I like Alchemical weapons, it's fun to throw acid on you're enemies or shoot lightning at them. However once you get past the first few levels it would seem these items are kind of pointless. You can easily replace them with some enchantments, spells or even just raw damage. So I want to know, how would you keep these items relevant or useful beyond the first few levels? Do you let people use them in place of spells for crafting or have special traps?
*bump*
Any thoughts please?
Tanglefoot bags continue to give the Entangled condition even if the target makes their reflex save.
Swarms continue to be a problem unless you get a swarmbane clasp. Keeping a few alchemical weapons around can help finish the swarms off. Hopefully your spell casters do have AoE to deal with them.
Other than that, I can't think of any that remain useful into higher levels.
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The grenadier alchemist archetype gets some use out of alchemical weapons via its ability to apply them to a melee weapon or ammunition. This becomes a swift action for the grenadier at level 6, so it stays relevant and useful.
Expanding on the question; Could you use them as components for crafting? Maybe using bottled lightning instead of the spell Lightning Bolt?
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The Achives of Nethys has a compendium of alchemical weapons that can be used to augment spell caster effectiveness. It can be found here Other than that, I cant think of much..
Take Acid...
10gp
1d6 acid
acid btw - ignores DR.
Now give a bunch of these to your mooks - touch ac - 1d6 damage - no DR... yup - it can be brutal.... it's been postulated acid flasks are the sole reason that humans survive in a world of magical beasts and dragons...
The trick to alchemical weapons is mass quantities.
Tangle burn bags never go out of style
At higher levels, Tanglefoot Bundles and Shrink Item is a fun combo.
Some traps require them for trap making.
Nothing like making them master work?
What traps?
I like to think it's a smart thing to carry one as you're walking. You can throw it during a surprise round vs touch ac. That alone is a smart set up. For some things like trolls, that's a total shut down of their greatest resource.
It's a one round shut down. Please don't waste it in the surprise round!
With the Hybridization funnel you can combine two alchemical weapons, getting you up to 2d6 damage on touch AC plus catching on fire which can cost them an action, with Concentrated Splash as a feat you increase the damage 50% by forgoing splash damage. As a support type character that can remain pretty relevant up to somewhere in the 7th to 9th level range. If you play a Goblin you could also do Burn, Burn, Burn which increase the save DC by 4 and adds another 1d4 fire damage, thrown in Splipslinger Style and Slipslinger Grenadier and you can treat the weapons as sling bullets getting normal bullet damage, and the ability to make iterative attacks. That ends up pretty specialized, but depending on how far you are taking the campaign you have some different options. But you'd need to go Fighter at least part of the way to get the Slipslinger feats and stay relevant (without other class abilities I'm forgetting) past level 10. For example even a single level dip into alchemist would also let you add your Int modifier to damage, which would help.
Interesting. So I could combine Liquid Ice and Alkali Flask? Also, though I realize they are considered weak, I want this character to be a Kobold. Mix Scales of course, but anyway on to the question I have. What two flasks would you suggest combining to help shutdown and/or disable the opponent.
In our current campaign the GM established that full spell casters and high level magic is rarer in his version of Galorion then in vanilla Galorion but alchemy and alchemists pick up the slack. To help keep alchemical weapons relevant he put in the rule that damage and DCs scale with the party level.
Tanglefoot bags continue to give the Entangled condition even if the target makes their reflex save.
Probably an unnecessary order of operations question about tanglefoot bags but is the reflex save made after applying the dex penalty from being entangled?
Tanglefoot bags continue to give the Entangled condition even if the target makes their reflex save.Probably an unnecessary order of operations question about tanglefoot bags but is the reflex save made after applying the dex penalty from being entangled?
I treat it as the reflex save is made before any effects of that tanglefoot bag. This seems consistent with other areas of the rules where everything is resolved simultaneously against the conditions before the effect started.
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DR is against physical attacks.
You need Acid Resist to protect against acid, cold resist to protect against cold attacks, fire resist to protect against fire attacks, etc.
Hardness provides protection against both physical and energy attacks.
DR only applies to physical, not elemental, damage.
If you like your alchemical weapons play an alchemist, they get to add their int mod to the damage of any thrown splash weapon and can cheaply craft them.
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the Full pouch spell, in conjunction with heighten spell can make alchemical item saves scale
the Full pouch spell, in conjunction with heighten spell can make alchemical item saves scale
Nice find!
the Full pouch spell, in conjunction with heighten spell can make alchemical item saves scale
Bit confused on that spell. It says the item can't be a consumable, but wouldn't just about every alchemical item be consumable?
the Full pouch spell, in conjunction with heighten spell can make alchemical item saves scaleBit confused on that spell. It says the item can't be a consumable, but wouldn't just about every alchemical item be consumable?
In this case 'consumable' means things that you ingest, or consume, so you can't use it on a potion, or dose of Troll Styptic, but you Can use it on Alchemists fire, Tangelfoot bags, etc.
In this case 'consumable' means things that you ingest, or consume, so you can't use it on a potion, or dose of Troll Styptic, but you Can use it on Alchemists fire, Tangelfoot bags, etc.the Full pouch spell, in conjunction with heighten spell can make alchemical item saves scaleBit confused on that spell. It says the item can't be a consumable, but wouldn't just about every alchemical item be consumable?
Or Shriek Bomb, yes?! Nice little sonic blast there...only 2d6, but not bad for the first few levels.
Wait can an Alchemist add metamagic feats to their extracts? Also what is the reduction in quality, does effect money cost?