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Ok folks, Me again. I know a couple of folks who are interested in Alchemist's.
Can somebody give me a general overview of them please ?! Good and Bad.
Thanks, D69
Alchemists are easily one of my favorites. So, the good list is extensive.
- They have bombs which can be customized with discoveries.
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They have a mutagen that makes them pretty fierce in combat.
- Their extracts can also do a lot of self buffing, allowing them to manage even better in combat.
- With infusions (a discovery), you can even give extracts to someone else.
Now, the badsides.
- They lack armor and weapon proficiency that would be really great for combat.
- Their extracts have limited use compared to spells. Even with infusions, they can only affect a single target.
Hope that helps.
Bad planning by the GM makes bombs more powerful. They are supernatural and therefore don't have to worry about spell resistance, and they target touch ac. With the availability of the discovery that lets them throw more than one in a round an alchemist can nova pretty hard -- once or twice a day.
After a bomb nova the alchemist still isn't done because he still has his mutagen and extracts to fall back on.
These two things can easily be overlooked at early levels and take a GM by surprise when they come into play.
Ok, Now walk a noob thru what an alchemist has in regards to the stuff just mentioned.
Basically, if you go bombs (and there are other options, such as sneak attack), you can do a fair bit of area damage,possibly buffed with status effects or the right kind of elemental damage, that is very hard to block - spell resistance doesn't apply, you hit the relatively low touch AC, and eventually an alchemist could go completely crazy, throwing several bombs per round. With a prepared mutagen and lots of buff "spells" you are ok in combat even apart from that. Basically, a bomb alchemist is an okayish fighter with a special trick that can be very nasty in some encounters where enemies are grouped together. If the enemies cluster some distance away you blast, if they get up close and in your face you stab, and you are ok with both overall.
"Going nova" is a term for when a character can output huge amounts of damage (for that level) over a round or so, but can't do it more than once or a few times per day. An alchemist with the discovery that lets them do full attack with bombs (usually with two-weapon fighting) can definitely do that.
Personally, I am a fan of the archetype that trades bombs for sneak attack damage. Alchemists don't have great weapon proficiencies, but when most of your damage comes from sneak attacks and static bonuses, daggers are a perfectly fine weapon.
One other thing an alchemist is is a secondary skill specialist. They seem like they only have 4 base skill points per level, but they tend to have high intelligence and a good class skill list, so they are an ok substitution for a rogue or a "smart guy/girl" that helps the party know what's happening.
As for the negatives, well, at the end of the day you have the attack progression or armor of a bard. If you are caught unprepared, or your potions have run out, you aren't all that. If you go for bombs, they are a finite resource - especially early on. An alchemist out of tricks isn't all that useful, so you need to get a feeling for resource management - neither hoarding power when it is needed nor wasting it uselessly.
Alchemists are very powerful and versatile, there's a number of builds they can do successfully. Pros have been mentioned.
Here's another con though: Poor will saves.
Many of them use Feral Mutagen. For that build:
Pro: Three attacks at full BAB as early as level 2.
Con: You turn into a terrible monster.
One other Pro to add to alchemists, their infusion ability gives them one of the few ways in the game to hand out personal-range spells to other party members.
The ability to add Int to splash weapons is pretty sweet, especially since the alchemist has so many potential weapons he can brew up at any given time. They actually make a thrown-weapon character pretty viable.
One of my favorite things to do with them is stack two-weapon fighting with rapid shot, grab a tumor monkey familiar to constantly be drawing and handing me alchemical items, and go BOMB-alchemicalitem-alchemicalitem before I even have BAB 6 in a single round. And once you get rapid bomb...oh baby! Nova time!
If you have a particularly nice GM, like I had once, you might be able to sling your alchemical items and/or bombs, making a halfling warslinger actually viable, which is a rarity in of itself. This, as I mentioned however, requires houseruling that slings can fling alchemical items.
Pro: You have a lot of good class features
Con: Getting them to synergies can be very difficult.
Pros:
1. You can blow things up.
2. Ranged touch attack with explosives.
3. You can make potions without going through the normal potion making rules.
4. Mutagens.
5. Mad science theme.
Cons:
1. You are among the things you can blow up.
2. Lack of armor for how relatively close you'll often be when tossing those bombs.
3. Difficult to do a stealthy kill, even at higher levels.
4. Synergizing class abilities has some unusual difficulties; rather than try to use them all, it's better to specialize.
5. The party tends to complain every time the meatshields frontline fighters and eidolon get a bit scorched.
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Pros:
1. Bombs are incredibly versatile minor crowd control.
2. Alchs are capable of going melee or ranged with no loss in power for either option.
3. Alchemical item factories.
4. Probably the best single target buffers in the game, able to provide buffs to allies that normally can't be shared.
5. Better rogues than Rogues.
6. Mutagen stacks with everything.
7. Archetypes allow for entirely different styles of play.
Cons
1. Not 9th level casters
2. Bombs are easy to run out of if you're reckless
3. Not great at multiclassing.
Alchemist are incredible, and probably one of the best balanced classes in the entire game.
Another pro: Able to freely take any spell a wizard has in their spellbook that is also on their formulae list. This is a cheap way of adding to a relatively limited list.
Able to make alchemical consumables extremely rapidly, making them very adaptable in the field. (Follow the ABC's: Always Be Crafting).
Con: They have relatively few extracts for each day, and crafting potions takes coins, which can make certain builds very cash conscious when crafting lots of potions and alchemical weapons for daily use (to make up for limited bombs/extracts).
Regarding Armor: Considering that Shield is an alchemist extract, and mutagens give you a +2 natural armor bonus, and they can wear up to +4 armors normally, lets you easily have an AC of 20+ at low levels. Giving them medium armor would be too good.
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Regarding Armor: Considering that Shield is an alchemist extract, and mutagens give you a +2 natural armor bonus, and they can wear up to +4 armors normally, lets you easily have an AC of 20+ at low levels. Giving them medium armor would be too good.
And if they want it, it's only a Feat away. I mean, it's not like they get spell failure chances or anything.
But yeah, Alchemists are just a wonderfully solid class in almost every well. They're usually bad at face-type skills and aren't as powerful as 9-level casters, but that's about it as far as downsides go.
MagusJanus's list really assumes a dedicated bomber without other tricks...which is a possible build, but not necessarily the best or most definitive one in many ways.
Alchemist throws bombs, turns into Mr. Hyde, makes personal use potions and when all that is used up, they can poison their weapons (not going to work vs. every foe...unless you go for Celestial Poisons discovery!).
Pretty cool. Mine is a grippli for a hopping good time.
The cons? Well, other than extracts (potions) are self-only, I really don't care for the one Mutagen per day...yes, it lasts for 10 minutes, but only one per day?! I want more Mr. Hyde-ness than that!
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So hey, poisons are now not useless.
So being able to craft a LOT and apply it fast is a bonus point for the alchemist now.
Amusingly, in the 3.5 Campaign setting for Golarion, Rogues could also get another boost to poisons, trading trap sense for a +1 to poison DCs for every 3 levels whenever you're making a Sneak Attack. Adding these two together actually makes poisoning viable.