Level 30 Alchemist Theory, Requesting Assistance Balancing Epic Level Progression

[Shiroi]

Hello, I hope I'm in the right section of the forum since I am asking for advice, there are simple rules for epic level advancement that aren't homebrew, and I'm not asking for clarification of a hard and fast rule.

What I'm asking is advice on how to progress a very specific class that may not have been considered when Paizo provided the basic paragraph of how to advance a class into epic levels. The Alchemist follows a basic progression that makes perfectly good sense, at least for the first 20 levels. I need to know how it could be advanced a good 10 levels or so further. I understand this will not be at all balanced, but I want to try to keep it as close to appropriate as I can.

That being said, a little overboard is fine (this is a 2 player campaign and the other guy is going to be an UC Monk with the Kundalini Chakra archetype from OO, and he plans to mix a bit of gunslinger for the grit and swashbuckler to give himself parry and riposte with a huge grit pool while running 7 gates and laughing about it. So if I'm well outside the power level of the game... it's because this campaign will have us facing other level 30+ npc villains, with dragons the size of "no" backing them up.

I don't want to be minmax, but I do need to stay competetive with a very power built martial ally. Here's my current analasys.

I would continue bomb damage and discovery as normal. No big deal here, it gives me a very moderate damage boost every other level and more versatility the higher I go.

I would advance formulae progression using the wizard spell list and only spells with a range of touch or personal for my infusions. This means I would eventually hit 9th level extract slots, but by the time I got to high slots I might have very few options for using them outside of combining low-mid level extracts into higher ones. Timestop will be a neat trick, but it isn't as useful without summons. This area is grey for me, I'm not sure if the advanced spell slots is a balance problem or not for this class (I feel it'll be a lot less useful than normal 9th level casting) so this is a place I need advice on how to leverage it and what would be a problem.

Mutagens duration. In theory it goes up by an hour per level... Until you get to level 24. Now here's my problem. At level 24 I get 24 hour mutagens, so my bonuses become permanent. This wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't a cognatogen user, focusing on increasing my INT score. By level 25/26 or so I can reliably time the administration of the cognatogen to give myself a permanent bonus to INT. Should this give me bonus skill points? Is it unreasonable to assume that as long as I take the cognatogen each day that this is a permanent bonus, similar to wearing a headband? If I cease to consume them, it's just like removing the headband.

I don't know if or when it might be appropriate to take another grand discovery? At some point I will likely fall behind the other player because I'm taking a lot of flavorful options, not every decision of mine has been power based. He plays just as smart as I do, and we both use good roleplaying to back up our rollplaying.

I would like eventually to be able to mix multiple bomb types (frost and entangling for instance) and I'm curious if this has ever been worked with (epic levels or not) and if it can be balanced in at some point. I'm also curious about the true mutagen grand discovery being used with cognatogens, especially if they become permanent bonuses at level 25 or so.

Can anyone offer guidance on producing a reasonable progression for a balanced and effective epic level alchemist? I appreciate the discussion, I don't mind some basic tangential conversation roughly related to the campaign/epic levels/two person parties/alchemists in general. I do mind flame wars, let's play nice people.

If it helps any, my build is a gnomish mind chemist who uses a wide variety of skills, has all 4 elements of bomb, uses infusions in equal parts for buffs like haste, healing, and utility. He has entangling and dispelling bombs, and isn't afraid to pick up a few more in later levels. He wants to use Alchemical allocation with the 3 potion discoveries, has an insane craft alchemy skill, wants to maybe craft wondrous as well, and will have the rapid thrower discovery (no twf) and the 4 mummy discoveries. Most of his feats are extra discovery of some kind.

[My Self]

This is a suggestions/houserules/homebrew post.

As for epic things, the 3.5 Cleric/Sorcerer/Paladin epic advancement has bonus feats at 23rd, 26th, and 29th levels. These are drawn from a specific list of feats, but you should be fine picking just any feat.

As for casting, it might be reasonable to pick up Wizard list things, although it's also certainly a possibility that higher-level slots are "metamagicked" slots, even though you can't metamagic alchemist things. Either you learn metamagics that are compatible with alchemist things (extend and empower?), or, as you said, you can start cherrypicking off the Wizard list.

Going beyond 20 is not covered extensively by Paizo rules. Since you're not using Mythic, advancing class features seems fine.

Spoiler:

Level ---- BAB ---- 7 / 8 / 9 - Special
- 21 - 15/10/5 ---- 1 / _ / _ - Bomb 11d6
- 22 - 16/11/6/1 -- 2 / _ / _ - Discovery
- 23 - 17/12/7/2 -- 3 / _ / _ - Bomb 12d6, Bonus Feat
- 24 - 18/13/8/3 -- 3 / 1 / _ - Discovery
- 25 - 18/13/8/3 -- 4 / 2 / _ - Bomb 13d6
- 26 - 19/14/9/4 -- 4 / 3 / _ - Discovery, Bonus Feat
- 27 - 20/15/10/5 - 4 / 3 / 1 - Bomb 14d6
- 28 - 21/16/11/6 - 4 / 4 / 2 - Discovery
- 29 - 21/16/11/6 - 5 / 4 / 3 - Bomb 15d6, Bonus Feat
- 30 - 22/17/12/7 - 5 / 5 / 5 - Grand Discovery (Discovery x2 + Grand Discovery)

[Shiroi]

I did say I'd like to stay rules legal, there is a 1 paragraph bit about epic level characters and I'm sure there's some 3pp info on epic levels as well. Yes this *could* end up being homebrew if it has to be, but I'd like to stick as close to raw/rai as possible. I also said I wasn't certain I was in the right place and tried to justify why I felt this was where it should be. If it isn't, then I suppose let's move it where it should be and continue.

I should also mention there will be no mythic rules involved. At least for my team. Asmodeus knows what the DM has cooked up for the dragons.

[Mysterious Stranger]

Epic rules are not part of Pathfinder so anything regarding them is by definition homebrew. The only mention of levels above 20 in Pathfinder suggests you multiclass.

[Shiroi]

Actually, not to put too much argument into this but...

pfsrd.com, character advancement, near the bottom of the page wrote:

Scaling Powers

Hit dice, base attack bonuses, and saving throws continue to increase at the same rate beyond 20th level, as appropriate for the class in question. Note that no character can have more than 4 attacks based on its base attack bonus. Note also that, before long, the difference between good saving throws and poor saving throws becomes awkwardly large—the further you get from 20th level, the more noticeable this difference grows, and for high-level characters, bolstering their poor saving throws should become increasingly important. Class abilities that have a set, increasing rate, such as a barbarian's damage reduction, a fighter's bonus feats and weapon training, a paladin's smite evil, or a rogue's sneak attack continue to progress at the appropriate rate.

Spells

A spellcaster's caster level continues to increase by one for each level beyond 20th level. Every odd-numbered level, a spellcaster gains access to a new level of spell one above his previous maximum level, gaining one spell slot in that new level. These spell slots can be used to prepare or cast spells adjusted by metamagic feats or any known spell of lower levels. Every even-numbered level, a spellcaster gains additional spell slots equal to the highest level spell he can currently cast. He can split these new slots any way he wants among the slots he currently has access to.

For example, a 21st-level wizard gains a single 10th-level spell slot, in which he can prepare any spell of level 1st through 9th, or in which he can prepare a metamagic spell that results in an effective spell level of 10 (such as extended summon monster IX, or quickened disintegrate). At 22nd level he gains 10 spell-levels' worth of new spell slots, and can gain 10 1st-level spells per day, two 5th-level spells per day, one 7th-level and one 3rd-level spell per day, or one more 10th-level spell per day. At 23rd level, he gains a single 11th-level spell slot, and so on.

Spellcasters who have a limited number of spells known (such as bards and sorcerers) can opt out of the benefits they gain (either a new level of spells or a number of spell slots) for that level and in exchange learn two more spells of any level they can currently cast.

You might want to further adjust the rate of spell level gain for classes (like paladins and rangers) who gain spells more slowly than more dedicated spellcaster classes.

Multiclassing/Prestige Classes

The simplest way to progress beyond 20th level is to simply multiclass or take levels in a prestige class, in which case you gain all of the abilities of the new class level normally. This effectively treats 20th level as a hard limit for class level, but not as a hard limit for total character level.

So yes, multiclassing is one supported way to go epic. I'm looking for the general interpretation on the other accepted way, which is to continue your progression of existing abilities. For a fighter that's clean enough... But for an alchemist it requires a bit of interpretation. If you want to call it homebrew that's fine, I don't really care what forum this is in. I just need a bit of help determining balance and fair power levels at high epic levels for a non multiclasses alchemist. Thanks for the feedback!

[SmiloDan]

For epic alchemists, I would give them increased bomb damage at odd levels, additional discoveries (including the option of grand discoveries) at even levels, and then just use those spell rules listed upthread.

I would also suggest looking at the epic warlock rules on the WotC site....if it's still up. They had some unique invocations for epic levels, and you might be able to use them for inspiration for epic level feats, discoveries, and spells.