We've been theorising characters for a possible game, one where everyone plays adventurers based in a university; essentially, they'd all be brains-based (rather than my usual tendency to play savage barbarian types!)
I quite like the idea of a character who favours technology over magic as their area of study, going in all guns blazing with a bit of an iron man fetish; heavy armour, firearms, bombs, the works.
All of which sorta suggests an alchemist with a level of gun tank (and the inevitable explosive missile discovery). But I'm not entirely sure how to build it - I'm leaning towards a level of gun tank followed by a Hyde-style character?
I have made a similar build for a pirate boss in a Pirates campaign I made. One thing I found that works really well is the Siege Gunner archetype Gunslinger... this changes their primary ability from CHA to INT... which is what Alchemists use for extracts and bomb damage. Unfortunately this doesn't stack with Gun Tank. My pirate would use a Culverin for deck clearing(extended range from Siege Gunner) or obliterating a single opponent with the 7th level gunslinger deed Dead Shot, then switch to his Pepperbox and shoot bombs at people.
You wont need many levels of Gunslinger unless you're fishing for class features so I would focus on levels in Alchemist. If you just want the armor proficiencies I would dip once into Fighter, you'll also get a bonus feat out of it. Gun Training (level 5) is great, beyond that is mainly more deeds. Remember that Explosive Missile can only be used in one-handed firearms. Discoveries are HUGE as you can fire modified bombs like Immolation Bomb, Explosive Bomb, Tanglefoot Bomb, etc. Discoveries can also make you an insane poisoner with Concentrate Poison, Poison Conversion and maybe Malignant Poison... combine these with a Pitted Bullet AND a bomb from Explosive Missile.
That actually sounds like a really fun build - I'm always interested in cool pirate characters!
Not exactly what I was after for this, but honestly it's more the visuals I'm interested in - almost a sorta space marine character, I guess. Heavy armor's pretty important to that, but I hadn't considered a fighter dip.
