Alchemists and non-costly material components

[eerongal]

This question came up this evening during our playtest of the various classes, but someone asked if an alchemist could take "Eschew Materials". Obviously it makes no logical sense, but the specific wording is vague in the rules regard, it says it takes material components and its akin to a spell's non-costly material components.

The reason this came up is because a caster can take the feat (obviously) and if stripped of his component pouch, can still use most spells, where as an alchemist separated from his lab has no such recourse.

In the end, our DM allowed it out of a fairness perspective (the alchemist was separated from his equipment for a few days, which would have made him basically useless) but i just thought I would bring it up here to check community input on the idea. I'm sure as heck not going to say it makes any LOGICAL sense.

[Chris Kenney]

eerongal wrote:

This question came up this evening during our playtest of the various classes, but someone asked if an alchemist could take "Eschew Materials". Obviously it makes no logical sense, but the specific wording is vague in the rules regard, it says it takes material components and its akin to a spell's non-costly material components.

The reason this came up is because a caster can take the feat (obviously) and if stripped of his component pouch, can still use most spells, where as an alchemist separated from his lab has no such recourse.

In the end, our DM allowed it out of a fairness perspective (the alchemist was separated from his equipment for a few days, which would have made him basically useless) but i just thought I would bring it up here to check community input on the idea. I'm sure as heck not going to say it makes any LOGICAL sense.

For "Logic" I might call the alchemy version of this "Improvised Alchemy" and require an hour of scrounging in any reasonable environment (on top of prep time) to bypass the need for non-costly material components.