OK, my alchemist wants to try making these for the party's rogue, who is jealous of his bomb class feature and has taken to carrying around kegs of gunpowder, much to the nervousness of the rest of the party:
Thunderflash (Impact triggered) Grenades:
This is simply any of the normal grenades (Fuse or pellet) fitted with a Thunderstone and flash powder instead of a fuse to ignite the charge.
When the grenade strikes a hard target (or is struck) the Thunderstone, flash powder, and the grenade's normal effects go off.
10 foot radius. DC 15 Reflex halves damage, Fort 13 save or be blinded for 1 round, Fort 15 save or deafened for 1 hour. (yes, basically it is a medieval flash-bang that goes off on impact.)
One new type of grenade: substituting glass shards for the pellets used in pellet grenades. The shards do slash damage instead of pierce damage.
The augmented grenades are heavier (2 LB each) and would be thrown like a splash weapon with a 10 foot radius and a range increment of 20 feet.
Add 80GP to the base cost of the grenade for the appropriate ingredients. Crafting it is a DC 25 Craft (Alchemy) check.
Since this combines 3 alchemy items into one item, would that raise the DC of the crafting check (Maybe +1 per item added, for a total of 27 instead?) or would it be (as I computed it to be) the DC of the highest DC item incorporated?
An interesting idea. I'd say the "glass shards instead of pellets" idea is perfectly fine and should be offered without any changes to the DC or cost (though, if you wanted to make one that kicked out a cloud of caltrops which did slashing damage in the initial splash and then placed the sharp things on the ground, that would be fun and harder/more expensive!)
I'd probably add either 2 or 5 to the DC for each additional element. This may seem like a lot, but it is also a pretty great item at low levels. DC 29 would make it hard but not impossible. DC 35 is good if you want it to be Very Hard. I'd avoid not raising the difficulty at all.
It also depends if you want to say they make all three at once or if it is just making the grenade when you already have a thunderstone and a thing of flash powder. If you're just making a new grenade with existing materials, then +4. If you want to go for a 3-in-1 crafting effort, maybe +10.
Of course, maybe I just hate when players are happy, heh.
It also depends if you want to say they make all three at once or if it is just making the grenade when you already have a thunderstone and a thing of flash powder. If you're just making a new grenade with existing materials, then +4. If you want to go for a 3-in-1 crafting effort, maybe +10.
Well the idea is to take the raw materials that would normally go into making a thunderstone, a grenade of whatever type, and a dose of flash powder, remove the fuse that normally goes in the grenade and replace it with the flash powder and the thunderstone, with the gunpowder and pellets embedded in the thunderstone. Since you're adding 2 LBS of materials up, the whole is heavier, so it's a single item with the components of three.
The game could certainly use rules or guidelines for making new nonmagical equipment. Show me some real alchemical cartridges besides dragon's breath. : D
You might also try to determine the numbers using the Trap rules.
This gets you CR, Cost, and complexity. Make your grenade as a trap with an easy trigger (i.e. toss and hit something), and get the price and effects.
/cevah