| Honkeycorn |
After playing the Alchemist from Round 3 of the Playtest, I was impressed. This is an idea that has been very pervasive in fantasy and D&D for a long time, but was poorly implemented in 3.5. I tried to play an alchemist in 3.5 but it was a miserable failure. This Alchemist class in Pathfinder solved many of these issues.
After playing the Final Playtest version, I am excited and disappointed. Here's what my group came up with.
Discoveries
I was very excited over having more discoveries to choose from, and better utility of the previous ones. On top of that, more discoveries were given to the Alchemist. I had a hard time choosing the right ones, and now that there's even more to choose from, it would be even harder. Giving the Alchemist more discoveries helped greatly.
-The "Precise Bombs" discovery was very much appreciated, since my fellow players did not appreciate getting hit with so much splash damage.
-"Combine Extracts" is another good addition to the Final Playtest.
-"Elixer of Life" is good (was in the Round 3 as well), but I expected to see in the Final Playtest Guide a lower-level version that has the effects of the "Raise Dead" spell. This lower-level version could be a requirement for "Elixer of Life".
-"Potent Bomb" is a step in the right direction, and a welcome addition to the Final Playtest Guide, but needs to go up 2d6 each time, with a max bomb damage of 20d6. This puts the bomb on par with "Chain Lightning", but doesn't feel like a waste of a discovery. As it is, to raise it to 15d6 (at 20th level, no less), I have to blow 5 discoveries. That's sad.
Grand Discovery
The biggest disappointment by far are the options to choose from for the "Grand Discovery". Here's why:
-Awakened Intellect is WAY too underpowered at level 20. You're telling me that I should spend my greatest discovery as an Alchemist raising my INT by TWO POINTS?? I've had more ability ups than that so far. I have a circlet of intelligence that does the same thing, and it's cheap. But my big, grand, amazing level 20 ability is +2 Int? Nope. If this option is kept, it needs to be AT LEAST a +6. You're about to venture into Epic levels...some epic items will raise Int by +10!
-Eternal Youth is interesting, but not really viable, unless you are playing a geriatric game, but that's not often. Most games don't run long enough for this to be a problem or an issue. If this option is kept, at least make it add to your physical stats as well. Maybe you're not only eternally young, but also now incredibly strong/buff/dexterous/etc.
-Fast Healing: This is the best one, and is scaled appropriately to level 20, in my opinion.
-Philosopher's Stone: Useful, but not useful enough for a final ability.
-Poison Touch: This is the other one that's good, but it's not well defined. The wording is ambiguous.
-True Mutagen is worthless because the Discovery "Grand Mutagen" already adds a +6 armor and +8 to primary stat, +6 to secondary, and +4 to tertiary. So I should blow my grand discovery on something that lowers the primary stat and raises the tertiary stat by +2? No thank you. Instead, I'd recommend having the True Mutagen bonuses stay the same, but having them STACK with "Grand Mutagen". That would be well worth it.
Confusing terminology
In the Final Playtest Guide, the terms "extract" and "potion" are thrown around too much. Are they the same thing? Please standardize word usage or clarify the difference more concretely.
Taking Alchemist to the next level
In our playtest, we experimented with the idea of taking the Alchemist a step farther. With the extracts (or potions?), it's just like he's a wizard or sorcerer but you drink the spell instead of casting it. Big deal. So instead we came up with cool ways to give the extracts a little more flair. For instance, the "see invisibility" extract is a fine powder that I throw into the air that reveals invisible creatures in a radius. The Invisibility spell is a jar of goo that you dump onto yourself and covers you, making you invisible. The fly spell is literally a copper circle that attaches to your back and mechanically opens wings. This adds a little more of a gritty feel to it, and we liked it.
Thanks for reading this, and thank you for letting us test your new classes. It was fun.
Edit: I made a few mistakes in the original updated. (3:26pm CST, Feb 9)