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Bore Bomb: When the saboteur creates a bomb, he may choose to make it a bore bomb. If a bore bomb strikes a wall, gate, siege engine, or similar large, solid, inanimate structure, it ignores half the target's hardness and deals 1 point of damage per saboteur level. If a bore bomb reduces an inanimate target to half its hit points or fewer, it blows a hole 5 feet wide and 5 feet deep in the target.
Am I interpreting correctly that Bore Bombs only do one damage per Alchemist level? This seems really underpowered. Do Bore Bombs splash? Does the Alchemist get to add Int to damage with the Bore Bomb? Is there some way to get more damage out of a Bore Bomb so as to be able to overcome the remaining half Hardness at an earlier level?
Bore Bomb: When the saboteur creates a bomb, he may choose to make it a bore bomb. If a bore bomb strikes a wall, gate, siege engine, or similar large, solid, inanimate structure, it ignores half the target's hardness and deals 1 point of damage per saboteur level. If a bore bomb reduces an inanimate target to half its hit points or fewer, it blows a hole 5 feet wide and 5 feet deep in the target.Am I interpreting correctly that Bore Bombs only do one damage per Alchemist level? This seems really underpowered. Do Bore Bombs splash? Does the Alchemist get to add Int to damage with the Bore Bomb? Is there some way to get more damage out of a Bore Bomb so as to be able to overcome the remaining half Hardness at an earlier level?
If they still have throw anything, you should still add Int to damage.
I think it's intentional that the discovery doesn't become useful until later levels. Think about it: do you really want to have level 1 saboteurs running around and blasting holes into stuff without paying for it?
I felt the flavor of this class was the character that can destroy large obstacles. The character that sneaks into enemy territory and destroys the castle wall for the rear infiltration force that is going to lead a surprise attack. I could be wrong, I may be thinking on too large a scale. But it seems to me you'll never be able to bring that wall down when you consider,
- A "Good Wooden Door" has a Hardness of 5 and 15 Hit Points
- A "Masonry Wall (1 ft. thick)" has a Hardness of 8 and 90 Hit Points
- "Hewn Stone (3 ft. thick)" has a Hardness of 8 and 540 Hit Points
Those numbers are from the Pathfinder SRD. As it stands, a Saboteur can't blow a 5' wide and 5' deep hole in a Good Wooden Door until around 12th or 13th level. If that's the way it was meant then my interpretation of the class is horribly wrong and I apologize, but that just doesn't feel right to me.
Well, Hewn Stone really should be too thick to blow a hole in it. The feature should have to make you look for weak points in a structure first. It's possible that you may have to set more than one bomb. As I mentioned above, you don't have to pay anything for that ability other than the discovery.
But you may be on to something there. I flagged it as a FAQ candidate; you can do that, too.
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The real problem comes in when you compare it to a non-Bore Bomb. A 7th-lvl Saboteur with an 18 Int can throw a Bore Bomb at a Masonry Wall and do 7 points of damage (7+4 points minus half hardness), or he can throw a normal bomb at it to do an average of 10 points of damage (3.5x4+4 - hardness). So why invest in Bore Bomb, at least the way it is currently written? This seems to suggest that the text for Bore Bomb should really read:
"If a bore bomb strikes a wall, gate, siege engine, or similar large, solid, inanimate structure, it ignores half the target's hardness and deals 1 extra point of damage per saboteur level."
The real problem comes in when you compare it to a non-Bore Bomb. A 7th-lvl Saboteur with an 18 Int can throw a Bore Bomb at a Masonry Wall and do 7 points of damage (7+4 points minus half hardness), or he can throw a normal bomb at it to do an average of 10 points of damage (3.5x4+4 - hardness). So why invest in Bore Bomb, at least the way it is currently written? This seems to suggest that the text for Bore Bomb should really read:
"If a bore bomb strikes a wall, gate, siege engine, or similar large, solid, inanimate structure, it ignores half the target's hardness and deals 1 extra point of damage per saboteur level."
I was thinking about the whole throwing thing. That sounds a bit unnecessary, considering what the bomb does. Maybe it would make more sense to set that bomb to the object to be destroyed, and then have it deal it a set amount of damage over several rounds (1 per alchemist level, or maybe half that). In that way, it would work more like a demolition charge, and less like a grenade.
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I had assumed the purpose of the other Discovery that Saboteur's have access to, Complex Bomb, was designed for use with Bore Bomb and Delayed Bomb. In this way you're setting something like a timed charge. If you're setting multiple charges this way it may be more doable to utilize Bore Bomb as it's presented. You sure are expended a lot of bombs that way though.
I had assumed the purpose of the other Discovery that Saboteur's have access to, Complex Bomb, was designed for use with Bore Bomb and Delayed Bomb. In this way you're setting something like a timed charge. If you're setting multiple charges this way it may be more doable to utilize Bore Bomb as it's presented. You sure are expended a lot of bombs that way though.
Hadn't thought about that. Good call.
You may expend a lot of bombs, but that application has a lot of potential for shenanigans.
For example, identify the weak point in that castle's corner tower with Knowledge (Engineering), blow a hole in it, see the whole corner collapse, and call in the cavalry (so to speak).
Normal bombs will have their damage halved before applying hardness. So a level 7 alchemist (18 Int) throwing a bomb at a hardness 8 wall will be doing: 4d6 + 4 = 18 / 2 damage = 9. Taking into consideration hardness, and it's 1 point of damage on average.
The borebomb will be doing 11 points of damage, against the 4 effective hardness for a total of 7 damage. The bore bomb is untyped so it deals full damage, I believe.
This is 1 point away from blowing a hole in the wall, assuming the usual 15 hp for what I have in mind.
On the first post I see Paizo put "7 people marked this as FAQ candidate. Staff response: no reply required." Anyone know where this reply is supposed to be? This would be nice to know since I am making a Saboteur character.
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On the first post I see Paizo put "7 people marked this as FAQ candidate. Staff response: no reply required." Anyone know where this reply is supposed to be? This would be nice to know since I am making a Saboteur character.
"No Reply Required" is the Paizo way of saying "it works exactly how it reads." It won't show up as a FAQ response.
Occasionally something gets revisited when a staff member realizes it isn't as simple as they thought, but usually that's as far as it goes.
Odd, usually people are posting on here because "how it reads" is not clear in the first place, which is the case with some of the Alchemist bomb discoveries. If someone took the time to look at the questions, a simple reply in the thread would clarify things for a lot of people. Like in the this case or with any bomb discoveries where it doesn't explicitly say if the effect is in addition too or instead of, the normal fire damage. This is not clear when one takes in consideration the response on smoke bombs from Sean K Reynolds which seems to indicate it might be the former.
FAQ on smoke bombs
I was wondering/hoping that, but I'm thinking probably not.
It seems kind of clear to me that the intent is that the 1 damage per level doesn't replace normal bomb damage, it adds to it.
So, a level 9 Alchemist with 20 Int would ignore half the hardness of the object and deal 5d6+14 damage.
They could have left out the word "additional" or "extra" with a type, or they are maybe just using awkward language, but I'm like 90% sure it's bonus damage.
This is pretty funny. I believe the description of the bore bomb could use some clarification, primarily whether it splashes, whether the damage indicated is on top of the normal bomb damage or supplants that damage, and if it's the latter whether you add your Int damage as you do for a normal bomb. RAW, however, I'm pretty sure the answers to those questions are yes, supplants and no, respectively.
Essentially though, it feels like everyone is marking this for FAQ primarily because we just can't believe this discovery is really as crappy as it seems to be. So what we're actually asking Paizo is less like "can you clarify these rules please?" and more like "please admit that you made a terrible, terrible discovery that no one will ever take, or else explain what we're missing that makes this not just horrendously awful." The real shame is that this would be such a cool discovery if the math on it was right. Unless of course we're all missing something.
Incidentally, if it works the way it seems to RAW, then the following are the levels an alchemist with this discovery needs to be in order to blow a hole through something with a single bomb (the number in parenthesis is the number of bombs a 12th level alchemist must use to get through the thing in question):
Simple Wooden Door: 8th (1)
Good Wooden Door: 11th (1)
Strong Wooden Door: 13th (2)
Stone Door: 34th (8)
Iron Door or Portcullis: 35th (9)
Wooden Portcullis: 18th (4)
Masonry Wall: 49th (12)
Reinforced Masonry: 94th (24)
Iron Wall: 39th (13)
Hewn or Unworked Stone: Effectively impossible
Again, unless I'm missing something I think it's pretty clear that at the levels indicated your party is almost certainly going to have some far more efficient (and probably far more stealthy) way of getting through the obstacle in question.
RAW, splash applies and INT also applies (it's still a Bomb they throw).
I'm not TOTALLY sure whether the 1/level is in place of 1d6/level or in addition to,
but even the 1/level is useful and I believe that is the intent, and is the more conservative reading of RAW.
(the RAW isn't saying 'in addition to')
I don't know if it's strictly necessarily, but if it's meant to be instead of 1d6/level,
I do think it's much preferable to follow the lead of the other bomb replacements and directly state that.
So I suppport FAQ/Errata to that effect. (likewise if the intent is to be 'in addition to', it should say that)
Why it's actually really really useful:
Normal bombs are halving damage (energy damage to objects) and then applying hardness.
Bore bombs apply their full damage (not specified as energy damage) ignoring half of hardness.
This is untyped damage, so is immune to any resistances or rulings on 'ineffective damage types' the object may have.
So they directly apply Alchemist Level DMG + INT (plus any other damage bonuses).
But crucially, and what everybody seems to be utterly ignoring,
they only have to reduce the target to HALF it's HPs or fewer to bust a hole in it.
That's the equivalent of doubling all damage that gets thru (already halved) Hardness.
Other damage needs to deplete the full amount of HPs /after/ getting thru full hardness with energy damage being halved first.
Could there be some cases where the object doesn't have alot of hardness, and is vulnerable or otherwise doesn't halve a certain type of energy damage? Sure, and you can use normal bombs on those. Bore bombs are for when the hardness and reduction of effectiveness of energy damage would make normal bombs ineffective. The combination of those can easily make it so energy damage bombs just aren't doing much (or any) real damage.
Between Bore Bombs halving the target's HPs (same effect as only needing to bring it to half HPs) and halving Hardness and not halving Energy Damage, normal Bombs need to be MORE THAN 4x (4x + half Hardness) as powerful to achieve the same result (busting a hole thru it). Certain types of energy MAY not suffer the halving of damage, but they would still need to be 2x as effective PLUS half Hardness, to simply equal Bore Bombs in effectiveness. Bore Bombs should be able to get thru even Stone or Metal in many cases, even if it takes a few of them they will be more effective than normal Bombs.
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Yeah, nothing in the text of bore bomb indicates that the bore damage replaces the normal bomb damage. Everything else I've seen that changes the amount of damage the bomb does explicitly states "instead of doing normal bomb damage" or some variation thereof. It's even explicitly stated on the SRD pages for the Inferno/Poison/Smoke/Stink/Plague types that those types of bombs still deal normal bomb damage.
As far as I can tell, the only question becomes whether:
1) Bomb ignores half hardness, deals bomb damage + 1/lvl against that hardness
or
2) Bomb deals normal damage, then deals 1/lvl against half hardness
is the intended effect. Considering that the text simply states "If a bore bomb strikes a wall, gate, siege engine, or similar large, solid, inanimate structure, it ignores half the target's hardness and deals 1 point of damage per saboteur level", I would argue that it's 1.
Assuming a 20th-level alchemist with a, let's say 30 INT, a bore bomb would do 10d6+20 (average 55) before further calculations from being a bore bomb and hitting an object with energy damage. Half damage from being an object reduces the damage to an average of 27. Add 1 (no energy descriptor given, so I'm assuming it's untyped) for each alchemist level, so we're up to 47. Ignore half hardness on, say, Hewn Stone and we're looking at 43 damage in one bomb. You'd nee 270/43=6.3, rounded up to 7, bombs on average to blow a 5' diameter, 5' deep hole into it.
If we assume 2, it's 19 (27-8 hardness) + 20-4 = 35 damage per bomb, meaning you would need 8.
Assuming all you get is the untyped 1/lvl damage against half hardness, you'd do 20-4=16 damage per bomb, requiring 17 bombs to blow the same hole.
Yeah, I'm thinking it's "full bomb damage + level versus half hardness", personally. Either way, I rather think a staff response is necessary solely for the fact that RAW is not explicit enough on this.
Well, Quandary and Harita just gave opposite interpretations. I agree with Quandary's interpretation, but I still don't agree that bore bomb is useful.
And although I recognize that a lot of people forgot the fact that you halve energy damage against objects, I had not forgotten that but I still don't think it's useful.
I'm on my way out the door, but later I'll update my list to reflect the possibility that you do add your Int damage and I think it will be better, but still pretty clearly inefficient compared to alternative methods.
Do they get pinged if they already marked it "no reply required"? Or do we need to FAQ a new post?
Yeah, alot of people forgot about energy damaging halving AND they overlooked that Bore Bombs only need to bring the object to half HPs (which is the same effect as doubling all damage that gets thru the halved Hardness).
The BEST case for regular Bombs is rolling all 6's (per level, average is really 3.5 per level), which is first halved to 3 per level (or 1.75 on average), then twice the Hardness is subtracted (vs. Bore Bombs), then they need to do twice the damage as a Bore Bomb (so we can halve the effective damage, 1.5 per level minus Hardness with all 6's, or 0.75 per level minus Hardness on average... vs. 1 per level minus half Hardness). If we look at a case where energy damage isn't halved for a given object vs. a specific kind of energy, that is similar (on average) to rolling all 6's. And all other static damage boosts (Weapon Spec, Smite) are 4x as effective for the Bore Bomb (not halved ala energy damage, twice as effective in making a hole).
Force Bombs is a type wouldn't be halved. They could be used to soften up structures, then hit with Bore bombs when they are looking damaged and hopefully below half.
I think force damage counts as energy damage (that is halved). Sonic does, even if it is not 'elemental' energy damage.
IMHO, force damage would need to be qualified as Bludgeoning/Piercing/etc if it were not to count as energy damage.
I guess that is worth a FAQ thread of it's own.
But sure, if it doesn't count, or isn't halved vs. a given object, then Force Bombs can be useful in similar cases as Bore Bombs.
I don't think they will be MORE useful (certainly not on average, and if you roll low they would be less powerful),
but if it isn't halved like sonic energy damage they could be on par (as well as their other uses).
I think force damage counts as energy damage (that is halved).
Going to assume it is, since force is listed as an energy type for the purposes of Performance Combat, and to assume it's not an energy type otherwise would be a rather odd inconsistency. It could be said that it's not an energy type because it's not listed as one for the purposes of energy resistance, but not all energy resistance abilities allow for sonic damage, either.
That's a good point, I'm not familiar with Performance Combat at all.
I will repost that tidbit in another thread I started just on this topic. FAQ it if you please.
Yes, that's what I meant when I wrote:
If we look at a case where energy damage isn't halved for a given object vs. a specific kind of energy...
Could there be some cases where the object doesn't have alot of hardness, and is vulnerable or otherwise doesn't halve a certain type of energy damage? Sure, and you can use normal bombs on those. Bore bombs are for when the hardness and reduction of effectiveness of energy damage would make normal bombs ineffective.
The default rule is that energy damage is halved before anything else happens, and the conditions for that not happening are mostly up to GM fiat, not to something you expect just from the rules. So it seems reasonable to say that generally speaking, this is an important difference of Bore Bombs damaging objects in general vs. other types of bombs. And even when the energy damage isn't halved up-front (i.e. the energy is especially effective vs. that object, which is a GM call that they can also implement thru giving energy vulnerability, the ratinale for applying one and not the other isn't really given in the rules), Bore Bombs aren't really doing much worse on average rolls (exact amount of Hardness and static damage bonuses skewing things one way or the other) due to only needing to bring the target to half hit points.
I agree it is a bit unclear. Regardless, we can still think of ways to increase the damage anyway.
Bore Bombs are not marked with an asterisk, so they stack with any discovery that does have an asterisk. So under the most restrictive and conservative reading of the rules, an acid bore bomb still deals 1d6+level damage.
The Point Black Shot feat will work.
A Bard's Inspire Courage will work.
It is a bit unclear if Admixtures work with Discoveries, but Targeted Bomb Admixture makes your bombs deal double your int bonus.
Bore Bombs are not marked with an asterisk, so they stack with any discovery that does have an asterisk.
Sorry, but they do.
Bore Bomb*: When the saboteur creates a bomb, he may choose to make it a bore bomb. If a bore bomb strikes a wall, gate, siege engine, or similar large, solid, inanimate structure, it ignores half the target's hardness and deals 1 point of damage per saboteur level. If a bore bomb reduces an inanimate target to half its hit points or fewer, it blows a hole 5 feet wide and 5 feet deep in the target.[/PRD]
Oh, the d20pfsrd has a typo then. Damn, I thought I found a clever way to boost that damage :(
But the point about increasing damage still stands,
Like I wrote before any and all other damage boosts apply, Weapon Spec, Deadly Aim, PBS...
And their effect is basically doubled since you only need to bring it down to half HPs (as well as Hardness being halved).
But the point about increasing damage still stands,
Like I wrote before any and all other damage boosts apply, Weapon Spec, Deadly Aim, PBS...
And their effect is basically doubled since you only need to bring it down to half HPs (as well as Hardness being halved).
Does Deadly Aim work with bombs? And in order to get Weapon Specialization you'd need four fighter levels, for a very small damage bonus.
Deadly Aim wont work, as it doesn't work with touch attacks, iirc.
Ah yeah, Deadly Aim doesn't like Touch Attacks, but the point still stands: any valid damage boosts apply.
Magic Weapon/GMW should work just fine AFAIK.
If somehow an object could count as Evil, your Paladin Ally could share Smite with you via Aura of Justice, and you could Smite thru the Evil Wall with a Bore Bomb :-)
Since this thing does splash (correct?) Wouldn't you end up blowing a splash sized hole? Considering there is no real difference in damage. Also note that the archetype has the complex bombs discovery. Could that be used to make this more effective? What about combining it with the demolition charge discovery?
Since this thing does splash (correct?) Wouldn't you end up blowing a splash sized hole?
This is the only part where I can definitely say no. From Bore Bomb:
If a bore bomb reduces an inanimate target to half its hit points or fewer, it blows a hole 5 feet wide and 5 feet deep in the target.
So the size of the hole is explicitly limited there by RAW.
You would only blast a hole per the Bore Bomb description: 5'x5'.
Your target is your target, splash area is not your target.
Complex bombs does seem like it COULD potentially be useful, if you can select an energy type that would not be halved vs. the object (up to GM fiat). The main issue would be whether Hardness applies separately to each damage type... IMHO it only applies once, although that requires a GM call as to how to 'allocate' the damage types (splitting it 50/50 between each type seems fair, or you could say 50/25 taking into account Bore's halving of Hardness). But assuming both damage types get thru, the non-Bore energy damage is likely to be doing more damage. As long as the Bore damage is doing 1 hp of damage, and the total HPs have been taken to 50% or below, then Bore kicks in to bust a hole in the item. That could be superior to a pure Bore, but it's probably only reliably better if the energy type bypasses the 50% reduction for that type of object (up to GM fiat).
If the object has enough HPs that it would normally requires 3+ bombs (even Bore bombs), and you have an energy type not subject to halving, then it may be better to first go with a FULL energy damage bomb, and then follow up with a Bore bomb (possibly a Complex hybrid) to bring it below 50% and bust a hole in it. That can be a valid approach if you don't have Complex but you do have a non-halved energy type and Bore.
Combining it with a Siege Bomb is nice, as you get to 'stack' the bomb damage on top of the Siege Weapon damage itself, so that could be useful. RAW, I guess you are combining the Bore Bomb with normal fire damage with the Siege Bomb, or any other damage type you have access to (per Siege Bomb's normal rules). I don't think Siege Bomb's allowance for any damage type you have access to is sufficient to apply any special rules besides the damage type, i.e. allow you combine a FULL Bore Bomb (with Hardness halving and 50% hole rule) with the Siege Weapon, although if you have any energy type that isn't halved vs. the target object it shouldn't be a major penalty. ...Not quite sure on that rule interaction (or for that matter, how Siege Bomb's allowance for any damage type you have access to is supposed to treat any other 'additional special effects' that normally go along with Discoveries modifying damage type).
I wasn't at all familiar with Demolition Charge, but I found it via Google:
Demolition Charge* (Dungeoneer's Handbook pg. 27): When the alchemist creates a bomb, he can choose to have it deal damage to an object as if by a sunder combat maneuver. If the item is worn or held by an opponent, the item is considered the direct target, and the wearer/holder takes splash damage from the blast. If the object is unattended, a demolition charge deals an additional 2d6 points of damage on a direct hit. This bonus doesn’t affect the bomb’s splash damage. An alchemist must be at least 8th level before selecting this discovery.
It doesn't say explicitly, but when it says that it deals damage as if by a sunder, I take that to mean that this is no longer energy damage but untyped normal damage (energy damage is usually bad at damaging objects since it's halved before anything else). That isn't explicitly stated though, so if it is just normal bomb energy damage, it would only be useful for things who don't halve Fire damage first. If you do consider that Demolition Charge is now just doing untyped physical damage, then it probably is a great combo with Bore Bomb. (it would also be a good choice for the Siege half of the damage for a Complex Bore/Siege Bomb, as a 'universal' non-halved damage type, although IMHO the +2d6 dmg would NOT apply, only the 'damage type' would).
Although the 2d6 bonus damage doesn't apply if the object is being worn, a Demolition/Bore Complex Bomb could still be useful (*IF* Demolition is untyped physical damage, and not default halved energy damage) since it is doing more damage than Bore, and if you reach 50% damage the item should be destroyed with the hole effect kicking in... That isn't really STRONGER than any other Complex Bombs combo with Bore and some energy type that isn't halved, but it has the advantage of versatility in that you don't need a specific energy type to not be halved vs. a given object - and there is no guarantee that every object even has any energy damage that would not be halved against it. Again, even without Complex, it seems a valid strategy to go with a pure Demolition Bomb and THEN a Bore Bomb to trigger the 50% HP hole rule when facing very high HP objects.
I would say it is worth finding out the damage type of Demolition, since if it IS untyped/non-energy damage, it seems like using it with Complex/Bore is just flat-out superior to standard Bore Bombs. Although since Complex counts as two bombs, maybe that's not super horrible...
Saboteur Alchemist does make me wish that there was some hybrid Gunslinger/Alchemist PrC, or a Gunslinger Archetype going in that direction (i.e. guns and explosive/demolition specialist).
I do wonder about using these to target somebody's worn items, i.e. armor.
Demolition says if the item is worn, the item is considered the direct target, meaning you should be targetting the item's Touch AC rather than the wearer's CMD (normal for Sunder)? That's kind of bonkers, but then so would be the wearer's STR score affecting their CMD. I'm not even sure if regular Bore Bombs could be used for Sunder vs. worn items, none of Bore's examples like walls and gates suggest that, but then it isn't rule out by the RAW either (inanimate objects). EDIT: large, solid, inanimate 'structure' including the above examples and siege engines, but I still don't see the dividing line vs. worn armor, although perhaps the object needs to be at least Large sized per RAW? ...???
Yeah, alot of people forgot about energy damaging halving AND they overlooked that Bore Bombs only need to bring the object to half HPs (which is the same effect as doubling all damage that gets thru the halved Hardness).
The BEST case for regular Bombs is rolling all 6's (per level, average is really 3.5 per level), which is first halved to 3 per level (or 1.75 on average), then twice the Hardness is subtracted (vs. Bore Bombs), then they need to do twice the damage as a Bore Bomb (so we can halve the effective damage, 1.5 per level minus Hardness with all 6's, or 0.75 per level minus Hardness on average... vs. 1 per level minus half Hardness). If we look at a case where energy damage isn't halved for a given object vs. a specific kind of energy, that is similar (on average) to rolling all 6's. And all other static damage boosts (Weapon Spec, Smite) are 4x as effective for the Bore Bomb (not halved ala energy damage, twice as effective in making a hole).
I understand all that, but the point is not to consider the bore bomb's usefulness in breaking through objects relative to a normal bomb's, but to consider its usefulness in breaking through objects relative to other stuff the various classes can do to break through objects at the same levels.
A barbarian or fighter, for example, can just hit things. Sure, if the bomb adds your Int bonus (and after considering your argument I think you're right that it does) then an 8th level alchemist with an Int of 20 can break through a "strong wooden" door in one bore bomb. But his 8th level barbarian friend can probably pretty easily break through it with one hit of his earth breaker too (he just has to do 25 damage, which is not hard), and he hasn't wasted class ability slots or expended daily use powers to do it.
And a level later his wizard friend gets, ahem, passwall. And he already has knock. But then, that's wizards and they're just better than not wizards.
The Rogue can probably just disable the door's lock. Etc etc.
Not really relevant. Those discoveries just alter the smoke effect of a bomb.
Like if you alter the power of your car stereo, it doesn't need to be clarified that your car still has four wheels.
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Alchemist discoveries that alter bombs use the base bomb effects unless stated otherwise. Bore bomb doesn't say instead of doing normal damage, so it is in addition.
Still no matter how you look at it, saboteur is just a terrible archetype. It replaces your good mutagen with a really lame one and gives you access to some awful discoveries. Like too many other archetypes, it's an interesting concept with a horrible execution.
I was just comparing the Bore bomb language to the Explosive bomb language.
The alchemist's bombs now have a splash radius of 10 feet rather than 5 feet. Creatures that take a direct hit from an explosive bomb catch fire, taking 1d6 points of fire damage each round until the fire is extinguished. Extinguishing the flames is a full-round action that requires a Reflex save. Rolling on the ground provides the target with a +2 to the save. Dousing the target with at least 2 gallons of water automatically extinguishes the flames.
Nothing in there says that the 1d6 from burning is on top of normal bomb damage, eventhough it's understood. I'm going back to say that it's normal bomb damage plus intelligence bonus against half the hardness plus the untyped.
