Explosive Missile vs conductive..... or BOTH

[neferphras]

so question one on explosive missile: If you miss with your missile do you still loose your bomb. It says it does not detonate does that mean your bomb use is not used?

That is important for the question because with conductive you choose whether or not to spend 2 bombs AFTER you hit.

I was trying to decide which way to go on this. If you loose your bomb with explosive missile then Conductive is better.

That lead me to wonder if BOTH is valid
could you infuse the arrow and have the Conductive quality on the gun or bow to explode 2 bombs on a single hit. Nothing in the text leads me to think that is not possible.

[neferphras]

wow no answers? the site was down for a while i guess

[DeltaOneG]

Yes, if you miss with explosive missile, you still used up a bomb on the arrow and it does count as a bomb use.

So far as I can, both would work at the same time.

Overall, neither seems that impressive to me.

I suspect that you'll run into a GM that will tell you that conductive doesn't work with bombs because of the whole "volatile chemical mixing" stuff even though RAW says it's okay.

[neferphras]

DeltaOneG wrote:

Yes, if you miss with explosive missile, you still used up a bomb on the arrow and it does count as a bomb use.

So far as I can, both would work at the same time.

Overall, neither seems that impressive to me.

I suspect that you'll run into a GM that will tell you that conductive doesn't work with bombs because of the whole "volatile chemical mixing" stuff even though RAW says it's okay.

There are lots of SUs out there that logically makes no sense with conductive, but yeah raw says its fine.

I guess i never doubted that technically this works, i was hoping for a designer to confirm.

[blahpers]

Keep in mind that it only works with SUs and spell-like abilities that are delivered via melee or ranged touch attacks (and, for shot arrows, only the latter). So those should make a little more sense--you can't shoot someone with Abundant Step.

Note to self: House rule that clause away. Shoot someone with Abundant Step.

[Kyraeus]

Also, one of the biggest benefits of explosive missile in that same vein is missed. Let me explain by using my gnome alchie Kito as an example.:

I tend to prefer a very 'jack of all trades' kind of build. I like keeping my options open. I also like living and I have a dwarf cleric played by one of my friends who takes a big dislike to me 'accidentally' blowing up party members.

Therefore, while building my alchemist, I first took explosive missile initially to get a bit of range on my bombs, give me a chance for a 'first strike' capability, because in the (initially kingmaker, now converted to the new book) campaign we are running, we tend to explore a lot and have a chance to hit stuff from range as it runs/flies/etc at us.

What I didn't realize until reading things more thoroughly is that if you miss with a touch attack bomb, being a thrown splash weapon, you get screwed by the miss table and run a high risk of hitting your party. With bombs that have some pretty nasty effects, this is dangerous. ESPECIALLY if you're using any of the later level additions, like the cloudkill bombs or such. Explosive missile on the other hand, allows you to miss cleanly, with no explosion. Particularly nice GM's MAY even rule that you can get the bomb use back (personally I'd say for a round or three, or maybe it's 'active') if you grab/throw it again from where the missile hit, or whatnot.

A clean miss is WORTH that on some of these. True strike is a godsend with bombs, but if you miss a thrown, you'd better prepare for all hell to break loose because as the discovery states, Precise Bombs does NOT work on a missed throw (common sense, how can you be precise when you screw up the throw?).

Conducive allows you to skip all that nonsense for two charges, but personally I feel it's wasted on bombs. Basically you're getting the same thing for one charge with explosive missile, so the tradeoff is, blow the gold and double charges, or blow the feat/discovery. Tough call. Depends what you use more, I think.

As far as the other part, I don't remember seeing anything anywhere on either about only allowing one concurrent effect. Though I'm not sure many GMs would allow that in six seconds you have time to both imbue the weapon AND create/affix a bomb. I may actually have to try this and see what kind of response my GM gives me on it next session in a week or so, seeing as I'm easily at a point I could try this.

[powell01]

Now this I like. Might have to pull out the PFS grenadier.

[Umbral Reaver]

Gestalt Gunslinger/Grenadier...

EXPLOSIVE AMMO!

[Joesi]

Personally I think it's rather iffy to have conductive function for bombs since they are physical items that take separate actions to attack with. I would probably allow conductive to throw two bombs at the same time though, but not 1 bomb and only count as 2 if it hits. That seems good enough, no? It's still huge action economy; how is that not still good?

Regardless, when/if conductive is allowed, would the INT damage trigger twice? I'd say that just like a hybridization funnel item would only trigger INT damage once, I'd probably only trigger it once for conductive'd bombs as well (although maybe not if they had the fast bombs discovery, since then one could say that it's two separate bombs)

[neferphras]

Honestly i dont see the gun aspect being necessary anymore now that you have things like Dye and Tanglefoot Arrows. I am entirely fine with trading off a bit of damage to do range touch at 110 with an entangle affect. My favorite arrow is a tanglefoot arrow with a Grenadier enhanced ghast retch added on. Oh, and a bomb explosion, the cumulative effect is very nice.