One of the characters in my campaign is an overpowered alchemist. What stops bombs? DR doesn't work, spell resistance doesn't work, immunities don't work (he uses force bombs), and AC doesn't work because he uses touch attacks. The damn things do massive damage and he throws three a turn. I can't stop him from killing my best villains in a single round or two. It's insane and frankly ruining the game for everyone else.
I think it's ridiculous that an alchemist is better at blasting than a wizard or a sorcerer.
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IIRC, James Jacobs has mentioned in the 'Ask James' thread that he would have preferred that the Alchemist be able to throw bombs all day long, but do notably less damage with them.
Talk to your player about tweaking the class in the following ways;
A) Unlimited bombs, all day long.
B) Damage is halved (minimum 1dX, and only gains additional dice at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th and 20th).
Other tweaks could be to just flat out get rid of some of the Discoveries that are exacerbating the situation, such as Fast Bombs and Force Bombs. (You could add back lesser alternatives as well. Force Bombs, for example, could be replaced with a 'shrapnel bomb' that does B/P damage, and the Alchemist could, during the action to throw it, add in some silver, cold iron or even adamantite, to bypass those types of DR, giving him an energy resistance-bypassing bomb, that isn't quite as sexy as Force.)
The other route to take, is to deal with this in game. Since he does only have a limited number of bombs per day, just include some encounters for him to blow to hell, and then set your showpiece encounter for when he's all bombed out.
I would always, always, always recommend talking it out with the player first, as using your GM omnipotence to just arrange for big encounters to only happen when he's out of bombs (or various other tactics) could make him resentful, and rightly so, since he's playing a rules-legal build, and you will basically be playing against him to make his class features irrelevant to the game.
Still, other tactics also are available. Displacement is a decent buff, and if half of his bombs are flying off into the distance, that's a good way to cut his firepower in half. Wind wall or obscuring mist or darkness spells can also mess up a ranged combatants day, although I'd be leery of overusing them. A 'living barricade' of minions can also provide the main bad-guy with a fair amount of cover, making it harder to hit him through the press of bodies, unless the Alchemist has Precise Shot and / or Improved Precise Shot.
*My* ideal Alchemist class would have built off of the Alchemy skill, and used increasingly hopped up versions of Alchemist's Fire and Acid and stuff, and therefore done less damage, and also had to outlay some gold to pay for their concoctions, but that ship sailed, burned to the waterline and sank long ago. :)
This alchemist, does he have Precise Bombs? How about Precise Shot? Once the other folks engage the enemy, he'll probably be taking a whopping -8 to hit (I know, it's still touch AC) and his buddies will be taking splash damage (even if he does have Precise Bombs in the case of a miss). Force Bombs deal reduced damage, too, so it oughta take a little longer to kill folks with 'em. One thing bombs typically do a really bad job of is killing enemies who are adjacent.
Why aren't the baddies beating on him? Are enemies only attacking the big, plate armored guy with the shield?
Anyway, give me some more information about your problem alchy and I'll help you give him and the rest of the party a challenge (hopefully without killing them).
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Bombs are crazy, but there may be one way to fight them. This trick would really only work for one bomb, but I think the Snatch Arrows feat would allow you to return one bomb. After that, of course, the alchemist would just go for his absurd splash damage, but it's a start for mitigation (also it would be hiarious).
There are the feats Deflect Arrows, Snatch Arrows, and Missile Shield.
One of the characters in my campaign is an overpowered alchemist. What stops bombs? DR doesn't work, spell resistance doesn't work, immunities don't work (he uses force bombs), and AC doesn't work because he uses touch attacks. The damn things do massive damage and he throws three a turn. I can't stop him from killing my best villains in a single round or two. It's insane and frankly ruining the game for everyone else.
I think it's ridiculous that an alchemist is better at blasting than a wizard or a sorcerer.
What level are we talking about? Three a round and force bombs puts it at at least 9th. How many bombs does he have per day? Should be somewhere around 16 or so, unless he spent all of his resources to be good at bombs. This gives him around 5 rounds before he's out of bombs. At 9th level, his force bombs will be doing 5d4+7 ish damage per, meaning it's about 19.5 damage a round. Three bombs in the round will be doing around 58.5 damage.
How many encounters do you have per day?
Use concealment. Mirror Image, Blur, Invisibility, Displacement will all cause bombs to miss. The target will probably still get splash damage, but it is better than getting hit directly.
There are also spells that specifically block ranged attacks, such as Fickle Winds and Wind Wall.
Don't allow the party to just retreat to rest after he has gone nova with his bombs, that should give others the chance to shine.
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It would really help to see the build.
I remember going through the um-teen pages of DPR Olympics, and a mad bomber was never that high. Their advantage is rarely missing, and always being able to contribute. so knowing what your definition of huge amounts of damage would also help. IMO assuming Cheapy's math is right (and I wouldn't question it) 58 points of damage isn't earth shattering for limited striking ability. And it gets surpassed quickly as the levels keep advancing. Our 17th level alchemist was extremely helpful, but hardly dominating.
As for comparing them to wizards and sorcerers, well frankly blasters have always been disappointing in Pathfinder. Their blasts don't scale well at all. So I for one am glad Alchemists are better at that than an inferior form Wizards.
I know that magic missiles do force damage, but telekenetic attacks also do force damage -- and that is just a physical attack. I don't know why that it is assumed that DR does not reduce this damage.
Either way, if force is considered a physical attack then DR will resist it. If it is considered an Energy Attack then switch to Golems with Hardness -- hardness is NOT DR, so magic missile and other force energy attacks (if you consider force as undefined physical energy)will not immediately bypass it. What's more, Hardness is doubled against Energy attacks.
One of the neat things you can do is create a Golem Suit (Ultimate Magic) for your Villain to wear. The alchemist in my group was hating the life he lived when I had the group face Robot enemies in the deserts of Numeria.
The other thing you can do against low level alchemist is Mirror image. That should buy you a round or two. Project Image is for later levels... and it is a killer for a Wizard.
One of the things I like to use is peon's using grapple attacks on PCs to control how they deal with the big guy. You need two hands to prepare a grenade to throw, and you can't do two handed attacks. There's lots of animals that could be allies of the villains that can fill this requirement (cats, octopus, insects).
I'd just use more varied types of encounters. I wouldn't target the alchemist specifically, but I'd change the types of creatures they fight a little bit to challenge everyone equally. The worst thing you could do is single out that PC, it will just breed ill will towards you as the GM from that player. Think of the solution and not the problem here and you'll get it figured out. There are plenty of solutions that others have posted above (except for specifically targeting the alchemist). The key here is that everyone at the table should have fun.
Another option is to simply increase the HP of the enemies that you want to have live longer. The alchemist will blow off the extra hp, and then the other players will have a chance to go in for the kill.
You may need to avoid letting your players know that you're doing this though, lol.
Force damage is indeed energy damage.
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Alchemist bombs are powerful, but limited resource
1st:
If he is doing 3 bombs a round, he's going to run out quickly. At 9th level, he's only going to have about 16-18 bombs if he's built his alchemist entirely around bombs. That's 5-6 rounds of bombing and then he's done for the day
As Cheapy pointed out, a round of force bombs is only ~60 damage. That's not much at 9th level.
Also, consider his feats: Does he have precise shot? Is he within range? Bombs only have a 20ft range.
On my mad bomber character, I'm often taking a -6, sometimes -8 to hit. While I'm still targeting touch, that hurts.
Also, don't forget that if a force bomb knocks someone prone, the subsequent bombs take another -4 to hit.
Um what about him getting based by a melee machine? Or flying casters bombing him from out of the range of his bombs...ranger could do the same.
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Gust of wind, wind wall, wall of force, invisibility, multiple strong opponents not adjacent, murderous command...grapple, darkness, control winds, .... They auto miss after about 4or 5 range (cant remember specific) increments so at 101 feet with fly you are good for a round.
Any anti ranged plan works
I played an alchemist and it was amazingly potent at low and mid levels, and it got a bit outclassed at higher levels when I ran out of bombs. The best thing the GM did was put a sense of urgency in our plot line that made us want to push as many encounters a day as we possibly could. When that happened, the other group members stepped up quite a bit and had to, or it wouldn't have happened. I kept my bombs for challenging encounters, or when enemies were grouped.
Oh, and I don't think I ever made a save vs. confusion in my entire career.
Asking the player not to use the fast bombs discovery should solve the problem.
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How does he throw three in a turn?
Fast Bombs allows you to throw as many bombs as you can make attacks. By 9th level, a hasted Alchemist with rapid shot could easily throw 4 bombs a round.
Because they're AoE blasters, concealment (eg Displacement) doesn't work. That's in addition to the other points you mentioned.
A bomb's splash damage is significantly reduced compared to it's regular damage. My bombs average about 27 damage, the splash is only 14 and gives a Reflex save to completely avoid it.
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One of the characters in my campaign is an overpowered alchemist. What stops bombs? DR doesn't work, spell resistance doesn't work, immunities don't work (he uses force bombs), and AC doesn't work because he uses touch attacks. The damn things do massive damage and he throws three a turn. I can't stop him from killing my best villains in a single round or two. It's insane and frankly ruining the game for everyone else.
I think it's ridiculous that an alchemist is better at blasting than a wizard or a sorcerer.
People will call anything out as overpowered jeez.
What stops Bombs?
Enemies with decent touch ACs.
Enemies with Deflect Arrows.
More than 3 encounters per day.
Multiple enemies in an encounter.
Damage Resistance (it still does damage, why doesn't DR work again? Everything but DR/Magic should be working I should think, unless there's a caveat in the Bomb section or Splash Weapons description)
The fact that they DON'T do massive damage, they do pretty okay damage.
Also, pretty much anything will kill a single target in 2 rounds. That's how this game works, single targets aren't threats.
Also also, Wizards suck at blasting anyway. That's like saying "OMG the Ranger is overpowered because he's better than my Two-Handed Fighter at ranged attacks!"
Damage Resistance (it still does damage, why doesn't DR work again? Everything but DR/Magic should be working I should think, unless there's a caveat in the Bomb section or Splash Weapons description)
Damage Reduction, Current text in the CRB
Spells, spell-like abilities, and energy attacks (even nonmagical fire) ignore damage reduction.
Bombs ignore damage reduction since they deal energy damage.
The current text is changing in the next printing to further clarify that spells and SLAs that give physical damage types are affected by DR, as one would expect.
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Throw more encounters/enemies per day at them. An alchemist who thinks he can "blast" is an alchemist who is quickly without bombs for the day.
Stop relying on solo boss monsters, there are a TON of classes that will wreck that setup (any offensive spellcaster, paladin smiting vs. an evil boss....). Use teams of bosses, 2-4 strong, or at least use mooks and have the boss not jump immediately into the fray until the party's expended some resources.
I think it's ridiculous that an alchemist is better at blasting than a wizard or a sorcerer.
Why is this ridiculous? Alchemist, the bomb using kind at least, is the most blasting-oriented class paizo has written (if "blast" assumes a ranged element, otherwise title might go to Magus). It is a very, very hefty part of the class identity. A wiz or sorc can teleport across the continent, instantly turn a foe into a newt or a corpse with one failed save, dominate a foe to be their mind slave, scry on enemies, instantly throw up walls and battlefield control effects like acidic clouds and hentai tentacle fields, and so much more. Than just blast. They can of course focus on blasting with specializing, metamagic feats, etc... In which case, they are absolutely better than the Alchemist at blasting.
But why is the concept itself ridiculous to you?
Damage Resistance (it still does damage, why doesn't DR work again? Everything but DR/Magic should be working I should think, unless there's a caveat in the Bomb section or Splash Weapons description)Damage Reduction, Current text in the CRB
Spells, spell-like abilities, and energy attacks (even nonmagical fire) ignore damage reduction.Bombs ignore damage reduction since they deal energy damage.
The current text is changing in the next printing to further clarify that spells and SLAs that give physical damage types are affected by DR, as one would expect.
Ah, I see.
Still, the rest of my points are valid I think.
Give the alchemist the mooks to use the bombs ON and let the rest of the party focus on the BBEG.
I had this very thing happen a year or so ago and i tried doing this. The alchemist stopped participating in battle unless it was a BBEG.
Give the alchemist the mooks to use the bombs ON and let the rest of the party focus on the BBEG.I had this very thing happen a year or so ago and i tried doing this. The alchemist stopped participating in battle unless it was a BBEG.
Well, that's what he gets for being a one trick pony. The next step would be to have there be multiple BBEGs so he can't bomb them all.
Use minor image. Have the bad guy make a minor image of himself and have the PC waste a series of bombs on it. illusions are great for people wasting resources. As a PC I do it all the time.
There are lots of good ideas here, thanks. I guess my big complaint about force bomb damage is how it circumvents any type of intrinsic defense. I'm glad that as of the next printing, DR will affect force damage.
Ahh not quite. Dr still won't affect force damage. That stuff is energy damage. That change is for spells like ice storm or the bardic archetype sound striker. Force damage always has a lower damage die because it isn't slowed down by almost anything.
Sure, alchemist can really pour on the bombs at mid levels, but from playing one in society (which gets extra bombs) I can tell you you quickly run out, and it really isn't as much damage as it sounds. Sure 4 attacks at 5d6+int sounds like a bunch, but even with +8 int that is only around 100 damage. Assuming all attacks hit with a 3/4 BAB class and proper use of range and cover penalties, and the iterative and rapid shot penalties. 100 damage at level 9 is solid, but its not broken. IMHO if you aren't in the ballpark of 100 assuming all connect you probably aren't a real striker. The alchemist can only do this full attack sequence 3-4 times a day at best, bombs are a limited resource.
At most levels a party member should be able to 1 shot any mook, 1-2 round a mini boss, and 2-3 round a full boss if all attacks hit and the character is specialized to deal damage.
Why so much damage? The game is much more lethal some people assume. An orc warrior at CR1 can 1 shot any level 1 PC on a solid hit, even the beefiest on a crit. Heck, in several APs I've read through there is a potential 2-3 dead PCs during the surprise round. Looking at the CRs involved the encounters were completely balanced at most APL+1-2, yet they can kill even optimized party members due to how much damage, special abilities, or other forms of danger they can generate in a very short amount of time. If you can't neutralize the enemy quickly, then the party is in dire straights.
Nearly every time I see somebody bring up a "How do I" or "X is Imbalanced" on any non full caster it really comes down to GMs or players not really grasping the ruleset. Not even just the optimization side, just straight "works as intended" levels of power. For instance in Shattered star book 3:
Nearly every time I see somebody bring up a "How do I" or "X is Imbalanced" on any non full caster it really comes down to GMs or players not really grasping the ruleset. Not even just the optimization side, just straight "works as intended" levels of power.
Your right. Sadly, the more I grasp the ruleset, the less I like it.
Bombs have a 20 foot range increment, not a 20 foot range. Beware if he takes the discovery to strap his bomb damage to a projectile - and then uses a musket...
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Honestly, it's more effective to play a bomber alchemist as a controller rather than a striker.
In terms of damage, you are about as good as any other striker, because although you target touch AC, you have to deal with energy resistance, which unlike DR, cannot be overcome.
However, if you think about conditions that you can inflict and spells you can emulate:
Prone (Force Bomb)
Nauseated (Stink Bomb)
Fog Cloud (Smoke Bomb)
Staggered (Frost Bomb)
Entangled (Tanglefoot Bomb)
Confusion (Confusion Bomb)
Dispel Magic (Dispelling Bomb)
Cloudkill (Poison Bomb)
Are just some of the standouts.
Often as a bomber, I don't really focus fire, but rather spread out my bombs among targets to keep the chaos in the enemy ranks high and focus on controlling.
Use concealment. Mirror Image, Blur, Invisibility, Displacement will all cause bombs to miss. The target will probably still get splash damage, but it is better than getting hit directly.
There are also spells that specifically block ranged attacks, such as Fickle Winds and Wind Wall.
Wind wall has only a 30% chance to deflect a bomb, not that exciting. Displacement seems a bit better.
Since it's making the game less fun for you and would force you to radically change your encounters (let's be honest here: most of the examples given are not common occurrences), you could simply ask him to change his force bombs discovery. This would allow you to have energy resistance to hinder him now and then, although I recommend letting him have his fun now and then. One thing I did when there was a fireball happy wizard in a game I was running was occasionally throw contingents of archers or other massed foes at the party, allowing him to use up his fireballs in a spectacular way...and allowing me to drain his resources a bit, setting up more interesting encounters later. Desperation really brings out the awesomeness.
Although, keep in mind that a little energy resistance will hurt a lot. With each bomb doing about 19.5 damage, resist fire 10 will cut his damage per round from 58 something to about 28 something, making it really not worth while, and quite discouraging.
Still, I recommend coming up with more encounters per day. The alchemist is one of those classes where if there's only a couple encounters per day, they can "nova" or use up all their dailies on those two encounters. This will make them appear much stronger than they really are, as they can devote more resources in a shorter period of time.
Hope you come up with a solution that keeps you both happy :D
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Having more info on the alchemist in question would help. But flyers with bows. Flyers would also knock out that pesky problem with splash damage as the bombs don't have any adjacent ground to explode against.
Also, getting in close with some hard-hitting melee folks that would get AoAs when he tosses would make him think twice. The d4s on force bombs aren't going to be that impressive versus something with some real hit points. Especially if it has reach ;-)
A well placed pit spell or several summon spells with an invisible mage would much things up. Toss in a cleric or oracle to heal things during combat and your alchemist will diminish in effectiveness without feeling useless.
You know that bit about having more than 3 encounters per day?
Try hitting the group when they are sleeping, or otherwise distracted.
Use a Goblin Rogue to swipe his gear.
And if all else fails, kill off the alchemist, ban the class from further play.
Personally though, I would take the player aside and have a little chat. Explain that he's ruining any sort of fun for the other players, and that if he continues, you are going to use your beasties to ruin his day ever more intensely until he learns how not to screw over the rest of the players fun. You can easily use the solutions presented in this thread, as you have already asked about it.
Often, I find that simply coming out and stating the problem clearly, especially noting how its hosing over the rest of the players, will solve the problem. The alchemist may not be aware of how profoundly they are ruining the game for others.
Well, illusions and other "you don't hit me" things have been mentioned, but what about the good old tank? Hitpoints! Put large animals or summoned monsters against him with hitpoints en masse.
Player: "I hit him for 56 damage!"
GM: "You cause a scratch. A little scratch."