I am looking to play a close combat oriented alchemist mostly using mutagens. I was hoping to create a archetype that I could sell my GM on that would allow me to switch out bombs for more feats.
However, having never done anything like this before, I have no idea what would be balanced. A single bonus feat? A bonus feat progression? At what levels?
Thanks.
Just play a beastmorph vivisectionist, that's what everyone else does.
It's much easier to use existing material than to create your own and convince a GM it's balanced. And the beastmorph vivisectionist is a good melee combatant due to it's ability to self buff with mutagen, turn into powerful creature for bigger bonuses, give itself lots of natural attacks (which ignore iterative attack penalties since you don't get iteratives with them, you just get lots of attacks), and then add sneak attack damage onto them.
The Investigator is pretty much an Alchemist that trades out bombs for cool class abilities. Those are probably better than feats unless you had something specific in mind.
I was looking into playing more of a Jekyl and Hyde / Hulk build. I was going to take barbarian first level to get basic rage abilities and the take ragechemist until I qualified for Master Chymist.
Our party are members of a mercenary guild and tend to take on very combat oriented adventures. Therefore most of the party are often in the thick of melee. With my character in the the same situation throwing bombs means I have to deal with aoo and worry about not splashing my allies.
The beastmaster vivisectionist looks like a powerful build, but not quite what i had in mind.
I often play fighters and am used to having more feats for combat control, which is why I was hoping to swap out the feature sets. However, I do get what you are saying about using existing material.
I was thinking maybe switching in the Brawlers bonus feat progression. A bonus feat at 2nd and every three levels after.
You're playing a "spellcaster." They don't get many bonus feats. And they shouldn't.
Maybe instead you would rather play a brawler with the archetype that gets mutagen instead of martial flexibility?
There's a martial class brawler that gets mutagens.
This gives you martial flexibility, hulk out mutagens and solid damage. No bombs no spells.
Or, alternatively, there's a selective bomb ability that allows you to skip some squares.
Or, even better, there's a bomb that deals dage into the square twice as much but offers no splash at all, for pinpoint explosions.
Take your pick for dealing with bombs and allies/ melee mutagen builds. All already done.
According to 3,5 Unearthed Arcana 1d6 of Sneak Attack is worth a feat.
According to the Vivisectionist archetype, 10d6 of Bombs is equivalent to 10d6 of Sneak Attack.
Therefore you can trade Bombs for a 10 feat progression, one at first level and one more at every odd level.
FAQ: Wouldn't that make the alchemist a better fighter than the Fighter?
Answer: A vivsectionist beastmorph alchemist has been a better fighter thn the fighter since those archetypes have been released.
VM mercenario wrote: According to 3,5 Unearthed Arcana 1d6 of Sneak Attack is worth a feat.
According to the Vivisectionist archetype, 10d6 of Bombs is equivalent to 10d6 of Sneak Attack.
Therefore you can trade Bombs for a 10 feat progression, one at first level and one more at every odd level.
Mandatory warning, Unearthed Arcana is a D&D 3.5, and not a Pathfinder book. A anti-D&D DM may scoff at this line of thought. But, if you really want more feat, that's an acceptable tradeoff I guess.
Otherwise, get beastmorph vivisectionist, it works well and it really hard.
If your DM allows for 3PP stuff, you could try the Physical Exemplar archetype package from Super Genius Games (never tried it, but it looks ok).
I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier.
Just play a Mutation Warrior fighter. You can get mutagens, and some other nifty abilities to "hulk out" while being a fighter and getting all the bonus feats you want. Since Advanced Weapon Training came out there are a lot of options to make up for the former drawbacks of being a fighter.
Good thing I help remind you...
There's a brawler archtype too.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/hybrid-classes/brawler/archetypes/paizo---b rawler-archetypes/mutagenic-mauler
VM mercenario wrote: According to 3,5 Unearthed Arcana 1d6 of Sneak Attack is worth a feat.
According to the Vivisectionist archetype, 10d6 of Bombs is equivalent to 10d6 of Sneak Attack.
Therefore you can trade Bombs for a 10 feat progression, one at first level and one more at every odd level.
That logic doesn't hold. Just because you can spend a feat to get sneak attack in another game via a non-core splatbook doesn't mean that 1d6 of sneak attack damage equates to a feat. As an analogy, you're saying a loaf of bread is worth $100 in the US because you can hand a hundred bucks to some random guy in a foreign country and get a loaf of bread in return.
1d6 for a feat is one thing. 10 for 10 is quite another.
In pathfinder you can buy a d6 sneak for a feat. Once. Up to half your level. It's not equivalent
Thanks for the help. Mutagenic brawler looks excellent, but I really want the master chymist prestige class. That means I need at least 6 levels of alchemist.
I am afraid doing the one to one, bomb d6 to feat would be overpowered. So I think I will just have to make my peace with less feats. I will probably grab the vivisectionist as the sneak attack will still be more useful to me than the bombs.
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