Alchemists are pretty strong, but after book 2 being focused on fire damage isn't quite as rewarding - far fewer opponents will be fire vulnerable, and many will actually be resistant.
Heh. The white dragon at the end of book 4 rolls with 20 pt fire resistance. Your alchemist might do a lot worse there than he expects.
The best way to deal with alchemists is with multiple targets that are dispersed (ie, five foot space between each one). Also summons. Nazhena, for instance, could summon several wolves that will be right on top of the alchemist. If he tries to throw? Several attacks of opportunity against him. ;)
How many bombs does he have? Surely a 4d6 bomb only takes away about half the hit points from an ice troll and there are lots of them
It is important to note that even the author thinks books 2 is potentially easy with its encounters. Especially the Dragon in the tower that is too weak for an end of chapter boss when the whole group is level 6.
It probably also doesn't help the whole group has found access to fire. I don't remember the guide specifically saying this, more that it would be useful. I would thinks once word got around about people chucking fire round in the winter city there would be extra guards added to patrols and they would come down hard.
I definitely would have nazhena have learnt about their powers, either through mirrors in the tower or messangers in town etc.
Give her some anti fire measures even if it is just a resist elements potion. Makes them think of another way...
Like I said just give her a potion as part of her gear. There is no way she wouldnt know about the risk of fire damage by now. Especially if a building was set on fire.
Even if no one told her I'm pretty sure the forest isn't enclosed overhead so she should be able to see it (can't remember about the forest tbf but if it is enclosed it should all be dark and this isn't mentioned )
The Wood where the Hut is kept is completely covered over. You can't fly in or anything.
To be honest, I'm surprised no group ever thought of that. Fly a half mile up with Extended Fly spells and then drop into the center of the city. When you consider how small a person appears even 500 feet away, I don't think there'd be much notice of four or five people dropping into the city that way. That said, they'd not get to the Hut that way in any event.
Oh ok I forgot about the wood part.
Are the pcs high enough level to cast several extended fly spells at this stage of the adventure? Again I can't really remember.
Neither of my groups wizards had or have the spell.
But regarding the alchemist if the concern is the group is performing tactically well then you should consider increasing the difficulty of all encounters.
Although I will note that book 2 is considered easy for the level of players and book 3 is considered difficult. The dungeon in book 3 is tough . Several potentially lethal encounters there (from my experience the hag cleric and upasunda (sp)). Also the shadows look horrible and there is lots of SR and resistances floating around. And things could get worse if they upset the warden
I'm going to start GMing Reign of Winter in the New Year and this discussion is pretty interesting. We've been playing Rise of the Runelords and Skulls and Shackles, and one player has been pretty fire-focussed with his character choices. It wouldn't surprise me if he continues with the theme for ROW.
What happened when they came across the goblin alchemists when they got into the Howlings? Did you put any additional fire-resistant monsters in as random encounters?