Alchemical Weapon plus Explosive Missile

[trollbill]

I think this is legal but I want to make sure I am doing it right.

I have a Lava Gnome Alchemist(grenadier)4 with a 19/21 INT. As a move action I use Alchemical Weapon to infuse my heavy crossbow bolt with acid. As a standard action I use Explosive Missile to infuse the heavy crossbow bolt with my bomb, load it and fire the heavy crossbow. So my damage should be:

1d8 piercing (small heavy crossbow)
plus
1d6+5 acid (acid flask)
plus
3d6+5 fire (treated as 5th level for fire bombs due to Pyromaniac)

so total is 1d8+4d6+10 damage.

Is this correct?

Also, how would the bonus damage for Point-blank Shot work? Would I get it 1, 2 or 3 times?

[MurphysParadox]

You are shooting a single bolt with a slew of extra damage. I believe your math is correct, but get used to treating it as different sets due to damage type, otherwise resistance may hurt you.

For example, if you're against a monster with resistance 10 (acid) and roll 3 on the acid flask hit, you only lose 8 total damage, not 10, since only 8 was actually acid. If you just rolled it all together, you'd accidentally drop 2 points of legitimate damage. Best ticket here is to use different colored dice and roll it all together (one green d6 and three red ones).

Point-blank and other feats only happen once because you're only doing one actual attack. Also, if you shoot your bow more than once on a full attack (via crossbow mastery feat to get a free action heavy crossbow reload), only the first shot gets you the bonus acid flask and bomb damage.

Lastly, I assume your action sequence is over two turns? One turn to infuse and bombify your bolt, next round to load (move) and fire (standard) the crossbow.

PS - enchant your crossbow to do a d6 of ice damage too; should be awesome!

[trollbill]

MurphysParadox wrote:

You are shooting a single bolt with a slew of extra damage. I believe your math is correct, but get used to treating it as different sets due to damage type, otherwise resistance may hurt you.

For example, if you're against a monster with resistance 10 (acid) and roll 3 on the acid flask hit, you only lose 8 total damage, not 10, since only 8 was actually acid. If you just rolled it all together, you'd accidentally drop 2 points of legitimate damage. Best ticket here is to use different colored dice and roll it all together (one green d6 and three red ones).

I do that already, but thanks for the suggestion.

MurphysParadox wrote:

Point-blank and other feats only happen once because you're only doing one actual attack. Also, if you shoot your bow more than once on a full attack (via crossbow mastery feat to get a free action heavy crossbow reload), only the first shot gets you the bonus acid flask and bomb damage.

Lastly, I assume your action sequence is over two turns? One turn to infuse and bombify your bolt, next round to load (move) and fire (standard) the crossbow.

PRD wrote:

Explosive Missile: As a standard action, the alchemist can infuse a single arrow, crossbow bolt, or one-handed firearm bullet with the power of his bomb, load the ammunition, and shoot the ranged weapon. He must be proficient with the weapon in order to accomplish this. When the infused ammunition hits its target, it deals damage normally and detonates as if the alchemist had thrown the bomb at the target. If the explosive missile misses, it does not detonate. An alchemist must be at least 4th level before selecting this discovery.

Due to the wording of Explosive Missile, it is a single standard action to infuse a piece of ammunition from a single bow, crossbow or one handed firearm, load the ammunition and fire the weapon. This has both an advantage and disadvantage.

The advantage is that I can load and fire a heavy crossbow when using this Discovery as a single standard action even though it would normally take a full round to load it and a standard to fire it.

The disadvantage is that is doesn't matter how many attacks I get in a round, the fact that using this Discovery is a standard action means I can only get one attack when I use it.

Using Alchemical Weapon is a move actions, currently (swift when I get to 6th), so I can combine all of these and attack in one round. At least, that is how it appears to read.

[Saleem Halabi]

This is actually almost exactly what I am doing with my PFS character, except I'm also taking a level of gunslinger so I can use pitted bullets or alchemical cartridges infused with an alchemists flask and turned into a missile. =)

[Scray]

Does an acid flask do 1d6+5 damage? Are you adding your bonus damage from Throw Anything, even though you're not throwing and its not a splash weapon?

Obviously I guess its just 1d6. :)

[DrakeRoberts]

A thread necro, to clarify something:

At this point, we have this FAQ

FAQ wrote:

Do ability modifiers from the same ability stack? For instance, can you add the same ability bonus on the same roll twice using two different effects that each add that same ability modifier?

No. An ability bonus, such as "Strength bonus", is considered to be the same source for the purpose of bonuses from the same source not stacking. However, you can still add, for instance “a deflection bonus equal to your Charisma modifier” and your Charisma modifier. For this purpose, however, the paladin's untyped "bonus equal to her Charisma bonus (if any) on all saving throws" from divine grace is considered to be the same as "Charisma bonus (if any)", and the same would be true for any other untyped "bonus equal to her [ability score] bonus" constructions.

I'm guessing that means that you couldn't get the 2x Int mod damage now? Same thing if you were doing Alchemical Weapon + Focused Shot?

[Ascalaphus]

You're not adding the Int to the same thing. You're adding it to the acid flask, and you're adding it to the (fire)bomb. The enemy is taking damage from two different sources, that happen to use the same delivery vehicle.

[Gray Warden]

The source is the same: Throw Anything Alchemist's class feature, so DrakeRoberts is right.
But, I've just found this answer from James Jacobs in his 'Ask-me' thread:

James Jacobs wrote:

someone wrote:

Can Alchemical Weapon from the Grenadier Achetype (PFS Field Guide) and Explosive Missle from UC stack?

And if so does the Alchemist get to use his INT bonus for both?

Nope; they do different but similar things. If both options are available to a character, you could pick which effect you want to do.

but, honestly, I've seen NOBODY here on Paizo neither around the internet who actually cares about this restriction. AW and EM are action-compatible, so I don't see why they shouldn't stack. Am I missing something?