As a preface, our game uses the books as published, so there isn't a massive scouring for errata and alterations etc. Most everything is handled on a case by case basis if player choices look fishy.
Currently our party is level 3, and we are about to experience a slower progression from here out. Gold is somewhat limited, favoring loot rewards hand-picked by the GM (for the most part). When I get to play, I usually do something new to me, so that I don't get burned out on any one thing, but it also means that I'm often a bit lacking in how to go about fine tuning my characters mechanically. I'm trying to appeal to the wisdom of the members on these boards to throw me some much needed advice on how to make my concept more combat effective, though I have no interest in blowing it out of the water min/max style.
So here's the quick and dirty character details:
- Alchemist 2 (Vivisectionist / Toxicant), Investigator 1 (Sleuth)
- Changeling (its a pull-over from 3.5, not the one from Advanced Races)
- Str 15, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 18, Wis 14, Cha 9
- Feats: Weapon Prof. (Syringe Spear), Amateur Swashbuckler, Extra Panache (bonus feat for drawing our characters)
So I've been using Craft Alchemy in order to keep myself relevant in combat using the usual suspects (acid, alch's fire, Liquid Ice) and I just got my hands on a hybridization funnel (only dropped myself to -2hp once so far! =D), but my main problem has been the melee aspect of things. I usually am the one to initiate combat by using subterfuge, gaining access to somewhere, bluffing my way around, then surprise attacking before pulling back to let my party step in. It's been working well for me, but I find myself "railroading" combat by circumventing it through lies and deceit. I'm going to be cutting back on that so that my party doesn't start to feel left out, but that means I need to be able to survive in melee. I'm not too concerned with outshining our barbarian, or our ranger, but I do want to be able to position myself for flanking bonuses and to provide aid another while hindering/debuffing ememies (Toxicant poison, crafted poisons, drugs, and alchemical whatsits).
So I chose Amateur Swashbuckler to gain 1 panache point, then retrained my bonus feat into Extra Panache giving me a total point pool of 6 for use with Opportune Parry and Riposte. I know the deed was errata'd from being an option for the Amateur Swash feat, but like I said, we use published material only and my DM said it wasn't a problem. Either way, I'm primarily using it as a way to avoid some damage while I have myself stuck into melee combat, but I'm looking for ways to enhance my use of the Parry and Riposte actions.
Since the Riposte action is used in place of an AoO, does it gain the benefits of anything that affects AoOs?
I guess the long and short of it is, I'm looking for ways to help my chances of survival using the point pool (luck/panache) and making my Riposte attacks count. I'll be going with sticky poison for my syringe spear, and I think at level 5 I'll be grabbing Combat Reflexes for when things get really hairy. Any other little synergies or tricks would be greatly appreciated. Just a heads up, our gold income has been slow (I've got about 500g on the character right now) so heavy investments for ultimate gear isn't really an option at the moment. I'm more interested in something thats going to benefit my character while working towards level 5-6 when I start falling into more of my class abilities. I intend on going 4 Investigator for the Insight Talent, Studied Strike, and Sleuth goodness, then putting the rest into Alchemist for poison/alchemy/sneak attack progression.
Thanks in advance!
Do not multiclass Investigator and Alchemist.
I'm gonna repeat that for emphasis: Do not multiclass Investigator and Alchemist.
Multiclassing on caster classes is a bad idea just generally, and in this case you gain precious little out of it. Additionally, never go Sleuth, it's a bad archetype on almost every level mechanically.
If you really want to multiclass and do the Parry thing, grab a level of actual Swashbuckler instead and save some Feats.
But, frankly, if you want Alchemist and Investigator stuff and to fight in melee...just go Investigator, it'll be more effective and you'll be happier. If you don't want the Investigator stuff, stick with Alchemist.
Reassigning your stats would also help you a lot. Neither Alchemists nor Investigators need Int 18. You'd be much better focusing on Str, then Int, then Dex than Int, Dex, Str.
Power Attack would also be super helpful.
Toxicant poison DC and Splash Weapon damage from Throw Anything are two things I benefit from for having a high Int score, and those two things happen to be used every combat. Although I understand under the average alchemist lifespan int might not be important, for my character it has value. It has also allowed me to not waste what little coin we get on failed craft checks to make alchemical items and weapons. In this instance, it's value has literally continued to grow.
I could rework my stats, but we would be using a lot of downtime in-game, and a lot of my character's wealth in order to do so, so that's not an option. To be honest, I kinda like how my character has developed over time. He most definitely wasn't initially designed to do what he's doing in the game, but he is doing it very well thanks to party support. The 9 charisma hurts, but my character is a terse jerk to people he doesn't know. It makes sense and I enjoy having to work around the weakness there.
The only thing I'm losing from multi-classing alchemist and investigator is some extract progression. The archetypes I've chosen, to some extent, remove overlapping features. The sleuth is better than the other options for my character concept, so its actually mechanically quite good. Guns aren't an option, and I'm saying that because there seems to be a lot of gushing about the gun hound, but frankly I don't care for it. I'd just play a Gunslinger. The sleuth gives me access to luck points and some interesting deeds that have already proven useful. Also considering that Grit/Panache/Luck points all can be interchanged when being used, having the luck pool helps out without me having to dip into yet another class only for 1 feature.
Since the Alchemist doesn't get any of the Insight d6 stuff or studied strike, I felt a few levels dip into the Investigator was worth it for me. It may not be worth it to some people, but I have no issues with my character's build as it is.
If anyone would like to give me some tactics, tricks, or synergies having to deal with Parry and Riposte, I'm still very interested. If anyone would like to basically tell me to reroll my character, I appreciate the wellwishing but I'm not interested in doing that.
Okay. If you like it, stick with it.
So, if sticking with the current build, my best advice is to use your 4th level ability point in Str and grab Combat Reflexes at 5th, the additional AoO will serve you well. Use Str Mutagen and go to town. Grab Power attack at 7th to help out a bit on damage
Also, if Luck and Inspiration were what you wanted from Investigator, I'd leave the dip at a single level. Studied Combat is amazing, but usually only if you get lots of levels of Investigator, and is only really functional once you make it a Swift Action, which would require 5 levels of Investigator, and would thus cost you 5 levels of extract progression and 2d6 Sneak attack for +2 to hit and damage. That's...not a good trade.
You've definitely made it tricky to optimize your combat options (since your build is not optimal), but I'm going to make an odd suggestion - consider adding the grenadier archetype.
I know, I know, you gave up bombs and half the features are useless to you.
But bear with me. Grenadier grants martial weapon proficiency, which means you can use that feat you've spent on syringe spear on something else, and the grenadier alchemical weapon feature allows you to have some explosively good combat rounds (you could have a hybrid acid/fire flask in your spear and another one *on* your spear - and the one *on* your spear gets your Throw Anything bonus.)
Additionally, unlike the syringe spear, alchemical weapon allows you to re-apply alchemical substances to your spear in-combat rather than waiting an entire minute to refill.
Splashing one level will hinder you but not irrevocably. Your choice of combat style is going to cost a lot of money over the life of the character but thats also not impossible to overcome. I'd probably consider focusing on alchemist entirely from here on. The extracts offered will help you get into flanking position later on.
Take infusion. The ability to provide nearly on demand buff potions will eventually enable your party members to take part in the skill/subterfuge based shenanigans rather than leaving them out of them.
For combat I'd give strong consideration to looking at your character for a buffer/debuffer style of play. Focus on int, raise it high, the extra skill points will help you maintain some of those investigator skills you dipped for, will increase the save DC of your toxicant poison, and will provide extra infused extracts to keep you valuable to your party.
You'll be a greater value in the party as a force multiplier with buffs/debuffs and skill monkey than you will be able to manage as a damage dealer once you start going up in level I'm afraid.
For either of those though I'd really urge you to consider sticking with Alchemist from here on out rather than going the full 4 into investigator for studiedstrike. if you only do 4 inv, its only a +2 hit/damage. You can just take the mutagen discovery for the same bonus to hit/damage and be increasing your toxicant ability and infusions at the same time.
Don't neglect the basic idea behind why you took sleuth, by focusing on int you can continue to up the relevant skills and play the role that you wanted without going any deeper in Investigator.
These are really good points, and I've been putting some thought into them yesterday evening and this afternoon.
I went over the rules for retraining, and found that it would take about 25 days and 500g to get out of Vivisectionist and into Grenadier. Definitely not too much to ask for,assuming the GM doesn't mind a little time-warp "Three Weeks Later!". If I'm allowed to do this, I'm definitely going for it. The "double-'splosion" of the syringe spear with loaded and applied alchemical substances is way more in style with the character concept.
I wasn't really too concerned with becoming a melee powerhouse, so losing a little melee ability by not going to 4 investigator isn't really a let down. What I have been thinking on, has been losing the Insight Talent at level 3 that I was going to use on Underworld Insight. I feel the extra D6 on my socials will help to offset my low charisma, but since I can still use regular insight points for the really important rolls... I suppose if it really becomes a problem, I can just take the investigator levels. I only have the 1 level of it right now, so I'm still on track with the given advice.
As for the cost of crafting, our GM is going with the spontaneous alchemy rules presented in the Alchemist Manual. I had made a list of material components that I had collected over time, but it became such a hassle that we just treat it as though you would with Eschew Materials. Instead of finding Black Powder, or Cytalesh Spores, or Salt, I just find X amount of gold in alchemical reagents that can only be used for crafting and have no resale value. I also intend to bring up the idea that daily/weekly profession/crafting income rolls just add to my crafting reagent stockpile instead of providing me with a handful of silver or gold coins in my pocket.
The first Discovery I took was Infusion, and there was no question in my mind about that. I consider it absolutely necessary to the character doing their job. Now its just a hunt for ways to effectively debuff or inconvenience enemies while buffing and aiding the party.. and if anything gets too close and takes a swing, Parry and Riposte with a loaded Toxicant Poison and an applied hybrid Artokus's Fire / acid potion.
Simply levelling as toxicant will do most of the debuffing for you, you can find some poisons to craft that you can stack on that will also help.
For me the biggest boons to buffing the party were a combined longarm/enlarge elixir and a beast shape 2 elixir...the first for our monk, the second for the barbarian (turning an invulnerable rager into a pouncing sabretoothed tiger is pretty good) Handing out resist elements elixirs combined with detonates to classes that can find themselves surrounded by enemies is a good one. I made a point to pick up the remove curse/disease/poison chain and generally keep 1 or 2 open extracts of that level for just in case. The toxicant poison has basically a laundry list of the debuffs you'll want, and if you switch back to having bombs building toward poison bomb will help you spread it to multiple targets (I think toxicants ability works there at least) Stink bomb is also an amazing choice for debuffing.
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