Beholders vs. Alchemists

[Worldmaker]

I've been GMing a Pathfinder conversion of the classic G123 D1234 campaign for a while, and the question has arisen if or not an Alchemist's bombs are magical.

Pathfinder has done away with magic fire damage. It's all elemental now, so normally it would be irrelevant. But the players have been facing down beholders, so the beholder's anti-magic cone comes into play.

So the question is this: seeing how the anti-magic cone from the main eye disrupts all spells and removes all of the magical effects on magical items and disrupts all supernatural abilities (such as a Paladin's lay on hand), how should alchemist bombs be handled? The book says that they are created using the magical aura of the Alchemist, but that they are *not* spells.

I wasn't sure if or not to rule them as magical items or not, in which case they would cease to function.

What do you guys think?

[Claxon]

Alchemist bombs are supernatural. Which is affected by antimagic.

If they land in the beholders cone of antimagic they don't function.

[Imbicatus]

Bombs are a supernatural ability, so they don't work in an anti magic field.

[Rerednaw]

Beholder wins.
(anti-magic stops Su a.k.a. Alchy bombs dead.)

Beauty is in the Beholder's Eye. :)

edit: ninja'd

[CraziFuzzy]

but.. but.. but.. beholders are verboten...

[MrRetsej]

CraziFuzzy wrote:

but.. but.. but.. beholders are verboten...

Homebrew for all the Wins!

[Imbicatus]

Don't make me call Jones & Rodriguez!

[Te'Shen]

Imbicatus wrote:

Don't make me call Jones & Rodriguez!

Madness. It's an Ocular Despot... who has eight or ten eye stalks, never nine. Problem solved.

[Smallfoot]

Throw your Alchemist a bone and allow a non-magical effect. Treat a basic bomb as flaming oil, one round only. Reduce the smoke from a smoke bomb to smoke stick levels. Instead of erasing the Alchemist, you're just nerfing the bejesus out of him. I'm sure he'll appreciate it. ;)

[Rerednaw]

Well don't forget that the Alchy's damage bonus also applies to store-bought or crafted alchemical items such as alchemists' fire, liquid ice, acid flasks and so forth.

Granted 1d6+int is a wee bit small (faster with TWF and quickdraw?)...but you know shouldn't take more than a few minutes and a kind, considerate, and understanding beholder...

[Zwordsman]

can't use splash weapons (other than bombs w/ the fast bomb ability) wit quick draw or a full attack. So, other than prepreped (hey I happen to have two flasks in my hands lucky!) only going to have one a round.. as a move action to draw and throw as a standard. so basically a full round action