Feedback on Alchemist for Skull and Shackles

[darrenan]

Looking for feedback on my Gnome Alchemist for an upcoming Skull and Shackles game.

Legal sources: Only stuff on paizo.com/prd (no player companions or campaign settings), or explicitly listed in the SnS Player's Guide.

Roles: Bomb-chucker, skill monkey, trap breaker, alchemy/potion crafter, comic relief. Ignoring the Poison feature entirely, unless some good poisons become available via loot. But I will be crafting various useful alchemical items as needed.

I'm staying away from the Smoke Bomb/Stink Bomb path. I know it's a powerful path to go down, but I worry they won't be effective during ship encounters (am I over-thinking?). Instead, I'm focusing on straight up bomb damage. I haven't taken any alternate bomb damage types in the current design, but I could swap out Wings (which also would be of limited value on ships) for an alternate damage type, or any of the later feats could be Extra Discovery to get more damage types.

Here's what I have so far:
Gnome - Bond to the Land(Water), Pyromaniac

NOTE: We're using a funky scheme for determining point buy. I won't go into the details here, but the upshot is I have 19 points, and only two traits (one from SnS list):
STR: 12 DEX: 14 CON: 10 INT: 17 WIS: 12

Taking 1/2 bomb/day as my FCB at every (or most) level. If I ever feel like I have enough bombs, I'll switch that to HP instead.

1: Point-Blank Shot, Eye for Plunder, Rapscallion
2: Precise Bombs
3: Precise Shot
4: Explosive Bomb
5: Extra Discovery (Infusion)
6: Wings (or alternate damage type)
7: Rapid Shot
8: Fast Bombs
9: Extra Discovery (Combine Extracts)
10: Sticky Bomb
11: Feat (TBD)
12: Siege Bomb (I'll decide on this for sure when I get here depending on what the ship combat so far has been like)
13: Feat (TBD)
14: Blinding Bomb
15: Feat (TBD)

Skill Foci: Craft (Alchemy), Disable Device, Perception, Knowledge (Arcana, Nature), Spellcraft

Seems like a pretty standard alchemist build to me.
For those TBD feats is there anything better than more Extra Discoveries?
Any mistakes? Suggestions?

[Ryan Freire]

Seems fine but its a shame to play an alchemist in a skull and shackles game and not take chirurgeon and be the ships doctor. XD

[avr]

Combine Extracts is a bit iffy. Unless you have specific combos you want to set up you'll probably be better using the higher level slot for a higher level extract. You might want to get whichever of Wings/another damage type you didn't get at 6th then instead. Without having played SnS, wouldn't flight be useful for raiding another ship though? Or for staying out of reach when your own ship is attacked?

Greater Mutagen should definitely be in your plan, one way or another, unless you go for Cognatogen/Greater Cognatogen. Given your current stat layout this seems a possibility. I'd be tempted by Dispelling Bomb too.

Improved Precise Shot might be worth it as the 15th level feat.

[JulianW]

We're part way through the AP and have an alchemist in our group.

The Stink bombs have been massively powerful in ship to ship actions. Generally ship to ship fights involve some exchange of ranged weapons and spells while ships close for boarding. The ships themselves have too many hp to actually sink them (and besides you want to capture their cargo). So generally you are trying to disable their crew rather than blow up the ship.

Because ships generally have large crews, this means a lot of battles where the other side may have some tough leaders but also a lot of low level guys - stink bombs have been devastating in keeping the numbers under control for us.

Also - if you don't have too high a wind level but ships are still moving, throw a stink bomb at the bow - the ship's momentum means it moves through the cloud and more of the crew have to make fort saves.

Very minimal spoiler:

Other tip - get yourself something that works underwater. Underwater demolitions is sadly not available to you but make sure your character can make themselves use in an underwater fight because these are fairly frequent.

[Cavall]

I ran the campaign (in final sessions) and our grippli alchemist was superb.

[darrenan]

@avr I'll dig in deeper on Combine Extracts. I was thinking not for myself, but in concert with Infusion to give the other players useful buffs.

Greater Mutagen, yes.

I don't like the post-buff ability damage component of the Cognatogen discoveries, otherwise I would enjoy the bonus to damage that an INT bump would provide. Any idea why they are asymmetrical like that? Seems like a strange design decision.

@JulianW Thanks, I may need to reconsider the smoke/stink route.

And thanks for pointing out underwater combat. I haven't considered what I'm going to do in those cases, yikes.

[Cavall]

Monkey fish for the frigging win. I couldn't recommend it more.

If you're sharing extracts then it can be handed to team members. Climbing, swimming... it saves lives and and really helps in a game about sails and seas.

[avr]

At a guess the mutagen was designed first and set the 'high line' for that feature, then pre-publication someone nerfed cognatogen to ensure that it didn't surpass mutagen if mental ability boosts proved more useful than physical ability boosts. It is possible to use lesser restoration of course but I can see that'd get annoying.

There are some odd tricks you can do with infusing personal range infusions and combine extracts. Reduce person + long arm is weirdly good for dex-based melee for example. Mostly though Fly > monkey fish + whatever (for example).

I don't think you can throw bombs underwater, but with an underwater crossbow and the explosive missile discovery you can at least shoot them short distances.

[darrenan]

I briefly had Explosive Missile on my list. That's a great reason to reconsider. Although the Underwater Crossbow is a Merfolk item, and might not be available initially.

Monkey Fish is good for getting around, but doesn't help with attacks.

[Cavall]

Well you could try the grippli race and go the route of their racial arch type.

But if you think climbing up a pole and dropping bombs without them being able to get to you isn't helpful in combat, maybe monkey fish isn't for you.

[Djelai]

With the Preservationist archetype, you can cover underwater combat situations by summoning water elementals or other waterborne creature.
Nice option for an alchemist with low physical stats.

[Gulthor]

If you're allowed to take archetypes, I can't recommend Grenadier enough for your build. You give up poison use for a martial weapon proficiency, the precise bomb discovery for free at level 2, a useful blast shape, and the ability to get some extra use from mundane alchemical weapons with the alchemical weapon feature.

I'd also recommend steering clear of combine extracts; it's just not that helpful. Consider a tumor familiar that can deliver an extract to you instead for a somewhat similar effect.

Underwater Demolition may be a discovery you want to look into. I also can't recommend different damage types enough. Frost bombs and force bombs have gotten me through lots of different types of energy resistant encounters. Frost's chaser (Fort save or staggered) can also just straight up win fights when it happens to work (which isn't often, mind you, but that's okay.)

Cold damage is also much less frequently resisted than fire. Force resistance is nearly unheard of. Don't consider going down in dice to be a big hit to your damage; you'd much rather be doing d4's than waste 30 points of damage chewing through energy resistance, not to mention incorporeal foes.

[Poison Dusk]

In the game I GM we have an alchemist who is one of the better characters. The stock enemies you run into have a lot of problems with fliers. He uses Acid bombs with the fire to get double recurring damage. I also recommend taking the underwater crossbow as soon as you can. Being able to infuse your bombs into the bolts is helpful as well.

[darrenan]

GM has disallowed Grenadier unfortunately, and I argued passionately for it. There's either the version in PFS, which isn't in the set of allowed sources, or Hobgoblin-specific, which isn't an allowed race. C'est la vie.

Everything else is great advice that I will take under advisement. Thanks everyone.

[PCScipio]

If you're a bomber alchemist, a Mutagen doesn't really make a huge difference since you're targeting touch AC. A Cognatogen adds to bomb damage (double with Targeted Bomb Admixture), bomb DCs and skill bonuses. You just have to prepare an extra Lesser Restoration extract, which isn't that big a deal at higher levels.