Alchemist's Firethrower (Patreon)

Wondrous item, rare

This handheld metal device weighs 8 pounds and measures about 2 feet long and 6 inches across at its widest point. Parts of it resemble a crossbow, such as its stock and trigger, but is otherwise unique in its design. It has a pair of gaps in its wooden stock which can hold two flasks of alchemist's fire, fitting the flasks' mouths into a hole in the bottom of the space. Upending a flask into one of the gaps in this way allows its contents to run through a hidden pipeline within the stock and into the rest of the machine, causing a glass-covered chamber on the top of the device to fill with bubbling liquid. When filled in this way, the two vertical slots at the front of the machine give off a warm and foreboding glow.

This item is a unique ranged weapon with the two-handed property. If you are proficient with light or heavy crossbows, you are proficient with the alchemist's firethrower.

The device can hold a maximum of 100 charges, and gains 50 charges for each bottle of alchemist's fire that's loaded into its stock. You can use an action to load a new flask into the stock, discarding the previous one as part of the same action. While a flask of alchemist's fire is typically thrown, this device converts and concentrates a tiny portion of the sticky solution into a superheated discus that flies from the weapon instead, allowing the normally single-use flasks to power the machine for many attacks instead.

The device loses 1 charge each time you use it to make a ranged weapon attack, which has a normal range of 30 feet and a long range of 90 feet. On a hit, a target takes fire damage equal to 1d6 plus your Dexterity modifier. For each attack that hits, the target also takes 1d6 fire damage at the end of its next turn as the alchemist's fire smolders and evaporates from its body.

Alternatively, while holding the machine, you can use an action to expend 10 of its charges to magically release a belching stream of concentrated alchemist's fire from it in a 30-foot line that is 5 feet wide. Each creature in the line must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity saving throw or take 8d6 fire damage. Once this property has been used, it can't be used again until the next dawn.

"I can bring you in warm, or I can bring you in burnt to a crisp."