I'm a first time Pathfinder GM, and recently I was looking into rewarding one of my PCs, an alchemist, with the discovery of an evil alchemist's formulae book. This is going to be in a treasure trove that will have a little for everybody. I'm trying to stay close to the Wealth By Level guidelines, so I looked into how much this formulae book would be worth, and I was really startled by how little it's worth.
RAW it looks like masterwork greatsword for the fighter is worth 350 gp, while the formulae book, containing five level 1 formulae and two level 2 formulae is worth just 130 gp (I'm getting these figures from page 219 of the CRB). It seems particularly crazy that the gp cost of learning these new "spells" is so low, given that an alchemist only gets one new formula each time s/he gains a level.
Thoughts?
well a fighter can just pick up sword and use it, as well as any other. "learning" a spell requires more. ie: checks, time, etc.
edit: fighter can use sword all day long, not formulae/spells
True, but the mw greatsword will quickly be outclassed, whereas any formulae the alchemist learns are with him, expanding his options, forever.
Some of that is taken up with most alchemist formulas being highly situational, while a greatsword can solve any problem that fighters are designed to deal with. Also formulas are per day thing, while a fighter can swing his sword till he is below 0 HP (and sometimes beyond that).
Martial classes spend their gold on stuff they will constantly use first, then spend their wealth on common problem solvers (like flying) second. Casters and alchemists have to spend a fair amount of gold covering the situations that can't be solved with brute force, which means they often spend their gold covering the niche problems that only occasionally occur, or even for rare occurrences.
well a fighter can just pick up sword and use it, as well as any other. "learning" a spell requires more. ie: checks, time, etc.
edit: fighter can use sword all day long, not formulae/spells
I second this. I'm playing an alchemist now and would love to learn a new formula or two from a magus, but the time crunch we are on won't allow me to do so. Even if I had the time, I'd still need to make check. It's cool that you're supporting your castors, but if you feel it's too generous, go with the time crunch so he can copy one or so a day.