Bjorn_Again's page

Hello everyone,

I was wondering about the discoveries my alchemist could take, and thought that maybe some of you had some ideas on the subject.

My alchemist is of the ranged persuasion, the less he is in melee the better. And the bombs are his main attack. He also acts as a support for the group.
He has hight INT and high DEX

Here are my reflexions about the discoveries:

- The ones that I'm sure I'll take:

• Infusion (should be core IMHO)
  
• Precise bombs
  
• Fast bombs
  
• Smoke bomb (Instant concealment FTW !)
  

- The ones that I'm sure I won't take:

• Grand mutagen (Nice but not so useful outside melee)
  
• Greater mutagen
  
• Feral mutagen
  
• Infuse mutagen (If it doesn't get change in the APG I don't see who would ever choose this one)
  
• Sticky poison (could be nice for melee, but I don't see it working on a ranged weapon)
  
• Enhance potion (Don't see the point in this one, as an alchemist you're making you're own potions anyway, so they already are at your level...)
  
• Dilution
  

- Those who seem good but not good enough compared to others:

• Acid bomb (I can't take all the elemental variations of the bombs and this doesn't seem to be the best)
  
• Concussive bomb
  
• Delayed bomb (This one is a tough one, I'd really want to have it, but at this time it feels too limited: only one bombs and delayed only for rounds/lvl, I you could make a minefield on the other hand...)
  
• Shock bomb
  
• Sticky bomb
  
• Potent bombs (tempting, but, in my mind, you lose to much versatility to gain only a few in power)
  
• Inferno bomb (good for visual effects but I prefer the other clouds)
  

- Finally those that I'd take but don't have enough slot for all of them:

-The variant bombs:
• Frost bomb (staggered is good...)
  
• Force bomb (...but so is prone, although it makes the target harder to touch for the next ranged attack. And yet again there's no DR for Force...)
  
• Explosive bomb (seems a bit behind the ones above)
  
• Madness bomb (I have the feeling that this one is better on paper than in game)

  -The variant clouds:
  

• Stink bomb (nauseated is awesome, but the clouds duration is only one round)
  
• Poison bomb (the advantage of this one over stink bomb is the duration and the fact that an alchemist could stay all day inside...)

  -Other:
  

• Extend potion (at best its usefulness is really circumstantial but...)
  
• Eternal potion (...this one could be more than handy, yet is it worth two discoveries ?)
  
• Elixir of life (as one of the two lvl 20 discoveries)
  
• Combine extracts (quickened extracts...)
  

The alchemist has 11 discoveries over 20 lvl (2 at lvl 20) and currently I have rounded down the choice to 13 discoveries...

So what do you think ? Which ones would you chose ? and in which order ?

Hello everybody,
This is my first post here so in order to introduce myself let's just say that I have played AD&D and D&D for years, and that I am currently playing a dwarf alchemist in my first Pathfinder game.

To get to the point:
1) Paizo has made quite a few change in the way INT works, now a permanent increase in the INT score has a retroactive effect on skill points per level. OK that's great. But I need a bit of clarification about how the "Headband of Vast Intelligence" works.
I quote:

This intricate gold headband is decorated with several small blue and deep purple gemstones. The headband grants the wearer an enhancement bonus to Intelligence of +2, +4, or +6. Treat this as a temporary ability bonus for the first 24 hours the headband is worn. A headband of vast intelligence has one skill associated with it per +2 bonus it grants. After being worn for 24 hours, the headband grants a number of skill ranks in those skills equal to the wearer's total Hit Dice. These ranks do not stack with the ranks a creature already possesses. These skills are chosen when the headband is created. If no skill is listed, the headband is assumed to grant skill ranks in randomly determined Knowledge skills.

RAW it doesn't say precisely that the skill points thus earned replace those normally earned by a raise of INT, so you could gain both the skill points of the increased INT and the skill points described with the headband.

2) At character creation you gain a number of bonus languages equal to your INT bonus. Does that number increase with your INT ? (and what happens when your INT bonus exceed the number of bonus languages your race knows ?)

3) It seems there's no penalty in choosing a non-class skill in PF (except losing the 3 points bonus) is that exact ?

That's all for this post, thanks in advance !