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An interesting conundrum, and one I think is more confined by your preconceived ideas of how to play an alchemist than actual mechanics.
I wanted to buck that trend. I wanted to make a full Alchemist. It's just... well, I'm tired of the glares I get from other gamers when I can't participate in combat effectively.
This is unfortunate. How much of it is you, and how much of it is them? Yesterday I had a player complain that a vital strike sword & board player "wasn't an effective fighter" because it didn't fit his idea of how much damage a fighter should be doing. Said fighter was actually fine. It was that player's problem, not an actual problem with the character.
His spells are personal use and very limited during combat.
Not entirely true. You could take the discovery that eliminates this problem if you feel it's critical to be able to use extracts on others.
He can't do melee
Feral mutagen claw/claw/bite alchemists have a reputation of being particularly tough, especially at the low levels. This is an option since the mutagen is easy to replace mid-adventuring-day.
A crossbow doing a measly 1d6 per round is just pathetic past 1st level... and this will drag on until 8th level.
You have throw anything (my alchemist doesn't, but I'm kinda dumb that way and dropped it). Meaning you're likely doing 1d6+4 per round on touch with splash damage. Pulling the item (move) and using it (standard) is fundamentally no slower than using the crossbow you've indicated you have. Add to this that you probably have point blank, splash weapon mastery, etc. and you're doing pretty well with that touch AC attack.
Now I do agree after making a few straight up alchemists that they're not always the easiest to build, and it's easy to kind of muck around with trying to do too much, but I really don't think this is the issue you've said it to be. You sure this is a problem with the way that the powers that be(tm) rule things?
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Alchemists are an incredibly balanced and interesting class. I've never seen them be anything less than game changers. They can be taken so many different ways. With the right archetypes you can fill just about any niche. I agree with Mr. Slanky that it can already do most of what you want.
Hmm
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My concern is late game effectiveness, past 3rd level.
This is "late game"? Wow...
Feral mutagen and claw/claw/bite is effective start-to-stop career-wise, so this argument doesn't hold water against the vast number of alchemists I've encountered (and mine for that matter).
1d6+4 at 7th level is negligible.
Color most of my characters pointless then. Guess I'll write off my paladin that does 1d6+6 on an attack at level 10. Yup, can't fight anything at that level with my regular non-touch attack bonus. Nope, those hounds of Tindalos didn't die last night.
Your expectations of what is "effective" don't seem to represent the reality of what can be effective. Maybe an adjustment of expectations is in order?
If I could Quick Draw alchemical items, it'd pretty much solve everything. Bombs would be great burst damage with limited AOE, but being able to keep up with the Wizard and Fighter by being able to throw Alchemist's Fire and Acid Flask as a full attack would be great. With a Hybridization Funnel, even better.
But you're not a wizard. And you're not a fighter. And your goals and effectiveness are very different than either class. If you want to be either, I'd suggest making one of those two classes.
And it's not an advantage. Those items take up a lot of resources, even at 1/3 cost. You're going to dropping ducats like nothing just to keep supplied on ammunition.
Tell that to my gunslinger buddy that uses only adamantine rounds.
Maybe instead of complaining about the one feature you think would make you more effective you should search out other routes of being effective?
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I think you're confused about what alchemists can do. My alchemist doesn't focus on damage. He throws tanglefoot bombs that sticks enemies to the ground for archers to pick off, entangles opponents to prevent them from running away and force concentration checks to cast spells. I've seen others that dispel harmful magic with dispelling bombs, and still others that damage evil opponents with holy bombs without concern for splash damage harming their good allies. Damage is one thing that they CAN do, but it is not what they MUST do.
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My alchemist has been very effective with both bombs and alchemical items up to level 7. Bombs scale nicely (I've got a gnome with the pyromaniac trait which helps a bit) and handing out buffs to party members in advance using the infusion discovery is great. Being able to give two-handed meleers what is effectively a potion of Shield is excellent. It's not unusual that my character's doing more damage than anyone else, especially if we encounter something with damage reduction we didn't plan for. The alchemical items I craft can provide a kind of "there's an app for that" situation. My alchemist takes pride in being ridiculously prepared. I often bring the Advebturer's armory book with me so that people can use my items as alchemical power components, boosting their spells.
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I have played a Mindchemist Alchemist to level 12 and must say that so far, it has been my funnest character. He is also being used in PFS play and I have never had the slightest notion that others at my table were upset that an alchemist was in the party. Actually, quite the opposite. The melee types enjoy the Shield extracts I hand out, Fly, and then I have the ability to whip up a specific one needed if I leave a few extract slots open for the day (which I always do).
There was only one scenario I played in where I almost ran out of bombs for the day. Most combats I've played in last around 3-4 rounds, and in PFS play we seemed to run about 4 combats per scenario so I had plenty left over. I even took Fast Bombs discovery for the opportunity at higher levels to throw two bombs in one round.
Overall, I love the class, and am rolling a melee focused alchemist next and can't wait to play it. I am sorry you haven't had the same luck but perhaps your expectation is different going in.
I always played Alchemist as the party's one stop shop for alchemical cure-alls and weapons to beat early monsters that have regeneration or an energy weakness. Alchemist can really switch up their play style whenever it's needed if you keep your mutagen. You can start with modest stats, and boost them when necessary if you need melee or ranged in any situation.
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@OP: I think there must be something fundamentally wrong with your understanding of the alchemist class, because I've not had any trouble with being a useful member of the team, and neither have the other well-built alchemists I've seen.
"Classic" is a tiefling grenadier; somewhat tricky to come by although the boon is coming back into circulation. But the mindchemist I recently saw sported a 34 Intelligence. It was insane. I'm still not sure how he managed that. But the save DCs against the rider effects on his bombs were serious.
The thing with alchemical weapons is that though they don't do as much damage as a raging barbarian, you can rig it that they almost always do damage. Worst case, throwing a flask of acid or holy water on the floor is AC 5. AC 5; you shouldn't miss on anything other than a natural 1, even if it's at a distance. And anyone adjacent takes splash damage. No save. With your Throw Anything bonus. That's extremely effective against annoying enemies with AC above normal for your level, that the rest of the party is having trouble hitting.
In general, you hit against touch AC. That means your attacks hit so much more consistently than martials' that your average damage is close to theirs because you hit more often. And you have lots more skills and self-buffs than they do.
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Summary: what makes you think anyone is preventing you from using alchemical weapons? I use them all the time and they're very effective.
1 bomb per round at most. 1 alchemical potion per round after the first, at most. 1 shot off with a crossbow per round after the first, at most. Drag this out for 7 more levels? Ugh.
If only my character could quickdraw alchemical items, or at the very least, draw them as a swift action!
I had no trouble with that limit when I played an Alchemist. And that was soon after the Advanced Player's Guide was published, so I did not have as many options as now. I did have the advantage that for the first four levels the GM threw bands of first- or second-level thugs at us, so by targeting a thug standing between two buddies, I frequently managed significant splash damage. With the enhanced intelligence from a Mind Chemist, that splash damage would be even more significant.
I suspect that the answer to your question about the alchemist never being able to quickdraw alchemical items is that with sufficient money, an alchemist could load up on Alchemist's Fire up to his encumbrance limit. Plenty of ammo combined with two or more attacks per round is more than they wanted for the alchemist.
To mimic quickdraw, your alchemist could get a familiar (Tumor Familiar discovery) that has hands. It could hand him an alchemical item. I don't see how it could hand him two alchemical items per turn, though, so your alchemist would not manage a full attack every round.
His spells are personal use and very limited during combat.
Not entirely true. You could take the discovery that eliminates this problem if you feel it's critical to be able to use extracts on others.
So I stop what I'm doing (admittedly, which is very little), make an extract, then hand it to them? During combat? So they can stop whatever else they're doing and drink the potion?
Is this sarcasm, or do you not understand the benefits of infusion extracts over spells? Your alchemist makes the infusion in the morning along with the extracts for his personal use, and them hands them to his fellow party members for them to carry for the rest of the day. Unlike a cleric or wizard who spends his combat rounds casting buff spells on other party members, your party members use their actions buffing themselves while your alchemist is throwing bombs.
Technically, asking the best melee character in the party to spend his own action to buff himself is not as good as the lowly cleric spending the action, but your fellow party members like the control of deciding when to drink the infusion, so they are happy about it.
You have throw anything (my alchemist doesn't, but I'm kinda dumb that way and dropped it). Meaning you're likely doing 1d6+4 per round on touch with splash damage.
1d6+4 at 7th level is negligible. It's almost pointless after 3rd level.
It is 1d6+4 to your target, plus another 5 damage to the foe to his left (the foe to his right was one step too far away). And at third level, that is 2d6+4 and 6 for the bombs: alchemical items are only your alchemist's reserve plan for minor encounters. 2d6+10 against touch AC and a reflex save is significant damage for third level.
By third level, my alchemist was the second most effective combatant in the party, better than the fighter. Only the summoner's supercharged eidolon dealt more damage. By seventh level, the bombs seemed more lackluster, but they saved our bacon against enemies with high AC but low touch AC. Infusions were my alchemist's role by then, because a flying buffed fighter can be devastating (the summoner's player had quit the game).
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You seam to be confused by most of the class, the bombs a alcamist gets for free each day are pulled out made and throw all in one standard action, and they scale up every odd level so at 7th level you hit at 4d6 + your int mod.
Also for extracts, you make them before a fight and hand them out for the others to use as they need them.
Limited in builds? Alchemists are one of the most versatile classes in the game. You can focus on damage, crowd control, melee fighting, buffs, and everything. You can't compare this class to a ranger or paladin. STabbing things is all they do. Obviously, they'll be a little better at it. You can do so much more.
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But the mindchemist I recently saw sported a 34 Intelligence. It was insane. I'm still not sure how he managed that.
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.20 Starting INT after racial adjustments
+3 Various boons (currently +3, even was +5 for a year)
+2 Level bumps (at 4 and 8)
+6 Headband
+4 Cognatogen
35 Total
Being able to identify every creature with ease also helps a lot in combat!
I think the alchemist is actually one of the strongest combatants out there.
Don't forget the spontaneous alchemy rules from Alchemy Manual, which is PFS legal. As long as you got the cash and the right tool, you can make any alchemy item on the fly.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Is this for organized play? Because if not, here's a couple of suggestions to run by your GM that might get the alchemist closer to your vision:
• Replace the "bombs" with an equal number of "alchemical intensifiers" that you would drop into an existing alchemical weapon (such as alchemist's fire) as part of the action of throwing it. Doing so gives that item the bonus damage based on your level that would normally go to your bombs. In effect, where a normal alchemist might have (for example) seven bombs per day that deal 3d6 damage each, you would instead have the ability to add +2d6 damage to a standard alchemical weapon you're about to throw. You would gain a little bit of flexibility in not needing to spend Discoveries on changing the element of your bombs (since you could just bring supplies of fire/acid/cold), but is balanced by the drawbacks of (1) being capable of running out of a given element and (2) having to eat the cost of all your alchemical weapons where a normal alchemist's bombs are free.
• Spend a Discovery slot on the ability to pull out alchemical weapons as a free action.
If I'm understanding you right, I think this would help you get the alchemist where you want it, and shouldn't have too many serious balance issues. Try asking your GM about it. :)
I'm grabbing a couple levels of rogue for the Underground Chemist archetype for this very reason, and I'm surprised no one's mentioned it, even though the OP wants to play a pure alchemist. Draw alchemical items as weapons, plus sneak attack.
However, my Alchemist would actually get to utilize real alchemical potions. Just need to see if it's allowed in PFS.
It is PFS legal, and even if it can't be done with Quick Draw, which I think it should, you can at least draw as a Swift action. It's a key part of my Batman-esque investigator.
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I've had a lot of success with Grenadier/Tiefling using the prehensile tail to grab acid flasks as a swift action, move action to attach to a dye arrow (filled with marker dye/glowing ink, to turn your enemies puce, lime or magenta), standard action to turn the arrow into explosive missile. It allows you to economize on bombs while doing a lot of damage against touch AC at 110ft range.
I think alchemists are balanced as PCs, because you have to divide your firepower across several encounters per day. As NPCs they're horribly OP because they can pour all that into one nova encounter against the PCs. Kind of like magi; nova classes balanced around 4 encounters tend to be absurd if they're only scheduled for a single encounter in a day.
Take 4 levels of rogue Underground Chemist/Scout and take the feat hurling charge. That way you charge 10'+ and toss your bomb/alchemic weapon with a +2 hit and +2d6 sneak attack. Take bomber as your 2nd level talent and you get INT number of bombs dealing 2d6 damage.
As a bonus, in a non-PFS game, make your alchemist a Vivisectionist and the bomber talent bombs damage goes up with the sneak attack in addition to the normal sneak attack bump. [pretty much dealing sneak attack damage x2, INT times a day. All depends how much you want bombs vs alchemic weapons.
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Wait. Maybe. Can I use Quick Draw with an Underground Chemist? Seems to be a contradiction in wording.I agree. This is the best way to make a PFS character. Find a loophole. Yup, nothing can go wrong with that plan.
Yup, that's ended well. You have players that can apparently do infinity damage with throwing shields, characters who can "outright counter T-Rexs" with a single feat chain at level 2, PCs who were able to obtain Prestige Classes as early as 2nd or 3rd level, with weapon properties that, per RAW, increased the effectiveness of abilities like Rage, and you know what happened? The middle subjects "broke PFS" (other reasons for it), whereas the latter option was apparently "too good" for a +1 property, and so Paizo lashed out and effectively destroyed those options (and any of their associates). The former is contentious, and any GM who says you can throw a Shield for an Attack as a Free Action, just because RAW says you could (but is in fact worded poorly to allow said loophole), probably shouldn't be a reliable source for rules information (or precedents), especially when the only things that are considered Free or Swift Actions as far as Attacks are concerned are rider-effects, such as the Grab special ability, the Spell Storing property, etc.
Finding loopholes (and then spreading the information to the likes of, say, the forums) is perhaps the #1 way to cause those otherwise viable options to become destroyed (and I'm not saying some of them shouldn't, but that a lot of them which can be easily fixed, chances are, won't get easily fixed, and will instead become abolished entirely). I imagine it will only be a matter of time before things like the Songbird of Doom (no offense, it's cool and all, but it) will no longer become viable because optimizers such as that end up breaking the system.
Personally, as both a player of an alchemist and a GM for one, I have found the ability to dish out elemental damage at touch AC and bypassing spell resistance to be HUGELY powerful. Golems hate alchemists. They lag a little around lvl 5-6, but tend to be really strong at all other points in my experience.
Some things that alchemists can do that no other class can (all this is PFS legal):
- Draw and drink an extract/infusion as a standard action (instead of a move action and a standard).
- Create potions of personal spells and hand them out to the rest of the party.
- Create Alchemical items at 1/3 the cost and hand them out to the rest of the party. (My alchemist travels with a peddlar's cart and offers free samples to the party at the start of combat. Pick up the Alchemy Manual if you really want to open up a candy store.)
- Add Intelligence to the splash damage on plain old, store-bought splash weapons. (Last time we ran across incorporeal undead, the rest of the party lined up and handed me their holy waters one by one, because I was the only one who could damage them.)
At lower levels, alchemists are devastating. In our area, many alchemists got a bad reputation for destroying party members along with the bad guys. I'm not sure what your party is doing, but I have yet to see an alchemist be "non useful".
My mindchemist just hit second level. She's an elf with a 18 Int and the Breadth of Experience feat, so she has +10 to all knowledge checks and can make them all untrained (+4 for Int, x2 Int for Mindchemist, +2 for Breadth of Experience). When she takes her cognatogan, that jumps to +14, and it goes up to +16 with Clear Ear.
That's +16 to every single knowledge check at 2nd level. Next level, when she takes a Lore Warden dip to get all the knowledges as class skills, she'll put a rank into most of them (+4 to those) and be able to take advantage of Heightened Awareness (+2 to ones with a rank in them). So that's +22 to most knowledge skills at 3rd level. Sounds totally useless.
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Some things that alchemists can do that no other class can (all this is PFS legal):
- Draw and drink an extract/infusion as a standard action (instead of a move action and a standard).
- Create potions of personal spells and hand them out to the rest of the party.
- Create Alchemical items at 1/3 the cost and hand them out to the rest of the party. (My alchemist travels with a peddlar's cart and offers free samples to the party at the start of combat. Pick up the Alchemy Manual if you really want to open up a candy store.)
To be pedantic: Investigators can do this as well. That said, these are seriously good advantages.
Drink+draw as a Standard is very powerful. It makes buffing via extracts much more viable in combat simply because buffing doesn't force you to stand in place.
Personally, as both a player of an alchemist and a GM for one, I have found the ability to dish out elemental damage at touch AC and bypassing spell resistance to be HUGELY powerful. Golems hate alchemists. They lag a little around lvl 5-6, but tend to be really strong at all other points in my experience.
Golems hate spellcasters since SR is pointless against any caster that knows what they are doing and Golem saves are basically across the board atrocious.
I believe the Vivisectionist is banned in PFS for being too strong.Vivisectionists are banned for being evil. I should know. I got them banned.
How is using Knowledge (Nature) instead of Heal Evil? Because literally all their other abilities are possessed by other perfectly legal classes.
Color most of my characters pointless then. Guess I'll write off my paladin that does 1d6+6 on an attack at level 10. Yup, can't fight anything at that level with my regular non-touch attack bonus. Nope, those hounds of Tindalos didn't die last night.
A maximum of 12 damage, even with iteratives is pretty much pointless at level 10. I mean DR 10/X and higher is not uncommon at those levels. I honestly have no idea how a paladin could deal so little damage at level 10 short of intentional anti-optimizing. I'm genuinely curious how you managed achieve such a low damage. No STR? Flat-lined CHA? No Magic Weapon Bonus? I mean +6 is really really low.
How is using Knowledge (Nature) instead of Heal Evil? Because literally all their other abilities are possessed by other perfectly legal classes.
LOL Pretty much the NAME is evil...
Nothing in the class is the least bit evil, it has no restriction to evil alignment, ect. The only mention of evil is in the flavor text that they use "experimentation and knowledge that most people would consider evil." So yeah, I guess I never knew Knowledge (Nature) was SO evil it disqualifies a class from PFS...