Player Core 2 Preview: The Alchemist, Remastered

New Alchemist is the thing I'm most excited for! Looking forward to trying it out.

Woo! Alchemy time. Very excited to get stuck in with these.

I love that Fumbus art! I'm so excited to see what everyone does with their new alchemists!

Overall I love the changes I've seen, though from what I've read, I kinda feel like Quick Alchemy should've been split into two separate features rather than one with two separate actions (Create Consumable and Quick Vial). The Quick Vial option is a little confusing at a glance when compared with Versatile Vials, and could've been its own thing of "You create a temporary vial that can be thrown like a Versatile vial, or be used with your research field."

Either way, ALCHEMIST IS BACK, can't wait to rebuild one of my earliest characters. I like how the versatile vials regenerate over time: I imagine it as sometimes gathering things as you go about your business, and sometimes letting reactions happen as you work. Imagine a Chirugeon treating wounds for a sorcerer and sneakily putting a few drops of their blood into a vial to prepare a new one.

Loving all the changes -except- not getting better to-hit. That's a big disappointment. Unless some other compensating factor is being rolled in like better splash or more saving throws instead of to-hits. Bomber is still looking dead in the water.

Excited to by a toxicologist that can't get hard blocked by a lot of monster types. He can even open up with projectile vomit if I drink a mutagen between fights. Cool stuff!

Loving all the changes -except- not getting better to-hit. That's a big disappointment. Unless some other compensating factor is being rolled in like better splash or more saving throws instead of to-hits. Bomber is still looking dead in the water.

Finally, we know a lot of you are curious to hear more about the alchemist’s attack proficiencies. Some of the other designers didn’t want me to tell you this, but I’ve slipped some soporifics in their morning coffees, so they won’t even notice. Alchemists are still getting their alchemical weapon expertise at 7th level, but they now also receive alchemical weapon mastery at 15th level. Get those bombs ready!

It's delayed a couple of levels, but Alchemists will get Master Proficiency with their Strikes.

The Remastered Alchemist is going to play pretty differently form the previous one, and I have mixed feelings on that. I really liked the previous version. Still, this has its advantages, and is close enough that I think I'll still enjoy the Class.

Dr. Hargove P. Kingsley wrote:

Loving all the changes -except- not getting better to-hit. That's a big disappointment. Unless some other compensating factor is being rolled in like better splash or more saving throws instead of to-hits. Bomber is still looking dead in the water.

The above blog post wrote:

Finally, we know a lot of you are curious to hear more about the alchemist’s attack proficiencies. Some of the other designers didn’t want me to tell you this, but I’ve slipped some soporifics in their morning coffees, so they won’t even notice. Alchemists are still getting their alchemical weapon expertise at 7th level, but they now also receive alchemical weapon mastery at 15th level. Get those bombs ready!

It's delayed a couple of levels, but Alchemists will get Master Proficiency with their Strikes.

The Remastered Alchemist is going to play pretty differently form the previous one, and I have mixed feelings on that. I really liked the previous version. Still, this has its advantages, and is close enough that I think I'll still enjoy the Class.

Aye there are things I'm going to miss - having lots of reagents felt kind of fun - but I think I'll quite happily adjust.

Woah, did not expect the art to be that, uh. Seeing people burning to death "on screen" as Fumbus smiles at their demise was a bit of a shock to notice.

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I'm really hoping Tox comes out of this with a fun and viable gameplan, there's plenty of reason for optimism there.

Though I'd be lying if I said any of the early news / screenshots were looking good for Chiurgeon. They may have been rendered non-viable due to the loss of quantity and the 2x action cost of needing to Q-Alch their elixirs inside of combat.

Their prior stuff has also been nerfed and borked during this shift to VVs. Copied/carried Chiurgeon Features like the max-heal L13 used to be compatible with the Perpetual (now-removed infinite specialty items) mechanic, but that's all blocked off from the Field Vial's (outright downgraded) healing. The new Chiurgeon suffers a lot from things being either exclusive to the tiny Field Vial, or excluded from the FV via the Additive trait. The old Chiurgeon had no such separation.

The rule that all VVs cannot use any Additives is a big pain point here.

If Chiurgeons could boost an Elixir of Life via the Combine Elixirs Feat to add in the potency of the tiny Field Vial, that bonus healing would at least cost 0 of the precious VVs, and would be regulated by the 10 min cooldown. But alas, there is no such synergy, and that is explicitly forbidden.

Bomber is looking better than ever though, that's for sure! The upgraded Quick Bomber now provides a literal 3:1 Action compression when paired with Double Brew, it's crazy potent.

I'm pretty committed to playing a Toxicologist in my next campaign after seeing the changes. The lack of a straightforward quick application is unfortunate but I think having a thrower's bandolier full of pre-poisoned daggers will be pretty good.

Love Regurgitate Mutagen. The icky body-horror type stuff was one of my favorite aspects of PF1E's alchemist and I'm glad to see it making a comeback here and there. I also like the vials being refreshable. The two buckets of stuff I'll want all day and stuff I'll need in the moment will make for a lot less cognitive load.

Part of me is the tiniest bit sad that alchemist's didn't get to legendary with their class DC, but that might be pushing the envelope in ways I'm not thinking of.

This art is super old, pg 77 of the CRB early in the alchemist feats section.

This art is super old, pg 77 of the CRB early in the alchemist feats section.

Now there's a reason to browse the books instead of just keeping a tower of tabs open on AoN.

Loving all the changes -except- not getting better to-hit. That's a big disappointment. Unless some other compensating factor is being rolled in like better splash or more saving throws instead of to-hits. Bomber is still looking dead in the water.

Bomber is genuinely balanced around getting a surprising amount of damage on a miss once the Feats and Features start stacking together.

However, the other 3/4 Alchemists... yeah. Ouch. It also kinda makes it hard for Bombers to build flexibly, as they really need every stacking Feat they can grab.

Oh, almost forgot that the Remaster GM core and PC1 added a rules contradiction that does matter here.

One book ruled that bomb splash on miss only affects the Strike target, and needs a hit to splash the AoE. The other book had a copy of the prior rule, that on miss the full AoE takes splash damage.

Anyone have a clue if that bomb contradiction was resolved in PC2?

Player Core 2 uses the Player Core definition of Splash, not the GM Core one. Core 2 does have the proper rules on Str modifiers and Splash though, which Player Core did not.

So yeah, it appears that the days of Splashing an area on a miss are done.

Auto area splash damage on a miss would be kind of crazy on a bomber with the ability to do infinite QVs targeting any energy or metallic weakness as a second/third attack and a 15' radius.

Catch a group of fey, demons, werecreatures, or ice/fire guys with a relevant weakness three times in a round and you're potentially doing up to 90 points of damage a round at high level on splash misses (6 Int x2 for base splash, plus Alchemists Goggles +3 on miss, plus 15 triggered weakness) from a triple attack. That's 25% of a 16th level Shemhazian (Mutilation) Demon's HP in one round without hitting it once! They probably don't want you do to that to a pair of them standing next to each other, blaster casters need a reason to exist, too.

Bombers might no longer be able to splash the entire battlefield on miss, but all that damage is still piling onto to their target single foe, ha ha ha.

Getting repeated weakness triggers from splash certainly is the dream of every Bomber. Even better if they can get just one Sticky bomb to hit for more weakness pops via persistent damage.

It is little wonder why those Quick Vial bombs were denied the ability to function with Additives, things would get wild real quick in this new VV paradigm.

Love to see Alchemists being icky again!

Definitely satisfied with the direction of the class.This new version actually looks enticing now. Specially Mutagenists and their superior use of Mutagens that make them actually stand out.

The same goes for Chirurgeon. From something boring and mechanically weak, to something actually useful and fun from the get go. I couldn't ask for more.

Also, something I just considered, with research fields no longer needing to shoulder perpetuals at later levels, we might see more research fields appearing later on.

I'd love to see an alchemical tools, alchemical equipment/nonconsumable, and alchemical food research field, personally.

I have a feeling bomber will still probably be the clear top dog for alchemist's subclasses, but even so I'm definitely still stoked by this iteration on the class, it sounds like a much more solid foundation for someone to start out playing, and for designers to iterate on.

Also, something I just considered, with research fields no longer needing to shoulder perpetuals at later levels, we might see more research fields appearing later on.

I'd love to see an alchemical tools, alchemical equipment/nonconsumable, and alchemical food research field, personally.

It also opens space for research fields that aren't explicitly tied to a given type of item. A generalist alchemist in the same vein as generalist wizards seems like a possibility.

Perpdepog wrote:

Also, something I just considered, with research fields no longer needing to shoulder perpetuals at later levels, we might see more research fields appearing later on.

I'd love to see an alchemical tools, alchemical equipment/nonconsumable, and alchemical food research field, personally.

It also opens space for research fields that aren't explicitly tied to a given type of item. A generalist alchemist in the same vein as generalist wizards seems like a possibility.

Or to broaden up forms of alchemy they've touched on in the past, like Thuvian wish-alchemy.

I understand why the nerfs were necessary (except the nerf to bombs, I don’t get that), but I am concerned about the usability issue. Using alchemy mid combat has always been poorly effective, and with this much emphasis on quick alchemy we’ll face this near constantly. Is there anything in the works to dampen the issue?

…is there anything in the works to change the book they just did to change the alchemist the way they wanted and that isn’t out yet?

I’m going to ask my buddy getting married next week if he’s in the process of finding a new girlfriend.

I don't think using Quick Alchemy mid combat will be that bad. You start with 8 advanced items you can hold during exploration-- that's more combats than you should ever have in a day. You can stay constantly buffed with almost any 2 elixirs in exploration, and then 3 at level 9. And quick bomber removes the action tax on quick alchemy bombs. Other action economy hacks include the collar of the shifting spider and the new familiar item delivery ability.

The only thing which really seems to be hurting from all this is the toxicologist.

I don't think using Quick Alchemy mid combat will be that bad. You start with 8 advanced items you can hold during exploration-- that's more combats than you should ever have in a day. You can stay constantly buffed with almost any 2 elixirs in exploration, and then 3 at level 9. And quick bomber removes the action tax on quick alchemy bombs. Other action economy hacks include the collar of the shifting spider and the new familiar item delivery ability.

The only thing which really seems to be hurting from all this is the toxicologist.

All the subclasses hurt a bit, some more than others. The ceiling was majorly dropped -and that’s kinda fine- but we’re also looking at bomber losing early-to-mid game damage (for no understandable reason), the utility angle being wrecked by clamping down team buffing, action economy being just as much as a divider as before (meaning the floor hasn’t lifted that much), confusing language, conflicting features, and more.

I’m unsure if there is something we haven’t seen yet that will help things, and I’m just being overly negative, or if this is just it.

I was told this was supposed to make the class more approachable. I can still manage it, but will a newcomer get good results?

I mean, if the number of free, replenishing resources you get from the class is not sufficient to supply you with the alchemical items you want in a day, you still are an Intelligence based class that is trained in crafting and you get the alchemical crafter feat for free.

It's not going to be weird to just have a stockpile of permanent alchemical items available in addition to the ones you get for free.

That’s perfectly fine with me, I know how to play around actions to make dailies and crafts work the way I want - but there is a LOT of emphasis on QA is this remaster. And while QA is potentially very powerful, it’s very inefficient. Bomber has action efficiency, but got its damage nerfed. Everyone else needs to play very unintuitively to gain efficiency, and newbies don’t do that. So… what do you expect will happen?

Bomber damage looks pretty good from where I'm sitting, with double intelligence + alchemist goggles + additives like sticky bombs now being on almost every consumable bomb you use. The lost splash damage to groups on a failure but that was always a niche scenario which might blow back on you. They may also be less inclined to throw multiple bombs per round because of the different supply model, but they also have perpetuals with better damage and no action tax. And they have higher proficiency from 15th onward. Even without burning resources, at level 10 you're dealing like 36 damage on nothing but failed strikes.

And I'm 100% convinced this class will be more approachable for newbies. The book keeping is significantly easier thanks to not having to buy higher level versions of formulas you already have and not having to manage a massive pool of reagents, any of which could be turned into either 1, 2, or 3 items. And it is way more strategically forgiving to have whatever six items you want at any given moment than to plan your most of your item loadout at the beginning of each day while simultaneously deciding how much you want to allocate towards moment to moment flexibility. The class basically went from a wizard to a sorcerer. I personally found the reagent pool far less intuitive than this new model.

Keep in mind that Alchemist Goggles are a +1-+3 bonus to Splash damage on a miss. While I'm glad they found something to replace the no-longer-needed Item Bonus to Strikes (as using lower tier Bombs is definitely in the past) the damage buff is lacklustre. As before, the main appeal is knocking the Circumstance Bonus from Cover down a notch.

Oh my god, Master proficiency with attack rolls, FINALLY!!!

Just to back up Ediwir a bit, Chiurgeons generally never used Quick Alchemy in combat, and instead use prepped elixirs for 1A as much as possible.

This shift to VVs mandates Chiurgeons use Quick Alchemy, a lot, or else They will run out of daily items by fight 2 or 3, even when being stingy.

And the move to VVs is indeed a huge hit to daily buffing, there's no getting around that. Previously, I could dedicate 2/15 reagent budget to prep 4 Darkvision elixirs and give the whole team all-day darkvision, which is/was genuinely a great perk of Alchemist, among other utility buffs. There's no way I'm going to spend either my VVs or daily prep on that anymore.

Like, I'm planning on literally 0 party buffs now, the resource numbers are looking that tight. Which is frankly, just kinda sad.

Other issues with Perpetuals being deleted. While at low level the healing was useless, they were a good bonus for the Chiurgeon as forever buffs.

My team genuinely had their poison saves upgrade their degree of success quite a lot for such a humble L1 item. Being able to just poof them out infinitely for 0 resource cost was great. And that's all gone too.

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Ediwir, as far as new action economy tools... there is one, but it's not pretty.

Due to the Quick Bomber buff now allowing Quick Alchemy & Double Brew, it means if your first Q-Alch item is a Quick Vial that you instantly throw for one action, you now have the 2nd brewed item in your other hand, and can use it for a pseudo-1A efficiency.

By using the new 3:1 Action compression, all Alchemists can use their anything items -after- a QV + Dbl Brw throw for 1A.

The routine is 2A, and requires both hands open, but you can throw a 0 cost Q-Vial to get "free" value out of it, instead of that being a fully wasted Q-Alch action tax.

If you refuse to use that insane nonsense combo, you must burn an Action every time due to nothing else compressing/benefiting Quick Alchemy.

And if Chiurgeons must throw a bomb every time they want to make a damn elixir without "cast a spell" degrees of bad action economy... the game is telling them they might as well abandon the Chiurgeon and play a Bomber with Chiurgeon Feats/themes.

Chirugeons didn't rely on quick alchemy for elixirs of life before, but they still needed to draw them. You might walk around with one in your hand, but probably not in both hands cuz you needed to do other stuff. The new alchemist can use advanced alchemy for whatever they want to go into a fight holding. The reagent model could get a little more mileage out of valet but that ability was pretty goofy in practice. I'll gladly take the various new ways to heal allies at a distance instead, and having more replenishing out of combat healing to the point you could skip treat wounds.

I'm also not arguing that the ceiling of the class wasn't lowered. With perfect planning the huge item pool could be really powerful. But bad planning (like prepping darkvision elixirs when you don't need them) hurt a lot more. You're also worse at being a vending machine for the whole party, but you're a lot better at buffing yourself. (Or yourself and an ally or two.) I also think if you know darkvision elixirs will be clutch today, you can pretty easily justify making enough for your party with advanced alchemy. You really shouldn't need to dip into that well THAT much. And if you find you need specific elixirs like that on the fly, making 4 with versatile vials is a much better deal than the legacy quick alchemy.

There are specific things it will do worse at, but there's also a ton of things it will do better at now, including being an accessible draw for new players.

Fumbus: I'M FUMBUS! I'M FEELIN GLADDD! AH'VE GOT MUTAGENS! IN A BAAAGGG!

Bomber damage looks pretty good from where I'm sitting, with double intelligence + alchemist goggles + additives like sticky bombs now being on almost every consumable bomb you use.

You can only use the new additive trait once per round. So it won't be every bomb. You can argue you are only throwing 1 bomb a round and that's fair. A lot of alchemists enjoyed the benefit of miss = damage so threw multiple a round though. Also you can only use it on quick alchemy with your standard 6 versatile vials, not the infinite ones you can conjure on the spot. And that's if you are using additives that don't increase the number of vials needed.

The lost splash damage to groups on a failure but that was always a niche scenario which might blow back on you. They may also be less inclined to throw multiple bombs per round because of the different supply model, but they also have perpetuals with better damage and no action tax. And they have higher proficiency from 15th onward.

Agreed. And the lost splash isn't a done deal at least. It's printed differently between core, DMG, and core 2. But I think you are probably correct. I'd just like to see a clarification or errata to confirm. The different supply model doesn't make the class easier to play (still wouldn't recommend to new players) but does make it less vulnerable to some very unfun mechanics - IE running out of stuff. ESPECIALLY huge at lower levels. So that's good news for players.

Even without burning resources, at level 10 you're dealing like 36 damage on nothing but failed strikes.

Ummm, what? Unless I'm missing something fundamental (possible) I don't think this is true. Or even close to true. Would love to see the math. I understand it to be double int for 10 damage, plus another 2 to 3 from goggles. That's it.

And I'm 100% convinced this class will be more approachable for newbies. The book keeping is significantly easier thanks to not having to buy higher level versions of formulas you already have and not having to manage a massive pool of reagents, any of which could be turned into either 1, 2, or 3 items. And it is way more strategically forgiving to have whatever six items you want at any given moment than to plan your most of your item loadout at the beginning of each day while simultaneously deciding how much you want to allocate towards moment to moment flexibility. The class basically went from a wizard to a sorcerer. I personally found the reagent pool far less intuitive than this new model.

The book keeping part seems like the opposite to me - its more book keeping now. The rest I don't agree with but I think it's a fair opinion to have. Personally I think 1 resource pool was simpler. The 1, 2 or 3 items didn't add that much more complexity IMO. The new morning prep is simpler for sure, but then a separate resource pool that is going to require more book keeping is still there. And the thing that increased the complexity the most was having to know all the alchemist items and be able to recognize when they were needed on the fly. With versatile vials this role has become even more important and compounds on that.

This is all speculation though. I need to get my hands on the book to really read it myself. I'm just going off what is posted online and from those in my lodge that have the book already. And even then I'll need to see the alchemist in action to really make up my mind.

I think the changes are over all good for the class in the long term, but there are a lot of alchemists out there (mine included) that would be weaker with a rebuild. Ce la vie.

Chirugeons didn't rely on quick alchemy for elixirs of life before, but they still needed to draw them.

Nah. Draw avoidance has been a key concept for years - most Alchemists figured out a way or two to draw as a free action or draw outside of turns. That played a pretty big role, because consumables are not as strong as spells, so using two actions for them feels generally pretty bad.

The predictable result is that those who know still know, and feel capped (because they are), but those who don't will just try to play the class "as intended"... and feel weak for it.

Unless they're bombers, I suppose. Then again,

Bomber damage looks pretty good from where I'm sitting, with double intelligence + alchemist goggles + additives like sticky bombs now being on almost every consumable bomb you use.

It's a bit behind the old bomber, mostly because of the removal of area splash on failure. It gets a little closer after lv10, and finally catches up when they get their master proficiency.

Captain Morgan wrote:

Even without burning resources, at level 10 you're dealing like 36 damage on nothing but failed strikes.

Ummm, what? Unless I'm missing something fundamental (possible) I don't think this is true. Or even close to true. Would love to see the math. I understand it to be double int for 10 damage, plus another 2 to 3 from goggles. That's it.

He means per round, not per strike. If you have three misses (no hit and no crit miss) you'll average 36 per round on your single target.

??? No, Chiurgeons did not spend actions on Draw. The elixir healing is so far behind spells that would kill the class if they had the same action cost.

For the first 5 turns at minimum, I can use items for 1A completely RaW.

As you guessed, I'll hold a generic buff in-hand. I'm the designated melee distraction, so that's Numbing/Soothing.

Independent familiar is there to hand off 2 items before they need to reload, and 1 item in a Retrieval Belt gives the familiar a turn to grab an item with no slowdown on the 1A usage. 1:Hand + 1:Belt + 3:Familiar. A pause in item use during that 5-combo will also let the familiar reload.

So... I have not really needed to draw items/elixirs in quite a while. Even before the Belt, it was once in a blue moon I ever used more than 3, and this 5 turn thing is overkill.

I'll gladly take the various new ways to heal allies at a distance instead, and having more replenishing out of combat healing to the point you could skip treat wounds.

Man, I just disagree like crazy with that. Chiurgeons not only had enough healing at range, but this Remaster nerfs what would otherwise be their best tool for that, Healing Bomb. The old Healing Bomb healed full on a miss, and the Level 5 elixir is 3d6+6. Literally twice the healing of the FV at level 10.

The new Healing Bomb heals a pittance of splash on miss now, and needing to hit your ally's AC to heal them makes it outright unusable as a healing tool, which needs to be predictable/dependable.

At Level 10, even if it's 20ft, the new Chiurgeon FV that heals 2d6 for 2 Actions is genuinely a "useless token" that attempts to lampshade/hide the nerf from those who don't know the class or think about the numbers.

They even went out of their way to make that ranged heal an Interact just to block the tiny heal from being Quick Bomber compatible. If the new FV was a genuine 1A activity at range, giving it a new niche as a 3rd action heal would go miles toward this FV numbers downgrade & option removal (compared to Perpetuals) being seen as a side-grade to escape criticism.

Instead, they cared so little about the Chiurgeon, they neglected to even scale the healing of the FV correctly, no one is dumb enough to think you can use the bomb damage values for healing like that. Everyone knows that healing scales differently.

This is the kind of numbers absurdity that happens when you do what Paizo did to Chiurgeon in the Remaster:

At Level 13, a Chiurgeon's 1 p 10 min new Field Vial will heal 3d6 HP at 2A, and allows 20ft usage.

At Level 13, a Chiurgeon's 3 p 10 min new V Vial item will maxroll 7d6+18 for 60 HP healing in 2A.
At Level 13, a Chiurgeon can prep the same VV elixir for a 7d6+18 HP heal in 1A.

Yeah, sorry, but the Chiurgeon's Field Vials are not anywhere close to being redeemed by a 20 ft Interact gimmie. Nor by having a different 10 min cooldown from the VVs.

I dunno, if you choose to invest in it you still get 17 advanced alchemy items by the end game. That's far, far fewer than the 54 (non-signature) items you could theoretically carry at level. But you'd need special equipment to walk under all that weight. And I'd question how often you'd actually be able to use all those items in combat. Especially when you consider you can permanently have 3 pre-buffs running and can quick alchemy your bombs with no action tax.

I'm functionally seeing two losses here:

1. Applying a zillion pre-buffs/poisons to your entire party. While a legitimate strength, this vending machine style was often maligned by players. And doing it effectively required excellent information of what the next 10 minutes to an hour would bring + strategic allocation of reagents. The new model is more adaptable to surprises, forgiving of picking the wrong items, and self reliant. It's trade off but one that feels much better for keeping new players from bouncing off class and PF2 as a whole.

2. Extended, multiwave encounters with lots of foes. The loss of area splash on fails hurts, and only having 6-9 versatiles wil hurt in a 10 round combat. These fights happen, but not very often. And you can still do stuff like chuck 3 free acid vials a round perpetually, dealing plenty of splash on successes or at least to your primary target on fails.

You're also saving an absurd amount of money thanks to "heightening" formulas, unlimited mutagen skill bonuses, and striking rune replacement. Bestial builds want property runes, but they won't need hand wraps until they can afford astral and can still skip striking. As Possible pointed out, you have room to afford permanent consumables, and if you took efficient alchemy for longevity you can make 8 with a day of downtime. (And saving money at a good clip if you take longer-- you won't be limited by settlement job level and will often be critting lower level items.)

And again, I can't overemphasize how hot versatile viles make mutagens (or generally utility items) out of combat. Without significant time pressure you have so many checks that you're going to be great at. Or make your allies great at. You'll probably be taking cognitive mutagens yourself but handing silver tongues to the bard.

I dunno, if you choose to invest in it you still get 17 advanced alchemy items by the end game.

This is not a fair comparison and you know it. You cannot honestly use a number that includes a new line of Class Feats and compare that to the old base class.

This being your first excuse makes the rest of the post super suspect, and I'm not going to clog this up with a point-by-point response.

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There's a lot more detail in the alch news thread, but one big pain point is that people keep assuming non-Bombers are fine throwing the free QVial bombs.

We're not.

Splash typically does more damage to allies (don't have the Bomber passive), bombs are thrown weapons without Str to damage, and they can never benefit from property runes, which are just damage runes in disguise. Even the lack of spellheart compatibility is a real downside.

I would rather have a 1d4 unarmed ranged attack like those of ancestries. That would at least be compatible with Handwraps and other means of enhancement that bombs cannot function with.

The Q-Vial bombs are an albatross to non-Bombers, they are Strikes that we can never get up to par in comparison to just wielding a runed weapon. Calculated Splash was taken away and locked inside the Bomber Features. Even a huge Feat investment into a Bomb Additive cannot function with those Q-Vial bombs.

The core chassis being more bomb-throwing than ever only hurts 3/4 Alchemists.

Calculated Splash was taken away and locked inside the Bomber Features.

"Calculated Splash" did get locked away... but only because the feat got replaced with a better one. Instead of getting Int mod in place of splash damage, the feat adds Int mod as a status bonus on top of the base splash damage.

The loss of Calculated Splash means that a non-Bomber Alchemist throwing a Bomb will do less Splash damage. From levels 5-9, it's generally 2 points. Expanded Splash, which previously had Calculated Splash as a prerequisite, keeps the difference at similar levels. Taking the Feat puts the difference in Splash at 3 pts at Level 10 (when the Feat becomes available). Greater Bombs reduces the difference to 2 pts at L11, and Major Bombs to 1 pt at L17. Getting Int +6 at L20 finalizes the difference at 2 pts.

Where it makes more difference is if Sticky Bomb is taken at L8. The less Splash damage the Bomb does, the less Persistent Damage Sticky Bomb adds.

[

There's a lot more detail in the alch news thread, but one big pain point is that people keep assuming non-Bombers are fine throwing the free QVial bombs.

We're not.

Splash typically does more damage to allies (don't have the Bomber passive), bombs are thrown weapons without Str to damage, and they can never benefit from property runes, which are just damage runes in disguise. Even the lack of spellheart compatibility is a real downside.

I only focused on bombs because they are tied to your class concept and don't cost any gold. If you don't like bombs you can always buy a weapon like a proper martial. Bows are good ancestry feat pickups since they let you keep a hand free. If you have enough strength to care about bombs not applying it, you should probably be using bestial to drive your damage, or perhaps thrown weapons.

If you instead want to mostly use bombs, the bomber field only gets like two more points of splash than a non-bomber. You can take expanded splash on any alchemist. The bomber's big advantage is weakness triggers, but you can quick alchemy to exploit those too.

At the end of the day the alchemist is still a martial. Sometimes their accuracy lags but they offset or negate that with mutagens. That + occasional silver bullet combat solvers + having on demand, shareable bonuses akin to skill increases out of combat looks pretty dang good to me.

If you don't like bombs you can always buy a weapon like a proper martial.

I was kind of hoping PC2 would do more for weapon wielding alchemists. Some of the changes help a bit, but the new alchemy mechanics make it even more compelling to have both hands free.

That along with the buffs to bestial (and apparently non-buffs to weapon-based alternatives) really pushes you hard into the unarmed or bomb space instead... which was already the best way to play an alchemist anyways.

You guys know that just because they didn't reprint calculated splash in the remaster doesn't mean you can't take it? They didn't create a feature or feat called 'calculated splash'. So its still a viable L4 feat for everyone to take. I don't think it stacks with the new expanded splash, but I think a reasonable GM might allow that (or you could retrain the feat at L10 when you grab the new expanded splash).

That is the official PFS ruling, yes: Anything not reprinted that isn't the core Class chassis is fair game.

However, in practical terms, Calculated Splash is dead. Newer Alchemist players won't even know it exists.

Trip.H wrote:

Calculated Splash was taken away and locked inside the Bomber Features.

"Calculated Splash" did get locked away... but only because the feat got replaced with a better one. Instead of getting Int mod in place of splash damage, the feat adds Int mod as a status bonus on top of the base splash damage.

That’s only true if you ignore that bombs were nerfed in their function. We basically have the old lv10 feat without requirement (meaning bombs suck before lv10, and then go back to the old scaling), but with a weaker chassis which downscales the entire bomb projection.

It’s not even a hidden nerf. It’s very open, blatant, and was handed to everyone as a gift.

Captain Morgan wrote:

??? No, Chiurgeons did not spend actions on Draw. The elixir healing is so far behind spells that would kill the class if they had the same action cost.

For the first 5 turns at minimum, I can use items for 1A completely RaW.

As you guessed, I'll hold a generic buff in-hand. I'm the designated melee distraction, so that's Numbing/Soothing.

Independent familiar is there to hand off 2 items before they need to reload, and 1 item in a Retrieval Belt gives the familiar a turn to grab an item with no slowdown on the 1A usage. 1:Hand + 1:Belt + 3:Familiar. A pause in item use during that 5-combo will also let the familiar reload.

So... I have not really needed to draw items/elixirs in quite a while. Even before the Belt, it was once in a blue moon I ever used more than 3, and this 5 turn thing is overkill.

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I'll gladly take the various new ways to heal allies at a distance instead, and having more replenishing out of combat healing to the point you could skip treat wounds.

Man, I just disagree like crazy with that. Chiurgeons not only had enough healing at range, but this Remaster nerfs what would otherwise be their best tool for that, Healing Bomb. The old Healing Bomb healed full on a miss, and the Level 5 elixir is 3d6+6. Literally twice the healing of the FV at level 10.

The new Healing Bomb heals a pittance of splash on miss now, and needing to hit your ally's AC to heal them makes it outright unusable as a healing tool, which needs to be predictable/dependable.

At Level 10, even if it's 20ft, the new Chiurgeon FV that heals 2d6 for 2 Actions is genuinely a "useless token" that attempts to lampshade/hide the nerf from those who don't know the class or think about the numbers.

They even went out of their way to make that ranged heal an Interact just to block the tiny heal from being Quick Bomber compatible. If the new FV was a genuine 1A activity at range, giving it a new niche as a 3rd action heal...

Have you read the class or are you napkin matching this based off of incomplete information?

It’s all over a couple of YouTube previews, has been for days.