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So, the Magus has this special diminished spellcasting which it loses the lower level spell slots whenever it gets a new spell level from Level 5 onwards.

Martial Caster feat aside, does the Magus lose the ability to cast lowered level spells from a Staff? It seems counter intuitive but that's what the Staff rules state.

You can Cast a Spell from a staff only if you have that spell on your spell list, are able to cast spells of the appropriate level, and expend a number of charges from the staff equal to the spell’s level.

The Magus can cast a heightened version of a level 1 spell, which counts as a higher level spell from what I understand, but, if he is level 5 or higher, he cannot cast a level 1 spell.

So, when I first read the Toxicologist 1st level benefit, I thought it worked as the Rogue's Poison Weapon feat: 1-action to apply a poison you have to your weapon.

However, on a better read, I see there are some limitations which, IMO, may strongly push Toxicologists to grab Poison Weapon via Rogue MCD.

You can apply an injury poison you're holding to a weapon you're wielding as a single action, rather than as a 2-action activity

This means you basically spend all your 3 actions to make a Strike with poison. If you grab Poison Weapon you get greatly enhanced action economy, is there a special reason for this holding requirement? Any unseen interactions with Alchemist features?

I was looking at the Elixir of Life progression something felt off.
You jump from 1d6 to 3d6+6. Healing 1d6 is okay at first level but pretty inadequate after that. At level 5, it jumps to 3d6+6, almost 5 times the average healing of the last level.
I was thinking of smoothing out the curve and Paizo's design intent seemed very clear by looking at the Elixirs of Life themselves.
They seem to improve similarly to 2 action Heal spell as spell levels progress. While Heal improves by 1d8+8, Elixirs of Life improve by 1d6+3.
The increases happen at every 2 spell levels, except Major at Level 15, which increases the bonus to saves vs poison/disease.
Considering that, we can create new Elixirs of Life for the missing spell levels, smoothing out the Alchemist healing curve.
I didn't increase the saves bonuses since Major was created in a "half-step", increasing the bonus. I'd say Paizo would create another "half-step" Elixir if the bonus to saves would be increased.
Since Alchemists are currently being seen as a little bit weaker than most, I don't see this being damaging to balance.

- Minor: Level 1 (spell level 1) - 1d6, +1 to saves
- Minor+: Level 3 (spell level 2) - 2d6+3, +1 to saves
- Lesser: Level 5 (spell level 3) - 3d6+6, +1 to saves
- Lesser+: Level 7 (spell level 4) - 4d6+9, +1 to saves
- Moderate: Level 9 (spell level 5) - 5d6+12, +2 to saves
- Moderate+: Level 11 (spell level 6) - 6d6+15, +2 to saves
- Greater: Level 13 (spell level 7) - 7d6+18, +2 to saves
- Major: Level 15 (spell level 8) - 8d6+21, +3 to saves
- Major+: Level 17 (spell level 9) - 9d6+24, +3 to saves
- True: Level 19 (spell level 10) - 10d6+27, +4 to saves

What do you guys think about it?

I've been through some issues regarding Treat Wounds during play, it seems to be too unreliable for a good adventure flow, breaks immersion and discourages pressing on.

I'm GMing Plaguestone with 3 characters: Melee Ranger with an animal companion, Crossbow Ranger and a Thief Rogue. Whenever Treat Wounds was needed, we felt something was off.

At 1st level, the three of them are trained in Medicine, sporting 12, 14 and 16 Wisdom for a total of +4, +5 and +6 Medicine. The idea was so everyone could heal themselves since we had no Cleric or similar character. Considering that, we are looking at 50%, 55% and 60% of success/crit success on Treat Wounds for Trained DC 15.

In a small group of 3, and I believe this would apply similarly on a default 4-player party, at least 2 of them (the melees, and sometimes the companion) would require healing after an encounter, sometimes all 3 would. The Boar encounter was specially damaging since it has high speed in conjunction with an accurate and strong Boar Charge move, which downed the ranged Ranger with a single blow.

A Treat Wounds failure heals nothing and puts the character in a 1-hour lockout from another try. After 3 consecutive failures (~10%, not that improbable), the character with 0 HP has yet to be able to stand. They spent a lot of time drinking tea with Trin while being bandaged for 30 minutes total in a span of 2 hours for... absolutely no effect, I could see the disappointment in my players' eyes.

Moments after this, everyone declared they were taking Assurance(Medicine) and/or Medicine related skill feats as soon as possible so the game would run better, if not for the mechanical effect, for the feeling that when they stop to heal, they are guaranteed to heal at least something.

Since I had already read all the module, just imagining Hallod's Hideout with such unreliable healing made shiver a little. With that in mind, I made a ruling on the spot. From now on, every time you Treat Wounds you heal for "success chance times 9 (4~5), doubled for 1h (8~10)", which would be something close to the average healing for 2d8 over time and promised to do some deeper math considering critical failures and successes and try to find a solution for that.

So, I bring this to my fellow players and GMs, am I missing something? Is this how it works? Have you had any problems similar to this?