Who doesn't like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
Who doesn't like the sheer interesting RP shock value of a calm, claculative, and intellectual Alchemist, suddenly morphing into a veiny three-armed albino gorrilla of a man and proceeding to pummel things with that Hill Giant's claymore that everyone was curious as to why you were lugging that thing around?
I know I love it.
But unfortunately Ragechemists have badly broken systems.
Considering NOT being a Rage alchemist will actually end up giving you more strength with less drawbacks.
The solution to this is simple and something that I discussed with my DM and he agrees with:
The bonuses stack.
Jabbing myself with a mutagen at level 2 gives me +8 strength, and +4 AC, but unfortunately I start already at -4 Intelligence.
In addition:
If I'm in Rage-mode and I've already thrown more bombs than my current intelligence I can't throw them until it gets back up.
When hitting 0 Intelligence I don't go unconcious I just am considered to be Confused rolling between a 76-100, basically attacking everything for half the remaining duration, then returning to normal and being unconcious for the other half plus one hour.
Also, Ragechems are now considered an uncurable minor addition, exept that instead of reducing con, it reduced 1or2 Cha and Wis istead per day where I don't sip a rage mutagen.
Pretty simple, pretty balanced for the long term, and best of yet it fused In-combat power with out-of-combat RP and repercussions.
So what do you guys think?
*Cough* Sorry for the double-post, I made this thread in a hurry and I don't see if I can edit my post
But I meant +10 str, since the default is +4 and the Ragechemist ability is +6.
So does anybody think that the drawbacks balance out the +5 increase to attack and damage rolls for what would be a caster class?
Drawbacks being:
-4 Int
Can't use bombs past CURRENT Int not default
0 Intelligence makes me start attacking the nearest creature until half the duration is over.
Addiction stat Damage to non-Int mental stats, for not taking one a day.
No cure to above addiction
Does this balance out:
+5 Attack and Damage rolls with Melee, (+9 damage since I'm using two-handed and already have +1)
+4 AC without any Arcane failure
I'll admit it, being able to roll with +6 to deal 1d10+9 at level 2 is Ridiculous, I could technically one-shot some of the enemies there by throwing a chair.
What I'm worried about is this being too far a jump in the opposite direction and it vastly reducing the fun or appeal of combat to the other players. A lot of people in this group are rather new to pathfinder and I want to give them the best experience possible by being able to save them when necessary, but I don't want them to think I'm min-maxing to baby-sit them.
Regardless, I have no doubt in my ability to properly RP an addiction along with an bi-polar personality. I could always reduce my effectiveness in combat intentionally by wasting turns to break the nearest inanimate object. That way the other PCs get a chance for some one-on-one with the enemies.