Now, I know the answer to this question. But I want to make sure I'm not insane.
I have a friend, who typically plays a mysterious stranger character. Everytime. Anyhow, he loves alchemist fire. Insanely. In a recent game, we were fighting the big nasty bad guy thing. Anyhow, to the point. He apparently has bottles of alchemist fire. Meaning, that they have four flasks of alchemist fire in each bottle. Then, the ties five bottles together, and throws the bloody thing. This results in over a massive amount of damage dealt. I think he did over a hundred, which tells me that there are more than four flasks in each bottle.
Please.. Is this a horrible, nasty idea that doesn't or shouldn't work?
It's a clever idea, and I had a short-lived epic druid back in 3.0 who kept about three dozen shocker lizards as his animal companions in an over-sized bag of holding complete with easy-use Murlynd's spoons and bottles of air for similar nova-like shock value (har har, right?). Needless to say, that's all fine and dandy for epic level.
For your question I would first point out that lobbing twenty vials of alchemist fire at once equates to 400 gp per lob. Considering that paying a mage to cast a 10th level fireball (10d6 compared to his 20d6 plus cathcing on fire) costs 300 gp, price-wise it only raises a small red flag. Yes, they're unequal and weighted towards Cap'n Greek Fire, but the mysterious stranger also has to carry, heft, and throw the contraption.
Speaking of weight, we're looking at 20 pounds of alchemist fire (including basic vials). Add to that the five bottles he uses. To calculate the weight of the bottles, I'm assuming each of these alchemist fires contains about one pint of concoction. Up that volume-wise to about 1.5 pints once you take into account the flask takes up space as well. Each proposed bottle contains 4 of these (6 pints, roughly), which comes to 3 quarts. Considering the flasks won’t fit perfectly within a typically bottle, I think the clay jug found in the standard equipment would fit the bill pretty nicely. Each of these weighs 9 pounds, not counting the rope used to bind them together (probably negligible for our purposes).
Our contraption now weighs 65 pounds (20 pounds for alchemist fire, 45 for the bottles). Take into consideration that now mysterious stranger not only has to buy all of that alchemist fire – and he sounds like the fun-loving guy that doesn’t mind shelling out some gold for an explosively hilarious attack – but he also has to be able to throw it. At this point it is no longer a standard grenade; the Throw Anything feat enters the picture as mandatory, and the range increment is likely to be house-ruled down to 5’. Despite the huge amount of charge packed in the contraption, Mysterious Stranger still needs to make a successful touch attack to deal full damage, otherwise he only applies splash damage to the target(s). Unless MS is strong, accurate, and has this thing readied, he may end have no choice but to totter up to his enemy and drop it violently at his feet. Admittedly pushing it off a cliff is still an option, but I don’t want to steal this guy’s thunder by calling his hand.
In my experience in throwing pots, I can imagine a serviceable, volume specific yet slightly more fragile (important as I mention below) form that would weight only 6 pounds. This would require the mysterious stranger to either have some Craft (Pottery) ranks or a buddy who can manufacture these specialized forms. Even so, it would only cut the weight down to 50 pounds. I can see it now: “As the wind whispered a mournful dirge, the shadows parted but briefly to admit a cloaked stranger. He bore down on the artisan, who in turn shivered with growing dread as to why he had been singled out for attention by this almost faceless wanderer. ‘Here,’ the stranger rasped as he handed over a set of blueprints. ‘I need you to make me ten of these before the sun next rises. You will be paid well for your services…’” I can’t tell if that adds or detracts from his enigmatic intrigue.
It is also possible that this mysterious stranger has enough alchemical training that he can transfer existing flasks’ contents into the bottles, saving some space and weight. If this is the case, then the estimate could be cut down as much as another 5 pounds (assuming that 25% of the alchemist fire item’s weight is in the container itself) – a total of 45 pounds.
An additional concern is that with so many layers of ceramic/glass, the contraption might not break completely or evenly. The bottles might break only to scatter alchemist fire flasks at the feet of the enemy. The side that hits the concrete might break, but the top might survive. The contraption might be thrown at a target that would normally provide enough of a hard surface to break an alchemist fire flask but not a whole volley of them (think of trying to break the contraption successfully against an unarmored goblin in a pasture of soft earth after a rainstorm). As a fun little aside, also expect that this contraption would be extremely bulk, nearly impossible to hide under normal circumstances, and too wide in any dimension to fit into a standard bag of holding. The mysterious stranger also runs the risk of failing a saving throw at the wrong time, leading to a catastrophic conflagration of cosmically cataclysmic proportions. With the wrong (or right) DM, carrying around that much alchemist fire is an invitation for misfires and explosive accidents.
As one who both DMs and plays characters that share some “check this out” flair with Mysterious Stranger, I think that he should enjoy the one fantastically crazy attack he managed once, take into account some more of the logistics or packing such an attack, and then save the big fireworks for only rare instances in which it’s too good to miss. Anything else is just stealing spotlight from the others in the group while imposing some serious believability strain on everyone else – or causing everyone else in the room to constantly shiver in fear of him getting knocked prone, shattering his contraption, and setting the plot-important building on fire.
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Yeah, that's not right at all. The rules don't really specify it but I think there is a theoretical maximum amount of damage that natural fire can do.
Look at the Environmental Rules:
Catching on Fire 1d6/rnd.
Exposure to Lava 2d6/rnd.
Total immersion in Lava 20d6/rnd.
I would treat this in one of two ways:
1) Maximum of 2d6 damage, and 2d6 the following round. Alchemist fire shouldn't be worse than exposure to lava.
2) 1d6 damage per round no matter how many flasks, fire last for an additional round for every flask used. The DC to extinguish the fire increases by 1 for every additional flask used. So if you used 4 flasks and achieved a direct hit, the target suffers 1d6 fire damage that round and possibly the next 4 rounds, Extinguishing the flames is a DC 18 reflex save (15+3) (EDIT: I miss calculated the DC as 19 instead of 18)
In any case, penalties to using a heavy cobbled weapon of that sort should be taken into account.
Also, I would think splash damage might increase too but shouldn't be just 1 point per flask, should be something like 1dx where x is the number of flasks and max out at 1d6.
Try hitting that character with a Shatter spell and his little tactic will backfire. He wont be employing this tactic again in a hurry.
Alternatively, treat any fall damage as a chance to break said bottles of alchemists fire, but that of course is a houserule.
That being said...I used "Shatter" on a character who emloyed a very similar tactic and he died a fiery, twitching death...
He learned that carrying around explosive flammable liquids akin to napalm is NOT a good idea when the containers said substance is put in is easily broken. (Sticking the stuff in a metal flask for instance isnt going to 'break open' the same and produce the same results, so they are kind of buggered either way.)