Brewkeeper Prestige Class Optimization

[Prof. Löwenzahn]

Hello again,

Recently, I found out about this funny little Pretige Class:

The Brewkeeper.

The search function revealed that there has never been a discussion about this class, only some side mentions in some class guides. Or is there another name due to licence issues that made me miss it on the boards?

Anyways ... I would like to collect some powerful or at least well rounded ideas of what to do with this class. Analyzing the most important class features, I see the following:

Prerequesites:

This basically shouts Alchemist at me. Free Brew Potion, 2nd Level extracts, ranks in craft (Alchemy). You can however take any spellcasting class and buy Brew Potion as a regular feat.

Distilled Spells:

While Alchemist triumphs in prerequesites, they lose on this one: They already have Spells in potion form. the only benefit they get here is the Infusion Discovery, which is one feat at most for every straight Alchemist.
For every other spellcasting class, this is golden. You lose one Level of spell Progression, but then you can give away any 1st-9th Level spell as a potion. Divine Power to the Fate's Favored Half-Orc Fighter? No problem here. It seems that 9th Level prepared casters benefit the most of it. Stay away from spontaneous classes though, because creating Draughts in advance destroys your spontaneity.

Faithful Drinker:

You need to drink regularly to really benefit from this. That's difficult for any class, so you need to build towards it: I can see either the Divine Fighting Technique feat with Cayden Cailean's "Blade and Tankard Style" or the "Acclerated Drinker" trait combined with any build that only uses Standard Actions (Vital Strike, Casting). Note that draughts function as potions, so in contrast to extracts, they would qualify for Accelerated Drinker.

Helpful Homebrew:

This lets you use metamagic without a Level increase. Instead, you utilize your Brew Reservoir Points that are quite limited. Although there are "harmful" and "helpful" Homebrews, I think that the helpful ones are best used offensively - namely Empower and Maximize Spell. Magus Comes to my mind. If you want to use this feature with Draughts, only "Extend Spell" seems useful. Since Empower and Maximize cost 2 resp. 3 Brew Points, you burn through it fast.

Harmful Homebrew:

At the cost of 1 Brew Point, this comes cheaper. You can add debuffs to either Splash Weapons or Touch Spells. The only classes that excel at this are Alchemist (Bombs) and Magus (Spellstrike), so they seem to be the only viable classes for this Feature.

So I currently see these options:

- Bomb-throwing Alchemist, handing out Extended Infusions and adding even more debuffs than usual to your bombs.
- Magus, burning though their Brew Points while using empowered, maximized touch spells augmented with Harmful Homebrews for extra debuff. Maybe hand out some buff draughts to non caster allies.
- Prepared 9th Level caster buffer (Cleric, Druid, Shaman, maybe Witch or Wizard) who empower or maximize their damage spells and extend their buff Draughts.
- Action economy king: Accelerated Drinker Warpriest (swift action self buff, move action drink Draught, standard action cast or vital strike)

So what else is there? Any spells that are particularly good in potion form but not on the Alchemist list? Any combination that kicks ass? Strong synergy with any feat chain? Which of them options would you recommend the most?

Thanks in advance!

[avr]

It's a new PrC, from Paths of the Righteous. Righteous Caydenites apparently really are obsessed with booze. There isn't previous discussion because it hasn't been out long and it's been on d20pfsrd for even less.

There are some personal cleric/oracle and sorc/wiz buffs which would be nice to be able to give to a solid martial character. Having spontaneous metamagic (fleeting as well as the damage buffs or extend) on a prepared caster would be nice too as you say.

Reach helps with touch spells & aberrant bloodragers, sorcerers, and blood arcanists can have a lot of reach. And ectoplasmatist spiritualists for that matter.

Cayden's divine fighting technique has obvious synergy.

[Cellion]

This prestige class seems good for 9th level prepared casters. Keep in mind that they don't lose out on spell progression if they take Prestigious Spellcaster at the cost of two feats. In exchange for losing continued progression of their typically underwhelming non-spellcasting class features, they get some cute abilities.

Unfortunately, the Distilled Spells feature (while still good for action economy) does not allow you to make draughts of target:personal spells, as its wording restricts you to the normal potion-making rules with the exception of possibly being 4th or higher level.

"Free" spontaneous metamagic seems great too.

For Harmful Homebrew, the daze option at 6th level seems the strongest and the save should be reasonably high for an ability that is effectively slapped on for free on top of another spell.

The reason you only found out about it recently is that it came out in a book released late last year (and was only put up on d20pfsrd in the last couple of weeks).

[nicholas storm]

One advantage for the alchemist is that it converts his extracts to draughts, which makes them essentially potions. Potions can benefit from accelerated drinker.

Elixers do not qualify for accelerated drinker, so there is benefit for alchemists to take this prestige class.