Anyone try the Remastered Alchemist? Is it better? Is the versatile vile mechanic better than all at once?
Bomber arguably got net positive buff (arguably, not easy to say that), the other 3 Alchemists are all imo nerfed significantly by the remaster.
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VVials do not provide more items unless you fight many times each day and are low level. To be clear, at the very lowest levels, you definitely get more items via VVials.
Worse is that old Alchemist let you choose your own balance of prep vs quick, but new Alch mandates you use Quick Alch. This completely wrecks your action economy, and is why "all Alchs are bombers now," as only bombs are 1A via the Quick Bomber feat. That 1/2 action cost (and their nature as the use-at-range items) completely skews the cost:benefit of combat alch items.
Even a Chir or Muta will know that throwing un-upgraded bombs is typically better than anything else they can do.
Just about every buff came with some nerf.
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Quick Alchemy used to be great for out of combat problem solving and pre-fight buffing. After you notice a change in monster / hazard theme, you could Quick Alch some antidotes for 6 hr protection.
Gone. Nerfed. Quick Alch only lasts 10 min. If you don't spend your precious few prep items, and you have the ability to see the future during daily preparations, then you'll never want to spend another prep item on a niche effect like that.
I'm genuinely glad I got to play Gatewalkers when I did, because my Chir being able to prep anti cold and anti plague items for the whole party was a real "alchemist" moment for the finale of that campaign, and just those 12 items would be over my max daily limit, and impossible to do in New Alch.
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All perpetual items were deleted. Those were actually very helpful, proving lower rank but free buffs, healing, etc. Spending a feat to get an unlimited Skunk Bomb on my Chir was super worth it, but that's all gone now.
Perpetuals were typically a full rank behind, but considering that's only 1d_ for bombs, they really were not a bad feature. Quick / Field Vials are pretty much a downgrade in every way. (it's the Quick Bomber feat buff that makes new Bomber's FV good, the feature alone is pretty meh / bad)
And those freebie infinite Quick Vials / FVs that are *not* Bombers? So bad it's an actual joke. Like, actually a trap action to do in combat. Muta spends 2A to remove a mutagen debuff until their next turn. They lost infinite perpetual items for that.
Chir's is still spending 2A to heal 2d6 at level 11 (1 p target p 10 min). Like, what the actual f$&& happened there. I think it's the worst healing in the system. I'd trade away every Chir feature to get Thaum's Chalice, and I actually did take Kin's Timber Sentinel (for when things actually get dangerous)
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New Alch caps Additive to once per turn. Not much to say there, likely nerfed because of the Quick Bomber buff. Used to be 2A minimum to get an Additive into a bomb.
Now that Quick Bomber was buffed to make that 1A (and only bombs were buffed like that), it's incredibly easy to point the finger to say that the nerf happened to stop Bombers from throwing 3 Additive boosted bombs per turn.
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Prep items now scale DC (but only via your L5 feature slot, it's not free baseline), but of course they still snuck a nerf in there. We can no longer make temps of permanent items like Collars or Sun Dazzlers. Even the prep items are consumables only now. This outright kills the viability of those "fun" items like Sun Dazzlers, as their non-scaling nature leaves them dead in the water.
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But hey, there is a certain smoothness to recharging VVs, and it is actually broken OP in some ways too. The Alchemy item list was designed around every creation either being a lower R perpetual that you specifically picked as your infinite, or the creation was daily-limited. That was important for psychological reasons, no one wants to "waste" a daily resource on a minor skill check. Now, any time there's no combat, the new-Alch is incentivize to stop the table every time someone is about to make a roll, and poof out a 10min buff each and every time.
It's honestly an asinine degree of play stoppage (don't forget all the follow up "has it been 10 minutes yet?" questions afterward), and every new-Alch seems to eventually grow bored of it and let those skill checks happen buff-less at some point.
Other things like condition removal items are now a foregone conclusion, just sit on your butt and keep waiting for the high counteract roll before you open the next door. No reason to ever risk a lingering debuff like that.
All Alchs more or less solve out of combat healing thanks to Soothing Tonic granting fast healing.
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I've no clue how NorrKnekten thinks that Tox is viable without prebuffing poisons. 1A to create, 1A to apply, and 1A to swing as a non-martial. That might be the very worst combat routine in the game.
The loophole rule to "sustain" some injury poisons via popping VVials every 10 min is the only thing that keeps Tox sane. It's just 2 or 3 poison attempts per fight, but without that, Tox would run out of prep poisons stupid fast.
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Did want to edit in what is a really nice QoL buff we got though. The item formula-heightening feature saves the Alch soooo much gp in gold tax. Like, holy crap, it is like at least 2,000 gp for my L14. That was absurdly expensive. And I pity Tox players, whose item list doesn't have lesser/mod/greater/etc versions. Though I suspect many are just rocking Clown Monarch at all levels now, lol.
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Like, even random "eh" feats like Healing Bomb were nerfed into "never ever take this" territory. Like, who the hell was worried that *Healing Bomb* was a balance problem???
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I could go on, so feel free to ask about anything specific.
So the remastered alchemist still not so great. Maybe better at low level, but not so great at high level. When I was looking at it, it did seem a little worse at high level with the Versatile vials taking a while to recover. Way more than a focus point.
2 plus your intelligence modifier is very limited.
So the remastered alchemist still not so great. Maybe better at low level, but not so great at high level. When I was looking at it, it did seem a little worse at high level with the Versatile vials taking a while to recover. Way more than a focus point.
2 plus your intelligence modifier is very limited.
7ish VVs really is "just right" if you are a Bomber who preps non-bombs, and Quick's only bombs. Seven Strikes is comfortably enough for a single fight, and if you're being conservative, you can stretch that to 2 ish fights.
Being able to recharge VVs passively and w/o meditating is good on paper, but doesn't help much in practice. If you as an Alch are the last one who wants another 10 min to top off your VVs, you feel pressured to start walking and just hope 10 min pass before the next fight initiates. And if you use the "VV sustained effects" trick, that's another 10 min added to that, after every fight.
It's oddly clunky.
The bigger issue is that spellcasters have cantrips, scrolls/wands/staves, daily slots, AND focus spells to spread out their resource usage.
Alchemists just have prep items, VVs, and the quick vial _d6. Bombers can use all 3 of those for 1A thanks to Quick Bomber, and their Q Vial being a "0 effect bomb" means that it is also the closest parity to a real item (it also gets boosted by bomber feats).
All the other 3 types generally can try to prebuff with VVials if they are at a door, but are all waaay more reliant on using prep items for combat, which makes it completely miserable to budget in the mornings. You want some Antiplague to give all-day protection to your party? Not a chance, unless you're fine with that being 4/9 of your limit. A Bomber might be able to swing that, but a Tox or Chir? No freaking way can they afford it.
And yeah, that's as seriously game-changing as it sounds. Alchemist does not have the resources to buff allies anymore.
My highest is a L14 Chirurgeon/Witch, and it's been over a level since I have buffed an ally in combat via a Combine Elixir. It's just better to throw a Haste at a distance, and maximize the Blood in the Water focus spell via Sticky Junk Bombs.
I've also given up "fairness" and started using the VVials for prebuffing more often, typically asking ~"who wants a buff" and trying to keep it limited to one. Because getting the benefit for 0 combat actions is the best spend of a VV.
Prebuffing w/ VVials is also stupid OP, as in, genuinely a balance problem if you know a fight is about to happen. You just cannot balance item effects as both requiring actions and resources to obtain in combat, and have that still be balanced if the party walks into every fight with 7 buffs.
My PC is fine with using a hand crossbow, archetype spells, and even Athletics in such circumstances. It's just not fun to know that your best way to contribute is by turning into a buff dispenser, and that any time you *don't* do that, you are just risking the lives of your party for the sake of fun.
Because, yeah. Paizo kinda F-ed up big time. IDK if they were even aware of the "item dispenser" pejorative and attempt to address it, or if they were that out of touch, but intent does not matter.
The new-Alchemist has infinitely recharging items, which are painful to use in combat, and refill passively.
Instead of the old item dispenser, new-Alch is the "infinite buff dispenser."
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Hmm, tox didn't lose out. Being able to affect those who were previously immune to poison looks like a huge buff.
I'm no alchemist expert so I can't comment on anything else, but the toxicologist in our group was moved to tears by this change.
I called out old Investigator as nearly being non-functional due to how hard it was to get the 0A version of DaS, never used that language for old Alch. I might have used similar language in a more specific point, like calling Quick Alch as "basically non-functional" or something like that.
I did write an entire Alchemist: Reformulated homebrew remaster, which has a Foundry & Pathbuilder module, after Paizo teased that Alch was getting recharging alchemy.
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I knew from the jump that recharging alchemy was both good and bad; making play smoother but creating new unfixable problems, like that issue where you want to buff before every possible roll because you've lost that "technically daily limited" psychology factor.
One of ways I addressed that was by preserving the "prep VS quick choice" and making the refilling "Reservoirs of Quintessence" start 1 free, then others being the new daily prep choice at the cost of 2 i.reagents per RR.
While feat-changeable, Reformulated's default Q-Alch alternative was limited so you could only insta create items w/ traits matching your specialty. Prep items became a 1 min out of combat thing, so all Alchs still had full-book access for non-combat needs (and you no longer needed to predict the future during daily prep).
That paradigm helped Bombers, etc, not have that mental issue where they wanted to spam infinite elixirs and could focus on their bombs.
I also put in the work to actually give the Reformulated "real" cantrip items & Additives as automatic features, all designed to scale and remain usable late game, which imo new-Alch still completely fails to do. I am still completely bewildered that new-Alch has 0 Additives bundled into the class, and still *require* class feats to get.
That's like if Rogue had all this text explaining their "Debilitation" mechanic, but not actually having any as a part of the chassis. The lack of a default Additive is just baffling.
Basically every single issue with new-Alch was visible from a mile away to old-Alch players.
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I certainly did *not* foresee that the new Archetype Alchemist would get buffed to such an absurd degree, that it genuinely hurts the viability of Alchemist as a class.
My next PC is 100% going to be a ___ / Alchemist to really see it for myself, but the Arch-Alch getting max R items, and full-book-any-time Quick Alch is just dumb.
I genuinely wonder how many people will think about playing new-Mutagenist, then realize they should just go Fighter(whatever) / Alch instead. If you don't need to spam items, there is no point to picking the class.
Most adventuring days, my Chirs do *not* use more items than the Arch-Alch features could provide, but every single day they suffer from having the inferior Alch chassis. That is seriously oof.
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Welcome to the new reality of the Remastered Alchemist. ;P
Lol, oof that stings.
"You may not like it, but this is what peak New Alchemist performance looks like. I can apply fourteen actions of buffs for zero combat actions, before every single fight."
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Hmm, tox didn't lose out. Being able to affect those who were previously immune to poison looks like a huge buff.
I'm no alchemist expert so I can't comment on anything else, but the toxicologist in our group was moved to tears by this change.
That was my thought too. The fact that tox now can affect basically every thing with their stuff is a huge buff compared to before when there were wide swaths of common enemy types you could not use any of your normal tools on.
Where things are still a bit unclear with Toxicologists is whether or not their Poisons can inflict conditions on the immune, or if it's simply a damage type swap.
Field Benefit:You can apply an injury poison you’re holding to a weapon or piece of ammunition you’re wielding as a single action, rather than as a 2-action activity. In addition, you flexibly mix acidic and poisonous alchemical compounds. Your infused poisons can affect creatures immune to poison. A creature takes acid damage instead of poison damage from your infused poisons if either the creature is immune to poison or that would be more detrimental to the creature (as determined by the GM). Typically, this benefit applies when the creature has an immunity, resistance, or weakness to one of the damage types.
There has always been support for Immunity not applying when the damage type doesn't match the Trait to which Immunity applies (ie, having a different damage type works around Immunity):
However, some complex effects might have parts that affect you even if you're immune to one of the effect's traits; for instance, a spell that deals both fire and acid damage can still deal acid damage to you even if you're immune to fire.
So, it's hard to say. My personal interpretation is that a 1st level Toxicologist can now do Acid damage to a Skeleton with Giant Centipede Venom, but the Skeleton won't be fatigued or clumsy if the Poison advances past Stage 1.
Still a major improvement, but not quite as good as it would be if Tox could hit Immune creatures with the major Debuff poisons.
Now, the Field Benefit completely avoiding Poison Resistance is just a complete win. And who knows, maybe some time a Tox will encounter something Weak to Acid and that will be a fun win too.
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Welcome to the new reality of the Remastered Alchemist. ;P
That's not the Remastered Alchemist... that was the Core Rulebook Alchemist. Kinda.
I played a Core Rulebook Bomber Alchemist in Outlaws of Alkenstar. At the end, I was doing the following:
- Making four Moderate Elixirs of Life, one for each party member, for emergency in-combat healing. (We were lacking in that area.)
- Four Silvertongue Mutagens for the Bard.
- Four Numbing Tonics for our frontliner Armor Inventor.
- Two Life Shot bullets for our Vanguard Gunslinger (he wanted some emergency ranged healing.)
And that was on top of everything I made for my Bomber's personal use... and he never ran out. There were a couple of spare Batches in there for Alchemical rabbits too.
Simply can't do that anymore. My PFS Bomber (11th level) is going to need his Versatile Vials for Sticky Bombs, and at 11 Advanced Alchemy items a day, he's not going to be doing a lot of support.
Alchemical rabbits though, I admit that PC2 Alchemist will be better at that. It's simply going to be a question of "can I afford to give up Offense to do this?"
So the remastered alchemist still not so great. Maybe better at low level, but not so great at high level. When I was looking at it, it did seem a little worse at high level with the Versatile vials taking a while to recover. Way more than a focus point.
2 plus your intelligence modifier is very limited.
7ish VVs really is "just right" if you are a Bomber who preps non-bombs, and Quick's only bombs. Seven Strikes is comfortably enough for a single fight, and if you're being conservative, you can stretch that to 2 ish fights.
Being able to recharge VVs passively and w/o meditating is good on paper, but doesn't help much in practice. If you as an Alch are the last one who wants another 10 min to top off your VVs, you feel pressured to start walking and just hope 10 min pass before the next fight initiates. And if you use the "VV sustained effects" trick, that's another 10 min added to that, after every fight.
It's oddly clunky.
The bigger issue is that spellcasters have cantrips, scrolls/wands/staves, daily slots, AND focus spells to spread out their resource usage.
Alchemists just have prep items, VVs, and the quick vial _d6. Bombers can use all 3 of those for 1A thanks to Quick Bomber, and their Q Vial being a "0 effect bomb" means that it is also the closest parity to a real item (it also gets boosted by bomber feats).
All the other 3 types generally can try to prebuff with VVials if they are at a door, but are all waaay more reliant on using prep items for combat, which makes it completely miserable to budget in the mornings. You want some Antiplague to give all-day protection to your party? Not a chance, unless you're fine with that being 4/9 of your limit. A Bomber might be able to swing that, but a Tox or Chir? No freaking way can they afford it.
And yeah, that's as seriously game-changing as it sounds. Alchemist does not have the resources to buff allies anymore.
My highest is a L14 Chirurgeon/Witch, and it's been over a level since I...
I don't know if 7 would be enough as we like very long, involved brutal combats against a lot of enemies. If you're playing the standard game going from moderate to severe encounter with plenty of room between, then 7 is maybe ok. If you're doing like us where we're plowing through an entire dungeon room to room with minimal rest between, 7 is a really low number. The old method still ran out, but you could at least have a bunch at high level and with the continuous infusions of lower level bombs never run out.
This new paradigm probably works for people running things in a very modular fashion, but not sure how great it is for groups like ours with a huge number of collapsing encounters in non-stop succession.
Welcome to the new reality of the Remastered Alchemist. ;PThat's not the Remastered Alchemist...
Eh. My goal wasn't so much to make a point so much as to make people laugh.
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Your infused poisons can affect creatures immune to poison.
This to me looks like the monster would be fatigued/clumsy - unless it's immune to the condition being given (like a golem immune to fatigue).
At least, that's how our GM rules it in this specific game.
Oh, yeah it really is not enough in that use-case.
I've done that during a hurried manor raid, and ended up using ~1.5 ish VV per fight.
That pace did help a 10min buff mutagen on the Kin last for 3 fights, but I certainly had more [Electric Arc] + [throw Spear] turns than normal during that marathon. I honestly can never imagine playing a pure Alchemist without spellcasting or something, you need fallbacks.
That type of quick-raid realism pretty much puts new-Alch's VVials as a pure downgrade over old Alch. The VVials need to be fully used and recharged multiple times to break even with the old item count. That's mostly why Archetype Alch is so good, because their main "lack" is that the VVs do not recharge.
As again, even old Bomber had their infinite perpetuals that had their potent hit effects, but at 1 dmg die less (and their splash was still maxed) for a worst-case 2A bomb.
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I've already posted it to the errata thread, but the "either or" difference that determines how one reads the Tox thing is if they think the first sentence is an actual instruction and rule granting the blanket ability to override immunity, or if it is only an introduction to the concept, and that sentence #2 is the actual mechanical implementation.
If you read that #1 has no mechanic behind it, then the only real mechanic is the damage conversion of #2, and there's nothing that allows for the effects to also function.
[#1]Your infused poisons can affect creatures immune to poison. [#2] A creature takes acid damage instead of poison damage from your infused poisons if either the creature is immune to poison[...]
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Anyone try the Remastered Alchemist? Is it better? Is the versatile vile mechanic better than all at once?
It's not much better. But it's much easier to play. So depending on how you were handling it pre remaster you'll find it either similar or finally usable (and as such much better).
Still, there are very interesting feat chains now that puts the Alchemist appart from other classes. So it's at least much more unique.
Wow, haven't seen this thread in a while.
I'm surprised at how much I'm standing by my previous take. I'm still baffled that Paizo made the "vending machine" issue so much worse via adding infinite recharging items. We legit wrote +3s buffs into our sheets during a non-combat diplomacy arc and improvised how to hand-waive the VVial management.
And of course the rare surprise combat during that time means I'm starting at like 0 items, fun.
When playing Alch, I still waffle on prebuffing or self-banning it, and as my PCs have gone up in level, the power of prebuffs has kinda gone up due to combats getting longer.
I do agree that, especially for Bomber, low level old alch was crazy item starved. In that case, the sub-Alch balance was kinda inverted. Bomber wanted to use bombs as its Strike, but others like Mutagenist only need items to buff up. That left Bomber very item hungry at L1 compared to the other alch types.
Still though, if you knew that bombs were finite and packed a backup weapon, like that Alchemical Crossbow, even low level was doable. I played old alch from L1 on 3 different PCs, and I don't remember calling for a stop due to item depletion.
The only time that "bad outcome" tended to happen imo was when Bombers assumed they could throw bombs all day and didn't prepare a weapon.
I also feel the need to plug the 2 feat investment to get an Independent Lab Assistant familiar if your GM allows legacy. Because the familiar is using your Quick Alchemy, it's basically 1 0A Quick Alch per turn so long as the familiar is on your shoulder. At high level, it's normal for them to survive one AoE, then hop inside the familiar tattoo to escape the rest of the fight.
But being able to get Quick Alch consumables poofed into your hand for the non-Bombers is game changing enough to make it worth it, imo. Depends on how much actual alchemy you want to do, versus archetype actions.
And I think my take on loosing Perpetuals was not harsh enough. Even Bomber got nerfed badly by that, being able to chuck infinite Skunks, etc, is so much better than their freebie _d6 bomb, that it is really not funny.
Bomb debuffs are worth waaay more than 3.5 avg damage from the 1d6 minus that Perpetuals had.
It only now clicked to me that with the instant draw from your kit you can use your normal, 2/10 minute Versatile Vials, rather than an infinite Quick Vial, non-bombers get a field vial benefit with one less action (1 vs 2). A pretty bad idea in most cases, but I guess a mutagenist might be willing to sacrifice one or two per combat on this 1a debuff remover rather than 2a Quick alchemy buffing with additional elixirs, a toxicologist using advanced alchemy or out of combat Quick Alchemy 10 minute prepoisoned weapons he's using himself might boost it a bit with a 1a application of a VV for additional damage, and a Chirurgeon with Soothing Vials can 1a give a small heal and mental saving throw reroll, and with Clotting Elixirs can also give a boosted roll to remove persistent bleed.
Yup, but as you noticed, spending 1VV is never worth the -1A.
Especially when you can still loophole the action cost via the Double Brew + Quick Bomber combo, or the Independent Lab Assistant familiar.
Like, Chirurgeon's Elix o Life will heal more than 2x the crummy FV healing, so even that is not really a use-case for the toolkit trick.
Plus, there are still daily prep items, and looted healing potions, that can be used for 1A via Draw-dodging.
I managed to invoke the clotting elixirs feat once in Stolen Fate, then immediately retrained it. I honestly don't remember if the cleanse roll passed or not.
When you've got the full alch list only a Quick Alch away, it's absolutely horrible to spend a feat on that.
Blood boosters give a ton of bleed resist, which is better than a *chance* to remove a bleed that likely will be reapplied by the foe.
Right now, the once p day "more VVials" feat, Improvise Admixture, takes the L2 slot on my (free archetype) Alchs.
It's not super amazing, but it's a big psychological helper to allow yourself to spend the last VVial and hit 0, as you've got the safety net action to gain 1 or 2 in an emergency.
Revivifying Muta and Pernicious Psn both can be valid picks for the L2 slot. Though, Familiar Master (or Witch Dedication) both are kinda way better, as the L1 slot is kinda stuck being Quick Bomber on every remaster Alch nowadays.
In the post remaster VVs are better than perpetuals for a damage focused bomber, which is the fantasy bomber is supposed to represent. Yes they're worse at support, but the appeal of bombers is damage.
Not really. I'd kinda say the opposite, new Bomber has a much much easier time being flexible, but only if they can spare the VVials. Their new 'ol reliable fallback just got a downgrade from Perpetuals to Field Vials, imo.
New Bomber is limited to 1 Additive per turn, old was not.
It was not as severe as it's become post-remaster, but old Alch was still written for Bomber first. Double Brew into 2 throws was the nova option made for Bomber, and an Independent Lab Assistant could even do Quick Alch on the Bomber's behalf to free up that action.
And when they didn't want to do the bad trade of prep VS quick reagents, Bombers could still throw multiple non-Additive bombs per turn, for far longer than new Alch can.
As far as I know, the top DPS needle barely moved for Bomber, and I'm pretty sure the remaster lowered it.
It was really, really dumb design, but the old Unstable Concoction allowed you to risk (kinda a lot of) self-dmg to Q-Alch items 2 levels higher;
at key levels, Bombers could be throwing the next tier of bomb early.
(including L10, right when you'd get the feat)
OH, almost forgot that the feat was NOT an Additive back then, so you could also be making those Sticky, etc. IMO, Expanded Splash was better for damage, but some bombs only unlock their lowest version at L12, so going for Unstable first did have merit.
The biggest difference in favor of the remaster is probably it adding Master Strikes, but that can only take effect in a Lvl 11-20 campaign.
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To be clear, overall I do think new Bomber is more fun to play than old Bomber, by a significant margin. Quibbling about DPS is kinda a historical irrelevancy.
New players won't know they are missing Perpetuals, and the psychology of recharging VVials really lowers the pressure to conserve your bombs.
Still annoying as hell that Powerful Alchemy is a L5 feature instead of base class chassis, but the remaster at least removed the "no DC bombs for daily prep" friction by making the feature affect both prep and quick items.
How does independent lab assistant familiar actually compress actions?
For lab assistant after doing quick alchemy the familiar will be holding the item, so you still need an action somewhere for the player to grab it. (its also a legacy feat.) Valet requires a command too, so you couldn't have the familiar hand it to you for free next turn.I'm not sure what other tricks there are for draw dodging outside of items like collar of the shifting spider, retrieval prism (legacy talisman), retrieval belt (uncommon), and the injection trait (kind of?)
Command familiar -> lab assistant lets it quick alchemy -> manual dex lets it hand the item to someone else in reach. Saved you an action handing off the item to a buddy.
Or it can make the item one round with independent, then hand it to you next round. Independent doesn't prohibit this. It prohibits using some special commands such as valet, but handing an item off using a single interact action is not valet and doesn't even require having valet learned. Valet lets the familiar spend up to 4 actions (twice the amount familiars normally have) grabbing and giving you 2 different items - such as two bombs. It's not at all comparable to a single bog standard interact action.
As for legacy feats/items, of course they're relevant action compression. I guess some GM could have a problem with them but damn I don't even wanna think about that table, let along let it have any bearing on balance discussions. Even PFS allows legacy content and they ban everything.
It's easy to miss, but Lab Assistant says the familiar "can use your Quick Alchemy action." It has the same costs and results as if you used it, including the location of the created item.
It's not a f.ability that grants it an independent copy of your action, because the item being in their hand would make it near-worthless due to the familiar's can't Activate rule. That would also mean no Additives, Double Brew, etc.(familiar has to be in your space, so the handoff example doesn't work. But the item throw is a thing now, so the idea under the example is sound)
Lab Assistant instead enables the familiar to hit your own action.
To be clear and rephrase, Lab Assistant does NOT grant the familiar the ability to do Quick Alchemy, it only grants the familiar the ability to trigger YOUR Quick Alchemy action.
I'm pretty sure it's legacy because the only old alch that really liked to do a lot of Quick Alch was those Perpetual Bombers, so it was pretty niche. After the remaster, all Alchemists are stuck doing a lot of Quick Alch, so the power of the f.ability shot through the roof.
I personally prefer Lab Assistant to Item Delivery because the latter means your familiar is out of position, in more danger than usual, and you'll need more actions later to get them back on your shoulder.
Don't forget you can throw items into open ally hands now, that use of Interact genuinely does come up every now and again.
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You are correct that the one theoretical use-case for the FV toolkit heal is when a Dying ally is beyond touch range, but within 20ft, you want to spend the VVial, and you don't have alternatives like Dr's Visitation. And you can only afford to spend 1A total / outright cannot move into reach distance.
And yeah, that is incredibly hyper-specific. It is so abysmally rare, that I've never encountered that moment across 3 different Chirs. It's a once in a campaign event, at best.
Side note, item delivery is a really weird familiar ability
If your familiar is adjacent to you, you can Command it to deliver an item. Instead of its normal 2 actions, your familiar Interacts to take an item you’re holding of light Bulk or less, then takes one move action, then finally Interacts to pass off the item to another willing creature. It can instead administer the item to the creature if it can do so with 1 action and has an appropriate type of item (such as alchemical elixir). If your familiar doesn’t reach the target this turn, it holds the item until commanded otherwise. Your familiar must have the manual dexterity ability to select this.
This familiar ability lives and dies by whether a familiar can still administer the held item with another use of item delivery.
If it can't, it's quite situational. If it can (and logically how wouldn't it, what's the timer here?), it's pretty nice - essentially acting as a third hand with which to hold a consumable until you (or an ally) need it applied. Two handed weapon characters rejoice.
Also side note to the side note, item delivery via patron's puppet allows you to activate a quickness potion on yourself *before* you gain actions, giving you self made round one quickness. IDK if this is actually worth doing when you could potion patch it, but it is cool!
It's easy to miss, but Lab Assistant says the familiar "can use your Quick Alchemy action." It has the same costs and results as if you used it, including the location of the created item.
Ooh I didn't catch that, that's quite nice. Basically quick bomber for non-bombs then, but 1/turn.
Ooh I didn't catch that, that's quite nice. Basically quick bomber for non-bombs then, but 1/turn.
Yup, but you need 3 f.abilities for the full combo. Which Alchemist cannot do by itself, because even after the remaster they don't have a way to upgrade their familiar. FFS. So Alchemist wants to Archetype even more badly, lol.
There is a real use-case for a 2 ability Lab Assistant + Dex familiar that is also Drawing items off your belt or passing them, while its other Command action is that precious Quick Alch.
Kinda a stopgap 2-for-1 until you can get that 3rd ability and add Independent. But it is kinda useful.
And there's the other issue where a single failed AoE can / will one-shot familiars, lol.
I'm used to benefiting from the familiar for the first few turns, then having them merge into a familiar tattoo once they survive a single bit of AoE damage.
Better to loose that 0A Quick Alch than to need to deal with a Dying familiar.
Edit: Drs visitation is better healing for the actions for sure, but not all chirurgeons will be medics, especially when the medicine proficiency is basically pointless now.
Well, don't forget that Chirurgeons get to use Crafting for anything Medicine related... including using to meet Feat prerequisites. Chirurgeons are the only ones who can take Medic without Medicine. Although Homebrew, I firmly believe any reasonable home game GM would let the Dedication raise a Chirurgeon's Crafting to Expert instead of Medicine.
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I'm playing with a bomber alchemist in my Wednesday night game, and it's very fun to play.
Basically even being a bomber I'm the king of off-combat healing because I'm not only can Treat Wounds using medicine like any other medicine trained character can, but I also complement the healing with VV made Life Elixirs.
Using Bombs is also very fun. Thrown Skunk Bombs it's like a very powerful Slow spell but accessible at level one and having better success and critical success effects and it's more sustainable than even focus spells and also give a better avg damage than shortbow.
The Quick Vials of the bomber are also very good to use as second and third actions. They allow me to easily test if the enemy have weakness to acid, fire, electricity, and cold doing some damage and without need to do a RK check.
It's damage it's not compared to a melee martial but its good enough to compete with ranged ones once that worth to use all your actions to Strike. So in general it's being a very fun and versatile class to play. Not the best DPR but a very good class in general. At least as a bomber.
Thats a good callout, if the DM allows it that makes it a bit better.
It does feel like chirurgeon + medic is a bit overkill to me but the flavor makes sense.
IMO, Chir getting Medic is kinda mandatory for having a good time at Paizo's current AP difficulty.
Alchemist is super limited in combat by their VVials, so getting a non-Vial method of combat healing does wonders to allow Chir to use non-healing items, like a turn 1 debuff bomb opener.
Chir also has a big problem where Elixirs of Life just kinda suck ass.
For any Lvl 1-11 AP, Chir truly has bad combat healing numbers. Like, the lowest in the game.
But, thanks to action economy shenanigans and VVial recharge, it's technically possible to spam Combine Elixir and burn *SIX* VVials in 2 turns to kinda-not-really keep pace with the 2A Heal spell, but after that, you're legit empty. With only a _d6 acid bomb and lagging accuracy to fall back upon. (and Chir spamming El Arc does more dmg, btw)
It creates an issue where Chir can look good on paper, but easy to overlook details, like the touch range issue, mean that mathematically pure-Chir legit under-performs, kinda badly.
Being able to us Dr's Visitation for 1A to Stride + Heal someone, then end that action in touch range for elixirs... it's literally the perfect synergy for Chir.
Investing in the Medic dip on Chirurgeon can even take priority over getting a Lab Assistant familiar, it's just that good at covering Chir's problems (touch range + 0 mobility, bad heal p resource & action) while also giving Chir's strength (instant full-list items) room to breathe.
Yes. During combats, Elixirs of Life are basically traps. They don't heal enough alone to even compensate their action cost in general. So a workaround like Medic Archetype is needed.
They only really shines when reach level 13 and get its Greater Field Discovery and max their healing.
If someone’s down or probably will be, soothing tonics are better by a mile. If someone probably won’t go down soon, numbing tonics are usually better
I strongly disagree with the use of Soothing Tonics as in-combat healing. As a start-of-combat buff, they're great. As out-of-combat recovery, they're amazing. But if my character is down, I don't want to be awake again with 1 hp (Levels 2-4), 3 hp (5-9), 5 hp (10-16) or 10 hp (17+). At each of those levels, it's way too easy to get knocked out again with a higher Dying value.
An Elixir of Life will usually give you a bigger buffer. Not a great one, particularly levels 1-4, but it will usually be better.
The issue is that if the buffer isn't enough to take another hit, then it doesn't matter how much over-kill the attack delt.
El o Life heal for so little, that you genuinely can be knocked right back down to 0, even on a good roll.
But, if that elixir is coming after a Dr's Visitation Bttl Med heal? That genuinely does change the equation.
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And yeah, I've only become more certain that Chir L13 feature is the most powerful (and dumbest designed) feature in the pf2 system.
"Take the max possible roll" of healing is as far as I know unique, no other ability works like that. And iirc it maths to passive ~40-50% increase to the heal. Do you know of any passive in pf2 that adds 45% to your result, lol?
The fact that the ability doesn't make the Chir overpowered, and instead just makes the Elixirs of Life into a rather good heal, kiiiinda shows how dire the "Chir is a healer" situation is when under L13.
It's simply not possible to have game balance when you flip a switch and get that much of a contextual power spike. Either the Chir's healing sucks without it, or is too good with it.
And yeah, the Chir kinda sucks without it (so getting non-Chir options via Archetypes is the way to go)
Before the remaster, there was at least the balance regulator of i.reagent efficiency. That Paizo did not rework the ability with the change to VVials is seriously damning.
Previously, you could get 3:1 elixirs if you prepped them (so no max-mathing), and only the 1:1 Quick Alch would get the boost. So your total healing would be higher if you prepped them, but your burst would be higher if you used Q-Alch to trigger the max-math.
Furthermore, that power was designed around Chir's Perpetual Items, infinite lower level elixirs. While I still loved to first pick something like the contagion metabolizer for my Perpetuals, once that max ability came online, that meant the heal power of the level-lagging 1:0 cost elixirs was genuinely legit.
Waaay more healing than the remaster's Perpetual replacement joke of FVial healing.
@L13, L5 elixir healing: 3d6+6 --> 24
FVial healing at L13: 3d6 --> 10.5 avg
Like, how tf does a ttrpg company screw that up so badly?
I strongly disagree with the use of Soothing Tonics as in-combat healing. As a start-of-combat buff, they're great. As out-of-combat recovery, they're amazing. But if my character is down, I don't want to be awake again with 1 hp (Levels 2-4), 3 hp (5-9), 5 hp (10-16) or 10 hp (17+). At each of those levels, it's way too easy to get knocked out again with a higher Dying value.
An Elixir of Life will usually give you a bigger buffer. Not a great one, particularly levels 1-4, but it will usually be better.
The point is that if you're gonna get knocked down by a hit regardless, the soothing tonic will keep bringing you back up.
You can get a lot of stuff to increase how long you can deathloop for, staring skulls and diehard, and psychopomp masks and such. Of course it's better to never go down in the first place, but usually elixirs of life aren't going to save you there.
And of course if you don't have an alchemist deathlooping costs pennies compared to guzzling your entire treasure by level in on level healing consumables - not to say you shouldn't have in combat healing in the party, but doing it with potions is just stupid.
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And yeah, I've only become more certain that Chir L13 feature is the most powerful (and dumbest designed) feature in the pf2 system.
"Take the max possible roll" of healing is as far as I know unique, no other ability works like that. And iirc it maths to passive ~40-50% increase to the heal. Do you know of any passive in pf2 that adds 45% to your result, lol?
The fact that the ability doesn't make the Chir overpowered, and instead just makes the Elixirs of Life into a rather good heal, kiiiinda shows how dire the "Chir is a healer" situation is when under L13.
It's simply not possible to have game balance when you flip a switch and get that much of a contextual power spike. Either the Chir's healing sucks without it, or is too good with it.
And yeah, the Chir kinda sucks without it (so getting non-Chir options via Archetypes is the way to go)Before the remaster, there was at least the balance regulator of i.reagent efficiency. That Paizo did not rework the ability with the change to VVials is seriously damning.
Previously, you could get 3:1 elixirs if you prepped them (so no max-mathing), and only the 1:1 Quick Alch would get the boost. So your total healing would be higher if you prepped them, but your burst would be higher if you used Q-Alch to trigger the max-math.Furthermore, that power was designed around Chir's Perpetual Items, infinite lower level elixirs. While I still loved to first pick something like the contagion metabolizer for my Perpetuals, once that max ability came online, that meant the heal power of the level-lagging 1:0 cost elixirs was...
Exactly, the pre-level 13 chirurgeon is very meh as a healer!
To give you a comparison, at level 1, they can do up to EoL that heal 1d6 and give +1 against diseases and poisons which is not bad, but it is circumstantial and does not accumulate, in addition to being able to use a VV that heals 1d6, but only 1x every 10 minutes per target due to the coagulant trait. Furthermore, it takes 2 actions to use these items with quick alchemy, which means that the most you can do if you are well prepared (starting with a EoL at hand) is to heal 2d6 in a single turn. But in most situations you won't get more than 1d6.
At low levels the situation is so poor that technically the only difference between playing chirurgeon and any other research field is just being able to use VV to heal 1d6 extra 1x per combat and that's it. And it stays like this until level 10! Only with VV improving to 2d6 at level 4.
It's such a difficult situation that if you want to make an alchemist healer, it's better to make a bomber up to level 10 and then retrain to chirurgeon so that you can at least use VV to heal allies with less than half their HP. And still, I don't think it's worth it because his healing is still too low for the number of actions the Versatile Vial needs to be used. Since it's easy to keep some EoL ready with your advanced alchemy in case the 6 VV you can do aren't enough, or simply to draw one elixir with your third action to use in the next turn (or use directly if you have an exemplary archetype with the Horn Of Plenty which is practically mandatory for the alchemist healer build).
In the end, the entire subclass is only worth it even when you get its last chirurgeon benefit which changes its effectiveness completely.
To give you an idea, the healing with the VV is so bad that all the kineticist's healing impulses, which are not the best healing in the game, heal more than the VV from the beginning and much more as the level progresses. In other words, if you simply take the kineticist archetype and the healing impulses you will be a much better healer than you would be with almost the entire chirurgeon subclass.
lul I knew chirurgeon was bad but I didn't realize it was *that* bad