Take a 5th level Grenadier Alchemist with an 18 Int, and 10 Str firing a longbow while using the Explosive Missile Discovery and the Alchemical Weapon ability to apply a alchemis's fire to the arrow.
Explosive Missile:
s a standard action, the alchemist can infuse a single arrow, crossbow bolt, or one-handed firearm bullet with the power of his bomb, load the ammunition, and shoot the ranged weapon. He must be proficient with the weapon in order to accomplish this. When the infused ammunition hits its target, it deals damage normally and detonates as if the alchemist had thrown the bomb at the target. If the explosive missile misses, it does not detonate.
Alchemical Weapon:
At 2nd level, a grenadier can infuse a weapon or piece of ammunition with a single harmful alchemical liquid or powder, such as alchemist’s fire or sneezing powder, as a move action. This action consumes the alchemical item, but transfers its effect to the weapon in question.
The alchemical item takes full effect on the next creature struck by the weapon, but does not splash, spread, or otherwise affect additional targets. Any extra damage added is treated like bonus dice of damage, and is not doubled on a critical hit. The alchemical treatment causes no harm to the weapon treated, and wears off 1 minute after application if no blow is struck. At 6th level, a grenadier can use her alchemical weapon ability as a swift action. At 15th level, this ability becomes a free action.
So it looks like 1d8 + (3d6+4) + (1d6+4) :Arrow + bomb + alchemist fire
The question arises, do you apply the Alchemist's Int bonus to both the bomb and the alchemist's fire?
And for real fun, what happens when you add Bardic Performance to the mix?
Looks like you only get Int once; Alchemist's Fire is treated as bonus damage, and so the no-double-stacking rule kicks in. The same issue would hit Bardic Performance, but it should still double-dip on the arrow and bomb because they are treated as separate attacks.
So, I'm reading 1D8+4D6+4. A Bardic Performance adding +1 damage would jump to 1D8+4D6+6.
First: No INT to damage on the alchemist's fire due to :
Alchemical Weapon wrote:
This action consumes the alchemical item, but transfers its effect to the weapon in question. The alchemical item takes full effect on the next creature struck by the weapon, but does not splash, spread, affect additional targets, [b]or benefit from any other effects that specifically affect splash weapons[b].
While the Throw Anything class feat applies to splash weapons.
Second: Bardic preformance adds to one attack, not for each die you roll. It's added to the arrow's piercing damage.
Third: As it is one attack, DR and resistances apply to the total damage.
Meaning that a creature with a DR10/cold iron (and no fire resistance) won't take any damage from the arrow (as long as it's not a cold iron arrow) but full damage from the fire. If you had a +3 from Bardic Performance, you could get lucky and score 11 damage, though.
And a creature with fire resistance would subtract it's resistanc number from the fire damage but take the full arrow.
Your damage would be 1d8 (+ bardic preformance) piercing damage and 3d6+4 + 1d6 fire damage.
So you are saying that if the target had fire resistance it would apply to the total of the bomb and alchemist fire damage, not to each separately.
This is a definite yes. One Fire Resistance deduction, not two, when using Alchemical Weapon.
I can see the argument for Bardic Performance only adding once, but I don't buy into it. Explosive Missile has "deals damage normally" for the arrow and "detonates as if the alchemist had thrown the bomb at the target".
Normal arrow damage would add Performance. If the Alchemist had thrown a bomb, he would add Performance. Seems like they both go off.
Which actually makes me question the DR thing. With a bomb that does weapon damage (Scrap Bomb perhaps), it seems like it would be subtracted from the arrow and again from the bomb, because they are treated separately.
And in turn makes me ask about what you're actually using Alchemical Weapon on. I'm used to seeing it used on the bomb, so my gut reaction was that the combined Alchemist's Fire+Bomb was then being used with Explosive Missile, but looking back you could apply both to the arrow itself. Done that way, I would assume Fire Resistance goes off twice. Still no double-Int, for the reason Rub-Eta detailed.
It's all still part of one attack, even if it has multiple 'effects'.
By your reasoning, a Flaming Burst weapon would roll twice against fire resistance, since the Burst is clearly a separate attack from the normal flaming and the sword.
No, it's all rolled into one attack resolving simultaneously.
You're sticking a bomb on an arrow. The net effect of the ability is to add arrow damage to your bomb...and more range, such as it is. That's the way to look at it. The arrow is NOT attacking the enemy it hits with your bomb.
You would have an argument if you had two attack rolls. since you don't...nope.
The question is, is Explosive missile more similar to sneak attack (adding extra damage to an attack) or more similar to manyshot, adding an extra attack effect to a single attack roll.
My gut was originally the former, but looking at the wording of explosive missile, I actually think it is like manyshot, in this case being an arrow and a bomb that share an attack roll, but apply their own damage separately.
It's all still part of one attack, even if it has multiple 'effects'.
By your reasoning, a Flaming Burst weapon would roll twice against fire resistance, since the Burst is clearly a separate attack from the normal flaming and the sword.
No, it's all rolled into one attack resolving simultaneously.
You're sticking a bomb on an arrow. The net effect of the ability is to add arrow damage to your bomb...and more range, such as it is. That's the way to look at it. The arrow is NOT attacking the enemy it hits with your bomb.
You would have an argument if you had two attack rolls. since you don't...nope.
==Aelryinth
Flaming Burst labels itself as "extra damage", so... not applicable here. It's in the same situation as the Alchemical Weapon ability, in that it's clearly bonus damage. I don't think anyone is contending that Alchemical Weapon should be treated as an independent attack.
Explosive Missile, however, says "Do the damage of A as normal, then do B as normal". This is structured very differently from Flaming Burst's "extra 1D10 points of fire damage".
Personally, I'd just roll all three into one attack were this to actually occur in-game, because it's quicker to calculate and less likely to lead to shenanigans. But the RAW looks like it's two attacks to me-- closer to Manyshot, as Dave Justus says.
I agree that if it uses one attack roll, it's one attack, and effects like bardic music would only apply once. On the other hand, DR or energy resistance applies only once (per relevant type of damage) to the combined attack.
