So.... an Alchemist's competence bonus to alchemy checks goes away in an anti-magic field, because its part of the Alchemy (SU) ability. The creation of entirely non-magic tindertwigs and alchemist fire is tangibly more difficult for him in such an area. He also can't identify potions within an anti-magic field for the same reason.
Conversely, that same Alchemist can brew those potions in an anti-magic field with ease (although they won't work until he comes out) because it is listed as Brew Potion (EX).
I'm not griping about these on some deeply personally offended level. I just thought this was amusing. Anyone else have some odd quirks they have noticed in the rules?
Anti-magic field supresses the magical potions in themselves so I doubt they could be identified anyway.
He also can't really brew potions in anti-magic field - brewing may be extraordinary ability but creation process of a potion requires triggering prepared spell/extract, which in my opinion, is impossible in AM field.
Good catch on the bonus to Craft (alchemy).
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I think the alchemist is just a weird class in general. The whole "my alchemy is infused with my aura so my stuff only works for me" rationale has rubbed me the wrong way from day one, although I can see why it needs to be done from a game balance point of view.
I was thinking about that the other day and had the idea that a better rationale which integrates more seamlessly with the mechanics would be that the alchemist has been experimenting on himself for years, and thus his potions/extracts/bombs/mutagens/etc are out of habit designed to work with his personal metabolism, proclivities, resistances, and the immunities he's built up from years of putting god-knows-what into his body. Thus anyone else trying to use his ingestible stuff incurs massively bad side effects (hit point and ability damage, debilitating conditions, etc) and anyone else trying to use one of his bombs is going to either end up throwing a dud or else blowing themselves up with it.
I of course like this because it would provide the opportunity to come up with some nasty tables for generating these effects... but, of course, leave a 5% chance for the thing to work as normal... just enough to be tempting to try in desperate circumstances, heh heh heh...
Anti-magic field supresses the magical potions in themselves so I doubt they could be identified anyway.
He also can't really brew potions in anti-magic field - brewing may be extraordinary ability but creation process of a potion requires triggering prepared spell/extract, which in my opinion, is impossible in AM field.Good catch on the bonus to Craft (alchemy).
It is still cast. It's effects are just suppressed. Which, in that case, is up to the GM to say if the potion is made or not. It doesn't make sense that a potion would gain the effects of a spell if the energy can't reach the potion but mechanically it's legit.
