I'm looking to run a Master Chymist Jekyll/Hyde build and someone suggested Starting as the RageChemist first...
Anyone tried this? Does it work? I LOVE the idea of boosting his strength and getting some more distinction between Jekyll and Hyde... (sucks that 1. you can't get Master Chymist until level 8 and you can't get some of the mutagen boosters till 12+...
So yeah, I like the idea of boosting the strength a bit more... but this idea of getting a hit to Int EVERY round I take damage?? When Alchemists are only proficient in light armor? Even my tank characters take damage frequently and I suspect he'll be worse off than that...
DC 15 doesn't sound TOO high, but the only alchemist we've seen before was LEGENDARY for his missed Saves... and it looks like that's a weak spot...
I don't know if this is going to be like fighting a Shadow every single battle and 7-8 rounds of combat (in an HOUR...) he'll just keel over...
It sounds pretty interesting, but I'm seeing some serious red flags here... anyone able to make it work?
Ragechemist is absolutely not worth it. If you want to pump up the Hyde-type Alchemist, what you want is to prestige into Master Chymist.
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I'm currently playing a ragechemist in the CC path with the intention of becoming a Master Chymist. It is worth it if you take the feral mutagen discovery and Enlarge person and Bull's Stength extracts as well as 1 level in barbarian. So if you start with a 15 Str you will have a total of 31 Strength and 3 natural attacks that each will deal 1d8+10 and 1d10+10 (no power attack included).
Yes there is a serious disadvantage but if you invest in the Iron and Improve Iron Will as well as a cloak of resistance the DC is not that difficult. The barbarian rage gives you an extra +2 in your Will and you can pick the right traits to enhance it even more.
It is possible but yes it could get dangerous.
I think it is Nice to use for high str builds but not in actual play. The drawbacks are pehaps not crippeling but the bonus is very little in comparison. Normal alchemist is just behind on the str boost and there are better archtypes to use with a mutagen focused alchemist like beastmorph and vivisectionist.
I think it is Nice to use for high str builds but not in actual play. The drawbacks are pehaps not crippeling but the bonus is very little in comparison. Normal alchemist is just behind on the str boost and there are better archtypes to use with a mutagen focused alchemist like beastmorph and vivisectionist.
I don't know about the beastmorph but the vivisectionist is indeed a powerful and interesting archetype. I don't know if it fits for a Mr Hyde feeling but it is definitely powerful. I don't think if the Master Chymist would fit though...
Worth it? Probably not. Doable? Sure. A buddy of mine has a "maximum strength" alchemist build that he uses in PFS. I believe he has levels only in Ragechemist Alchemist, about level 9 last I checked.
He took Feral Mutagen, the discovery that gives limited fast healing, various extracts that give DR or convert damage into nonlethal damage, and a tumor familiar that uses a wand of Shield Other. He uses a spell that gives a scaling morale bonus to STR based on the amount of damage you've taken, and has his familiar trigger a wand of Moment of Greatness (or feed him a potion) each round as needed.
He has a relatively high base Intelligence but prepares his extracts all at once in the morning (generally) to avoid becoming unable to prepare them due to damage. I'm not sure how his Will save is but DC 15 is not overly high, especially as a STR-based alchemist whose mutagen penalizes Intelligence. If you don't fail the initial save, you can't really snowball. I think he even uses Vicious which ensures he needs to save each round.
I think you need to be a half-orc to use the STR bonus spell, which opens up the +1 luck bonus to saves coupled with Fate's Favored to boost your Will save. I believe my friend's build goes down the Mummification discovery route which grants fortification, immunity to nonlethal damage, and other resiliency benefits.
The last time he crit someone with a bite attack he did around 79 damage. The GM doubletook, and asked "isn't your bite a x2 crit?" Yep, it is, but with a ~50 STR score and Power Attack (coupled with non-multiplied bonus damage) it adds up fast.
While my buddy does not do this (he prefers to mix it up in melee), you could still be a respectable secondary ranged combatant with this build by purchasing the belt that adjusts thrown weapon to-hit with STR and taking the half-orc favored class bonus to add +1/2 level to bomb damage.
Happy alchemist-ing!
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Regarding the DC 15 Will save, let's take a look at a Ragechemist 7 / Master Chymist 2. Since you want to be a Master Chymist and that prestige class kicks in late, I'm assuming you're starting at a high-ish level.
This character's Will save will be +3 from his base class levels. If his WIS is 12 (reasonable on most point buys) that takes him to +4. Fate's Favored and the half-orc racial ability bring this save to +6.
Not much is needed feat-wise beyond Power Attack as far as I can tell. If we go ahead and add Iron Will, that's +8 to Will saves. A 9th level character has 46K WBL. He can easily afford a +3 Cloak of Resistance for 9K.
Furthermore, by using Alchemical Allocation and potions of Heroism (or actual extract slots) an alchemist can be pretty thoroughly assured that Heroism will be active. That brings our total Will save bonus to +13.
So-- at level 9 we only fail normal Ragechemist Will saves on a roll of natural 1. I didn't even plumb the depths of random items, etc. that could help. Enjoy!
a friend and I played ragechemists together... it was epic. at 3rd level we were both half-orc alchemist[ragechemist] 1/barbarian[wild rager] 2 with the amplified rage feat. 20 base Str +6 mutagen +8 rage put us both at 34 Str. and wild rager let us make 2 attacks with our greatswords. with power attack we were attacking at about +12/12 for 2d6+21 before anyone else used any buffs, lol.
we actually made them planning on sort of self destructing... not only did we have to constantly make saves to avoid Int/will penalties, we had to make them to avoid confusion! the party bard (we were twins and he was our half brother) had a wand of sleep so that when our will saves inevitably got super low and we got confused and turned on the party he could easily neutralize us. that never even happened though... we did so much damage that we didn't get hit very much at all and we made most of our saves when we did.
they were so effective that our GM completely lost it mid-session (after we wasted a CR7 creature in 1 round). then he asked us to please switch characters. So, to (finally) answer your question- yes, they can be very effective.