Vivisectionist is very nice, but it limits your Discovery selection to the extent that I believe you can get all but one or two of the available Discoveries without taking Extra Discovery.
Races: Human is always nice, of course. Half-Orcs add to Bomb damage as a Favored Class bonus, but that won't help a Vivisectionist. Gnome gets extra Bombs as a Favored class as well. Really any race with +Dex or +Int is great. If there's one that gives both that would be perfection itself.
Archetypes: I'm particularly fond of Grenadier for its simplicity and bombing potential, but never count out the Vivisectionist/Internal Alchemist combo for some kind of zombie cyborg Monk.
Feats: The Alchemist can benefit from both the bow Feats (Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot, etc.) and I believe the TWF Feats once you get the Rapid Bombs Discovery (Alchemist 8 at earliest I believe) allowing you to utterly lay waste to an area once or twice a day. We're talking what, 5-6 Bombs at Alchemist 9, each dealing 5d6 + Int damage? Throw in Kirin Style for Double Int to damage and you have a carpet bombing sumb$~!+ on your hands.
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Vivisectionist is alright, just as long as you keep in mind you will have to be in melee most of the time to get your sneak attacks, exposing you to FAR FAR more damage potentiality than a normal Alchemist would even flirt with trying.
Gnomes make fantastic bomb/pyromaniac alchemists too.
Also, mutagens can be very nice buffs if you use them right.
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For melee Vivisectionist and Ragechemist is best with the Discoveries Extend Potion, Eternal Potion, Enhance Potion, Spontaneous Healing, Healing Touch, Greater Mutagen, Grand Mutagen, True Mutagen, and Preserve Organs x3 in my opinion. The potion part purely for having Displacement be perma and having pot of mage armor last all day.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, Contributor
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If you like versatility, vivisectionist is the wrong way to go, it's amazing at melee, but pretty meh for any sort of ranged combat and losing the ability to dish out energy damage versus creatures is pretty painful.
Basic alchemist is really solid and grenadier adds some nice ranged abilities without losing too much
I fully agree with dennis, vivisectionist really kills off a lot of your versatility. I have played both at fairly high lvs, and with vivisectionist, if you got sneak attack on 3+ attacks a round it was fun rolling all those dice. But I like having bombs more, because they can be so versatile, they can do different types of energy damage, or cause various different debuffs.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, Contributor
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I'm not really a fan of bombing based builds either, they tend to be too binary. They are two extremes of the same problem.
Usually I focus on making a really good melee alchemist without ditching the bombing capability, pick up a couple bomb discoveries and that's it. Grenadier is great because you don't have to spend a discovery on precise bombs, it has some other neat stuff too.
Strangely enough, the nastiest build yet is a halfling dexterity based grenadier. He uses Dexterity for melee damage from agile and he's picked up a bunch of feats giving bonus damage versus bigger creatures. His AC is crazy high and he never misses with bombs when he does break them out.
I'm not really a fan of bombing based builds either, they tend to be too binary. They are two extremes of the same problem.
Usually I focus on making a really good melee alchemist without ditching the bombing capability, pick up a couple bomb discoveries and that's it. Grenadier is great because you don't have to spend a discovery on precise bombs, it has some other neat stuff too.
And again, I agree with you. Being able to do well in both melee and ranged is part of what makes them so versatile.
Yea, that build does sound pretty nasty, I wouldn't want to go up against one of those if I could help it.
Half-Elf is a good race because of the Paragon Surge spell/extract to increase versatility. And unlike w/ sorc and oracle...you would actually be using it how the authors likely intended -- to gain some feat for a short duration, rather than access any spell on your class list. If such things matter to you. Half-Elf also has a decent racial archetype.
Goblin...I'm playing a dex-focused melee Viv. alchemist (also have beastmorph) right now and it is phenomial. I was lucky enough to be able to start w/ an Agile amulet of mighty fists, it would probably b a lot rougher to play from level 1.
Goblin is also good for a bomb alchemist, despite lack of an Int bonus (which I think is a bomber's most important stat), solely due to the Rocket Bomb discovery. See, playing a bomber as a damage-dealer is a horrible, horrible mistake as you will run out of bombs really fast that way. Rocket Bomb is optimal for the way you *should* play a bomber - as a poor man's wizard. Using Dispelling Bomb (it stacks w/ any other bomb-altering discovery) and stink bomb or confusion bomb (no save allowed, though it only hits one enemy instead of a mass of them like the spell) for the most part. Rocket Bomb means a very big stinking cloud area! You should ignore all the "fire...goood..." crap that goblins have available like the plague, though.
Ratfolk is a nice race for bombers because it is small and buffs int and dex. It also have a so-so racial archetype.
Halfling gives you a worthless +2 cha and no int, but the Warslinger trait, if your DM allows you to launch your bombs from a sling (I really don't see why not), means you can get much greater range on your bombs. Could be interesting.
Tiefling... is just good in general for anyone that needs int and dex. And the racial variants, oh my. Gain natural weapons... gain a prehensile tail...shrink to small size...gain natural armor... Lots of goodies.
PF has a massive hate-on for str-based races. There are a grand total of 3 races (Orc, Oread, and Suli) not counting the "+2 to one stat" races (and an alchemist, especially str-based melee one, is rather MAD, you want a race that boosts 2 important stats ideally) that boost Str. One of them (Orc) is underpowered, another (Oread) cannot benefit from enlarge person and gets a useless Wis boost, and the other (Suli) cannot benefit from enlarge person, get an even more useless Cha boost, and take an int penalty. There are some variant Tiefling and Aasimar options for str as well, but nothing that boosts Str -and- Int, Dex, or Con like you'd want.
So it is hard to suggest a race for str-based melee alchemist. 3rd party has some helpful races, if allowed. I guess Aasimar is ok because you can take a variant to count as humanoid and there is a d% table that could land you with +4 str along with your useless +2 cha. Beyond that... Human, Half-Elf, Half-Orc... whichever, I guess. Maybe Half-Elf for the ancestral arms and Paragon Surge.
So it's hard to recommend a race for Str-based Viv. Alchemist.
I play a visectionist ratfolk now. We just hit 3rd level. A nasty combo is having another one of your party be a ratfolk to grant you swarming. Swarming means you count as flanking if you share the same space with another ratfolk. It's a racial trait.
Otherwise you can see the regular posts about trying to get sneak attack in (often difficult for me). I use natural attacks to benefit from magic fang potions. I often use flasks of acid for dr and range/area attacks. They're sort of expensive now, but when I have time I craft them. I haven't selected my 3rd level feat yet, but I was thinking weapon focus (claw). I'm open to any other suggestions. My first level feat was sharpclaw which gave me two claw attacks. My discovery is fast healing (or whatever it's called) and I'm in the beastmorph archtype as well.
Ah yes, I forgot about swarming. It is most excellent for any pair of melee sneak attackers. If both are willing to eat a 2 level rogue dip (it's rather painful), they can pick up the Distracting Attack talent and then both go for Sap Master and feed each other the flatfooted condition on enemies. Good combo.
Kahn, I suggest Feral Mutagen if you lack the full set of claw/claw/bite. Tumor Familiar for a Compsognathus is also great, it's basically Imp. Initiative and Alertness in a single feat/discovery, plus it can aid another on skill checks with your ranks.
If you don't have Weapon Finesse, that would obviously be really good.
I was thinking weapon finesse would be good. I almost took tumor familar, but my party and npc's are already giving me flac about being a ratfolk. A mutated lump that jumps off my body would be too much. I'm not very good at roll-playing mangy, it is a good option though. I think feral Mutagen is a prereq for some of the prestige class I'm looking to. Forget what it's called chymist? Other options are extend potion or improved potion (the one that lets you have your level as the level of the pot your drinking).
I really wish i had a ratfolk in my party, then i'd take the teamwork feat with him for +4 with flanking, and it might give extra damage too.
I think my ac is important now and to hit. Weapon finesse would take care of both of those, and would work on all my nat attacks, instead of just claws. Dex mutagen for me. That seems like a better option, but I'll look over the discoveries to see if there's anything that can't wait until next level.
I was thinking weapon finesse would be good. I almost took tumor familar, but my party and npc's are already giving me flac about being a ratfolk. A mutated lump that jumps off my body would be too much. I'm not very good at roll-playing mangy, it is a good option though. I think feral Mutagen is a prereq for some of the prestige class I'm looking to. Forget what it's called chymist? Other options are extend potion or improved potion (the one that lets you have your level as the level of the pot your drinking).
You're thinking of the master chymist prestige from the APG. The requirements are either the infuse mutagen or feral mutagen discoveries and being able to create 3rd lv extracts.