So doin a quick number crunch, Alchemist can easily hit AC 47 at 20th level given the True Mutagen grand discovery.
10[base] + 11[mithril breastplate +5] + 5[Dex Mod] + 7[heavy steel shield +5] + 13[natural armor >> 8 mutagen + 5 amulet] + 1[Dodge]
Anyone think of anything im missing in there since its late and im half asleep atm?
Requires a few feats but Alchemists are short on useful ones anyway for the time being, those needed are:
Medium Armor Proficiency
Dodge
Shield ProficiencyHumans should have no problem sparing the feats needed for this and most other races could probably manage to spare 3 feats as well under current rule set until advance players guide comes out in the coming months
You can have more with a Ring of Protection, +1 insight to AC Ioun Stone, etc. But honestly, with all those feats and discoveries spent, it's only going to come out to four more than a Fighter (8 more for mutagen, but 4 less for Fighter's armor training), and the Fighter will have the touch AC advantage.
The really fun thing to look at is the low-level Alchemist's AC with a Dex Mutagen and the Shield extract. You can get 30 (post buff) at level 1 without buying anything too special if you try hard.
cant believe i forgot the ring of prot.. an ioun stone is a lil exotic but not unheard of also..
And just remembered Combat Expertise too. Full attack with bombs as touch attacks and you wont care about the hit penalty.. so thats 11 more and we are at 58.. forget comparing to fighter they are always superior in this race, compare it to a ranger or paladin who dont get that nice armor bonus the fighters do.
So, get us Higher than 58 guys, lets go
You can't Combat Expertise at range, unless I missed something, unfortunately.
The only thing here that's Alchemist-only is the +8 from mutagen, so this build will have a +8 AC advantage against other classes minus however much class-specific AC that class gets. So for instance, Paladins with more than 20 Charisma will catch up slightly when smiting and Rangers will never catch up.
yeah, combat expertise is melee only, but the Alchemist is no slouch in front-line anyways.
Oh, and reduce person or Alter Self for small size (+1)... or both for Tiny (+2), if that works.
I was including that in the buffed-up level 1 Alchemist for 30 AC. The size bonuses don't stack, but you can just be a Halfling and start Small.
1. Do the Natural Armor bonuses stack due to some special rule or class exception I am unaware of?
2. Your AC is still only 16 VS touch attacks. Good luck with that :)
I'm afraid I can't go with you on that one skippy. I see your logic, but they simply don't stack. A base race alchemist doesn't HAVE any natural armor, so the bonus to NA from Mutagen is already an enhancement, unless someone can give me specific verbiage.
I'm afraid I can't go with you on that one skippy. I see your logic, but they simply don't stack. A base race alchemist doesn't HAVE any natural armor, so the bonus to NA from Mutagen is already an enhancement, unless someone can give me specific verbiage.
Enhancement bonus is a named bonus type. Amulets and Barkskin give an enhancement bonus to Natural Armour. Mutagens give a Natural Armour bonus. This is a different bonus type.
|
Enhancement bonus is a named bonus type. Amulets and Barkskin give an enhancement bonus to Natural Armour. Mutagens give a Natural Armour bonus. This is a different bonus type.I'm afraid I can't go with you on that one skippy. I see your logic, but they simply don't stack. A base race alchemist doesn't HAVE any natural armor, so the bonus to NA from Mutagen is already an enhancement, unless someone can give me specific verbiage.
I'm with Ender on this one. A natural armor bonus is a natural armor bonus period. It will not stack with another natural armor bonus (somebody with natural armor cannot wear an amulet of natural armor and get more natural armor).
I'm with Ender on this one. A natural armor bonus is a natural armor bonus period. It will not stack with another natural armor bonus (somebody with natural armor cannot wear an amulet of natural armor and get more natural armor).Enhancement bonus is a named bonus type. Amulets and Barkskin give an enhancement bonus to Natural Armour. Mutagens give a Natural Armour bonus. This is a different bonus type.I'm afraid I can't go with you on that one skippy. I see your logic, but they simply don't stack. A base race alchemist doesn't HAVE any natural armor, so the bonus to NA from Mutagen is already an enhancement, unless someone can give me specific verbiage.
Not this again...
An Amulet of Natural Armor provides and Enhancement Bonus to Natural Armor. The Mutagen from the Alchemist provides an unnamed Natural Armor Bonus to AC. The two stack.
I'm with Ender on this one. A natural armor bonus is a natural armor bonus period. It will not stack with another natural armor bonus (somebody with natural armor cannot wear an amulet of natural armor and get more natural armor).
^This.
|
|
Bah, I'll admit I'm wrong when I'm wrong.
I re-read the SRD. You can have an enhancement bonus to natural armor (which is technically called the natural armor bonus). So an amulet or barkskin would provide additional coverage. The other posters are correct.
I think it's immensely dumb and I'll be house-ruling it at my house, but they are correct.
I'm with Ender on this one. A natural armor bonus is a natural armor bonus period. It will not stack with another natural armor bonus (somebody with natural armor cannot wear an amulet of natural armor and get more natural armor).Enhancement bonus is a named bonus type. Amulets and Barkskin give an enhancement bonus to Natural Armour. Mutagens give a Natural Armour bonus. This is a different bonus type.I'm afraid I can't go with you on that one skippy. I see your logic, but they simply don't stack. A base race alchemist doesn't HAVE any natural armor, so the bonus to NA from Mutagen is already an enhancement, unless someone can give me specific verbiage.
I am positive that it stacked in 3.5, and I can't find the change anywhere in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook, but that doesn't mean you aren't right--it's possibly a stealth switch that I didn't see. This is actually pretty important for Animal Companion and Eidolon, so if that's the case and you can find where they made the change, I'd be very grateful (and I'll credit you if I ever write an optimisation guide to Alchemist).
An animal companion of a druid can have an AC of 60 more or less. So 47 CA for an Alchemist is no that great.
|
Not this again...
An Amulet of Natural Armor provides and Enhancement Bonus to Natural Armor. The Mutagen from the Alchemist provides an unnamed Natural Armor Bonus to AC. The two stack.
+1
This is how I've always run it, because RAW that's how it works and it hasn't been unbalancing in any game I've played.Untyped + Enhancement stack. Period.
|
|
Ender, Read Here for the bonus types and how they interact. It's pretty clearly stated that you can have a natural armor bonus enhancement, just like you can have an armor bonus, or shield bonus enhancement. If somehow we could have a deflection bonus enhancement, that too would stack, but we don't have one.
The enhancement is added to the regular armor/shield/natural armor bonus and counted as part of its bonus for determining which effect is the "highest" bonus if you're stacking multiple bonuses of the same type (holding a shield and have shield cast on me).
Not this again...
An Amulet of Natural Armor provides and Enhancement Bonus to Natural Armor. The Mutagen from the Alchemist provides an unnamed Natural Armor Bonus to AC. The two stack.
Do you have something to back that up? In my reading, they are both NA Bonuses (Enhancement or not has nothing to do with it) and there fore don't stack.
EDIT: Looks like I was incorrect. I'd still Disintegrate the Alchemist :)
Do you have something to back that up? In my reading, they are both NA Bonuses (Enhancement or not has nothing to do with it) and there fore don't stack.
EDIT: Looks like I was incorrect. I'd still Disintegrate the Alchemist :)
No worries. I've seen this argument crop up a couple of times on these forums.
|
|
So what is this alchemist getting attack wise? I've played a high level alchemist someone else put together and his damage was decent and reliable but not comparable to an archer's. (Though on the second round with Sticky Bomb it might come close). Also, alchemists have trouble because lots of creatures at this level have energy resistances. Also, only one discovery can be applied to a given bomb.
I was thinking if you built an alchemist to just do bomb damage it might look like this:
2nd level Acid Bomb (To get around Energy Resistance)
4th level *Precise Bomb
6th level *Potent Bomb
8th level *Fast Bombs
10th level Sticky Bomb
12th level Greater Mutagen
14th level Frost Bomb
16th level Elixer of Life
18th level Grand Mutagen
20th level True Mutagen, *Potent Bomb, *Potent Bomb
* I THINK you can apply these discoveries to the same bomb as other discoveries
So ideally if Fast Bomb and Potent bomb can work together (which it's not entirely clear) you can get 13d6+10 * 3 (avg 166hp) of Fire Damage on the first round and 13d6 * 6 (avg 333hp) on the second round. Then you are likely subtracting 30-60 from that total for energy resistance :(
Worse, fire immunity is extremely common in high CR critters so you need to do Frost or Acid Damage so you can't use the Sticky Discovery so you are stuck at 166hp/ round damage. Against the Balor even Acid or Frost has to deal with energy resistance so you are down to 133 points of damage.
Has anyone figured a way to ramp this up to be in the ballpark with an archer? Is a Melee Alchemist viable?
So what is this alchemist getting attack wise? I've played a high level alchemist someone else put together and his damage was decent and reliable but not comparable to an archer's. (Though on the second round with Sticky Bomb it might come close). Also, alchemists have trouble because lots of creatures at this level have energy resistances. Also, only one discovery can be applied to a given bomb.
I was thinking if you built an alchemist to just do bomb damage it might look like this:
2nd level Acid Bomb (To get around Energy Resistance)
4th level *Precise Bomb
6th level *Potent Bomb
8th level *Fast Bombs
10th level Sticky Bomb
12th level Greater Mutagen
14th level Frost Bomb
16th level Elixer of Life
18th level Grand Mutagen
20th level True Mutagen, *Potent Bomb, *Potent Bomb* I THINK you can apply these discoveries to the same bomb as other discoveries
So ideally if Fast Bomb and Potent bomb can work together (which it's not entirely clear) you can get 13d6+10 * 3 (avg 166hp) of Fire Damage on the first round and 13d6 * 6 (avg 333hp) on the second round. Then you are likely subtracting 30-60 from that total for energy resistance :(
Worse, fire immunity is extremely common in high CR critters so you need to do Frost or Acid Damage so you can't use the Sticky Discovery so you are stuck at 166hp/ round damage. Against the Balor even Acid or Frost has to deal with energy resistance so you are down to 133 points of damage.
Has anyone figured a way to ramp this up to be in the ballpark with an archer? Is a Melee Alchemist viable?
I've been playing around with this. You're not going to have the single-target damage output of an Archer, but I think that's okay. You have a lot going for you, especially buffing the party with Infusion. At low levels, we're three-manning Curse of the Crimson Throne handily with Shield infusions all around.
The scariest thing you can probably do at high levels is get your party Fighter to take exactly 1 level of Alchemist and drink your Grand/True Mutagen while you drink her crappier Mutagen...
|
|
I guess my point is you aren't very godlike if you can't really dish out much damage. The Monk is quite good defensively but has a hell of a time dishing out damage.
The infusion discovery is pretty cool. I didn't put it in the above because I was trying to just make it able to torch stuff.
Infusion plus Combine Extracts seems like a good mix.
You can give the fighter a potion so he gets two fairly good buffs in a single round.
Also, some of the high level extracts are very nice for sharing. Giant Form, Dragon Form...
I'm going to try and work up a alchemist who does melee and see how that works.
I guess my point is you aren't very godlike if you can't really dish out much damage. The Monk is quite good defensively but has a hell of a time dishing out damage.
The infusion discovery is pretty cool. I didn't put it in the above because I was trying to just make it able to torch stuff.
Infusion plus Combine Extracts seems like a good mix.
You can give the fighter a potion so he gets two fairly good buffs in a single round.
Also, some of the high level extracts are very nice for sharing. Giant Form, Dragon Form...
I'm going to try and work up a alchemist who does melee and see how that works.
With Combine Extracts and the Accelerated Drinker trait, you can even get four buffs in a round if you walk around with both potions in hand instead of Sword and Shield. It actually makes Quick Draw worthwhile!
|
|
With Combine Extracts and the Accelerated Drinker trait, you can even get four buffs in a round if you walk around with both potions in hand instead of Sword and Shield. It actually makes Quick Draw worthwhile!
Adventurers Armory is pretty much required reading for alchemist players. Accelerated Drinker is da shiz for alchemists. There is also the wrist sheath that lets you cache a single item up your sleeve and access it as an immediate action....
With Combine Extracts and the Accelerated Drinker trait, you can even get four buffs in a round if you walk around with both potions in hand instead of Sword and Shield. It actually makes Quick Draw worthwhile!Adventurers Armory is pretty much required reading for alchemist players. Accelerated Drinker is da shiz for alchemists. There is also the wrist sheath that lets you cache a single item up your sleeve and access it as an immediate action....
My Alchemist loves that book, and so do his two allied characters--I highly recommend it as well for all would-be Alchemists. I really need to keep writing my campaign journal for that campaign. I still haven't gotten past the part where I met the other characters yet. The Alchemist character is just too verbose.