The Spell Combat and Haste thread has made me go back and look at other full round actions which result in making multiple attacks. I started a separate thread about Pounce last night. This morning I started wondering about Fast Bombs. However, there's a previous FAQ entry stating that Haste does work with Fast Bombs. At first I thought this seemed a little at odds with the Magus ruling since Fast Bombs mentions a "full-round action" rather than a "full attack action". On the other hand, Fast Bombs does state that it works "just like a full-attack with a ranged weapon".
That brought up another question for me though. If Fast Bombs should work like a full-attack with "a ranged weapon" then I wonder if it should really work with TWF. I mean, "a" is singular, so wouldn't it need to be "one or more ranged weapons" to work with TWF? I normally wouldn't bother to question an already established FAQ, but I think that Fast Bombs can become a game balance problem, especially when combined with Force Bombs. Taking away 2-3 bombs from TWF per round might help to tone things down a bit, nearly halving the damage output at most levels (before considering Haste). I think that would be a good thing since the damage at higher levels can easily get over 200 and even push towards 300. There are some spells which can compete with that, but energy resistance/immunity help keep those in check whereas Bombs are Su and therefore very tough to survive.
Alchemist: If an alchemist has the Fast bombs discovery, can he use Rapid Shot, Two-Weapon Fighting, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, haste, and similar abilities and effects to add more attacks?
As written, yes, all of these apply because fast bombs "functions just like a full-attack with a ranged weapon."—Sean K Reynolds, 08/18/10
Fast bombs: An alchemist with this discovery can quickly create enough bombs to throw more than one in a single round. The alchemist can prepare and throw additional bombs as a full-round action if his base attack bonus is high enough to grant him additional attacks. This functions just like a full-attack with a ranged weapon. An alchemist must be at least 8th level before selecting this discovery.
1) It functions as a full attack, so everything that adds to a full attack does.
2) Stop trying to find extra loopholes and "unforeseen consquences" of the Magus ruling. It literally only affects the Magus and no other class or ability in the game whatsoever. There are no overarching general rules to learn here--the Magus gets screwed on it. Period. Just let it go.
I kind of feel like you're scolding me a little in #2, so I'd like to clarify that I'm not trying to get the Magus ruling "overturned" or anything. It just made me reconsider other things I thought I "knew" about. I think some other people might have doubts too. There seems to be some disagreement about Pounce, for instance.
Anyhow, the primary idea of my post is that maybe Fast Bombs shouldn't work with TWF since it refers to "a ranged weapon". Since TWF is mentioned in the FAQ I guess that's a long shot, but maybe it was an oversight...probably not...rulings have changed in the past though (Monk FoB etc)
Sure, the FAQ says it works, but the ability says "a ranged weapon" rather than "two ranged weapons" or "one or more ranged weapons". I'd consider it possible if not likely that there could be an oversight in the FAQ and also possible if perhaps even less likely that the design team might reconsider the ruling based on either the vague language in the ability or the game balance implications of nearly doubling the number of bombs an Alchemist can throw.
I guess maybe "Rules Questions" isn't the right forum for this sort of thread. I'm not sure if there's a "Please Change the Rules" forum though. I wouldn't have bothered to bring this up except that the Magus rulings got me looking at the FAQ again and wondering about all things related to "full attack" and "full attack action".
Anyhow, "a ranged weapon" isn't two ranged weapons, so if Fast Bombs works with TWF it also got my girlfriend and I wondering if you can do TWF with a gun or other weapon by making attacks with one hand and then moving the weapon to the other hand as a free action. We think that would be very silly, and I'd probably house rule against it, but we weren't sure if it would be strictly against the official rules. I haven't checked the rules sources and FAQs for that yet.
I wasn't really thinking about any thematic problems around preparing bombs with one hand so much as just the language of the ability. One might assume that it takes two hands to make a bomb, but the rules don't actually seem to say so. As for balance, you can easily get into the 200 range with Force Bombs by 15th level if you care to. Fire bombs would average more like 270. I guess you'd knock off 50-70 if you moved down to 13th level or so, but the monsters down there have fewer HP too, so it really still balances out to an almost surefire kill. Taking away TWF would reduce those numbers down to the point where level appropriate foes could survive for a round (at least as long as nobody else hits them)
Granted, most Alchemists can only pull this sort of trick about 4 times per day, but since there are usually about 3-4 major combats per day that's probably not quite as limiting as it sounds. On the other hand, the -2 to hit from TWF is a complete joke against the vast majority of monsters since touch AC rarely scales up with level (in fact it often goes down). Even with an attack line like +15/+15/+15/+15/+10/+10/+5/+5 at 15th level you'd rarely miss, and with decent stats and a mutagen you'd probably find your attack line a few points higher.
I guess folks might not agree with my game balance opinion here, but I think the "a ranged weapon" thing is a little contradictory either way. On its own it is not really a big deal beyond some minor confusion/debate it has sparked (for me and friends) regarding TWF - Can you do TWF with a single one-handed firearm, for instance? If I can't find anything in the rules on that maybe I'll make another thread later.
Personally, I'd rather not see TWF work with bombs, but mostly due to the headache I get trying to imagine how that could work. It's like dual-wielding slings. Fast Bombs should require a free hand to mix/activate and get your full number of attacks.
Granted, I think fast bombs should be a built in feature at 8th level, rather than a discovery tax.