but they ultimately decided not to use them.

I've played a short tier 2 and tier 3 campaign with a Moon Druid in the party and, although the data are limited, the Druid was the highest total damage dealer in the campaign, even with a Great Weapon Master Paladin present. The reason was clear, the Moon Druid would cast a spell like Conjure Woodland Beings, turn into a beast, and then it did not matter much what it did with its action. Around 80% of its damage per round came from damage over time spells. Therefore, if this Druid were also capable of delivering substantial damage with its attacks, its damage output would be off the charts.

One possible solution would be to completely prevent Druids from concentrating on spells while in Wild Shape, or at least from concentrating on non-Moon Druid spells, in a quasi-Barbarian fashion. This could be quite fun for many players, but in long campaigns it would effectively doom the character to being a full caster who barely casts. Therefore, if I put myself in the designers' shoes, I can see why they chose an option that balances damage output with what most players would probably find fun: a combination of full caster and melee combatant.

War Cleric

Coby from D4 Deep Dive often repeats that giving Extra Attack to the War Cleric was such a no-brainer decision. Well, I think it was anything but a no-brainer. It was most likely a deliberate design choice intended to control the subclass's damage output.

If the War Cleric had Extra Attack, it would be easy to combine it not only with Spirit Guardians and later Conjure Celestial, but also with a bonus action available for offensive and defensive features. Whether people like that design or not, I believe this was a conscious decision by the designers.

Bladesingers and Dance Bards vs Sorcerers and Clerics

Wizards and Bards have subclasses with access to Extra Attack, while Sorcerers and Clerics do not. As discussed above, I suspect the designers will probably never create a Cleric subclass with Extra Attack. Among the arcane full casters, however, two classes received Extra Attack subclasses while one did not. Bards are notorious for their lack of offensive spells until the feature Magical Secrets becomes available. Wizards don't have access to the strongest emmanation spells and have limited manners to improve its action economy.

When the designers finally created an emanation spell for arcane mages, Cacophonic Shield, they made it dramatically weaker than comparable options, probably to preserve the balance principles discussed here. Sorcerers, meanwhile, did not receive a subclass with Extra Attack. While that might happen one day, I believe the designers view Quicken Spell as the Sorcerer's equivalent of Extra Attack because of the action economy benefits it provides. 

Ranger

This is a trickier case, but if the principle outlined above is correct, it may provide an important clue as to why Rangers receive relatively few offensive features in tiers 3 and 4. The designers may view Conjure Animals and Conjure Woodland Beings as those features.

In a recent one-shot, my level 13 Hollow Warden, built primarily as a highly defensive tank, was the top damage dealer in two out of three combats. The reason was the combinarion of the two aforementioned spells with a not great but decent damage output from my Attack actions.

Final considerations

I am not arguing that any of the decisions above are necessarily correct or well balanced. However, there appears to be a meaningful design intent behind many major class and subclass decisions.

The underlying principle seems to be that damage over time spells must be balanced against other offensive capabilities available to classes and subclasses. As a result, features such as Extra Attack and Quicken Spell become very significant factors in the designers' power budget calculations.

In this article, I discuss a niche that I believe the Alchemist Artificer can excel at: the cockroach build. A cockroach build is simple to define: when everybody else would die, you survive. No matter what.

As a support character, healing allies after they have been reduced to 0 hit points (HP) is an extremely important tactic for preventing a total party kill (TPK). For this reason, spells like Healing Word are very effective in DnD combat. In many parties, player characters (PCs) with access to this and similar spells are often focus-fired by monsters that understand their importance to the party's survivability.

In one of our campaigns, this is exactly the case. Of all the death saving throws made by our six-member party, more than half were made by the cleric (20.5%) and bard (34.2%), two essential pieces of the party's survival. These two PCs carry strong defensive magic items such as an Amulet of Health, Staff of Healing, magical shield and armor. The DM knows what he is doing. In a large party like ours, keeping support characters free to act means an easy time for the party.

I am not implying that these classes or builds are defensively weak. What I would like to introduce is that the Alchemist Artificer has multiple tools that fill gaps seen in these two strong support classes, making it a genuinely strong choice for a cockroach build.

**Tiers of play - from solid AC to protecting your saving throws**

Survivability is not the same at level 2 and level 17.

High Armor Class (AC) is a very strong defensive layer early in the game, when monsters typically have only a +2 to +6 bonus to hit. An AC of 23, reached for example with the Shield spell, covers most attacks. Combine this with good positioning and the right spells, and you have very solid survivability.

Over time, however, enemy attack bonuses grow faster than PC AC. In addition, more and more effects apply automatically: areas of effect, retributive damage, conditions attached to attacks, and other effects that target saving throws instead of AC. If built for it, Artificers maintain solid AC throughout their level progression, but especially in the early levels.

Alchemists have access to Experimental Elixirs, including Boldness, a Bless-like effect that improves your attacks and saving throws using only a bonus action. Combine this with an actual Bless spell from an ally, or from yourself through the Magic Initiate feat or Fey Touched, and you can reach a surprising +2d4 to all saving throws. Solid.

That is not everything. At level 7, you gain Flash of Genius, adding +3 to +5 to a saving throw or ability check. You will effectively be adding around +10 to many saving throws each day, approaching the power level of fighter's Indomitable multiple times per day. In another campaign, my Alchemist Artificer has been strongly targeted by monsters. Although the data are much more limited (400+ vs 40 rounds of combat), my artificer Alchemist has a much higher success rate in saving throws in comparison to the aforementioned bard and cleric. 

The Artificer package also gives you Constitution saving throw proficiency and access to the Mind Sharpener infusion. Artificer is in my opinion the best class in the game at protecting concentration.

**Things don't always go your way**

Eventually, however, your defensive layers will be penetrated. Automatic conditions can often be covered by multiple casts of Lesser Restoration. Although I still haven't used all my casts of lesser restoration in a single day, I would have ran out of spells slots in some heavy encounter days had I not have these free casts.

Next, at level 13, when you are finally reduced to 0 HP, you should have Death Ward cast on yourself. Not on your tank. Not on your wizard. On you. If you stay standing, your party survives. 

One of your weaknesses is dexterity saving throws, where even on a success you often still take damage. However, if you have access to Absorb Elements, you may consider preparing it. However, if you do not use legacy material, there is no reason not to craft potions of damage resistance. I have calculated how many rare potions you can prepare during a year of downtime (see ,https://www.reddit.com/r/onednd/comments/1rfei0i/the\_endgame\_alchemist\_build\_can\_be\_one\_of\_the/) but there is no reason not to prepare even more uncommon ones, which takes much less time (2.5 days and 100 gp per potion). You should have at least one potion of each damage resistance in your pocket. For example, if you know you are going to Venomfang's lair, you should give poison resistance to yourself and maybe the entire party. 

By not relying on Absorb Elements, you also avoid needing an artificer's tool in hand for reaction spells. As a result, you can more frequently keep a hand free for the Shield spell, while holding a shield, if you decide not to have the Warcaster feat.

**Spell-storing item

Had Artificers received a different powerful level 11 feature, much of the criticism directed at the Alchemist would probably not exist. Critical opinions are not entirely wrong, given that this subclass interacts somewhat worse with the Spell-Storing Item feature than others. Still, it is not as if you lack tools. With 10 casts of Dispel Magic, you can neutralize an enormous number of encounters, debuffs, traps, enemy buffs, and magical effects. You can simply try to dispel anything with a magical aura in a dungeon.

But what about 10 casts of a 1st-level Cure Wounds? It is not amazing. It is not flashy. But it is still roughly 140 HP in a stick. If that item is in the hands of a homunculus servant, it effectively becomes action-economy-free healing.

For example, imagine you are level 13 and sitting at 1 HP after surviving through Death Ward. Cast a 4th-level cure wounds on yourself, drink an elixir, and have your homunculus use one charge of Cure Wounds on you. Suddenly you are back to almost 80 HP. Not too shabby.

Of course, you could use your action to attack or cast Otiluke's Resilient Sphere on a key target, and still recover something like 30 HP through healing.

Many options exist, and that flexibility is part of the fun.

Yet, I keep getting suprised with the artificer's defensive toolkit. In one of our recent game sessions, my alchemist was the only visible PC to a Blob of Annihilation. I rolled extremely poorly on a couple of Dexterity saving throws. What saved me was casting Blink and disappearing from the battlefield. 

However, things may go even worse. Eventually, your DM gets tired of you and hits one of your allies with Power Word Kill (we just faced a famous monster that can do it). You have access to Revivify and Raise Dead.

A cockroach build is not just about staying alive. It is about remaining functional when everything goes wrong. If you are still standing, there is still a path back for the party.

**What I am playing**

Level 13 Human Alchemist Artificer with:

Magic Initiate (Cleric) for bless

Magic Initiate (Wizard) for shield

War Caster (I actually took it because of the rules for cast ing spells with a free-hand. If we didn't use them, I'd have taken Keen Mind or Fey Touched)

Ability Score Improvement (+2 Intelligence)

Resilient (Wisdom)

There are many ways to build this concept. Other species such as Orcs, Gnomes, Kalashtar, and Dwarves are also very strong defensively. Keen Mind is a particularly fun feat for always knowing which resistance potion to prepare and take.

**Pros and Cons**

Pros

As mentioned, you are extremely durable.

Your action economy is very full. Between drinking potions and elixirs, casting spells, activating magic items, and commanding your homunculus, you always have interesting choices to make.

You are also very fun outside combat thanks to skills, crafting, and utility spells.

Cons

You are rarely the protagonist. If you want to slay the dragon with a Holy Avenger or impress your friends with Simulacrum, this is probably not the build for you. Yet, my alchemist delivered the killing blow against the Blob, with only the artificer and the Moon Druid not engulfed and fighting normally.

By focusing heavily on defense, you will not be exceptional at dealing damage.

That said, my homunculus carries a Wand of Magic Missiles, and I can access Elemental Gems. I can absolutely contribute meaningfully to damage when I am not busy saving my allies' lives.

Epilogue

That's it. This was the third in a short series of articles about the Artificer.

You can find another article on how the designers succeeded in creating a caster-first half-caster class, as well as one on a gimmicky late-game build:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/1q97vgr/hits\_and\_misses\_in\_the\_design\_of\_the\_artificer\_as/

https://www.reddit.com/r/onednd/comments/1rfei0i/the\_endgame\_alchemist\_build\_can\_be\_one\_of\_the/

I am trying to make these articles beginner-friendly, so please let me know if anything is difficult to follow or if I left any acronym unexplained.

Cheers!

I started testing DnD Beyond Maps to better understand its potentialities and tried to find the Otherwordly Steed (Find Steed) statblock among monsters. I didn’t find it, so I realized it should probably be under Extras, among mounts, pets, or companions. I didn’t find it there either.

Then I opened my paladin’s character sheet, which was already on the Extras tab, showing the image of a paladin sitting on a nightmare-like mount. So you’re telling me, DnD Beyond, that you knew you should include the steed but then just said, “Nah, let’s troll the players who want both a paladin aura and a mount, you can't have them all”.

So, if anyone knows how to add these statblocks, in case I missed something, let me know.

Edit: if it's not clear, this post is not to mock DnD Beyond, it's just about how funny it's to have as background image exactly what you are looking for and it's not available. I am using another Mount as a workaround in the meantime.