our alchemist has cyclops syndrome.

[BobTheCoward]

Hello,

Our group is level10: tiefling alchemist, barbarian, fighter (archer), cleric of gorum, and a halfling rogue/shadowdancer.

Right now, the alchemist is a little bored in combat. She is really good at bomb throwing. The problem is she feels a little like cyclops from the x men. Every attack is optic blast (bombs). She rarely uses mutagens or extracts.

Have you seen ways to improve the diversity of combat? The player wants another really enjoyable action in combat.

[lemeres]

Well, does she use a variety of discoveries to at least make the bombs good battlefield control?

I can understand that extracts might not be a main focus. Alchemists focus a lot of buffs, and ones with a decent duration can be cast at the start of a dungeon and just left on for the whole time. Can she make infusions and hand them off to other party members?

[Ciaran Barnes]

This is a matter of the player's aproach to combat. Once you're in a rut, you need to do some work to get out. Failing that, get a new character.

She needs to spend more time looking at what effects her extracts can have, beginning immediately. The formulae list really isn't as good as that of a true spell caster, but even a great spell caster has to read and reread what the spells do, and then get clever. It takes more work on the player's part than simply choosing spells to deal damage.

She should check out the host of different alchemical items available for her to make and to use. None of them are going to be as good as her highest level "spells", but the variety could be fun. Poisons aren't an efficient means of dispatching enemies when you considering the GP cost, time to make, set DCs, etc. However, they have some out-of-combat uses as well. Some players dig that.

She should be using her mutagen every day if she is expecting a fight. At the very least, choosing Dexterity will improve the accuracy of her bomb attacks and bump up her AC.

[RumpinRufus]

Am I the only one who thought "Cyclops Syndrome" was going to involve a lack of depth perception?

[lemeres]

RumpinRufus wrote:

Am I the only one who thought "Cyclops Syndrome" was going to involve a lack of depth perception?

I thought it was about a player that wanted to play with an eyepatched mad scientist.

EDIT: Oh, and giant form is a spell that is actually on the alchemist list....soooo...

[Scythia]

RumpinRufus wrote:

Am I the only one who thought "Cyclops Syndrome" was going to involve a lack of depth perception?

My understanding of "Cyclops Syndrome" was when a character was constantly focused on as a main character but lacks any personality.

[DominusMegadeus]

Cyclops has developed a fair amount of actual character, it's just that for a lot of the time, that character was an upstanding person who is a fine leader, skilled combatant and relatively moderate in his views. His hobbies were having sex with a psychic ginger and... uh... I guess having sex with the blonde one too.

He had a personality, it was just boring as a sack of rocks.

[I'm Hiding In Your Closet]

Increase the diversity of enemies and circumstances - if she's always tossing bombs, it might be because that's always the best thing to do. Throw situations at them that cause tossing bombs to not be the best thing to do. There's also the question of how creative the player herself is, and whether she can see more than one way to do things.

[rungok]

Does Wind wall affect tossed bombs?

[Rynjin]

Scythia wrote:

RumpinRufus wrote:

Am I the only one who thought "Cyclops Syndrome" was going to involve a lack of depth perception?

My understanding of "Cyclops Syndrome" was when a character was constantly focused on as a main character but lacks any personality.

He has a personality. Unfortunately, depending on the medium, he's either "Bland-o generic leader man" or "The biggest sack of dicks this side of the dick dimension".

[Zourin]

The best solution would be to incorporate more hazards and puzzles that don't simply resolve via napalm. Leave the combat aspects be for now, but pose otherwise impassable obstacles that may, on closer observation, be more easily circumvented by using some of the lesser used class features.

Not everything needs to resort to combat solutions. Combat solutions are very difficult to deal with if you train your party that the only way they are going to be challenged is by fighting things. Once you start having to throw enemies with immunities on the field, you're on the defensive for control.

That said, tone down your itemization, lean back more on hazards, secrets, more hazards, and probably a few extra hazards. Also, never let your party rest as a cop-out. If they're not scared and bleeding, they don't need to rest. I like brown mold outbreaks :) One campfire, a few stray spores, and an hour or so and PFWOOOFPH, so much for a peaceful rest :)

[RumpinRufus]

What is her character like? Background, interests, goals?

If you let us know more details, perhaps we can give more tailored advice about how to throw some interesting options her way.

Or, just give her a custom intelligent Robe of Useful Items.

[Tacticslion]

DominusMegadeus wrote:

Cyclops has developed a fair amount of actual character, it's just that for a lot of the time, that character was an upstanding person who is a fine leader, skilled combatant and relatively moderate in his views. His hobbies were having sex with a psychic ginger and... uh... I guess having sex with the blonde one too.

He had a personality, it was just boring as a sack of rocks.

I always thought he was great before, and interesting. Now he's just jerk.

I also thought this thread had to do with a polymorphed or reincarnated alchemist, or perhaps an alchemist who started off as a cyclops. Nope!

RumpinRufus wrote:

What is her character like? Background, interests, goals?

If you let us know more details, perhaps we can give more tailored advice about how to throw some interesting options her way.

Or, just give her a custom intelligent Robe of Useful Items.

Good questions!

[Scythia]

Rynjin wrote:

Scythia wrote:

RumpinRufus wrote:

Am I the only one who thought "Cyclops Syndrome" was going to involve a lack of depth perception?

My understanding of "Cyclops Syndrome" was when a character was constantly focused on as a main character but lacks any personality.

He has a personality. Unfortunately, depending on the medium, he's either "Bland-o generic leader man" or "The biggest sack of dicks this side of the dick dimension".

Makes as much sense as a punch dimension.

In fact, the two should collide, the video would win AFHV for sure.

[BobTheCoward]

I assure everyone the issue is only in combat. The player does plenty of creative stuff outside of it.

From levels 1-6 he played a fire wizard. He would throw out flame jets, magic missiles, flaming spheres, etc. He wanted to switch to an alchemist.

He likes arcane classes. The alchemist fulfills some of that. But it doesn't have the same diversity in combat. Granted, the alchemist has fly, fast bombs, and everything else to boost those up. We never reach the end of her bombs. The Plyer sees making the character like this as the obvious direction. But the alchemist plays like the archer and he hates fightery classes.

Also, I changed gender pronouns here. As the character alchemist is female
The player is male.

[Eltacolibre]

Bomb based alchemist are actually a combat built but well, if the player doesn't want to focus on bombs for combat, he can just look at his list of extracts and try to have more fun with them, usually buffs, unless the player has the discovery, where he can share with teammates.

Not much else to do in combat, ranged touch attacks are just very effective and as higher level goes, the touch ac of monsters become lower, mostly the big ones.

[TheRamza]

BobTheCoward wrote:

I assure everyone the issue is only in combat. The player does plenty of creative stuff outside of it.

From levels 1-6 he played a fire wizard. He would throw out flame jets, magic missiles, flaming spheres, etc. He wanted to switch to an alchemist.

He likes arcane classes. The alchemist fulfills some of that. But it doesn't have the same diversity in combat. Granted, the alchemist has fly, fast bombs, and everything else to boost those up. We never reach the end of her bombs. The Plyer sees making the character like this as the obvious direction. But the alchemist plays like the archer and he hates fightery classes.

Also, I changed gender pronouns here. As the character alchemist is female
The player is male.

What exactly does this person do with the bombs? Smoke Bomb, Stink Bomb, Tanglefoot Bomb, Dispelling Bomb, Grease Bomb, Healing Bomb, Blinding Bomb all do things that are much more then Bomb + Different Damage Type. Keep in mind all of these bombs other then dispelling bomb still do their damage so the opportunity cost isn't even all that high as long as they are appropriate to the situation. I probably even missed some cool bombs, I know I left out the race specific ones.

Some archetypes can add some other options like Preservationist + planar preservationist feat to get summon monsters as extracts.

If the player isn't really liking the alchemist what exactly caused them to want to play it?