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Hey there, have a few questions about the following alchemical discovery
1. While it's listed as Drow being a prerequisite, is this actually a prerequisite, or an assumption on the part of the PFSRD? In the same book, Grenadier is listed as an archetype in the Hobgoblin section, but isn't given a similar tag as a racial archetype. Nothing about it seems like it should be Drow exclusive, so I was curious here since it's so good.
2. Does it have an effect on a flying opponent who fails their save? It states that it knocks the target prone, which you can't do to a flying target, but the flavor and RAI seems to be that it forces the target to the ground, which makes it seems as though it should lower the altitude of the target. Amusingly, if they pass the save, it WOULD have an effect, reducing their fly speed and would probably force a decrease of altitude for winged flight due to how winged flight works.
As Void Bombs specifically mentions drow alchemists in the text, my money would be on 'Drow' being a specific prerequisite.
I also agree that this is one of the many 'this has no reason to be racially restricted' game elements in PF.
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Argh, I HATE stupid legacy crap like that! I hate this 'old man's club' of stupid things like that where it only makes sense if you've been playing forever, it always makes introducing new people so much more annoying when I have to describe that "Things are like this because they were like that in the past" instead of for any rational reason. I myself don't consider this a race exclusive ability because there's no reason it should be, and since I don't play PFS I can, but god do things like that just annoy the hell out of me.
Also any idea about the second point? This really should do something if they fail a save.
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From my understanding and from discussions that came before, you can look them up on google and the likes but most people tend to agree that knocking a flying creature prone, doesn't do anything as they can right themselves back up.
Oh, I know you can't technically knock a flying creature prone (something new to Pathfinder depressingly, as 3.5 you could), but this means the creature only has a negative effect if it passes its save.
The ability itself would lend itself to the flavor of pulling a creature down to the ground and keeping it there, which makes me think it would pull a creature down to the ground. And technically even if they 'could' right themselves, the discovery states they couldn't even do that for the round, meaning they'd also descend if it was winged flight.
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I think drow were among the first kinds of antagonists to be written as "evil mirror images" to PCs. While orcs and owlbears were just monsters, drow actually had class levels, gear, and so forth. They'd get abilities similar to PCs, but with more poison and evil and spiders on it.
However, this presents a problem: if you encounter multiple drow, at some point the PCs are going to have a lot of pretty nice Stealth-Boots, Scimitars of Ridiculous Dual-Wielding and so forth. Basically, the dilemma any GM faces when he tries to give NPCs gear on the same level as the PCs. You can see the start of the concept of WBL here; the items would go bad after getting looted. And of course it wasn't just to grief the PCs.
I doubt it's because of legacy stuff. In the Golarion setting, drow are the masters of the Underdark, which has a lot of unique creatures, fungi, and materials that most can't get at. The great houses also made pacts with demon lords like Abraxas and Haagenti to get forbidden secrets that no one else has access to.
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I doubt it's because of legacy stuff. In the Golarion setting, drow are the masters of the Underdark, which has a lot of unique creatures, fungi, and materials that most can't get at. The great houses also made pacts with demon lords like Abraxas and Haagenti to get forbidden secrets that no one else has access to.
I stand by legacy gripes, but the problem with this explanation is that the Monster Codex, the book that this came from, is a setting neutral book. If it were Golarion specific, I'd still complain, but it'd be more justified. But it's a non campaign setting specific book, which means the baggage of the campaign setting (including assumptions about drow) shouldn't be included.
As is assuming that drow always magically have these alchemical reagents on them, or have some secret dealer of them. The discovery has no reason to be drow specific still.
I'm still wondering the intended effect of a void bomb on a flying target as well, or can they just choose to fail and have it not effect them? Reading the effect, it seems as though it forces the target to the ground, but if anyone has any knowledge of if it's doing something different, I'd be interested in hearing it.
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Putting on my DM hat:
Frankly the only way it would have worked to knock someone from flying, if they did add more stuffs to it. Basically unless you stun or daze a flying creature, the creature will keep on flying.
Being "prone" having no effect, as the only thing that they mention is you can't get up but apparently can still act normally, flying creatures can hover in place and it is relatively easy DC or even keep moving, being prone is the only condition and while prone you can still move.
Now of course, your DM can interpret it however it wants in your home game and there is nothing wrong with it.