Artificer Subclass: The Reanimator

by Witchfire

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Witchfire's Reanimator
Artificer Subclass

West had soon learned that absolute freshness was the prime requisite for useful specimens, and had accordingly resorted to frightful and unnatural expedients in body-snatching. In college, and during our early practice together in the factory town of Bolton, my attitude toward him had been largely one of fascinated admiration; but as his boldness in methods grew, I began to develop a gnawing fear. I did not like the way he looked at healthy living bodies; and then there came a nightmarish session in the cellar laboratory when I learned that a certain specimen had been a living body when he secu{red it. That was the first time he had ever been able to revive the quality of rational thought in a corpse; and his success, obtained at such a loathsome cost, had completely hardened him.

Herbert West, Reanimator
H.P. Lovecraft

Artificer Specialization

Made for the Artificer published in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything and Eberron: Rising From the Last War

Reanimators are sculptors of flesh with a curiosity for life and death. Artificers who specialize in this craft often believe souls to be a myth as they instead understand biological life to be the result of complex alchemical and physical processes.

Reanimators have the means to replicate life processes through artificial methods. Their masterpiece is their undead experiment - a formidable combination of flesh and magic that serves as testimony to their groundbreaking research. Furthermore, they possess a thorough knowledge of the processes that govern life and death, enabling them to bring life into existence or bring it to an end with ease.

Reanimator Features
Level Feature
3rd Tools of the Trade, Reanimator Spells,
Reanimator's Experiment
5th Alchemical Injectors
9th Engine of Artifice
15th Battlefield Reanimator

Tools of the Trade

3rd level Reanimator feature

The science of life and death is a special form of alchemy. When you adopt this specialization, you gain proficiency with alchemist's supplies. If you already have this proficiency, you gain proficiency with one other type of artisan's tools of your choice.

Reanimator Spells

3rd level Reanimator feature

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.

Reanimator Spells
Artificer Level Spell
3rd cure wounds, inflict wounds
5th gentle repose, ray of enfeeblement
9th lightning bolt, vampiric touch
13th blight, death ward
17th antilife shell, raise dead

Reanimator's Experiment

3rd level Reanimator feature

Your experiments have successfully bridged the gap between life and death, allowing you to imbue a Small or Medium corpse with artificial life, turning it into an undead experiment under your command.

In combat, the undead experiment shares your initiative count, but it takes its turn immediately after yours. It can move and use its reaction on its own, but the only action it takes on its turn is the Dodge action, unless you take a bonus action on your turn to command it to take another action. That action can be one in its stat block or some other action. If you are incapacitated, the undead experiment can take any action of its choice, not just Dodge.

If the undead experiment has died within the last hour, you can use your alchemist's supplies on it as an action to resurrect it, provided you are within 5 feet of it and you expend a spell slot of 1st level or higher. The undead experiment returns to life after 1 minute with all its hit points restored.

During your long rests, you use your alchemical tools to perform experiments on your creation. At the end of the rest, your undead experiment rises again with all of its hit points. Alternatively, you can create a new undead experiment, which requires the body of a humanoid or a beast that has died within the last 10 days. If you already have an undead experiment from this feature, the previous one perishes.

Undead Experiment

Small or Medium undead

  • Armor Class 12 + PB (metal and leather scraps)
  • Hit Points 5 per Artificer level (the experiment has a number of Hit Dice [d8s] equal to your artificer level)
  • Speed 30 ft.
STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
14 (+2) 8 (-1) 16 (+3) 3 (-4) 6 (-2) 5 (-3)
  • Saving Throws Str +2 plus PB, Con +3 plus PB
  • Damage Resistances Necrotic
  • Damage Immunities Lightning, Poison
  • Condition Immunities Exhaustion, Poisoned
  • Senses Darkvision 60ft., passive Perception 8
  • Languages Understands the languages you know but can't speak
  • Proficiency Bonus (PB) equals your proficiency bonus

Infusable Experiment. Instead of infusing an item at the end of a long rest, you can imbue the undead experiment with an infusion that targets either its Malignant Touch weapon or a part of its armor.

It Lives!. Whenever the undead experiment is subjected to lightning damage, it takes no damage and instead regains a number of hit points equal to half the lightning damage dealt.

Artificial Mind. When the undead experiment makes an Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma saving throw, it uses your bonus instead of its own.

Undead Nature. The undead experiment doesn't require air, food, drink or sleep, and it is immune to disease.

Actions (Uses Your Bonus Action)

Malignant Touch. Melee Weapon Attack: your spell attack modifier to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1d8 + PB necrotic damage.

Reactions

Channel Undying Artifice. The undead experiment delivers a spell you cast that has a range of touch, provided the undead experiment is within 120 feet of you.

Alchemical Injectors

5th level Reanimator feature

Over the course of a long rest, you integrate alchemist's supplies into a glove or gauntlet to create a set of wearable alchemical injectors. These injectors function as a spellcasting focus for you and increase the potency of certain spells. Additionally, your undead experiment also gains its own set of injectors.

When you deliver a touch spell using either your or your undead experiment's injectors you gain a bonus to one roll of the spell. The roll must either restore hit points or deal damage, and the bonus equals your Intelligence modifier (minimum of +1).

Engine of Artifice

9th level Reanimator feature

You gain a new way to harness the type of elemental magic that forms artificial life. As a bonus action, or as part of the bonus action you use to command your undead experiment, you cause a surge of crackling energy to strike creatures in a 10-foot radius. The surge originates from either yourself or your undead experiment (you choose which), and is either stimulating or immobilizing.

  • Stimulating Surge. Each creature of your choice in the area gains temporary hit points equal to 1d10 + your proficiency bonus, as well as a 10-foot bonus to its speed until the end of its next turn.

  • Immobilizing Surge. Each creature of your choice in the area must make a Dexterity saving throw. On a failed save, a creature takes lightning damage equal to 1d10 + your proficiency bonus and is unable to take reactions until the start of its next turn.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. You regain all uses after a long rest.

Battlefield Reanimator

15th level Reanimator feature

The same magic that you use to harm other creatures also works to raise them immediately thereafter. As a reaction when you or your undead experiment slays a beast or a humanoid, you immediately raise the creature under your command.

The creature uses the statistics of your undead experiment but has maximum hit points equal your level in this class + your Intelligence modifier. The animating magic keeps the creature alive for 1 hour or until it drops to 0 hit points. It shares your initiative count in combat but takes its turns immediately after yours. On each of your turns, you can use your bonus action to command any or all of your undead experiments.

After you use this feature, you can't do so again until you finish a long rest, unless you expend a spell slot of 1st level or higher to use it again.

Bonus Infusions

Helm of Wakefulness

Item: A hat or helmet (requires attunement)

This headgear uses a weak electrical jolt to keep the wearer awake. While wearing it, the wearer can't fall asleep through magical or non-magical means. To gain the benefits of a long rest, the wearer must instead spend all 8 hours doing light activity, such as tinkering or keeping watch.

Armor of Elixirs

Item: A suit of armor (requires attunement)

This armor is lined with a variety of glowing vials and liquid-filled tubes. It has 4 charges. The wearer can expend the armor's charges in the following ways:

Acid Armor (1 charge). As a reaction when hit by a melee attack, the wearer causes the attacking creature to take 2d6 acid damage, provided they can see the creature.

Vitality Injector (1 charge). The wearer grants itself 2d6 temporary hit points as a bonus action.

The armor regains 1d4 charges daily at dawn. When you reach 10th level in this class, both rolls increase to 4d6.

Your Undead Experiment

The appearance of an undead experiment is primarily dependent upon the amount of decay and the circumstances surrounding the creature's death. An undead experiment is almost always clothed, most often in the outfit it originally died in. You decide the appearance of your undead experiments, which can range from freshly dead to a revolting combination of brass and decay.

Despite their limited intelligence, undead experiments retain remnants of their personality from life, albeit altered by the harsh reanimation process. You can use the following table to determine how death and reanimation have affected an undead experiment. Consider who the undead experiment was in life and your relationship with the creature both before and after it died.

  d6   Undead Trait
1 Awareness. I smell like a rotting corpse and walk with a heavy gait. There is absolutely no question that I am undead.
2 Fleeting Memories. Seeing or interacting with certain objects triggers flashbacks of my past life, though I am unable to understand these feelings.
3 Hunger. If I wasn't being controlled by magic, I'd be looking for a fresh meal right now.
4 Madness. I behave in ways that are erratic and impossible to predict.
5 Primal Fear. Due to the reanimation process, I am mortally terrified of thunder and lightning.
6 Sorrow. I should not be alive. The reanimation process is proof that the gods have abandoned me.
7 Unwavering. I am completely incapable of feeling pain, for better or worse.
8 Vengeance. Now that I've been raised, I seek retribution on those who wronged me in life.

Credits

Author and Designer

This is free to use fan content by Alice Witchfire of Witchfire Brews (@witchfire.brews).

Art Credits

Márton Gyula Kiss — Recruiter (cover)
Trufanov — Undead (experiment)
Pricey9000 — Frankenstein's Triumph (background)

Version 3.2