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I wrote a guide to fighting with a reach weapon and summoning as an Alchemist:
I've always found other guides to be a huge help both as a DM and a player, so I decided to finally contribute to the selection by writing a mini-guide dedicated to my favorite way of playing an Alchemist. Or what I thought was going to be a mini-guide - Pathfinder has so many options that even the shortlist is incredibly long.
I had a lot of fun figuring this out, though, and plan to write another when I figure out what to cover next. I'd appreciate any feedback folks have to offer so that I can make improve this guide and any future guide I write.
I'd also like to thank other guide writers for their hard work (I had no idea just how much work these things were!), specifically those whose guides I referenced in writing my own - so Zenith, N. Jolly, Brewer, and Hubaris.
Ablative barrier & spontaneous healing work together very well indeed. You don't need nonlethal immunity when you have free action healing working double time for you. Add punishing armor to the mix for amusement's sake.
If you're a summoner and you've got the right ioun stone (pearly white spindle, probably cracked to save gold) then skinsend is actually worth considering sometimes. You get a bunch of immunities and can't be killed unless the enemy finds your real body.
Caustic blood is a useful buff you don't mention.
Ablative barrier & spontaneous healing work together very well indeed. You don't need nonlethal immunity when you have free action healing working double time for you. Add punishing armor to the mix for amusement's sake.
I've literally done that in a game and can't believe I forgot it. Thank you for reminding me. I'll update the guide.
If you're a summoner and you've got the right ioun stone (pearly white spindle, probably cracked to save gold) then skinsend is actually worth considering sometimes. You get a bunch of immunities and can't be killed unless the enemy finds your real body.
I'm having a hard time understanding this. Is the ioun stone to end skinsend early or do you actually need it to recover from the extract? I'm not really sure I can advocate something that sets your STR to 3 on a melee guide anyway.
Caustic blood is a useful buff you don't mention.
I've never used this sort of spell before or had my players use one on me. I always thought that reactionary spells like this were considered to be not good. My instinct as a DM would be to have a creature disengage and fight someone else if you got them with it but it is a lot of damage even it it only hits once.
I'll add it to the guide since dealing a potential 22d6 damage is good but I don't know that I can rate something that might not even work that high when it's competing with Greater Invisibility and Summon Monster V.
Skinsend is for making a disposable you. It's not especially good for melee but for going in and summoning minions it's great. The ioun stone is in case you don't get your sent skin back.
Caustic blood is the opposite. Great for going in and meleeing, not so much when you're summoning extra targets for the enemy to go for. If the enemy refuses to fight you out of fear of being splashed that's generally a win.
Skinsend is for making a disposable you. It's not especially good for melee but for going in and summoning minions it's great. The ioun stone is in case you don't get your sent skin back.
It still feels like there's a lot that can go wrong. You require a 7th level spell or a 3400gp item to mitigate the downsides. You can't get one-shot since you need a standard to "escape" but you're at half HP and are way more vulnerable to just getting killed before you can take an action if you have a bad initiative roll. You don't get copies of your gear, so you'd basically be limited to disposables and mundane items (and not many of those either; STR 3). If you're making a disposable copy, there's an expectation that it might die and you don't want to lose all your gear with it. If there's no expectation that you might die, why are you spending an extract on Skinsend?
The use you're advocating just seems very situational. You need to meet conditions of
a)The problems are solvable by just your summons and maybe a few breath weapon style extracts or splash weapons.
b)The problems are so dangerous that you might die.
You'd pretty much have to be fighting something that is incapable of harming you except by way of one of the things you became immune to (but will definitely kill you if you aren't immune) and that your summons could solo for Skinsend to better in combat than no Skinsend.
It's kind of got the same issue of conditionality as a scouting extract - it's got the conditional use of needing to scout (without your static bonuses) a location where you're very likely to die or be caught and killed/captured but where there is little to no risk associated with basically signing your name to the skincorpse that's left behind.
I'm trying to broaden my view on Skinsend but it's just really situational and potentially expensive.
Caustic blood is the opposite. Great for going in and meleeing, not so much when you're summoning extra targets for the enemy to go for. If the enemy refuses to fight you out of fear of being splashed that's generally a win.
An enemy refusing to fight you is usually a melee character's main problem, not a win. It can potentially mean they're attacking the wizard or archer now and it definitely means you won't full attack. There's also a big difference between "refuses to fight you" and "did fight you, decided it was better to advance beyond your position instead of staying engaged". I know you're better equipped to deal with enemies not fighting you than a regular martial type is but it's still not ideal.
But like I said, I've never actually played this sort of spell. I'm looking at it from a theory standpoint - I'll take your word for it if it's better in real gameplay than it looks on paper to me. I added Caustic Blood into the guide as orange, do you think I should rate it higher?
I'd think caustic blood green, in so many ways. It's not limited to once per round, remember - if the enemy(-ies) does keep attacking you, even just to finish their full attack, it can do absurd damage. If they decide to move on and attack the wizard (who could also cast caustic blood; there are synergies with having a wizard and alchemist in the same party) or the archer they could have done so anyway. It's weakest if the alchemist is some super-dex build who seldom gets hit which is not what your guide suggests, I believe you're suggesting more a str-build with a bit of dex.
Skinsend is always going to be situational and may be better for an NPC. Never mind there...
Great! Added to the Guide to the Guides.
Thank you!
Updated to include things from Inner Sea Taverns, Heroes of the Fringe, Blood of the Ancients, and Planar Adventures.
Races
I make note that Half-Elves can gain back poison use. Added Aphorites.
Feats
Added Aerial Roll, Demonic Style, Extreme Mood Swings, Flickering Step, Healer's Hands. I'm going to do some math on Aerial Roll later and might remove it if it seems like it doesn't consistently block attacks. You do have some good reasons to invest in Fly anyways, and Overland Flight granting a massive bonus later on makes me think it's good enough to add to the guide.
Traits
Added Mechanical Aptitude.
Familiars
Added a note about the Healer's Hands feat.
Extracts
Added Infuse Self. I like that there is a long duration polymorph effect. It really raises the value of extracts that were so-so compared to using your standard to cast Monstrous Physique or Fey Form, like Rage for example. I personally won't get a chance to actually test that for a while, so if anyone has feedback on how they felt about the effectiveness of Infuse Self + Rage v. Monstrous Physique, I'd appreciate the feedback.
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Is it completely unfeasible to do this with finessing a branch spear (Half-Elves can get EWP for skill focus)? It's an extra feat but having a huge number of AoOs can be fun.
I am going to make an odd recommendation- the tentacle discovery.
It know. It seems odd, since that is usually a rather poor discovery, and people usually prefer the vestigial arm. But it can actually work for you.
Normally, the tentacle is a secondary natural attack, which sucks. But what if it was your ONLY natural attack? Then it would be primary, and get 1.5x power attack- putting it on par with a bite.
It also has an additional use- it has the grab property. With your bonuses to strength, as well as any buffs, you could use this for at least some grappling without investing feats. If you don't devote yourself to a grapple build (you already have summoning and reach to worry about), you might only reserve your tentacle for magical girls.... I mean 1/2 bab casters. Overall, it could be a useful weapon to have that doesn't rely upon your spear filled hands.
Because the tentacle has similar rules for 'no extra attacks' as the vestigial arm, I am unsure if you could use it for AoOs (if you can, then sweet- this might be more useful than seeking a bite from feral mutagen). If you cannot... well, if you are large, you could use grappling as an option when enemies get into your reach doughnut- where you can't full attack.
Hi, sorry for missed questions. I've been away from the game for a bit.
In the sample build you list Combat Reflexes, Spell Focus: Conjuration, Brew Potion and Throw Anything as feats you know but half-elf should have 1 less feat than what you have listed. I was curious if i missed something as to how you were getting this extra feat or is it just an error?
Thanks for catching that, fixed. In the sample, I take Combat Reflexes at 1st and Spell Focus at 3rd. You could do it the other way if you wanted but I prefer having Spell Focus only be a dead feat for 2 levels.
Is it completely unfeasible to do this with finessing a branch spear (Half-Elves can get EWP for skill focus)? It's an extra feat but having a huge number of AoOs can be fun.
Sure, but Strength is a way better stat for doing damage and the pseudo-Iron Will available to Half-Elves is better than EWP. A lot of the Alchemist's better buffs are polymorphs too, which heavily cater to a STR build.
In practice, you also only need 1-2 AoOs a round. Combat Reflexes plus 14 DEX gets you 3 and Greater Mutagen, Ioun Stones, improved stat belts, etc. will bring that number much higher.
I am going to make an odd recommendation- the tentacle discovery.
It know. It seems odd, since that is usually a rather poor discovery, and people usually prefer the vestigial arm. But it can actually work for you.
Normally, the tentacle is a secondary natural attack, which sucks. But what if it was your ONLY natural attack? Then it would be primary, and get 1.5x power attack- putting it on par with a bite.
It also has an additional use- it has the grab property. With your bonuses to strength, as well as any buffs, you could use this for at least some grappling without investing feats. If you don't devote yourself to a grapple build (you already have summoning and reach to worry about), you might only reserve your tentacle for magical girls.... I mean 1/2 bab casters. Overall, it could be a useful weapon to have that doesn't rely upon your spear filled hands.
Because the tentacle has similar rules for 'no extra attacks' as the vestigial arm, I am unsure if you could use it for AoOs (if you can, then sweet- this might be more useful than seeking a bite from feral mutagen). If you cannot... well, if you are large, you could use grappling as an option when enemies get into your reach doughnut- where you can't full attack.
These are good points, so I'll add it in. I don't know if I would ever take it over Feral Mutagen as a "threaten adjacent" discovery since that qualifies you for Master Chymist and can combo with polymorphs.
WRT grappling: You're doing it at -20 if you only use the tentacle or losing the ability to use your spear. It's not like you won't want to drop your primary weapon and start grappling something at some point, so it's strictly a plus but not that great.
WRT to extra attacks counting AoOs: I've read over the rules for tentacle and vestigial arm a lot of times and am 99% sure that you can use it for AoOs. Those aren't actually extra in the way the rule and subsequent FAQs and dev forum posts define extra. If your DM says no, then you should at least still threaten with it for lining up flanking.
WRT grappling: You're doing it at -20 if you only use the tentacle or losing the ability to use your spear. It's not like you won't want to drop your primary weapon and start grappling something at some point, so it's strictly a plus but not that great.
Yeah, you would lose out on the spear. Admittedly, I am not sure you could use a reach weapon very well in a grapple anyway.
The grapple build is meant specifically for shut down of a highly specific and dangerous type of threat- dedicated mage enemies such as wizards. Niche, but a niche that touches on one of the biggest threats around. That is the kind of threat that is worth abandoning all other actions, usually.
At higher levels, it would face problems with freedom of movement... but if the GM has a tendency to precast freedom of movement on his casters, you would probably want someone to dispel that first anyway (since no one likes a slippery bugger getting away).
If you have an easy way to get proficiency with an Elven Branched Spear (Half-Elf with Ancestral Weapon), then it should be very good for your AoOs even if you don't change anything else about your build recommendations. You get +2 on AoOs even if you don't Finesse it.