Bramble Brewer and Ragechemist?

[Major_Blackhart]

Ok, so I'm looking at these two, and I know the Ragechemist isn't well loved on these boards, but I'm wondering if he can still be good for an Alchemist who wants to do melee damage.

I'm thinking a half-elf who uses a greataxe (the classic woodsman) with Bramble Brewer and Ragechemist can be pretty effective at melee. What do you guys think? Hit someone with a tanglefoot bomb, run up to them, smack them. Rinse and repeat. With Racial Heritage (Orc) he can get an extra ten minutes per level of mutagen, or with Racial Heritage (Dwarf) he can get some additional natural armor with his mutagen, which already is pretty badass.

So, at 6th level when he makes a mutagen that modifies strength, his armor bonus is +8 (dendrite mutagen base and rage mutagen).

Now, as the archtypes continue, I think it becomes pretty badass overall, with pretty damaging consequences for any enemy nearby. What do you guys think?

By level 20, he either has an extra 200 minutes per mutagen or +5 to his armor. Give him in addition to this medium and heavy armor proficiency feats, and now suddenly he's a bit of a damn tank.

[Laif]

Why not Ragechemist and why it's not loved:
Coma
That would be the end but I'll try to explain it better.
The Ragechemist is a trap that tempts you with str bonus, but the downside is that first: your penalty is doubled, that means -4int, and when you advance in that class the penalty you receive for failing a save increases so... if you fail in 2-3 rounds you can be comatose. A tank must be able to endure more than 2-3 hits and go comatose, try Beastmorph and his Beastshaping properties, probably better than you think.

[Major_Blackhart]

Hmm, beastmorph seems actually pretty badass. Nice. I can combine Bramble Brewer and Beastmorph together to make a rather interesting class too.

Beastmorph replaces: Swift Alchemy; Swift Poisoning; Poison Immunity; Persistent Mutagen

Bramble Brewer replaces: 2nd-level Discovery; Mutagen; Greater Mutagen; Grand Mutagen

With those combined, I can definitely take some hits. Not only that, but his armor class would be pretty nasty.

[Durngrun Stonebreaker]

I don't believe you can combine any of those three since they all modify mutagen. Aside from that, I would definitely avoid Ragechemist. Even if you don't go all the way to coma, you're still hurting your Intelligence.

[Major_Blackhart]

They both modify what the mutagen does, but because they're both modifying different parts of the class as Archtypes I don't see why both can't be applicable.

You think about it, and all of a sudden the mutagen focused meleer got a bunch nastier. But yeah, avoiding Ragechemist now like the plague.

Anyone know if there's an FAQ about this for these classes? Can they be combined?

[Laif]

Yes you can combine them, the changes of the archetypes aren't in the same position, you can check them here:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/alchemist#TOC-Archetypes-Alter nate-Class-Features

[Major_Blackhart]

So they both modify mutation. Now, here's the question: do their modifications stack with one another or not?

[Durngrun Stonebreaker]

All three archetypes modify the mutagen. The fact that they give up different class abilities for those modifications doesn't change that.

[Major_Blackhart]

Is there an FAQ out that says you can't mix the archtypes because of that then?
Just because they modify the mutagen ability doesn't mean they can't be taken, as they modify different parts of the class itself. Plus, this is what the mutagen discovery is for, isn't it? So if you want to use a normal mutagen and you have an archtype that modifies the normal mutagen in some way?

[Laif]

They stack, look at the replacing class features, at least beastmorph and bramble

[Durngrun Stonebreaker]

So as to not further derail this advice thread, I've started a rules thread here if anyone is interested.