Carson6412's page

Hello all.

I know there have been other threads about whether or not Alchemist count as magical, along with the FAQ, but I am at a loss at to figure out why. It seems to me that Alchemist are getting shafted on both sides. Sometimes they are considered magic when it is bad and others they are not when it is good.

Alchemist are considered magical when it comes to their extracts and bombs.

When an alchemist creates an extract or bomb, he infuses the concoction with a tiny fraction of his own magical power—this enables the creation of powerful effects, but also binds the effects to the creator.

This is considered a negative because it "forces" you to spend a discovery on Infusion. With out it, your extracts are too magical to work on anyone else.

On the other hand, Alchemist are considered non-magical for the purposes of feats and item crafting.

Is an alchemist a spellcaster for the purpose of crafting magic items other than potions?

As written, no, alchemists are not spellcasters, and therefore can't select feats such as Craft Wondrous Item. The design team is aware that this creates some thematic problems with the idea of an alchemist creating golems and so on, and plan to examine this in the future.

It seems to me that there is little consistency regarding this. If Alchemist are magical, why can't they create magical items? If they are not magical, why does it specifically say they use their magical aura? Generally, feats and class abilities are consistent. They are ether magical (or whatever) for better or for worse or they are not, for better or for worse. What is the reason for the Alchemist to be so flip-floppy?

In Pathfinder, fire does 1d6 of damage per round. This translates pretty well into real life. People who get caught on fire run around for a good half-minute before collapsing. The tougher person in the town, like a town guard, would last around 5 rounds which falls inline with the real life example. But, in real life, catching fire is horrifying. People run around in a panic and make very poor decisions. The game does not reflect this at all.

What I propose, is to add a fear effect onto catching fire. Fire would cause the target to automatically become shaken and then the target would have to make a Will Save (DC=10+double the fire damage taken) to avoid being panicked.

This would keep fire a bit more realistic and dangerous, keep it reverent at higher levels, and prevent people from being tempted to leave themselves on fire.

Thoughts or ideas on this?