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Here's the situation: Someone in my Organized Play group has a (presently) level 1 Barbarian character with a 7 Intelligence. He wants now to take a level of Alchemist (and only 1 level) for the sake of the Mutagen class feature.
It has been explained to him that he will get next to nothing out of the class due to his lack of Intelligence - no bombs or extracts. This does not bother him - besides, he's thinking, Intelligence-increasing magical items, coupled with spending one or two ability increases on Intelligence along the way, will permit him to use extracts eventually (he'd like shield and enlarge person). Admittedly, the Mutagen class feature says nothing about Intelligence requirements, but a third player and I are both a little concerned about the ethics of the idea - just because the rules as written don't specifically forbid you from taking levels in a class you're no good at doesn't necessarily mean it's okay. There is also concern that he'd be gimping his character. On the other side, the arguments "it's a fantasy game, anything's possible" and "it's my character, it's nobody else's business what I do with him" have been voiced.
I'm not trying to be Lawful A&+#&%&. I could sort of see an imbecile barbarian (particularly of the Drunken Brute archetype) learning under a patient and unscrupulous tutor how to cobble together a personal mutagen from cheap beer and liquefied zombie guts. Nonetheless, the "Seriously???" rhinoceros remains in the room.
Opinions? Insights? Something we don't know over here? And what about that issue with learning magic you can only comprehend while wearing a headband?
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Its pfs, and you're kinda locked into the rules. The rules say that his two week correspondence course in alchemy is enough to brew the mutagen despite not having the intelligence to remember the ingredients in cold cereal.
If he's upping his int by 4 points later he's kinda gimping himself, since by the point buy upping a high stat is more expensive than upping a low one.
In a home game you'd whap this person upside the head with a newspaper. For now just pad whatever part of the table you need to repeatedly bang your head into and just let it go.
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I've always regarded low-intelligence characters as more "attention deficit" than truly stupid (not to say you can't be dumb as bricks). So just imagine this barbarian picking up an alchemy cookbook and getting curious, but he quickly gets bored and starts skipping steps and messing things up. When he finally chugs back his concoction, he makes a fortitude save to avoid regurgitating his colon and collapses to the ground. Never deterred by failure, he keeps experimenting and begins to build up a tolerance to his strange mixtures. His creations are never consistent enough to have any controlled effect, but if he crams enough strange reagents together he can successfully trigger the reaction of a mutagen.
So you can definitely explain your imbecile barbarian figuring out how to develop a mutagen. Whether it's a good idea for him to do this is another matter entirely. Barbarian/Alchemist multi-class is a fun combo, but it's tricky to run even if your stats are well-placed for it, and his certainly are not.
Make him take Ragechemist maybe?
Perhaps he can RP it as him being some kind of savant. He's a complete moron when it comes to anything else, but those mutagens just make sense to him for some reason.
Maybe he stumbled upon something in a shop sometime in the past, drank it, and realized "Heeeey, this feels almost EXACTLY like how it feels when I fly into a rage!" and he found somebody to teach him how to make his own or something.
It could simply be RP'd that he found a "cookbook" for mutagens. Think of a not-too-bright chemistry student in high school: they may not understand the what the underlying bonds are or how the reactions work, but they can still get through lab just fine because the lab manual spells out step-by-step instructions for them and all they need to do is follow them.
An Int 7 barbarian may not know very much about alchemy, but there's nothing stopping them from learning a single recipe.
It lives... IT LIVES!!
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I guess I might as well chip in.
Intelligence is just your ability to figure out new things. If he's being shown and guided step by step, then it's just a matter of memorization which falls more under the Wisdom stat.Off topic, but where does it say that memorization is based on wisdom? As I missed that bit, and thus need to reread the rules more carefully.
I don't think it's you that needs to read things more carefully.
Intelligence determines how well your character learns and reasons.
Wisdom describes a character’s willpower, common sense, awareness, and intuition.
Wisdom doesn't say anything about memorization.
Intelligence doesn't specifically mention memorization, but "learning" generally involves memorization as well as "figuring new things out".
Knowledge checks, which are Int-based, also include the line
A successful check allows you to remember a bit of useful information about that monster.
More evidence:
At 2nd level, a mindchemist has honed his memory. When making a Knowledge check, he may add his Intelligence bonus on the check a second time. Thus, a mindchemist with 5 ranks in Knowledge (history) and a +2 Intelligence bonus has a total skill bonus of +9 (5 + 2 + 2) using this ability. The mindchemist can also use this ability when making an Intelligence check to remember something.
I get the thought process, Intelligence is how smart you are, Wisdom is what you do with it, and remembering things is something you do with your smarts. But its not quite correct.
Intelligence directly corrasponds with what you know, put another way, "You only Know what you Remember."|
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Really old thread, but if just looking for a more barbarian friendly source of mutagen, there is a fighter archtype that gains Mutagen. Here is the Mutagen Warrior archetype. Seems like if the fighter can figure it out, a barbarian shouldn't be far behind. And there's no mention of intelligence required for the ability, so the fighter/barbarian version could be more primative (like drinking the blood of daemons mixed in with an energy drink...).
As an aside, you could also play the barbarian/fighter as if the character wasn't creating the mutagen, but rather being supplied mutagen. It's basically a drug, so you could role play in a dealer for the mutagen, rather than having the barbarian actually create it. Just have the Barbarian go off on his own at about the same time every day, and have him return with mutagen....
Last, I did hear about another player that ran a barbarian whose low intelligence was roleplayed as a deceptive ploy. When alone, the barbarian would stop pretending, and have highly intelligent discussions with himself (plotting to destroy the world, as I recall). But around the party, and for all game mechanical purposes, he was a stupid barbarian with very low intelligence. Just one of those funny roleplaying characters.
(he'd like shield and enlarge person)
An alchemist can utilize spell-trigger items if the spell appears on his formulae list, but not spell-completion items (unless he uses Use Magic Device to do so).
He can have his wands and staves also.
/cevah