Hi,
I'm actually playing a half-orc beastmorph level 1(not in PFS). I want to play an alchemist that can do a lot of thinks, bomb and melee, so it's hard to put all together.
First the stat :
str : 16
con : 14
dex : 14
int : 16
wis : 12
cha : 8
I choose the half orc favored class bonus, the shaman apprentice and sacred tatoo racial trait.
I have the exiled trait so far, and can choose an other one.
My first level feat is point blank shot.
That's what's i'm planning to choose as feat and discoveries :
level 2 : precise bomb
level 3 : precise shot
level 4 : vestigial arm (so i can have a heavy mithral shield and a falchion)+1 int
level 5 : power attack
level 6 : infusion
level 7 : tumor familiar
level 8 : fast bomb, +1 int
level 9 : force bomb
level 10 : sticky bomb
level 11 : improve familiar
level 12 : greater mutagen, +1str
level 13 : enhanced potion
level 14 : frost bomb
level 15 : extend potion
level 16 : eternal potion, +1 str
level 17 : grand mutagen
I plan to be able to fight in melee when i don't have bomb anymore or when bomb are irrelevant. I don't know what I'll do with the familiar,
at first maybe just used it to keep touch spell and action economy, help potion craft. The improved familiar could use some wand with UMD.
Skill : I want to take all of the class skill, but only keep maxing perception, UMD, spellcraft and disable device.
What do you think of this build?
How can I improve it?
Thanks for answers.
Dont see an5 big th8bgs. Wh5 frost bomb so high lv? Its status is nifty and all but by that lv little less so. Nit bad just urious.
It looks like its do alright bombs wobt be u er terror but bot useless in jy limited xp
If your soing the beastmorph pounce stuff, why did you want a falchion?
I agreee that frost bomb can be replace by another discovery but I don't know which one. I haven't done the math yet but maybe falchion is stronger than feral mutagen : better crit(15-20 with keen falchion), 1,5X str, power attack with two handed weapon, easier to upgrade, and all day long. What happen when your mutagen end? At level 6, you only have your weapon 1h/day. And magic fang can't go trought DR.
I'm not sold on Infusion so early in the build. It is good, don't get me wrong, but having a not-fire bomb type before level 9 might be nice.
You are very MAD as you need strength to hit in melee, dexterity to hit with bombs, constitution for hit points, intelligence for extracts and bomb damage and wisdom for perception and will save.
You can drink a strength mutagen, but it will make you a worse bomber if you do. You can drink a dexterity mutagen, but it will lower your already poor will save. You can drink a constitution mutagen, but it won't make your attacks better.
You don't have the BAB to really slay with Power Attack and it hurts your already problematic accuracy. You don't have Quick Draw so switching from bombs to melee is slow. You can't Pounce until level 10, and even then it is only 3 attacks including Haste.
Gregory Connolly wrote: I'm not sold on Infusion so early in the build. It is good, don't get me wrong, but having a not-fire bomb type before level 9 might be nice. This is potentially true...but Infusion is really nice, and unlike a straight bomber he can just melee fire resistant stuff.
Gregory Connolly wrote: You are very MAD as you need strength to hit in melee, dexterity to hit with bombs, constitution for hit points, intelligence for extracts and bomb damage and wisdom for perception and will save. This is all true to some degree...though given that bombs are Touch Attacks, Dex is by far the least necessary of these stats (beyond the 13 or so needed for Feats).
Gregory Connolly wrote: You can drink a strength mutagen, but it will make you a worse bomber if you do. You can drink a dexterity mutagen, but it will lower your already poor will save. You can drink a constitution mutagen, but it won't make your attacks better. -1 damage isn't meaningfully worse as a bomber, nor is -1 Will Save crippling (though it's unpleasant).
Gregory Connolly wrote: You don't have the BAB to really slay with Power Attack and it hurts your already problematic accuracy. Alchemists have a plethora of ways to increase accuracy (Mutagen merely being the most obvious). I think you're overstating the problem. And Power Attack is basically always worth it.
Gregory Connolly wrote: You don't have Quick Draw so switching from bombs to melee is slow. You can't Pounce until level 10, and even then it is only 3 attacks including Haste. Uh...you only need one hand to bomb with, and can hold a falchion in one or two hands, switching as a free action (you can only use it two-handed...but holding it one handed works fine). No Quick Draw needed.
The point on Pounce is well taken, though.
Improved Familiar replaces Tumor Familiar, it doesn’t stack with it, and it might even be disallowed because of the nature of Tumor Familiar. The TF’s Fast Healing ability is cool, and I’d be hesitant to discard it. Also, most people take familiars to get some kind of bonus, and your new familiar won’t give you that bonus anymore. You didn’t even specify what bonus you are taking from your familiar, so maybe it’s not important to you.
Consider taking Evolved Familiar instead if your goal is to increase the Strength of your familiar.
I’m not sure why you are taking Shaman’s Apprentice. It gives you Endurance, right? The chief advantage of Endurance, to my eye, is that it gives you the ability to sleep in medium armor without being Fatigued. And as a pure Alchemist, you don’t have Medium Armor Proficiency. You want to go into melee: you might take some levels in Fighter early on.
To be strong in melee takes a considered build, putting together this feat and that class ability to get strong effects, and you really might not be successful if you are such a generalist. What I would do with that level in Fighter is use a composite bow. That will justify your Precise Shot even more. Take Explosive Missile at Level 4 Alchemist: Exploding Arrows! If you take the Adaptive Enchantment on your bow, your damage will increase with your Strength Mutagen. Take Deadly Aim; it’s Power Attack for the bow. Even taking just 1 level in Fighter and developing as an archer will improve the melee abilities of this build.
That don't help a lot.
Someone said wrote: 'm not sold on Infusion so early in the build. It is good, don't get me wrong, but having a not-fire bomb type before level 9 might be nice.
You are very MAD as you need strength to hit in melee, dexterity to hit with bombs, constitution for hit points, intelligence for extracts and bomb damage and wisdom for perception and will save.
You can drink a strength mutagen, but it will make you a worse bomber if you do. You can drink a dexterity mutagen, but it will lower your already poor will save. You can drink a constitution mutagen, but it won't make your attacks better.
You don't have the BAB to really slay with Power Attack and it hurts your already problematic accuracy. You don't have Quick Draw so switching from bombs to melee is slow. You can't Pounce until level 10, and even then it is only 3 attacks including Haste.
@Deadmanwalking
I am not trying to tell the OP not to build it I was simply trying to find the weaknesses of the build. I haven't seen a melee alchemist done right only bombers, so I am definitely biased here. I know from reading guides and threads that you can make a powerful melee alchemist. I haven't seen one built as a switch hitter before. I have also seen a fight go south very fast when the level 8 Alchemist could chuck 3 bombs a round but couldn't hurt the fire resistant foe much at all. The OP acknowledges that he is spreading the character thin, I was just pointing out potential problems.
I agree with the only fire bomb problem, but as i can melee,it's not such a big deal and before level 9, all encounter won't have a fire resistance.
Agree with pounce but since nothing can improve it, I've to do with it(and other classes do without pounce so...).
Shaman apprentice is more for flavor as no other racial trait was interesing.
For the familiar i have to talk with the game master to see how he understand the rules, since it's a mess.
I haven't consider the archer path. How will you do it with this stat?
As we are playing as young for now with npc classes, I can still be something else than a beastmorph and try to be a good archer.
The Explosive Missile build is pretty strong, I have looked into it before and it is cool. If you want to dip a level I would go Barbarian for the movement and rage and hit points and skill points over the better armor and a feat, but both work.
Usually Beastmorph get paired with Vivisectionist, leading to a TWF, sneak attack, mutagen, pounce routine for high DPR. With TWF, ITWF and haste that's 5 attacks on a charge all doing +5d6 sneak attack (you can win initiative, flank or use Greater Invisibility.)
Godfrey Gloop
Level 1: Fighter1: Point Blank Shot, Quick Draw, Simple and Martial Weapons, Light, Medium and Heavy armor, Shields
Level 2: F1Alchemist1: Extracts, Bombs 1d6, mutagen, Throw Anything, Brew Potion
3F1A2: Precise Shot, Infusion, Poison Save +2, Poisoning
4F1A3: Bombs 2d6, Swift Alchemy, applies poison as a move action
5F1A4: Reckless Aim or Opening Volley, Explosive Missile
6F1A5: vs poison +4, Bomb 3d6
7F1A6: Precise Bombs, Swift Poisoning, Reckless Aim or Opening Volley
8F2A6: Deadly Airm or Arcane Strike, +1 Perception, +5' range inc.
9F2A7: Bomb 4d6, Rapid Shot
10F2A8: Fast Bombs, vs. poison +6
11F2A9: Bomb 5d6, Manyshot
12F2A10: Immune to poison, Dispelling Bomb
Oh, by the way, your favorite Extract is Alchemal Allocation. You might consider throwing in something like putting the Seeking enchantment on your bow and taking the Smoke Bomb Discovery.
I'm not really convince by the explosive missile discovery :
it's really harder to hit with a standard attack than with a touch attack, so a lot of bomb will be lost ; and fast bomb make a lot more damages than a explosive missile.
For the familiar it's really hard to see if it'll be efficient, but so far that the thinks I was thinking he can do :
-use wand to buff/ heal
-scout
-help with crafting(vallet archetype)
-hold a touch spell/mutagen until I need it.
Some attack routine of this build level by level :
level 4 : bomb : +7, 2d6 + 6(point blank shot)
falchion + mutagen : +8, 2d4 + 7
level 8 : bomb : +10/+5, 4d6 + 9
falchion + mutagen + power attack : + 9/+4, 2d4 + 13
level 12 : bomb : +13/+8 6d6 + 11, 17damage next round
falchion + great mutagen + power attack : + 12/+7, 2d4 + 18
It's without buff or magic item.
You can use marker Dye Arrows, then it is a ranged touch attack with a great deal more range than your thrown bombs. Or you can use Explosive Missile on regular arrows and do extra damage.
You can cast True Strike on yourself, use Deadly Aim, and then use your regular Exploding Arrow, doing your full arrow Damage + your Bomb Damage, + your burst damage with a +20 to your attack roll. By level 8, Deadly Aim is giving you +4 damage. Your attack penalty may be offset by Reckless Aim or more than offset with your 2nd shot with Opening Volley.
When you get Manyshot, you can fire 2 exploding, Deadly-Aimed, strength-backed arrows both benefitting from True Strike. Your next arrow will have a -4 due to Rapid Shot and Deadly Aim, but a +4 due to Opening Volley. Maybe make that one your marker dye arrow-ranged-touch-attack. Pretty powerful.
Meanwhile, there are other things, magical enchantments and spells you can put on your bow and arrows, intersecting with Explosive Missile. I think this is a promising build.
But if it's not your thing, it's not your thing. Take my advice to heart about armor.
I have a lot of ideas about building powerful melee characters, if you want to hear them (or you can just scroll through my posts to find them). None of them dip more than 4 levels into Alchemist, though.
" As a standard action, the alchemist can infuse a single arrow"
I don't think that you can shot two exploding missile with manyshot.
Opening volley only work with melee atack, not with bow.
I think that a conductive bow is better than explosive missile, as you can make a full round attack when using it. But it'll use a lot of bomb.
I've try the math between an alchemist with manyshot/point blank shot/precise shot/deadly aim and rapid shot again my build, the falchion still do more damage.s
Huh, I didn't look at this stuff very closely in a while.
So, you can use Manyshot in conjunction with True Strike, Reckless Shot, Rapid Shot, and Deadly Aim. True Strike will only augment the first 2 arrows. You can use Explosive Missile in Conjunction with True Strike, Deadly Aim, and Reckless Aim. But you can't use all of those together. Still Pretty cool, though.
You CAN use Opening Volley, although it isn't at all what I thought it was.
"Benefit: Whenever you deal damage with a ranged attack, you gain a +4 circumstance bonus on the next melee attack roll you make against the opponent. This attack must occur before the end of your next turn."
Opening Volley is actually a good choice for your character, better than for mine: Throw your Bomb, and wade into battle with a +4 on your swing of the Falchion.
As for Explosive Missile: If you use a Long Bow and if you are allowed to retrain, take it and retrain at 8th level. Then you get Fast Bomb which replaces it.
The iffy part about Explosive Missile is that you trade away touch to hit and it's a separate standard action. Aka: not an attack action, so you can't use it iteratively. But untill you can use more than one bomb each turn (at level 8) it's very solid.
Retrain it to Rapid Shot, which will make you able to throw 3 Bombs each turn. The -2 to hit won't matter since it's touch (Hello CR 20 to 25 monsters with 0 to 5 touch AC).
However, you don't have Long Bow proficiency (crossbows are too much meh) so it's probably pointless.
You won't really be able to make yourself very good with both bombs and melee combat. Stick to one and fall back on the other. You seem to want the melee the most since you pick the Beastmorph Archetype and go for the mutagen discoverys.
I would advice you not to take any feats/discoverys that improves your ranged/bomb abilites other than the must-have for your bombs to not hurt your allies.
But if you want to throw bombs and be able to get into melee, you will be decent at both. If that's what you want, go for it. It can be much more fun with a versatil character, being able to play in every situation.
My character build calls for levels in Fighter, so he will have longbow. But the OP's doesn't, and the gain is small if you are stuck with a crossbow. The range is nothing to sneeze at though.
The idea of retraining Explosive Missile for Fast Bombs is really interesting, but I really like the versatility of range, mixing piercing and fire damage, being able to exchange extra damage/shot with the accuracy of touch attacks, and besides, there are other tricks I haven't even shared.
With the OP committed to throw and melee, the really useful suggestions I made are some kind of dip into fighter, and opening volley.
Although Gregory Connelly's suggestion to combine Alchemal Mutagens with a Barbarian Rage is inspired (I think it was GC: it might have been somebody else. Kudos to whomever.).
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