| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
In honor of my wonderful obsession with natural attacks, I decided to go ahead and post my build for making an incredible Mr. Hyde Alchemist. The entire point of this setup is to take advantage of the incredible amount of accuracy that primary natural attacks provide, as well showing everyone how to properly balance out a great melee-based alchemist.
Now, to start things off, I would first like to point out what type of archetypes I recommend when using this build. In my personal opinion, the Vivisectionist and Internal Alchemist archetypes are probably the best way to go, though I understand why some of you might be attracted to the Beastmorph archetype.
The truth is though, aside from gaining pounce, the beastmorph archetype really doesn't provide you with any other spectacular benefits (at least in my opinion). Oh sure, you can gain a lot of neat benefits when you drink your mutagen, like flying and such, but there are a lot of other easy ways of obtaining those same abilities. All in all, I really do think the beastmorph archetype is HIGHLY overrated, but that doesn't mean you can't use it if you don't want to.
Anyways, now that we have established the type of archetypes we're using, lets try and figure out what type of race we should select. Now again, there are a lot of good options for the alchemist, but in my humble opinion, I seriously would encourage one of the following races...
Human (I would recommend selecting the 'dual talent' racial trait)
Elf
Tiefling
Hobgoblin
Each of the above races are very well suited for becoming powerful melee-based alchemists. However, I personally find myself favoring the Hobgoblin more than any of the others, and my reason for this is very simple: a hobgoblin alchemist can pretty much fill all the roles of a rogue. Because goblinoids gain 'stealth' as a class skill, and because a hobgoblin gets an incredible +4 to stealth, I find that the hobgoblin alchemist makes a great substitute for the 'skill monkey' of the party.
Furthermore, the hobgoblin provides a nice boost in stats without ever penalizing any of your ability scores. All in all, I'd say it is an incredible choice for an alchemist, and the added benefit of speaking goblin and having darkvision is just the icing on the cake. Of course, I won't deny that a human with 'dual talent' could probably have better stats, but I still think a hobgoblin is a better choice.
Once we have selected our race, its time to go ahead and get our stats out of the way. Again, assuming we have a 15 point buy in (and that we have selected hobgoblin as our race) our stats should probably look something like this...
STR 16 DEX 14 CON 14 INT 14 WIS 10 CHA 7
These are pretty solid stats given our race and class, with a nice good mixture of offensive and defensive capabilities. Charisma is obviously useless to us, so there isn't any real reason to try and maintain it.
From here, its time to start selecting our feats, traits, discoveries, and magic items. My recommendations for all of them are as follows...
Feats
1. Toughness
3. Power Attack
5. Extra Discovery: Infusion
7. Extra Discovery: Healing Touch
9. Extra Discovery: Preserve Organs
11. Extra Discovery: Vestigial Arms
13. Extra Discovery: Vestigial Arms
15. Extra Discovery: Extend Potion
17. Extra Discovery: Eternal Potion
19. Combat Reflexes
Traits
Reactionary
Indomitable Faith
Discoveries
2. Feral Mutagen
4. Spontaneous Healing
6. Wings
8. Combine Extracts
10. Mummification
12. Greater Mutagen
14. Tentacle
16. Grand Mutagen
18. Improved Initiative
20. True Mutagen/Preserve Organs/Preserve Organs
Useful Magic Items
Cloak of Resistance
Helm of the Mammoth Lord
Amulet of Mighty Fists
Vest of Stable Mutation
Belt of Physical Perfection
Demon Talons (x2)
Headband of Vast Intellect
Ring of Evasion
Alright, before we continue, I imagine that I probably need to do a little bit of explaining, particularly in regards to using the vestigial arms and tentacle discovery.
There has been an ongoing debate about whether or not a player can actually use these 'additional limbs' to make natural attacks or not. Now, from what I have gathered (and debated about) in many other threads is the following: both the tentacle discovery and vestigial arms can be used in place of attacks you could normally make. In other words, if you have a BAB of +11, you are allowed to make 3 attacks. Therefore, in order to use 2 vestigial arms and the tentacle discovery, you must have the required BAB in order to make an attack with all 3 of them.
Anyway, the only reason I bring this up is because I'll need to explain how my alchemist is able to end up with 6 primary natural attacks and 1 secondary natural attack.
For starters, the Feral Mutagen discovery grants the alchemist 3 primary natural attacks (2 claws and 1 bite). However, if you take the vestigial arm discoveries, you can also use 'demon talons' to basically 'cut off' your vestigial arms and replace them with 'claw attacks' as well (if your GM won't allow demon talons, just go ahead and use Talons of Leng instead...although I will warn you that the talons of leng are much worse and more expensive when compared to buying 2 demon talons).
When you add in the secondary natural attack provided by the tentacle discovery along with the 'gore attack' gained from Helm of the Mammoth Lord, you now have a grand total of 7 natural attacks (in other words, you basically have more attacks than an alchemist who uses two-weapon fighting AND you hit more accurately than most other players because you are mostly using primary natural attacks).
Of course, when you add in your ability to deliver sneak attacks, along with the versatility of your extracts and discoveries, you can basically take on the role of the 'melee-meat shield' as well. Speaking of extracts, allow me to show you all a list of recommended formulas...
Level 1
Cure Light Wounds/Enlarge Person/Shield/Identify/Blend/Disguise Self
Level 2
Ablative Barrier/Invisibility/Barkskin/Lesser Restoration/Alchemical Allocation
Level 3
Thorn Body/Haste/Displacement/Heroism
Level 4
Fluid Form/Greater False Life/Freedom of Movement/Echolocation
Level 5
Delayed Consumption/Overland Flight
Level 6
Statue/Twin Form/Giant Form I/Heal
The main reason I like this build so much is because not only are you able to act as a serious threat in combat, but you can also support your party and fill many essential roles as well. Disabling traps, buffing the party, acting as the scout, and being able to absorb an absurd amount of punishment while still dishing out very reliable and powerful damage is extremely appealing on so many levels.
Anyways, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to make a post and I'll try to address them whenever I can. Thanks again :P