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Rakashas are spell casters and there are a host of spells that protect against missiles and against fire (and other energy) damage.Well it was the stock Rakshasa out of the book with Boost mage armor already on + Gaint template (my add). Nothing in the Rak spell list (max.3rd level spells)- almost all lightning bolts, would of prevented this. Not to mention it lasted 2 rds... lol
Shield would have worked better in this situation. And having both (mage armor and shield even better vs. the other damage dealers (not the alchemist).
For a creature with sorcerer powers and the disposition of a Rakashas the standard spell array isn't so good.
Rakashas are spell casters and there are a host of spells that protect against missiles and against fire (and other energy) damage.Well it was the stock Rakshasa out of the book with Boost mage armor already on + Gaint template (my add). Nothing in the Rak spell list (max.3rd level spells)- almost all lightning bolts, would of prevented this. Not to mention it lasted 2 rds... lol
You're overreacting and don't know what you're doing. I don't mean that offensively, I mean that realistically. Rakshasha cast spells as 7th level sorcerers, and have access to spells up to 3rd level. Resist energy is a 2nd level spell and would have more or less hosed the alchemist's bombs pretty hard even if cast at 3rd caster level, which is resistance 10, but a Rakshasa casts at caster 7th, which is 20 points of resistance. In short, it would have been trivial damage.
Notice in your post you say the alchemist deal 42 points of fire damage over 2 bombs. That would mean that with a single casting of resist energy, he would have taken 2. 2!
Ok, so you might say "but the standard rakshasa doesn't have resist energy known". Barring the fact that the entire race casts as sorcerers, and have no reason to all cast identical spells, or how silly it would be to think that the entire Rakshasa race is identical to the basic Rakshasa in the Bestiary, why was this all powerful superbeing not prepared at all?
Rakshasa's have double standard treasure for a creature of their CR, which is about 10,900 gp sans the cost of their +1 kukri (about 2300 gp) leaving them with about 8,600 gp to play with. Is there a reason the Rakshasa in its superior mental faculties didn't bother to have anything useful on its person? No wands, no potions, a mithril chain shirt, or something? Even if the Rakshasa didn't know the sorcerer spell resist energy, you'd think since entirely mundane sources of energy damage like acid flasks and alchemist fire/frost can hurt them, as well as any spellcaster strong enough to be a thorn in their side, they might have a wand lying around with a few charges, or maybe even a potion.
It sounds to me like the Rakshasa didn't prepare, and ran in to melee with the enemies like a grunt-minion, and died because in his overwhelming arrogance (and stupidity), the party was able to exploit his weakness in an extreme way.
Good thing that you didn't have a Paladin in your party. Their smite evil deals double damage to outsiders and allows them to ignore all damage reductions on their smite target. That basically means a Paladin with Power Attack could have dismembered a rakshasa with a rusty piece of pipe if he wanted to, or the gauntlets on his fists (let's see, 1d4 + strength modifier + paladin level * 2, ignore DR - yep, it's dead meat).
Likewise, if you had any casters worth their salt, they would have probably ignored his spell resistance anyway. Standing back and throwing damaging spells that allow spell resistance is pretty stupid when they could have dropped a sleet storm, cloudkill, or if they were really just interested in dealing damage, spammed various incarnations of acid arrow to melt him (a minor rod of maximize is good for casters who want to do damage, and at 8 damage per round for around 3 rounds per casting, no save/SR allowed isn't terrible in that regard). Likewise, if they were interested in just blasting, they would have likely picked up Spell Penetration and its Greater version, giving them a +4 to pierce spell resistance.
Sounds like your big bad had some serious fatal flaws, and you were surprised because a player used their class feature for what it was intended for (imagine that). It happens to us all. It sounds like you don't really understand the game very much either, or how things work mechanically, and I'm guessing you probably haven't been GMing for long, or if you have then you haven't played with anyone who plays competently (especially spellcasters).
Again, we've all been there. It's better to see this as a learning experience, rather than complaining about alchemists. If you have any further questions, or would like to discuss NPCs or the like, feel free to toss them on the table and we shall discuss. :)
I feel my friend really covered the issue very well in his rant in another post down in the Serpent Skull forum.
And yeah, alchemists, like inquisitors, are a huge grab bag class. No class in the game should have what they have and also get spellcasting. A bard has 6 dead levels-- 3 where they just get spells, and 3 where they just get inspire competence, which I consider extremely difficult to use considering a lot of skill checks you'd need the bard to prance about for a large amount of rounds, often exceeding 10, and the bard doesn't want to do all that to give you a +2 on a check where you have a +15 and the DC is 30. An alchemist gets something every level, often many things, and spellcasting. An inquisitor is the same.
1st level, 1d6+5 single-target damage is better than any other offensive spell, and it only gets better when he does 5 splash to everyone around that guy. I mean, this is the level where burning hands can do 1 damage reflex save DC 14 for 1 damage. He can likely do it 5 times a day. Can apply the selective trait to his bombs as soon as 2nd level. At level 10, a wizard dropping a maximized fireball can do 60 damage with a reflex for half. At level 10, an alchemist full-attacking with bombs can do 15d6+36 (15d6 + 36 ⇒ (2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 2, 5, 2, 6, 6, 4, 5, 6, 2, 2) + 36 = 91) and then, on their turn, 1d6 fire 1d6 ⇒ 2, and then 36 damage on that target again at the beginning of his next turn thanks to the sticky bomb discovery. He can hit a similar amount of people with his bombs since he's applying the explosive bomb discovery-- the save is similar, but the damage is only 17. As a bomb alchemist, that's 3 out of 17 bombs. He has to hit touch for the primary target instead of making them make a save.Just saying, it's really annoying that the alchemist has a higher to-hit bonus to me, does more damage, attacks touch, and attacks at range. He didn't take precise shot. Why? Because the highest touch AC we've ever fought was 26 (at level 13 he had like +9 from BAB and like +8 from dex, +1 from throw anything, +1 from haste or something for like +19. +19/+19/+14/+9. That AC was not impressive to him).
A lot of the adventure path is the party scrambling around and fighting and missing pretty often and the alchemist just killing every single person in the room for us in like four rounds.
I should note that Ultimate Magic really didn't help the issue, there are a bunch of feats only improving the alchemist's abilities.