Manrider Alchemist Class

This is a class that's a bit similar to a wizard, except that their abilities are limited by how many monstrous corpses they can get their hands on.  In my game, there was a lot of competition with the ghoul character (who needed to scavenge monster corpses to heal herself), so monster corpses became something of a commodity, which was cool.

I have a habit of letting everyone make a custom class if they wish, and in this case, the player wanted to play Razzil Darkbrew from DotA, who is basically a little dude who rides on top of a big dude, throwing potions and turning things into gold.  "That's pretty good concept for a character," I said, and then wrote this.

Manrider Alchemist
Requirement: You must be Small.  (Traditionally: halfling, goblin, or grippli.)

Level 1
Save +4 vs Poison, Extractions, Lesser Potions

Level 2 
Loyal Minion

Level 3
Greater Potions

Extractions

You can turn monster corpses into extracts.  Each corpse takes 10 minutes to render, and is destroyed by the process.  This yields a lesser extract of a specific color.  Corpses of monsters that are HD 1 or less have only a 50% chance of yielding an extract.

There are three different colors of extracts, which roughly correspond to the color of the creature's blood.  Animal-based monsters tend to give red extracts; oozes and insects tend to give green extracts; undead monsters tend to give blue extracts.  (Other cases are decided by the DM on a case-by-case basis.)

An extract can be used to make a potion (see below) or as research, to learn a new potion.

A level 1 alchemist begins the game knowing one random extract of each color.

Lesser Potions 

You can make a potion from an extract.  Red extracts can only be used to make red extracts, etc.  You can only make potions that you already know.  It takes 1 hour to make a potion.

Lesser Red Potions (d20)
1 bomb (1d6 in AoE, impact may explode bomb in inventory)
2 grease
3 stink (Con check or -4 to attack)
4 acid
5 lantern oil
6 sunstone (blinds, acts as a bit of sunlight)
7 true strike (+20 to hit on your next attack)
8 frostbomb (1d6, extinguishes nearby fires)
9 liquid spikes (caltrops)
10 enfeeblement juice
11 stupid juice (lose spell)
12 laughing gas
13 darkness
14 false life
15 paralysis
16 strength
17 dexterity
18 critical strike (if your next attack hits, treat it as a crit)
19 rage
20 jump (50' jump)

Lesser Green Potions (d20)
1 mystical glue
2 universal solvent
3 fog
4 blinding dust
5 charm
6 love potion
7 alarm dust (crackles when stepped on)
8 liquid horse
9 liquid oozling
10 mage hand
11 polyjuice
12 sleep
13 reduce person
14 enlarge person
15 see invisibility
16 comprehend languages
17 drunkenness
18 silver transmutation potion (turn 100c into 100s)
19 feather fall
20 float

Lesser Blue Potions (d20)
1 cure light wounds
2 antidote
3 antiplague
4 alchemical silver
5 anti-ectoplasmic elixir (prot against possession + ghosts)
6 lesser restoration
7 anti-death potion (+4 vs death and XP drain)
8 hide from undead
9 mind blank
10 endure elements
11 expeditious juice
12 inflict light wounds
13 bravery (anti-fear)
14 good cheer (anti-negative emotion)
15 darkvision
16 gentle repose
17 XP Potion (50xp to drinker)
18 stasis
19 alchemical iron (cold iron)
20 anti-petrification (also works on paralysis)

Loyal Minion

You can spend a day in town attempting to recruit a brutish minion.  This takes 1 day and costs 100s, at the end of which, you must succeed on a Charisma check.  The minion you hire is similar to other hirelings, except that they are utterly obedient and have +1d8 more HP than they would normally.


If you are riding on your minion's shoulders and would take damage from an attack, you can command your minion to take the blow for you.  This has a 50% success rate (otherwise you minion fails to block the attack).

Greater Potions

Once you gain the ability to make greater potions, you can harvest greater extracts from creatures that are HD 4 or higher.  You need a greater extract to make a greater potion, but they are otherwise identical.

The same rules for extracts apply: they can be used to make a potion or sacrificed to learn a new (random) potion.

Greater Red Potions (d8)
1 grenado (2d6, chance of exploding as bomb potion)
2 faerie fire
3 incendiary cloud (1d6)
4 bigger stink cloud
5 ultimate acid
6 big frostbomb
7 mr. hyde (turn into a bigger, stronger, crueller version of yourself)
8 dispel magic

Greater Green Potions (d8)
1 invisibility
2 webbing (as web)
3 animate object
4 mirror image
5 fusion potion (requires two drinkers)
6 water breathing
7 gold transmutation potion (turn 100s into 100g)
8 splitting potion (can turn an owlbear into an owl and a bear)

Greater Blue Potions (d8)
1 protection from fire
2 protection from cold
3 escape (freedom of movement 1 round)
4 cure moderate (2d6+2)
5 inflict moderate (2d6+2)
6 restoration
7 shared blood (allows two people to pool their HP as one)
8 greater XP potion (200xp)