The Secrets of the Alchemist gives you insight into the alchemist class and the tools to make an exciting character that is a “blast” to play. Created by Sigfried Trent, this 12-page book includes:
A breakdown of the Alchemist class
30 new feats for alchemists, such as Bottoms Up, Fire in the Hole, Primeval Fury, and Sundering Bomb
Alchemist character builds: The Carpet Bomber, Mighty Mutant, and Mad Scientist!
When the goblin chief asks you what’s in all those funny bottles hanging from your belt, uncork a laboratory full of whoop-ass on him! Get your copy of Advanced Feats: Secrets of the Alchemist today—and stay tuned in the months to come for the rest of the Advanced Feats series for the other new Pathfinder Roleplaying Game character classes.
Includes a HeroLab data file for all of the alchemist feats!
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The alchemist has been knocking around the fringes of fantasy games for ages, generally - if codified at all - as an NPC that your characters can go to for a range of useful items to take on their adventures, with alchemy itself as a sideline skill practised in your 'Craft' spot. Now Paizo's Advanced Player's Guide has brought him out of the workshop to become a playable character in his own right, with skills useful down the dungeon or out on the road, and this product seeks to expand on this and make him an even more attractive option.
The alchemist PC has several notable skills, which are mentioned in the Introduction - he can throw bombs, make and use extracts, brew potions and use poison. However, to hone such a character, he needs appropriate feats and here a grand total of 30 are presented for the budding alchemist to choose from. Many could be taken by any character, espcially one who has taken alchemy as a craft skill sideline to his main class. One that catches the eye is Organised Inventory, which allows the character to extract a non-weapon item as a free action during combat: very useful if you want to make use of something other than a conventional weapon mid-brawl... you hardly want to stand there frisking yourself for what you want. (Consider this, can you place your hand on your car keys right NOW without having to think about where they are?) Most of the feats either improve the alchemist's lab work or enable him to use his special combat skills even better. Suicide Bomber is not, however, recommended unless you really do want to go out in a blaze of glory as it involves walking up to your opponent and letting off every bomb you've got.
Next comes some character builds, with the comment that a bit of thought and planning about how you want your character to develop is well worth it, helping to ensure that you meet the requisites for whatever feat you want to take. Each is provided with level-by-level suggestions for what to develop in order to maximise your potential. The builds are an elf 'carpet bomber' who is particularly good at the explosive aspects of the alchemist class, a half-orc 'mighty mutant' who develops himself, and a human 'mad scientist' who should be fun to play and entertaining for everyone else around the table... he's really better at making things than brawling, but if he does get into a fight people may be surprised at just how well he handles himself!
This is a neat supplement providing tools to enhance alchemist characters and make the most of the possibilities inherent in the ruleset. It may feel rather a calculating approach to some... but remember that just as many people in the real world will take a specific qualification or career move just to further a long-term goal, so may your characters plan their progression through the game, even if they themselves don't quite see it in terms of the feats and stat blocks that we players use to describe them!
Ah-HA! I knew there was an alchemist's lab around here somewhere!
This is Open Design's first take on character design and expansion for the APG. There's more coming to cover the whole APG, so .... let me know what you think!
I hope everyone has fun with this one. It was a blast to write and the Alchemist is definitely a fun class to play.
Since it's my first solo project I'm keen to get feedback and to answer questions. If you pick it up, feel free to drop me a line at Sigfried@gmail.com
Hey Goblin Chief, glad you like it! I'm sure the Alchemist made some bombs with you in mind, but if those bombs should fall off his belt before then...
There's a feat in this product that grants a +4 bonus to Strength for the purpose of carrying capacity only. That may not seem like it's very useful, but it's very much so if your alchemist has a Strength of 8. With this feat, a masterwork backpack, and ant haul from the Advanced Player's Guide, a Str 8 alchemist can carry up to 150 pounds as a light load!
Yep, it's similar to the mule bands item from APG, which also affects only carrying capacity.
It makes a nice picture, the alchemist who can carry his whole lab in a gigantic pack, but who still can't throw a punch or clobber a foe with a melee weapon.
I love this book, alchemist are fun to play already, this just makes them better. I have one question, Advanced Alchemy dose it apply to poison as well?
also I pretty much love Create Wondrous Creature, I can't wait to have to a creature one of my players made and let lose on the world, I plan to have a new creature added to the world for future campaigns,
Thanks, I think Sigfried may have an answer for you soon.
In the meantime, let me just say a quick thank-you to everywho who has made this this #2 best-seller on Paizo this week! We're working on the next one....
I have one question, Advanced Alchemy dose it apply to poison as well?
I pretty much love Create Wondrous Creature...
Thanks for the kind words :)
I don't think Advanced Alchemy should apply to poisons. Although many of the alchemist powers have an effect on alchemical items and poisons, as does the Master Alchemist feat, their are each mentioned separately in all cases because poisons are not alchemical items by definition.
As to why I didn't choose to have Advanced Alchemy follow the pattern: My reason was the Concentrate Poison Discovery which allows you to combine poisons to get a +2 DC. You have to be careful about stacking and +4 on poisons could be just too much without some kind of level restrictions. Poisons are tricky since they are money limited rather than level limited so you have to be extra careful balancing them.
I actually had a feat in consideration for the Secrets of the Alchemist called Intensify Poison but when I got the final copy of APG I discovered I'd been scooped by the discovery! For every feat in one of the Advanced Feats PDFs there were a bunch more that didn't make the cut for one reason or another.
Create Wondrous Creature is one of my favorites. It's also one of the feats that some readers like least in the book, seeing it as potentially abusable. I like have the Advanced Feats books have a mix of some safe feats and a few daring feats that push the boundaries a bit. I'm glad its some peoples favorite and is the most often mentioned in reviews.
Thanks for answering, and you are right having it on Poisons would be unbalancing, and as I said before this is a great product and I can't wait to see what else you got.
Create Wondrous Creature is one of my favorites. It's also one of the feats that some readers like least in the book, seeing it as potentially abusable. I like have the Advanced Feats books have a mix of some safe feats and a few daring feats that push the boundaries a bit. I'm glad its some peoples favorite and is the most often mentioned in reviews.
I like it myself, even though it's better used by NPCs. I once tried to figure out hot to use it to make a Lupin, and even something that simple would take a lot of magic and effort. Very useful for DMs but it'd be a bit of a bear for players.
Though it does give a good reason for why those new creatures that nobody's ever seen in the campaign before popped up.
