Player Core 2 Preview: The Alchemist, Remastered

I really feel like toxicologist Alchemists could use something like Quick Bomber, but for their poisons.

As it is, they'd probably want to get a rogue feat (Poison Weapon) to be able to draw a poison and apply it to their weapon in one action, which certainly feels like something they should be able to do with an Alchemist feat of their own.

The ability for them to create 'infinite' basic poisons is a lot less useful when you need the weapon you'd like to poison in hand along with needing to be in range/reach of the enemy you'd like to attack at the start of your turn to be able to use it at all. One action to make the 'Quick Vial', one action to apply it, and the last action to attack.

It's certainly better than Toxicology was before, absolutely, but when it's compared to being able to lob 3 'free' bombs a turn, it seems lack-luster.

I really feel like toxicologist Alchemists could use something like Quick Bomber, but for their poisons.

As it is, they'd probably want to get a rogue feat (Poison Weapon) to be able to draw a poison and apply it to their weapon in one action, which certainly feels like something they should be able to do with an Alchemist feat of their own.

The ability for them to create 'infinite' basic poisons is a lot less useful when you need the weapon you'd like to poison in hand along with needing to be in range/reach of the enemy you'd like to attack at the start of your turn to be able to use it at all. One action to make the 'Quick Vial', one action to apply it, and the last action to attack.

It's certainly better than Toxicology was before, absolutely, but when it's compared to being able to lob 3 'free' bombs a turn, it seems lack-luster.

Good thing toxicologists can also lob 3 free bombs a turn, then!

/s

I might be crazy, but I could swear I heard of this in one of the slew of new content videos.
A "boulder throwing" ability that applied handwrap runes to the boulders,in a way that implied that it was normal for thrown attacks

I think it was giant related, but I dont think we have any giant stuff forPCs, except for the barbarians.

I might be crazy, but I could swear I heard of this in one of the slew of new content videos.

A "boulder throwing" ability that applied handwrap runes to the boulders,in a way that implied that it was normal for thrown attacks

I think it was giant related, but I dont think we have any giant stuff forPCs, except for the barbarians.

Given that Paizo's taxman is merciless when it comes to thrown builds, I highly doubt Handwraps would work for anything but a specific "Ranged Unarmed Attack", like Foxfire.

I might be crazy, but I could swear I heard of this in one of the slew of new content videos.

A "boulder throwing" ability that applied handwrap runes to the boulders,in a way that implied that it was normal for thrown attacks

I think it was giant related, but I dont think we have any giant stuff forPCs, except for the barbarians.

There’s plenty of rules or new interpretive errors in these videos. Mute and just look at book screenshots is the only way.

I think one thing for Tox specialist alchemists is planning ahead. About to open a door in a dungeon? Take a round use a couple versatile vials turn them into poisons that last 10 minutes and apply them to some weapon to prep them for use. Don't encounter anything in 10 minutes well congrats you got your resources back and can do it again. The action cost for doing it in combat is a bit tougher for tox than bomber but tox can and probably should be more proactive with their use.

Honestly mutagen is the one that seems kinda weird for their specialists versatile vial option. Suppressing their mutagens debuffs for a round is pretty good but using their quick vials for that seems super questionable. Two attacks to suppress your debuffs until the start of your next turn seems problematic.

Honestly some power like quick bomber that applies to all alchemists quick vials would be nice. A once per round spend an action to brew a thing and do a thing. Brew it and throw it brew it and drink it brew it and apply it.

Honestly some power like quick bomber that applies to all alchemists quick vials would be nice. A once per round spend an action to brew a thing and do a thing. Brew it and throw it brew it and drink it brew it and apply it.

When I wrote my own Alchemist Reformulated remaster of the class, it was really important to understand that the core of Alchemist is not "free bombs for everyone", but the creation and handling of bulk L items.

Alchemist's core identity was being handed a daily budget / blank check worth hundreds or thousands of gp, and told to "make it work" in a party of over the top specialists casting fireballs and smiting foes in the name of ___.

================

It's honestly interesting to see that I nerfed Alchemist in some ways that Paizo was unwilling to, and sad to see that Paizo failed to understand that if people do not choose Bomber, it means they do not want to be mechanically coerced into throwing bombs, lol.

Besides 10 min refilling "reservoirs," which was the system enabling Q-Alch / insta-items, I made 2 core mechanical changes/buffs that the rest of the Reformulated was built to accommodate and balance.

First, Alchemist could hold multiple L items in each hand, and gained their own 1A flourish Draw action to fill hands up to capacity. While a L1 Bomber could choose to draw 4 bombs at once, this kept alchs playing with the hand-action economy, instead of seeking to circumvent it entirely.

The second big change was to have this version of Q-Alchemy have a 0A flourish option. Basically all action compression in the class, including a later alch ammo Activate compression Feat, used flourish as its once-per-round balancing safety. (& there's no Double Brew, which locks compression until L9)

When I designed my own 10-min refilling "reservoirs," I understood that the Alch subtypes play very differently from each other. Instead of dictating one set number of dailies and VVs RRs for all Alchemists (which would guarantee some get screwed), the way I squared that circle was for all Alchs to get 1 reservoir, then could choose to spend 2 infused reagents each in order to add more refilling reservoirs that day.

I also decided there was no reason to force daily item selection foresight, so "Infused Alchemy" became something you can do to make reagents into prep items during any combat break.

===================

The boring text version I wrote was intriguing enough that the few eyeballs it received resulted in 2 different Alchemists taking their own time to upgrade the document into something digitally playable, one to make it a Pathbuilder module, and another took it all the way into a Foundry module.

There's a whole more to the Reformulated, like every Research Field getting their own drip-unlocked set of item formulas and Additives, (actual) martial strike progression, new Feats like full mutagenic polymorphing, gun/crossbow support, etc, so if that sounds like something you'd like to browse, it's free, and it's not going anywhere.

I'm pretty proud of how Toxicologist turned out if you're curious about that in specific, which starts with being able to attach their Reservoirs to weapons so they don't need to separately apply injury poisons.

I might be crazy, but I could swear I heard of this in one of the slew of new content videos.

A "boulder throwing" ability that applied handwrap runes to the boulders,in a way that implied that it was normal for thrown attacks

I think it was giant related, but I dont think we have any giant stuff forPCs, except for the barbarians.

You might be thinking about the Weapon Improviser archetype: with handwraps of mighty blows, you use it's bonus, number of damage dice and property runes with improvised weapon.

The action cost of toxicologists vial ability is painful. It's more useful for strength based toxicologists though since you don't have much dex for throwing the vials and your melee is better in general. Hobgoblin alchemists with breaching pikes or tengu's with falcata's could make decent use out of it.

The Ronyon wrote:

I might be crazy, but I could swear I heard of this in one of the slew of new content videos.

A "boulder throwing" ability that applied handwrap runes to the boulders,in a way that implied that it was normal for thrown attacks

I think it was giant related, but I dont think we have any giant stuff forPCs, except for the barbarians.

You might be thinking about the Weapon Improviser archetype: with handwraps of mighty blows, you use it's bonus, number of damage dice and property runes with improvised weapon.

And even then, it's more of a catch-up mechanic to make the concept work rather than something to exploit and cook up an OP build.

The Ronyon wrote:

I might be crazy, but I could swear I heard of this in one of the slew of new content videos.

A "boulder throwing" ability that applied handwrap runes to the boulders,in a way that implied that it was normal for thrown attacks

I think it was giant related, but I dont think we have any giant stuff forPCs, except for the barbarians.

You might be thinking about the Weapon Improviser archetype: with handwraps of mighty blows, you use it's bonus, number of damage dice and property runes with improvised weapon.

That must be it!

That must be it!
I watched a Wisdom Check video on Weapon Improviser recently.
So is it applicable to bombs?

Alchemical bombs are martial thrown weapons, so no.

The Ronyon wrote:

That must be it!
I watched a Wisdom Check video on Weapon Improviser recently.
So is it applicable to bombs?

Alchemical bombs are martial thrown weapons, so no.

It's worse than the usual "bomb is weapon?" jank.

When the Treasure Vault released the Thrower's Bandolier, it seemed that RaW bombs could finally get property runes, and some were also saying that the bandolier would give L1 bombs the fundamental runes of the better versions. RaW it kinda did.

The TV errata was Paizo's chance, and they refused to mention either the issues with bombs or the bandolier in the public-facing errata.

Instead, iirc the bandolier talk got official dev statement "clarifying" that consumables can "never benefit from runes". (there already was a rule saying you "can only etch runes onto permanent items" but to pretend that is the same thing would be disingenuous)

Without ever acknowledging bombs or admitting there's an issue there, Paizo found an indirect way to forever kill bombs from being able to get the property runes they so sorely lack.

Anyone know which printing of the splash trait is correct, Players Core 1 & 2 or the GM Core. PC 1 &2 do not deal splash damage in 5' on a miss the GM Core says it does....

Anyone know which printing of the splash trait is correct, Players Core 1 & 2 or the GM Core. PC 1 &2 do not deal splash damage in 5' on a miss the GM Core says it does....

AFAICT, there's nothing official to resolve it.

The current PC1 / GM Core errata do not address it, and there are no published PC2 errata.

Comedy option is PCs don’t, alchemical NPCs do, this the different rules in different sources.

With everything we already have, (I'm still going to read the book), but what would be my best bet for having a damage/support and/or healing character? Bomber or Toxic? And regardless of which of these, would Medic as an archetype for healing work well?

With everything we already have, (I'm still going to read the book), but what would be my best bet for having a damage/support and/or healing character? Bomber or Toxic? And regardless of which of these, would Medic as an archetype for healing work well?

Bomber gives you proper support and useful abilities which are immediately usable. Toxi relies a lot on draw avoidance and action compression, so if what I said sounds like nonsense, skip.

obviously bomb are not suppose to have property rune

how is it even a question so many year into 2e

bomber are better than before and still worse than most martial

despite poison have much lower damage than before it is still the best dps option for alchemist at mid and high level

Not exactly bombers deals up to the double of its intelligence as splash damage what means that the splash damage can go from 1 to 14 as long a bomber progress while if you put up to 3 energy damage property runes you extra damage can go from the avg 3,5(1d6) (at level 8) up to 10,5 (3x1d6), also if we want to make a fair comparison we need to compare it with a thrown weapon that also adds some Str to damage what usually means that it will get an extra of +3 up to +5 making a thrown weapon give from 3 to 15,5 of "extra" damage.

The main advantage of bombs is that the splash damage does damage even in a failure. This is pretty uniq for a non-ranged non-press Strikes (fighters are able to do some damage in a failure with Certain Strike but it's limited to melee Strikes and you need to be under effect of a MAP due Press trait) and make worth for a bomber to use all its actions to strike specially vs creatures with weakness to some of its bombs.

Bombs also have a pretty high (probably the highest of the game) damage type versatility allowing to easily exploit and test enemy weakness no matter what's its damage type because probably exists a bomb that deals that damage type.

What bombers lose in terms of DPR is that they don't get an extra damage like beyond the values that property runes does like barbarians, inventors, investigators, magus, rogues get nor a +2 proficiency bonus like fighters and gunslinger nor extra weakness like thaumaturges and have a lower hit-rate due their key stat isn't used to hit (yet this happens to inventors, thaumaturges and investigators too).

Poisoners are in a similar situation. You can get some good extra damage bonus from poisons and can add their Str to damage to a weapon with property runes if fight melee or put in a thrown weapon but this costs some extra actions to reapply poisons into your weapon and poison usually requires fortitude checks what's mean that's not always they work even when uses your class DC and it's pretty common that most non-npcs foes to have a pretty higher fortitude.

Yet there's another pretty good versatility point in both bombs and poisons that's embedded debuff effects that helps to compensate the lower damage. There are many bombs and poisons that not only does damage but also add some condition to its strikes something that most martials usually need to use an dedicated action just for it or needs to use talismans that have fixed DCs (what's pretty bad).

obviously bomb are not suppose to have property rune

how is it even a question so many year into 2e

bomber are better than before and still worse than most martial

despite poison have much lower damage than before it is still the best dps option for alchemist at mid and high level

The core issue is not that Bombs can't get runes, but that they were never built with something to properly compensate for that loss. If they had enough genuine perks that made up for it, they would be "good". Their on-hit effects and splash do NOT get anywhere close.

Bomb-lovers will overstate and mix valid perks of bombs, like splash on miss, with Class Features/Feats that are NOT a part of bombs as a weapon group. This is super important to spot and deconstruct, as any time someone talks about bombs with Feats, you can compare that to weapons with Feats, and that comparison is not kind to bombs.

Overall, bombs are a bad idea to use as your main Strike. Bomber Alchemists are the exception, and represent only 1/4 Alchemists.

Yet the Remaster seems to assume 4/4 think throwing bombs is a good idea. For everyone not a Bomber, bombs being weak Strikes (and competing against other alch items for resources) is why investing in throwing bombs is a "bad" idea. Property runes are just a common "invisible" bit of lost power that's easy to point to in a discussion.

============

IMO the biggest issue with bombs is that Paizo made a "burn-every-Strike" weapon group to begin with, while also conceptualizing a class who used them all day. As a concept, consumable strikes should put those few rationed bombs as significantly more powerful than infinite attacks. It's a problematic design concept that Paizo put upon themselves.

They did get a lot of things right, bombs are a ranged attack with on-hit effects, and they have the unique perk of splashing on miss, which gives them room to keep the DPS numbers lower and still have the high cost of throwing bombs "justified."

But the **huge** design whoopise was making bomb Feat lines like Calc Splash, etc.

Bombs could have been a weapon type that was genuinely "overpowered" out of the box, but even the specialist class of Alchemists could have been presented with no Feat interaction to directly buff their attack damage. This would make it a real trade; you suffer a non-improvable weapon type, and in exchange bombs get an above-baseline performance & can spend their Feats elsewhere. Bombers could still improve them through non-selectable Features. But as soon as Feat budget is involved, bombs have to be nerfed for everyone so that the strongest Bomber isn't a clear #1.

This would give bombs a niche as an expensive 2ndary "sometimes weapon," especially appealing for those who do not invest Feat budget into Strikes, which seems to have been the design intent.

But, because Bombers as a concept exist, and Pazio does not want the only Strike-rationing class to top the charts even when super invested into bombs, this means that bombs are decently good for Bombers, and suck for everyone else.

===========

Because I do need to be crystal clear here, when you think about bombs as martial weapons, they are not good.

If you get a single Feat of investment into bombs, like Quick Bomber, then you need to compare that against a single Feat martial.

Such as Quick Draw or a Ricochet Stance, both of which are all you need for a thrown weapon build, the most analogous comparison point. While the persistent damage bombs actually do hang on for a while if you assume 2-3 ticks, bombs really struggle to justify themselves if you consider gp costs "free" in contrast to things like Class Feats. If a martial can count on keeping their runes maxed, even a level behind, there is little reason for them to ever choose bombs over throwing weapons.

Alchemists, you gotta take a moment to ask how many martials (not-Alchemists) have ever decided to throw bombs as a primary attack? This is what I mean by actually comparing bombs as they exist out of the box to martial weapons. Despite being consumables you throw once, bombs have almost no appeal. It's only the class that gets bombs "for free" that ever really considers them.

But, as using those freebies directly competes against all other alch items, bombs have always been a hard sell for 3/4 non-Bomber Alchemists that have a runed weapon. The sometimes-maybe of splash triggering weakness is a real upside, but a small one.

==========

The 3/4 non-Bomber Alchs did, and still do, get better combat performance if they invest in normal weapon Feats instead of the bomb Feats.

This remaster makes a few big changes that put far, far more mechanical coercion upon those 3/4 Alchemists that did NOT sign up to throw bombs.

Think again about how many normal martials you've seen try to use bombs as their main thing. The lack of bomb use outside Alchemist, despite them being martial weapons like any other, is the clearest sign that bombs are not good weapons. Consumable Strikes would have to be well above the norm for anyone to attempt it.

And remember that Alchemist free items can be any item. Each bomb created represents one other item that was not made instead. As a Chiurgeon, I am double-motivated to pick Quick Draw + Bandolier, because I will get more damage than bombs while also saving on alch item budget.

===============

Paizo now coercing bomb-use with things like the free QVs, Q-Bomber buff, and the L9 Double-Brew combo all seriously hurt 3/4 Alchemists.

Even more than before, any Alchemist who must consider their limited item count gains a great deal by freeing themselves from bomb use via weapon investment.

Bottom line, bombs are "bad" as in, never rewarding enough to justify the costs of using them.

Arguments like "but they pop weaknesses" hide the bad total picture behind the single tiny niche that bombs do have. And anyone with Quick Draw can throw L1 bombs to splash weakness.

Arguments discussing Calc Splash, Additives, etc, are not talking about bombs as a weapon, but about those specific Feats, and if they justify/make up for being stuck on a "bad" weapon type (and those strong Feat-based enhancements are *why* the weapon type must be bad to begin with!).

Not exactly bombers deals up to the double of its intelligence as splash damage what means that the splash damage can go from 1 to 14 as long a bomber progress while if you put up to 3 energy damage property runes you extra damage can go from the avg 3,5(1d6) (at level 8) up to 10,5 (3x1d6), also if we want to make a fair comparison we need to compare it with a thrown weapon that also adds some Str to damage what usually means that it will get an extra of +3 up to +5 making a thrown weapon give from 3 to 15,5 of "extra" damage.

The main advantage of bombs is that the splash damage does damage even in a failure. This is pretty uniq for a non-ranged non-press Strikes (fighters are able to do some damage in a failure with Certain Strike but it's limited to melee Strikes and you need to be under effect of a MAP due Press trait) and make worth for a bomber to use all its actions to strike specially vs creatures with weakness to some of its bombs.

Bombs also have a pretty high (probably the highest of the game) damage type versatility allowing to easily exploit and test enemy weakness no matter what's its damage type because probably exists a bomb that deals that damage type.

What bombers lose in terms of DPR is that they don't get an extra damage like beyond the values that property runes does like barbarians, inventors, investigators, magus, rogues get nor a +2 proficiency bonus like fighters and gunslinger nor extra weakness like thaumaturges and have a lower hit-rate due their key stat isn't used to hit (yet this happens to inventors, thaumaturges and investigators too).

Poisoners are in a similar situation. You can get some good extra damage bonus from poisons and can add their Str to damage to a weapon with property runes if fight melee or put in a thrown weapon but this costs some extra actions to reapply poisons into your weapon and poison usually requires fortitude checks what's mean that's not always they work even when uses your class...

Your math is off on a thrown weapon equivalent:

STR - +3 to +5

Weapon/Greater Weapon Spec: +2-+6 (+8 for a fighter, but alchemist is capped at +3 at L15)

Damage Runes: 3.5x3 + 1D10 to 2D10 persistent damage on a crit (flaming rune)

KAS Starting at 18: +1 to hit for half your levels = ~15% DPR increase. Can be mitigated by mutagens, but they all come with bad drawbacks.

Martial Class Feature:
- +2 to hit and +2 on weapon spec (Fighter)
- 1D6 (3.5) to 4D6 (14) Sneak Attack (Rogue)
- +2 to +18 Rage (Barbarian)
- +2 to +8 and +2 to +4 from regalia and +3 to +12 personal antithesis (Thaumaturge)
- Ranger/Monk with action compression (1 extra strike at ~10% DPR increase) along with accuracy boosts, precision rider, or focus point spell boosts (ki strike)
- 1D6 (3.5) and +2 to +6 INT + weapon modifications (Inventor)
- etc.

So really we're talking about +3-18.5 + Class Features + Accuracy Boosts.

There were a few ways Paizo could have improved this. Either give additional class features, give runes on alchemist's goggles (limit it to 2 vs. 3 similar to how they limited kineticist's item booster if that would be necessary), or allow additives on quick vials.

Personally I feel like that last one would have been the best. This gives you quick vials as potential debuff bombs, sticky mutagens to proc different persistent energy damage types, and means you can use your class feats even if your VV/AA items run out. I'm not sure which one gets you closest to where it needs to be or if any of the options leads to an over-tuned outcome, but they sound like a step in the right direction.

I think the problem with the current design is that it appears as if Paizo decided that combats should last 4-5 rounds on average and never go back to back. That sounds like how you might justify 2+INT VVs (one dedicated to a mutagen slot) with some back-up/versatility from AA items. Almost feels like the underlying design is we are supposed to throw a VV then QVs after that (which just have really bad scaling, made worse by the inability to include additive effects). I anticipate running out of VVs enough for it to be a pain point (not dramatically, but maybe 10-20% of combats where you're stuck for 1-3 rounds at the end of combat only throwing crappy QVs.

There is also an underlying concept of single target DPR vs. multi target DPR. Here are some preliminary calculations (lots of fiddly bits so I could have made an error somewhere). I'm also letting the new duskwalker L9 feat just work on mutagens/bombs and telluric power work on mutagen strikes (RAW the L9 feat doesn't get its L16/17 boost, and telluric power probably doesn't work but they support the alchemist so sue me).

Single Target Ranged Full Round DPR

Single Target Melee Full Round DPR

Two Target Full Round DPR

But effectively if you limit yourself to 1 VV bomb + 2 QVs you are doing okay if you are hitting two people and can do that for 5-6 rounds which should cover most combats. It isn't so great for the STR mutagenist that is struggling to compete. I also threw in the ostilli host archetype (you need FA to make it work), which can squeeze out more damage at range and has the interesting fun note of really working well off a skunk bomb since the status penalty helps the archetype's reflex save ability.

"Bomber Alchemists are the exception"

Why so?

Clearly, no one at Paizo has ever raised these objections to bomb-throwing. They must be blind.

YuriP wrote:

Not exactly bombers deals up to the double of its intelligence as splash damage what means that the splash damage can go from 1 to 14 as long a bomber progress while if you put up to 3 energy damage property runes you extra damage can go from the avg 3,5(1d6) (at level 8) up to 10,5 (3x1d6), also if we want to make a fair comparison we need to compare it with a thrown weapon that also adds some Str to damage what usually means that it will get an extra of +3 up to +5 making a thrown weapon give from 3 to 15,5 of "extra" damage.

The main advantage of bombs is that the splash damage does damage even in a failure. This is pretty uniq for a non-ranged non-press Strikes (fighters are able to do some damage in a failure with Certain Strike but it's limited to melee Strikes and you need to be under effect of a MAP due Press trait) and make worth for a bomber to use all its actions to strike specially vs creatures with weakness to some of its bombs.

Bombs also have a pretty high (probably the highest of the game) damage type versatility allowing to easily exploit and test enemy weakness no matter what's its damage type because probably exists a bomb that deals that damage type.

What bombers lose in terms of DPR is that they don't get an extra damage like beyond the values that property runes does like barbarians, inventors, investigators, magus, rogues get nor a +2 proficiency bonus like fighters and gunslinger nor extra weakness like thaumaturges and have a lower hit-rate due their key stat isn't used to hit (yet this happens to inventors, thaumaturges and investigators too).

Poisoners are in a similar situation. You can get some good extra damage bonus from poisons and can add their Str to damage to a weapon with property runes if fight melee or put in a thrown weapon but this costs some extra actions to reapply poisons into your weapon and poison usually requires fortitude checks what's mean that's not always they work

...

Man, there's a lot to read, I had a headache and didn't understand anything, I understood that Alchemist is still bad and that Paizo once again didn't get it right, is that it?

"Bomber Alchemists are the exception"

Why so?

There are a lot more "apples to oranges" comparisons for a fully invested Bomber that gives them abilities normal Strikes lack.

Most notable is that if they invest in multiple Additive Feat lines, they can option select if they want a dab of persistent damage, usually when they do find an odd weakness like cold, or if they want a custom debuff via the Debilitating line. Smoke Bomb may still exist (I haven't bothered to check).

Basically, there's a lot more room to argue that Bomber is good, and I'm not willing to wade into the weeds to declare that Bombers are bad/good (especially when most of my Alch playtime is as Chiurgeons).

It's a lot more clear and presentable to discuss that bombs as a weapon type are *quite* below par.

To be clear, the fact that most persistent damage types have a formula bomb that needs no Additive, and there are a "wide enough" variety of off-the-shelf debuff bombs... it's a point of argument if all the Feat investment + Features of a Bomber do indeed give a reward appropriate to that huge investment. Bomber players tend to be those who think it does, hence playing Bomber, while many who looked at Bomber and chose something else tend to be predisposed to say the opposite.

It also becomes much harder to even do a fair comparison when you have that many Feats at play to build your "Bomber vs ????" style side-by-side.

Man, there's a lot to read, I had a headache and didn't understand anything, I understood that Alchemist is still bad and that Paizo once again didn't get it right, is that it?

If I had to add a bit more nuance in there:

Bomber might have been nerfed a bit in the damage department, but is the most likely Alchemist to benefit from the move to VVs, as now they can potentially make many more Additive enhanced bombs that are exclusive to Quick Alchemy. And benefit the most from the Quick Bomber buff adding compatibility w/ Q-Alch.

Toxicologist was the most extremely altered in both directions at once. They were a type that wanted every item they could daily prep (which is now a small fraction of previous). But they also got the biggest new perk with the new feature to bypass poison immunity outright, and convert to acid if it's better in the moment (likely will never get used, nearly nothing resists poison, lol.)

Mutagenist may be the least affected? Some small buffs here and there, but they generally were the least concerned with total daily items, and still will not feel too pressured by that shrinkage. It mostly depends on what else the Muta was doing with their alch aside from unarmed attacks. Remaster certainly added some new jank (the "buff" to bestial mutagens now blocks runes from working right, rofl), but overall I think it's safe to say Mutagenist will have a smooth transition into the Remaster.

Chiurgeon... got gutted pretty bad. As healers/buffers, they don't care about prep items scaling their DC, they really wanted every prep item they could make even more than Tox, but had no game-changing buff to compensate. Tox can also use VVs to pre-poison weapons via lingering effect before combat, but Chi must use Q-Alch in combat now. This makes every (VV) elixir I use take 2x the actions it used to.
So.... far fewer elixirs total, most will cost 2x the actions to do, the replacement for the Perpetuals is an actual downgrade... it's bad news. Really, really bad news.

LordeAlvenaharr wrote:

Man, there's a lot to read, I had a headache and didn't understand anything, I understood that Alchemist is still bad and that Paizo once again didn't get it right, is that it?

If I had to add a bit more nuance in there:

Bomber might have been nerfed a bit in the damage department, but is the most likely Alchemist to benefit from the move to VVs, as now they can potentially make many more Additive enhanced bombs that are exclusive to Quick Alchemy.

Toxicologist was the most extremely altered in both directions at once. They were a type that wanted every item they could daily prep (which is now a small fraction of previous). But they also got the biggest new perk with the new feature to bypass poison immunity outright, and convert to acid if it's better in the moment (likely will never get used, nearly nothing resists poison, lol.)

Mutagenist may be the least affected? Some small buffs here and there, but they generally were the least concerned with total daily items, and still will not feel too pressured by that shrinkage. It mostly depends on what else the Muta was doing with their alch aside from unarmed attacks. Remaster certainly added some new jank (the "buff" to bestial mutagens now blocks runes from working right, rofl), but overall I think it's safe to say Mutagenist will have a smooth transition into the Remaster.

Chiurgeon... got gutted pretty bad. As healers/buffers, they don't care about prep items scaling their DC, they really wanted every prep item they could make even more than Tox, but had no game-changing buff to compensate. Tox can also use VVs to pre-poison weapons via lingering effect before combat, but Chi must use Q-Alch in combat now. This makes every (VV) elixir I use take 2x the actions it used to.
So.... far fewer elixirs total, most will cost 2x the actions to do, the replacement for the Perpetuals is an actual downgrade... it's bad news. Really, really bad news.

I haven't read the formulas yet, but I wanted to have an Alchemist as focused on damage as possible, and a good support/healing (something I would improve with Medic). I've always liked the poison that causes damage every round, in the case of a TTRPG, more precisely getting rid of it with a Fortitude save, but I don't know if that's how poison works in Pathfinder. I would focus on the shortbow (by the way, in that case, do I have to poison every arrow, with every shot?), anyway, I'll see if I can finally read everything and see the best way.

The toxicology acid/poison swap won’t just happen against poison resistance, it will also happen on acid weakness (or to shut off regeneration for something like a premaster troll).

Man, there's a lot to read, I had a headache and didn't understand anything, I understood that Alchemist is still bad and that Paizo once again didn't get it right, is that it?

Thats why I include the pretty pictures at the bottom of the post.

TLDR: Bomber Alchemist focused on damage does okay single target damage for ~4-5 rounds and way better multi-target damage (just like a fire kineticist or electric arc). Bestial mutagenist is not doing so hot, but it is possible to optimize more since I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of alchemical items like others here. Ostilli Host is great for FA (like any martial class with a L9-Expert/L17-Master Class DC). Paizo should have bridged the gap of no weapon property runes with allowing additives on Quick Vials so your feats are always useful.

A maximal sustained DPR turn = 1 good bomb (versatile vial) + 1 Quick Vial + 1 Ostilli Host 1 Action reflex save effect. Do that for 4-5 rounds until your versatile vial supply runs out.

Mutagenist Help?
I think a reasonable reading of RAI could give a combined elixer of Viperous Elixir with a bestial mutagen on the basis that it seems to imply that if you had a pre-existing bite (like a jaw attack from bestial) that the effects would apply to that and not just your fangs. If yes, then at L6+ for 3 vials (probably advanced alchemy vials) you could have these loaded up in a shifting spider collar to effectively get better DPR that might bridge the necessary gap.

Otherwise maybe you have to focus on bottled monstrosities + single attack?

Speaking as a Mutagenist veteran, I’d say we’re still heavily affected. While we didn’t really care much about the amount of mutagens we were making with dailies, we did often lean heavilhy into party buffing via non-mutagen elixirs, and the amount of dailies matters a lot there. The extra mutagens added variety for situational picks, but the bulk was spent to buff saves, perception, grant damage resistance, and various utility based on the day.

There’s also a lot in the new mutagenist subclass that either isn’t impactful or just won’t see the light of day - two actions to drop a skill penalty I lived with for years, or gain a handful of tempHP? I might as well forget the option exists. Rerolling my best save? Sure, maybe one day if I’m desperate.

I’m more worried about having to buy Striking runes for my handwraps in bulk once Deadly starts to scale.

Man, there's a lot to read, I had a headache and didn't understand anything, I understood that Alchemist is still bad and that Paizo once again didn't get it right, is that it?

IMO, the previous playstyle of "you get a wealth of items prepared at the start of the day, and you can give them out to party members or spam them so long as you guessed correctly what you needed for the day (and are above level ~5 or so)" is gone. I'm not surprised, given how much people complained about not wanting to be an alchemical item dispenser and not much else. In exchange, the new playstyle is much more normal for PF2, and features some really strong options that are very comparable in functionality to existing classes (definitely bomber, i'd say tox) and some that might be a little weaker then the other fields but are still comprehensively better than all but the best-played CRB alchemist (chirurgeon, probably mutagenist). I'd imagine for the vast majority of players, this new version of the Alchemist is going to be a significant improvement. It's a slight lowering of the power ceiling, and a massive raise of the power floor. I'd be pretty comfortable in saying Paizo got it right for most players of the game, but those who were operating at the top of alchemist performance are likely frustrated at having the entire class revamped.

Bomber might have been nerfed a bit in the damage department, but is the most likely Alchemist to benefit from the move to VVs, as now they can potentially make many more Additive enhanced bombs that are exclusive to Quick Alchemy. And benefit the most from the Quick Bomber buff adding compatibility w/ Q-Alch.

In general bombers was way more buffed than limited. You now can use Quick Bomber with Quick Alchemy, and even being limited to 6-9 Quick Alchemy bombs per encounter (considering that you have enough time to "refocus" between battles) the instant Versatile Vials allows you to use all your available actions to bomb with them with your vials instead of use 2-actions to thrown lower level Perpetual Infusion bombs. This also allowed to use your adictives to improve your top level bombs and choose the correct bomb to use vs right weakness

OK, theoretically a legacy alchemist cold make enough bombs with it larger number of reagents using advanced alchemy to be able to throw a top bomb using every action but this was in very late level and was caped to KASless expert proficiency.

So IMO bombers are in a way better situation than they was in legacy now. They no more lacks of bombs in earlier levels and have a higher proficiency and splash damage in later levels.

Toxicologist was the most extremely altered in both directions at once. They were a type that wanted every item they could daily prep (which is now a small fraction of previous). But they also got the biggest new perk with the new feature to bypass poison immunity outright, and convert to acid if it's better in the moment (likely will never get used, nearly nothing resists poison, lol.)

Being able to choose the poison on the fly allows to combine different debuff effects of different poisons to the target. But non-virulent poisons still hard to enter due many enemies usually have a high fortitude so this is real problematic part of poisoners. Outside this you rarely will become without poisons to yourself in a encounter due that your poisons are only really used when you hit the target and that you need an action to reapply it to a weapon and now your proficiency goes to master allowing you to keep some efficiency in higher levels.

What I really miss about legacy poisoner is that is no more viable to apply poison in your allies weapons because you don't have enough advanced alchemy to poison their weapons between the encounters unless that your adventure have a pretty low number of encounters per day (something rare in many APs but pretty common in PFS games).

About ability to change the poison damage to able to do acid damage instead I completely disagree with Trip.H. This is very useful because every undead and construct is immune to poison. So the number of possible creatures with poison immunity is very large. In some adventures like those who happens in a undead only area this completely changes the effectiveness of poisoners.

Mutagenist may be the least affected? Some small buffs here and there, but they generally were the least concerned with total daily items, and still will not feel too pressured by that shrinkage. It mostly depends on what else the Muta was doing with their alch aside from unarmed attacks. Remaster certainly added some new jank (the "buff" to bestial mutagens now blocks runes from working right, rofl), but overall I think it's safe to say Mutagenist will have a smooth transition into the Remaster.

That said Mutagenist keeps in pretty bad position IMO. Most mutagens are defensive or utility focused also they still are polymorph what's restricts them to one or two after 13 level. The new VV Quick Alchemy allows to use them more strategically out of encounters to improve some skills and then dismiss then using some feat that cancels the current mutagen to prevent this mutagen drawback to make problems later or difficulty the change to a new mutagen.

Also the mutagenist Research Field doesn't give any really good benefit to worth it. If I would play with mutagens probably I would prefer to use toxicologist applying poison to bestial claws than to as a true mutagenist.

About changes in Bestial Mutagem the real buff is that it looses the AC penalty in drawbacks. The changes about block Strike Runes is because it now have this rune effect inside it (before you need to have handwraps to be able to increase the number of the damage dices now you don't, what saves a bit of your money) yet you probably still want to use handwraps to able to get property runes so I agree it's not a significative change it just saves some money.

Chiurgeon... got gutted pretty bad. As healers/buffers, they don't care about prep items scaling their DC, they really wanted every prep item they could make even more than Tox, but had no game-changing buff to compensate. Tox can also use VVs to pre-poison weapons via lingering effect before combat, but Chi must use Q-Alch in combat now. This makes every (VV) elixir I use take 2x the actions it used to.

So.... far fewer elixirs total, most will cost 2x the actions to do, the replacement for the Perpetuals is an actual downgrade... it's bad...

Sorry but Quick Alchemy and drink uses 2 actions like draw and drink uses. OK you could add Elixirs to some Retrieval Belts to save an action but this is a remaster item, its legacy version (Gloves of Storing) was limited to just one item so this isn't an incredible change at all.

About the usage of pure VV to heal and comparing it to Perpetual elixirs you are overrating the Perpetual Elixirs. Elixirs of Life was a one use per target every 10 minutes with a lower level elixir. It was more a thing to off-encounter heal than really useful in combat (where you usually prefer to use your best elixir to try to save some actions avoiding healing again later). Also after level 11 your pure Versatile Vials looses the coagulant trait if the target is bellow the half-hp. I agree it still a low healing and very bad action effective but it still useful to give extra check vs mental effects (what I admit it's pretty circunstancial too so meh).

So I agree that Chiurgeon usually doesn't worth but for a different reason. The first is that you are still able to make the same good Elixirs with other Research Field and take all the removal condition feats normally and that in higher levels your need for emergency combat heals becomes more and more scarce and doesn't forces the party to have dozens of elixirs to keep alive nor someone healing every round like was in PF1/3.5/5e.

So IMO it's not like the situation of Chiurgeon becomes worse but it's more like it doesn't improve significatively. But due new feats that remove conditions with Elixirs of Life the alchemist in general is now a better healer than it was in legacy.

I understood that Alchemist is still bad and that Paizo once again didn't get it right, is that it?

Alchemist is better than it used to be. It is much more usable, far more accessible to beginners. But as all the weak classes have improved it is still one of the weakest.

I don't quite understand why we couldn't get some sort of 1/round action compression on using any QA-created item, rather than only bombs.
After double brew, I can move to an ally, create an elixir and feed it to them and also chuck a bomb on the same turn – that probably feels appropriate in terms of achievements for a turn, great!
But somehow I can't substitute the bomb throw in that turn with a poisoned dagger or mutagenic jaws Strike, or consuming something myself. I think that's where this rework was too conservative in supporting characters whose schtick isn't necessarily to chuck around explosives all the time (while also nerfing their usual work-arounds).

The resource and proficiency issues were improved on though, which is great. I like the added focus on encounter resources without completely abandoning dailies, just wish they weren't as clunky to use.

Yuri,

You can’t poison bestial claws (or any natural attack) as they aren’t a weapon. Same reason energy mutagen doesn’t enhance them.

As I've said before, Chiurgeons did not use Quick Alch in combat, that would put elixir healing in comparison to 2A touch range spells, and they cannot compete with 2A cast a spell healing (nor against most Focus Spells). Maybe Chiurgeons sometimes would use Q-Alch after L13 and the max-roll elixir feature comes online. Not as much for the burst healing, as again, 2 actions (and 3x the reagent cost of a prep elixir). But they might use it for their Perpetuals, as the max-roll feature means the lagging level of the freebies is seriously compensated for. That's even more likely if a GM allowed Double Brew to be compatible with Perpetuals.

Chiurgeons worked when they used elixirs for 1A, and I've mentioned earlier in this thread I can do that for the first 5 turns at minimum completely RaW.

===================

One big change that hurts Bombers a lot is that of the new version of Additive. It is now capped at once per turn total. This multiplies with Bombers also still being hit by the removal of Perpetuals as specific crafted bombs, which had great debuffs, and could be Additive boosted even further.

Now they are limited to 1 Additive bomb per turn, and will often want to throw hard-crafted daily or gp bombs instead of the Additive-banned, no effect Q-Vials.

Now there is no option to conserve resources & make use of their Additive Feat investment via throwing Perpetuals, every Additive costs a VV.

==================

Like Chiurgeon, Toxicologist also does not to want to do Quick Alch in combat due to the "cast a spell" action cost, and especially not to craft i.poisons. Like Chi, bypassing Draw cuts the action cost of poisoning mid-combat in half, so if they do seek to re-apply poison, it'll be via Draw-avoidance.

I fully expect re-applying more poison in combat to be a rare thing to begin with, and for most of their VVials to be continuously popped every 10min to keep as many blades poisoned out of combat as possible.

The idea that Tox can now option-select their poison mid fight via Q-Alchemy... is rather silly to present as a buff. Maybe you will enjoy a 3A routine to [Q-Alch] + [Activate] + [Strike], but I assure you that's not a commonly shared sentiment.

I also neglected to mention that many poisons were nerfed, which does have a substantial effect.

==================

Mutagenist is probably the closest to the blank slate Alchemist, and I've let the continual flow of useful alch items from the books cloud my perception of the remaster in specific.

While Mutagenist does usually benefit more from these oddball items due to a flexible budget, it is still a "no duh" conclusion that Muta was making use of all their items, and that having that be cut down in quantity is a big hit. Though it is worth saying that Muta will have more items in the pre- Lvl 5/7ish area before old Alch's reagents p level would start stacking up (don't forget we also lost the 2/3x item multiplier for prep items).

And I've got to say once again how bad it is to need to [Q-Alch] + [Activate] for 2A in combat. Even Muta wanted to dodge those Draws, and VVials do not allow this. Only bombs get the privilege, after the Feat tax has been paid.

I'm still optimistic Muta can come out of this with a "better than before" judgment, but a large part of that will be the shift to using more offensive items now that the DCs scale. Before remaster, a large reason for the use of buffing items was due to other items having static DCs, which left those offensive prep items non-viable in combat.

Also bizarre/hilarious/sad is how a new headliner Mutagenist Feat, Regurgitate Mutagen, is written with total anti-Muta synergy. Kinda easy to foresee that those alchs that rely on mutagens are those with the highest cost of ejecting their effects, lol.

With how much the new Mutagenist Features & Feats seem to think they will be drinking multiple mutagens in a fight (which sounds nuts to veteran Alchemists), it's almost like they intended to give each type of Alchemist their own Quick Bomber, but decided against it at the last minute...

I don't quite understand why we couldn't get some sort of 1/round action compression on using any QA-created item, rather than only bombs.

After double brew, I can move to an ally, create an elixir and feed it to them and also chuck a bomb on the same turn – that probably feels appropriate in terms of achievements for a turn, great!
But somehow I can't substitute the bomb throw in that turn with a poisoned dagger or mutagenic jaws Strike, or consuming something myself. I think that's where this rework was too conservative in supporting characters whose schtick isn't necessarily to chuck around explosives all the time (while also nerfing their usual work-arounds).

The resource and proficiency issues were improved on though, which is great. I like the added focus on encounter resources without completely abandoning dailies, just wish they weren't as clunky to use.

I think if I had a recommendation would probably be this too. Each field should get a brew it and do it option. Bombers brew one and throw it for one action the poison weapon action should give poisoners a 1 action brew/apply action and muties should get a brew it and drink it option.

Otherwise for anybody other than bombers using the quick vial perpetual stuff is HIGHLY problematic action economy wise.

I have not mathed it out but one upgrade with the way additives are working now is while you can only do it once per round you can do it on your max level item instead of having to underlevel what you are adding it to. I have to see how this plays out but I suspect once per round on the best thing you can make probably works out better especially around certain break points.

Chirurgeons just take MC investigator, homebrew a feat granting a methodology, then take Quick Tincture at level 24 to buff their allies in one action. Ez.

Yuri,

You can’t poison bestial claws (or any natural attack) as they aren’t a weapon. Same reason energy mutagen doesn’t enhance them.

I always consider that you can poison unarmed attacks (specially those who are piercing/slashing) due this:

Alchemical poisons are potent toxins distilled or extracted from natural sources and made either stronger or easier to administer. Each poison's stat block includes the Price and features for a single dose. Poison doses are typically kept in a vial or some other type of safe and secure container.

Applying alchemical poisons uses Interact actions. A poison typically requires one hand to pour into food or scatter in the air. Applying a poison to a weapon or another item requires two hands, with one hand holding the weapon or item. The Usage entry for a poison indicates the number of hands needed for a typical means of application, but the GM might determine that using poisons in other ways functions differently.

The full rules for how poisons and other afflictions are located here. A creature attempts the listed saving throw as soon as it's exposed to the poison; on a failed save, the creature advances to stage 1 of the poison after any listed onset time elapses.

Some poisons have the virulent trait. This means the poison is harder to remove once it has taken effect; see Virulent Afflictions.

So I always allowed to add injury poison in some unarmed strikes due this. But I can understand those who don't allows.

Chiurgeons worked when they used elixirs for 1A, and I've mentioned earlier in this thread I can do that for the first 5 turns at minimum completely RaW.

Sorry but when Chiurgeons could use elixirs with 1A? (this is not a provocative question but a real question)

Sorry but when Chiurgeons could use elixirs with 1A? (this is not a provocative question but a real question)

Elixirs have a 1A Activate entry. It's not going to be spelled out, but Alchemists figure out ways to avoid the Draw action.

And to be honest, Draw avoidance is "How to Make Alchemist Viable: 101",
so I'm surprised you are being so... authoritative in your assessment of the Alchemist remaster if this is news to you.

Especially because this has been explained multiple times in this thread, showing that you have not read it.

Draw avoidance is done via item relay familiars (NOT Valet, but Manual Dex + Independent), Retrieval Belt/prisms, holding something before combat starts, injection trait + elixirs, etc.

As I have said before, if Chiurgeon genuinely had to spend 2A on every elixir, the class would be unusable. That's the same action economy as casting spells, with a range of touch and far lower potency than magic.

yellowpete wrote:

I don't quite understand why we couldn't get some sort of 1/round action compression on using any QA-created item, rather than only bombs.

After double brew, I can move to an ally, create an elixir and feed it to them and also chuck a bomb on the same turn – that probably feels appropriate in terms of achievements for a turn, great!
But somehow I can't substitute the bomb throw in that turn with a poisoned dagger or mutagenic jaws Strike, or consuming something myself. I think that's where this rework was too conservative in supporting characters whose schtick isn't necessarily to chuck around explosives all the time (while also nerfing their usual work-arounds).

The resource and proficiency issues were improved on though, which is great. I like the added focus on encounter resources without completely abandoning dailies, just wish they weren't as clunky to use.

I think if I had a recommendation would probably be this too. Each field should get a brew it and do it option. Bombers brew one and throw it for one action the poison weapon action should give poisoners a 1 action brew/apply action and muties should get a brew it and drink it option.

Otherwise for anybody other than bombers using the quick vial perpetual stuff is HIGHLY problematic action economy wise.

I have not mathed it out but one upgrade with the way additives are working now is while you can only do it once per round you can do it on your max level item instead of having to underlevel what you are adding it to. I have to see how this plays out but I suspect once per round on the best thing you can make probably works out better especially around certain break points.

Call the feat Quicker Alchemy.

YuriP wrote:

Sorry but when Chiurgeons could use elixirs with 1A? (this is not a provocative question but a real question)

Elixirs have a 1A Activate entry. It's not going to be spelled out, but Alchemists figure out ways to avoid the Draw action.

And to be honest, Draw avoidance is "How to Make Alchemist Viable: 101",
so I'm surprised you are being so... authoritative in your assessment of the Alchemist remaster if this is news to you.

Especially because this has been explained multiple times in this thread, showing that you have not read it.

Draw avoidance is done via item relay familiars (NOT Valet, but Manual Dex + Independent), Retrieval Belt/prisms, holding something before combat starts, injection trait + elixirs, etc.

As I have said before, if Chiurgeon genuinely had to spend 2A on every elixir, the class would be unusable. That's the same action economy as casting spells, with a range of touch and far lower potency than magic.

That's what I really wanted to know.

Personally I think that you are overvaluing the legacy items/abilities to avoid an action to draw like they was a great thing.

LordeAlvenaharr wrote:

Man, there's a lot to read, I had a headache and didn't understand anything, I understood that Alchemist is still bad and that Paizo once again didn't get it right, is that it?

IMO, the previous playstyle of "you get a wealth of items prepared at the start of the day, and you can give them out to party members or spam them so long as you guessed correctly what you needed for the day (and are above level ~5 or so)" is gone. I'm not surprised, given how much people complained about not wanting to be an alchemical item dispenser and not much else. In exchange, the new playstyle is much more normal for PF2, and features some really strong options that are very comparable in functionality to existing classes (definitely bomber, i'd say tox) and some that might be a little weaker then the other fields but are still comprehensively better than all but the best-played CRB alchemist (chirurgeon, probably mutagenist). I'd imagine for the vast majority of players, this new version of the Alchemist is going to be a significant improvement. It's a slight lowering of the power ceiling, and a massive raise of the power floor. I'd be pretty comfortable in saying Paizo got it right for most players of the game, but those who were operating at the top of alchemist performance are likely frustrated at having the entire class revamped.

Yeah now you actually get to do a lot of the alchemy yourself rather than shrugging and getting the fighter to land the poison for you.

YuriP wrote:

Sorry but when Chiurgeons could use elixirs with 1A? (this is not a provocative question but a real question)

Elixirs have a 1A Activate entry. It's not going to be spelled out, but Alchemists figure out ways to avoid the Draw action.

And to be honest, Draw avoidance is "How to Make Alchemist Viable: 101",
so I'm surprised you are being so... authoritative in your assessment of the Alchemist remaster if this is news to you.

Especially because this has been explained multiple times in this thread, showing that you have not read it.

Draw avoidance is done via item relay familiars (NOT Valet, but Manual Dex + Independent), Retrieval Belt/prisms, holding something before combat starts, injection trait + elixirs, etc.

As I have said before, if Chiurgeon genuinely had to spend 2A on every elixir, the class would be unusable. That's the same action economy as casting spells, with a range of touch and far lower potency than magic.

Thousands of people have played the Chiurgeon while needing to spend two actions to use its elixirs, and while it had its problems, it was never "unusable". You are underselling how few people could reach the power celling of the alchemist, and wondering why we are happy when the power floor has been raised.

Familiars being able to hand off items is completely RaW. The only part that's uncharted territory is the "riding on shoulders" question.

It sure would have been great if the power floor for Chiurgeon had been raised, but it really has not. Your healing is still crazy limited before your L5 formulas become available. You are better off striking / throwing cantrips than using combat actions to heal for 1d6.

Injection does not compete with Healing Bomb at all, they are different use-cases. Allied injections require no Strike and is limited to melee range.

Healing Bomb is a ranged throw, and was horribly nerfed in the Remaster. Instead of healing full on a miss or better, you now must strike your allies with a hit or better. I personally cannot justify taking the Feat.

Again, I really do not know how any experienced Chiurgeon could look at the changes and think Chi has been improved by them.

Like it or not, Draw avoidance is a 2 --> 1 action cost upgrade. It's fundamental to why alch items are set at a low potency to begin with.

I've already sketched out item budgets post-remaster, and the item quantities, even when being generous with time between fights, looks really bad.

If you try to keep 3/6 VVs pre-used before a fight, such as a Lozenge + Mutagen + i.Poison, that's 3 VVs you can use at most before dipping into dailies. And if you want to Combine buff someone in turn 1, that's a single VV left.

And if you use 3/8 of those dailies on long-term buffs (only for yourself!), such as antiplague + antidote + darkvision, that's 5 total items remaining for the whole day.

It is what it is, but it's not good news.

Healing Bomb is a ranged throw, and was horribly nerfed in the Remaster. Instead of healing full on a miss or better, you now must strike your allies with a hit or better. I personally cannot justify taking the Feat.

Yeah for some reason I didn't pay attention to this. In my head the failure effect was the elixir heals its dices in failure but rereading it now that I notice that's equal to the number of "damage" dice. So it was pretty nerfed in practice.

My bad.

Familiars being able to hand off items is completely RaW. The only part that's uncharted territory is the "riding on shoulders" question.

It's only RAW for those abilities that specifically allow it like Valet. With no attribute modifiers listed, it's up to the DM what a familiar can hold/carry if anything at all without them. This leaves it a gray area before we get into the 'riding' part.

It's only RAW for those abilities that specifically allow it like Valet. With no attribute modifiers listed, it's up to the DM what a familiar can hold/carry if anything at all without them. This leaves it a gray area before we get into the 'riding' part.

Not really, no.

Independent: In an encounter, if you don't Command your familiar, it still gains 1 action each round. Typically, you still decide how it spends that action, but, the GM might determine that your familiar chooses its own tactics rather than performing your preferred action. This doesn't work with valet or similar abilities that require a command, if you're capable of riding your familiar, or similar situations.

Manual Dexterity: Your familiar can use up to two of its limbs as if they were hands to perform manipulate actions.

While the companion item rules explicitly ban the Activate action (cannot feed elixirs directly), it would take a very hostile GM to prevent item handling.

At minimum, Manual Dex grants familiars 2 hands to work with, and the manipulate Interact actions needed to handle items. No need to even get into "do familiar's have inventories?" or other questions.

The bonus actions of Independent make their assistance a pure positive on your action economy.

I don't recommend Valet and sometimes call it a "trap" ability because it presents itself as a good option for item handling, while just being not very good in comparison to the benefits of a little extra bookkeeping of what's in your familiar's hands and using Independent.

Yeah now you actually get to do a lot of the alchemy yourself rather than shrugging and getting the fighter to land the poison for you.

Let’s just toss it in the bin as soon as it arrives - the Fighter sucks at poisoning, so you want to do that yourself.

You definitely want the fighter to have a poison as well, because that means more poison on the map, but the toxicologist should carry the most important one, because toxi is better than fighter at poisoning. Example:

Fighter rolls to hit with poisoned weapon. He crits! Enemy saves against Alch class DC. Things happen. Poison expires.

Toxi rolls to hit with poisoned weapon. He hits. Enemy saves against Alch class DC with a -2 penalty for flanking. Things happen. Poison probably expires (but maybe not).

Alchemist is the best character at using alchemical items. Don’t believe me? Give a fighter a bomb and look at his face closely.