One should be very careful not to allow "how can I keep the game challenging for this powerful PC" change to "this PC is really powerful; how can I totally hose him?" Otherwise, you're likely to have players think you're picking on them.
One should be very careful not to allow "how can I keep the game challenging for this powerful PC" change to "this PC is really powerful; how can I totally hose him?" Otherwise, you're likely to have players think you're picking on them.
...the best way to make sure that you don't frustrate a player of a PC by picking on him, is to put their names into a hat, pull them out... and pick on each one in the order you have pulled them out... but always leave them a door open so they can 'circumvent' the picking by acting clever. ;)
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Anyway, I decided that I will (house-)rule that it is okey to sunder bombs and extracts (or steal them) - until a dev says otherwise.
What finally made my decision is, on one hand, the fact that an alchemist is a very flexible prepared spellcaster. He can learn all formulae, can mix up new extracts quickly between encounter, casts effectively every spell silent and is not subject to arcane spell failure... so I think a little drawback for being such a allrounder isn't bad idea.
( The thought of an alchemist in medium armor and with a shield sounds like it could be the perfect nightmare fuel for a GM...)
The second reason is that, after I sat down and simulated how a fight work out, if some enemies try to sunder the bombs/extracts, I noticed that the number of bombs/extracts the alchemist looses ranges (per fight) between "fairly low" and "probably slightly annoying if there will be two or more other battles on the same day.". So yeah, it isn't that powerful at all... like I predicted.
I suppose it depends on how you look at it. A fighter with a masterwork backup for his +2 sword who gets his sword sundered isn't as gimped in combat as a wizard who gets his spell component pouch sundered. On the other hand, the fighter is out 8,000 gp while the wizard is only out 5 gp.
Not exactly, just walk into the magicshop or temple of your deity of honor, pay a fee of 150 GP and get your weapon (at least partly) restored by a "Make Whole" spell.
Seriously, why do people never think of that option?
A Make Whole might repair the vials but not the content in it. I think if you want to destroy an Alchemist, potions, vial etc just do some sort of Sonic attack or spell that shatters every single one of them at the same time.
If those vials are stored in the extradimensional pockets of something like an Endless Bandolier, then I don't know that a sonic attack would even affect them, would it?
Make whole is an option to repair a fighters sword, avoiding putting him out 8,000gp.
Personally, since the Alchemy Crafting Kit is like an alchemists Spell Component Pouch why can you even target any vials anyway? Aren't they all in the Alchemy Crafting Kit just like components are all in the Spell Component Pouch?
Sunder the Alc Kit. Sure, go for it. He should have a backup or two just like the wizard with his Spell Comp Pouch. Might have to dig it out of his bag of holding even. But to destroy each individual vial? That like asking to sunder the wizards butter he pulls out for a grease spell.
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As someone who regularly plays an alchemist I'd love to give the GM more ways to mess with my setup.
No seriously.
I'm not exactly sure what kind of game alot of the naysayers are playing, but I for one don't see Pathfinder as a hoarding game where you can't touch the stuff I've 'earned' through murder and mayhem and must either present bigger dangers or smaller rewards to temper my onslaught.
As long as nobody is trying to gimp you 'forever' I don't mind.
Having your stuff stolen, rendered useless or having yourself be crippled in some way is great RP fuel as your character needs to deal with a situation he's not equipped for.
Hell...as a GM I go way WAY further than the innocent suggestion of sundering reagents and I've had materials tampered with so they produce wild or inaccurate effects, weapons replaced with cursed versions of them, players killed and replaced by shapeshifters, arms and legs chopped off, eyes gouged out and so on and so on.
Its not something thats appropriate for a universal rule, but to fly off the hinges because someone asks about ways to mess with a class is just silly.
The assumption that interfering with a player is always malicious is just offensive. As an example I recently asked my Oracle player if she was particularly attached to her Oracle Curse. Answering in the negative I engineered her to go blind and switched her curse to the clouded sight after a failed Remove Blindness spell backfired. It fits the story perfectly, it fits the character arc, it just fits. The reason I don't even post about this here is because, just like in this thread, I'd most likely attract "OH YOU CANT JUST CHANGE CLASS FEATURES!" or "OMG SPELLS CANT FAIL!" or whatever...
This isn't the only thread I've noticed this in, but seriously...get a grip.
*goes back into Lurk Mode*
@Karse
My previous comment referred to the broken, magic sword of a warrior.
When the campaign takes place in Golarion (or any other world where adventurers with magic swords are "not that unusual") it is safe to assume that every temple with enough staff as well as nearly every mage, who set up a shop, knows this spell and can at least prepare it within a day. So yes, your sword is not gone, just get the pieces to the next city. Of course at the end of the world that might be not that easy.
Also:
I wouldn't allow any spell or action that shatters all vials of an alchemist at once, that goes way to far in my opinion. If at all, it should only be allowed if the player is doing something so AWESOME to an enemy-NPC, that it would be a crime not to let him at least roll on it. Or... the other way around, if the enemy-NPC has a really big healthbar over his head, with the letters "BOSS" in the middle.
Repairing a vial dosen`t make sense either: To pick up the pieces of a bomb-vial, which was shattered by an explosion and then use mending on it, is ... well impossible, or at least takes a long, long time.
By the way, if you really want to get pedantic, you can assume that each time an alchemist throws a bomb he also throws away one vial. Which would put the price for one bomb at 1 GP... I usually tell the players to write off a some GP (varies from class to class) when they enter a city and restock, after that I just assume that they have enough _normal_ bolts, arrows, bullets, vials or ammunition for the coming adventure.
@Tarantula
Player: "I take a ready action. Standard if he tries something funny or want`s to cast a spell!"
GM: "The mage raises his hands to an arcane gesture and pulls out a small cube of butter from beneath his robe."
Player: "I try to hit the cube with my club!" *rolls CMB*
GM: "You smear the butter all over his fingers, part of it lands on the floor, his spell fizzles because he hasn't got enough butter anymore - also, he receives now a -2 on grappling attempts with that hand."
As you see: It is totally legit to sunder butter. *prints that sentence and puts it into a frame*
The wizard as a free action pulls out another piece of butter...
The wizard as a free action pulls out another piece of butter...
The spell fizzles. The wizard looks frustrated and says, "I can't believe that's not butter!"
Touché Tarantula!
I nearly put fun into the game there!
To be fair, any smart caster would just 5' before casting to be out of reach anyway.
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I suppose it depends on how you look at it. A fighter with a masterwork backup for his +2 sword who gets his sword sundered isn't as gimped in combat as a wizard who gets his spell component pouch sundered. On the other hand, the fighter is out 8,000 gp while the wizard is only out 5 gp.Not exactly, just walk into the magicshop or temple of your deity of honor, pay a fee of 150 GP and get your weapon (at least partly) restored by a "Make Whole" spell.
Seriously, why do people never think of that option?
The caster level of a +2 weapon is 6.
The minimum caster level to repair it with Make whole is 12.12*2*10= 240 gp
For a +3 weapon you need a 18° level caster, for a +4 a 24 level caster. You don't find that kind of NPC in all campaigns.
Just to be clear, you know that if you sunder a catalyst vial you have not actually eliminated one of the alchemists bombs for the day right? The use of a bomb is expended when a catalyst vial is turned into a bomb. And the undefined vial a catalyst comes in has no listed cost or weight. There is no rules wise limitation (short of perhaps some upper limit of common sense) as to how many of the costless catalyst vials an alchemist can be carrying at a given time.
Extracts and mutegens could be sundered (presumably at random) but there isnt any reason they have to be visible, they could be stored inside of clothing (in pockets) or in a backpack, and not be visible on their person.
If those vials are stored in the extradimensional pockets of something like an Endless Bandolier, then I don't know that a sonic attack would even affect them, would it?
Hmm yeah I guess that would work, since the vials would be out of reach of the sonic attack.
@Diego Rossi
My bad, it was late at my end of the world, I had only an iPhone to check that... and the line about the CL slipped me. Nevertheless, there repair-cost of a weapon is half it's price and it takes half the time of it's creation. And since I haven't found any clue, that you actually need magical talent or feats to repair such a weapon, you could probably hand it over to a very talented blacksmith, reducing the cost to half. (Note me if I am mistaken here.) But that isn't the topic here. ^^'
@Kolokotroni
Okey... just assume the alchemist has not a truckload of pockets spread all over his body, each one containing one or two bombs/extracts each, but instead all of them in once place:
If the vials are stored inside an more or less "normal" backpack or bag the alchemist would spend a move-action to pull them out, which would render (for instance) throwing multiple bombs via the "Fast Bombs"-Discovery impossible, as well as other movement actions, if he throws a bomb on his turn.
If the alchemist has some kind of specialsed bag, bandolier or similar container, where he can draw all his bombs and extracts from with a free action (like a wizard draws material components from his spell component pouch), it would be possible to sunder this container and make the alchemist loose a larger number of catalyst vials and/or extracts with a single attack - as opposed to one.
Btw. the "Alchemists Kit" (or Alchemy Crafting Kit), mentioned earlier in this discussion, only stores the components for extract/bomb creation, not the items themselves.
Basically:
Enemy sunders pouch or bandolier,
it slides to the floor,
then the bad guy just steps on it with his remaining attacks and
crushes the vials inside with his boot or
he picks it up and, during his next turn, throws it somewhere unreachable for the alchemist.
If you still want to have all vials in one place, but you don't want such loss to happen within a single sunder attack, you could impose after the first successful sunder a -2 on all bomb throws (i.e. it slides half-way down, but it still clings with one end/string to the body of the alchemist and thus the vials are harder to reach) and only after the second attempt it falls to the floor.
Multiple, different pouches (like paranoid wizards own them) would keep such "total losses" at bay, but in that case I would roll wether the enemy hit the pouch with the extracts/bombs, or how many were contained in the pouch he sundered.
With that logic:
Even if the alchemist has catalyst vials/extracts stored away in pockets on the inside of his coat, you could just assume that the successful sundering of that coat makes it more difficult for the alchemist to reach them (-2) and another one cuts down the part of the coat which contained the vials - which would have pretty much the same effect, as if they were stored in a before-mentioned bomb/extract pouch.
But I don't want to do that.
I neither want an 'arms race', where the alchemist starts to carry around fake-bomb-bandoliers, or sticks up the most important extracts up his nose- just in case the GM has the intention to sunder his materials... nor do I want to be able, to strip a player completely off a mayor ability with just one or two successful combat maneuvers.
More Bombs:
Of course the alchemist can prepare a larger number of bombs and store them away, so he dosen't have to prepare each day his daily amount of bombs, but now many? And how many does he carry in an easy to reach spot? I can see that an alchemist puts one, two or even five bombs more in his pockets as he could throw that day...
...but at one point he would have more than 20, 30, 40+ vials somewhere on his body, easy to reach. If he dosen't put them into pouches/bandoliers or other containers, he has to spread them in little pockets all over his body (coat, pants, scarf, vest, hat, aso.). People can wave their "it is just an concept"-card here, but with 30+ vials all over your body, an GM could easily justify things: like "Oh well, lets see if this bashing attack accidentally hit one vial of yours."
...so again no, I am fine to assume that the vials don't break unless specifically targeted - one per sunder, or if something really bad happens.
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Well like I said way back, if you really want to nerf/challenge a bomber Alchemist then make him fight underwater. In addition to the usual issues facing most PCs the Alchemist can't use bombs at all until he overcomes 2 problems:
1. Fire doesn't work under water
2. Thrown weapons don't work underwater
The first would require a non-fire damaging discovery which admittedly most mid-level alchemists will have. The only way I know to get around the second issue, however, is the Explosive Missile discovery. Of course, once he gets something like Force Bombs, Explosive Missile and an Underwater Crossbow he will go from being completely innaffective underwater to being the most effective character in the party underwater.
An alternative would be to give the alchemist a feat or discovery along the lines of Eschew Materials; call it something like Protected Reagents. The feat lets the character have some small number of easily-accessible bomb catalysts\extracts\mutagens in a location on his person that cannot be targeted by sunder, lost, or stolen.
Explain it that through alchemy, he's created a small extradimensional space that only he can access, that remains constantly 'at hand', and that can ONLY carry X number of catalysts\bomb chemicals, extracts, and mutagens. When he uses this, it literally just appears like he pulled the reagents out of thin air (which he did).
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@Diego Rossi
My bad, it was late at my end of the world, I had only an iPhone to check that... and the line about the CL slipped me. Nevertheless, there repair-cost of a weapon is half it's price and it takes half the time of it's creation. And since I haven't found any clue, that you actually need magical talent or feats to repair such a weapon, you could probably hand it over to a very talented blacksmith, reducing the cost to half. (Note me if I am mistaken here.) But that isn't the topic here. ^^'
Thanks to some fire incident my players have discovered that even destroyed magic items are part of the treasure.
I rule that to reconstruct a destroyed magic item you need the same feats/skill that were needed to make the item the first time, but you still halve the construction cost and the construction time, so it is worth recovering even the ashes of destroyed magic items.The trick was deciding how they could identify what a destroyed magic item was, as you need to reconstruct exactly the same item.
I decided to use the rules about the lingering aura of magic and to give a +5 DC to the difficulty of identifying the item.
So item made with a low caster level are hard to identify as the magic linger only for 1d6 rounds but you have very good chances to have the time to identify higher caster level magic items.
@Kolokotroni
Okey... just assume the alchemist has not a truckload of pockets spread all over his body, each one containing one or two bombs/extracts each, but instead all of them in once place:
Why would we assume that? If you are an alchemist why WOULDNT you have clothes with lots of different pockets? I would.
If the vials are stored inside an more or less "normal" backpack or bag the alchemist would spend a move-action to pull them out, which would render (for instance) throwing multiple bombs via the "Fast Bombs"-Discovery impossible, as well as other movement actions, if he throws a bomb on his turn.
For extracts, as far as rules go they are potions, so its a move action to draw them anyway.
For catalyst vials for bombs, the rules specifically state that drawing them is part of the standard action, it doesnt matter where they are stored.If the alchemist has some kind of specialsed bag, bandolier or similar container, where he can draw all his bombs and extracts from with a free action (like a wizard draws material components from his spell component pouch), it would be possible to sunder this container and make the alchemist loose a larger number of catalyst vials and/or extracts with a single attack - as opposed to one.
Correct, that would be his alchemist lab. For extracts he has to creat them ahead of time, for bombs, he needs access to the lab as he is mixing and throwing the bomb. If you sunder that (and disable it) he cannot throw bombs any more then a wizard can cast spells if you sunder his spell component pouch.
Btw. the "Alchemists Kit" (or Alchemy Crafting Kit), mentioned earlier in this discussion, only stores the components for extract/bomb creation, not the items themselves.
For extracts this is true, you mix them ahead of time, pull them from somewhere (whereever you could store a potion) and drink ithem. For bombs you are mistaken. You pull the materials form the alchemy kit and mix them with the catalyst vial as part of the standard action to create and throw a bomb. Catalyst vials are not bombs, they are a component of a bomb that has no cost and no listed weight. You could have as many of those as you want (barring rational limits of containers carrying 1 ounce of liquid, but I can carry 64 ounces of liquid in a thermus pretty easily, 64 1 ounce containers if managed the right way would not be a serious burden).
Basically:
Enemy sunders pouch or bandolier,
it slides to the floor,
then the bad guy just steps on it with his remaining attacks and
crushes the vials inside with his boot or
he picks it up and, during his next turn, throws it somewhere unreachable for the alchemist.
Quite, and it sucks for the alchemist, but its similar for a wizard and his spell component pouch. Though only extracts need be in the bandolier.
If you still want to have all vials in one place, but you don't want such loss to happen within a single sunder attack, you could impose after the first successful sunder a -2 on all bomb throws (i.e. it slides half-way down, but it still clings with one end/string to the body of the alchemist and thus the vials are harder to reach) and only after the second attempt it falls to the floor.
Up to the dm I guess.
Multiple, different pouches (like paranoid wizards own them) would keep such "total losses" at bay, but in that case I would roll wether the enemy hit the pouch with the extracts/bombs, or how many were contained in the pouch he sundered.
Or the Alchemist can actually plan out which one is which, and your enemy says i am attacking the pouch on his chest, which is either full of bombs, bombs and extracts, or marbles. Again it depends on how you and the player want to handle this, but If the player actually makes preparations, I dont think its ok to roll what he loses, just possibly roll randomly for which one he targets and have the player prerecord what is where.
With that logic:
Even if the alchemist has catalyst vials/extracts stored away in pockets on the inside of his coat, you could just assume that the successful sundering of that coat makes it more difficult for the alchemist to reach them (-2) and another one cuts down the part of the coat which contained the vials - which would have pretty much the same effect, as if they were stored in a before-mentioned bomb/extract pouch.
An item stored inside a coat cant be targeted by a sunder (total concealment). Both rules wise and rationally. At that point you are just attacking the person. We dont deal with equipement damage on normal attacks for a reason even though for instance, a successful melee attack should probably damage your armor.
But I don't want to do that.
I neither want an 'arms race', where the alchemist starts to carry around fake-bomb-bandoliers, or sticks up the most important extracts up his nose- just in case the GM has the intention to sunder his materials... nor do I want to be able, to strip a player completely off a mayor ability with just one or two successful combat maneuvers.More Bombs:
Of course the alchemist can prepare a larger number of bombs and store them away, so he dosen't have to prepare each day his daily amount of bombs, but now many? And how many does he carry in an easy to reach spot? I can see that an alchemist puts one, two or even five bombs more in his pockets as he could throw that day...
He doesnt prepare bombs, just catalyst vials which are a non-costly material component that he can literally have any number of. The only time a use of bombs per day is expended is when he takes the standard action to throw it. You could destroy all his catalyst vials, and if he has some opportunity later that day to replenish his alchemy kit, he still has all his bombs for the day.
...but at one point he would have more than 20, 30, 40+ vials somewhere on his body, easy to reach. If he dosen't put them into pouches/bandoliers or other containers, he has to spread them in little pockets all over his body (coat, pants, scarf, vest, hat, aso.). People can wave their "it is just an concept"-card here, but with 30+ vials all over your body, an GM could easily justify things: like "Oh well, lets see if this bashing attack accidentally hit one vial of yours."
He can if he wants to be a jerk. See above comment about armor. There is a reason why attended equipement has to be specifically targeted to be damaged. Its a hastle, and its not fun to have to worry about your stuff getting ruined because the game abstracts what getting 'hit' means. People normally dont survive getting stabbed 8 times, so getting nitpicky with equipement breaking in the same system that lest a 15th level fighter walk across lava is being arbitrary, and being unreasonable.
...so again no, I am fine to assume that the vials don't break unless specifically targeted - one per sunder, or if something really bad happens.
Thats fine, but again, it applies to etracts, but does not rationally apply to bombs.
I think I'm of the mindset that they can be sundered. There may not be much point to it -- an alchemist could logically have more catalyst vials than you can destroy in a combat before dying -- but it could interrupt an alchemist's attack, which is handy at times.
Actually, it's a Standard action for an Alchemist to draw and drink an extract.
For extracts, as far as rules go they are potions, so its a move action to draw them anyway.
Is it? I looked and didnt see anything on it, can you quote that for me?
I guess what stuns me about the whole argument is that the same people that are screaming bloody murder that a caster's equipment might be rendered unusable is reason to assault the DM, or simply walk out, all accept that the fighter's sword could be sundered, and he's just S.O.L.
None of my fighters would be S.O.L...
1- I carry more than 1 weapon2- I normally take improved unarmed strike as not to be completely boned if disarmed.
even with out access to weapons my fighter can still fight.
The same does not hold true for the Alchemist, take away Bombs, Extracts, and Mutagen, you have an ineffective Rogue.
It is the same if you took away the Sorcerer or Wizards ability to cast...as a GM I agree I'd use them only sparingly and have a good reason why taking away certain class features would drive the story forward.
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Is it? I looked and didnt see anything on it, can you quote that for me?Actually, it's a Standard action for an Alchemist to draw and drink an extract.
For extracts, as far as rules go they are potions, so its a move action to draw them anyway.
Sure. Here yah go.
Although the alchemist doesn't actually cast spells, he does have a formulae list that determines what extracts he can create. An alchemist can utilize spell-trigger items if the spell appears on his formuale list, but not spell-completion items (unless he uses Use Magic Device to do so). An extract is “cast” by drinking it, as if imbibing a potion—the effects of an extract exactly duplicate the spell upon which its formula is based, save that the spell always affects only the drinking alchemist. An alchemist can draw and drink an extract as a standard action. The alchemist uses his level as the caster level to determine any effect based on caster level.
The reason an extract requires a standard action to drink is because it's functionally the same thing as casting a spell. Allowing it to function like a potion would be pretty sick, since it would mean that an alchemist would essentially get Quicken Spell on all of his extracts.
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The reason an extract requires a standard action to drink is because it's functionally the same thing as casting a spell. Allowing it to function like a potion would be pretty sick, since it would mean that an alchemist would essentially get Quicken Spell on all of his extracts.
Huh? How does treating it as a potion do that?
Not sure where my head was earlier, was reading two different things and apparently the cross-wired in my brain.
happens to me alot Xaratherus :)