Generation Arcane School: Alchemical Blast of Death?


Rules Questions


Take a look at one of the level 1 powers of the evocation (generation) subschool.

Wind Servant (Sp): wrote:
As a standard action, you can generate a blast of air that hurls an unattended object (or objects) or an object in your possession up to 30 feet in a straight line. If you have a free hand, you can catch an object hurled toward yourself. You can move objects weighing up to 1 pound per wizard level. Objects are not thrown with enough force to cause damage, although fragile objects like alchemical weapons shatter on contact with a creature or hard surface. To hit a creature with an object, you must succeed at a ranged touch attack. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Intelligence modifier.

At first glance, this power appears both straightforward and mostly useless. One guide refers to it as "not anything to write home about," while another remarks that "this is what mage hand is for."

But on closer examination, it seems like it could offer a lot more. So I've got a few question, just to make sure I'm not reading too much into this.

First, a couple basics:
1. If you use the blast to hurl an unattended object, how close does it have to be? Adjacent? Line of sight?
2. If you use the blast to hurl multiple objects "up to 30 feet in a straight line," do they all have to move in the same direction? The same distance?

Now, to the big stuff:

3. Does this ability allow you to make attacks with several alchemical weapons at once?

The wording strongly implies that it does, specifying that they shatter on contact and require a ranged touch attack to hit, but I wanted to make sure there wasn't some catch. So a level 7 generation wizard could spend a standard action to make ranged touch attacks to hit a nearby enemy with seven flasks of acid, dealing 7d6 points of damage if all attacks hit? Or hurl seven flasks of acid/alkali combined with a hybridization funnel for 14d6 points of damage? Or hurl a tanglefoot bag, ghast wretch flask, and some shard gel to make an enemy entangled, sickened, and surrounded by caltrops?

4. If yes, do these alchemical attacks benefit from bonuses to damage like a paladin's smite evil or an alchemist's Throw Anything?

Could a wizard 7/alchemist 1 with a 22 Intelligence score spend a standard action to hurl seven flasks of acid for 7d6+42 damage? Could a level 7 paladin with VMC wizard spend a standard action to hurl seven flasks of acid at a smite target for 7d6+49 damage?


Link to Generation Subschool.

1. The text doesn't mention a range. In the absence of further information, a reasonable guess is the same range as Force Missile (in the original Evocation School, which in turn is the same as the range of Magic Missile, which is Medium (100' + 10'/level). Presumably you need line of effect and line of sight.

2. Since the text says "a straight line", I assume that this means that all objects have to at least start going in the same direction (although conceivably some but not all of them could get diverted).

3. The text doesn't give a limit on number of Alchemical Weapons, other than that they must be within the total weight limit of 1 pound per Wizard level. Note that 1 flask of Alchemist's Fire or Acid or Alkali, or 1 flask of Holy Water (or Unholy water) weighs 1 pound, but 1 flask of Liquid Ice or a Tar Bomb weighs 2 pounds, and a Tanglefoot Bag weighs 4 pounds.

4. Again the text doesn't say directly, but since it says that "Objects are not thrown with enough force to cause damage", the question then becomes whether the type of attack you are trying to pass through Wind Servant's hurled objects needs to do damage in its own right to activate, or whether it can piggyback on any incidental damage done by the objects even when not from the force of their motion. Since Alchemist's Throw Anything(*) gives Intelligence-to-Damage with Alchemical Weapons and Bombs even though these wouldn't do damage if they didn't explode, I would rule that this also works with Alchemist's Throw Anything. In the case of Paladin's Smite Evil or the equivalent, this is more up in the air, but since Sneak Attack can piggyback on attacks as long as they require an attack roll and can do Precision Damage (which splash weapons normally CAN'T do), I would think that by analogy Smite could piggyback on a Wind Servant attack (Smite doesn't do Precision Damage, so it should be better than Sneak Attack in that regard). Sneak Attack has a FAQ whose 2nd paragraph says that Sneak Attack only applies once to each attack, and that multi-missile/ray attack spells each count as one attack and thus get Sneak Attack damage applied to them only once(**). Likewise, according to another FAQ, Smite only adds damage once per spell, and Wind Servant is a Spell-Like Ability, so Smite will only add its damage once for each group of Alchemical Weapons thrown by one Wind Servant attack (although it would still bypass Damage Reduction for all of them when they damage the target of the Smite -- no Damage Reduction bypass for multiple targets unless you somehow already have a Smite that works against multiple targets simultaneously, which would necessarily have to have text that bypasses this FAQ).

(*)Note that Alchemist's Throw Anything is more powerful than the feat of the same name.

(**)Sneak attack can't even be used with splash weapons -- why is this post still going on about Sneak Attack? Well, this madness has a method -- see below.

Still, this ability is not bad if you're set up to use it as you specify.

Now you've inspired me to think of a couple of builds. The first is Underground Chemist Rogue/VMC Wizard (Evoker (Generator)). At 2nd level, Underground Chemist Rogue trades out Evasion to gain the Intelligence-to-Damage part of Alchemist's Throw Anything, but doesn't get the Throw Anything feat (so you need to get the feat separately). At 4th level, Underground Chemist Rogue trades out a Rogue Talent for becoming able to bypass the restriction against doing Sneak Attack with splash weapons. Note that by trading out Evasion, Underground Chemist Rogue also ceases to have any class features that are inhibited by wearing Heavy Armor, apart from use of skills (and situationally other things) that suffer from Armor Check Penalty (no different from any other class trying to use the same abilities), so if you want to start with a Heavy Armor martial dip before Underground Chemist Rogue and then go into Hellknight after Underground Chemist Rogue 4, go right ahead.

Another build you've inspired me to think of is Underground Chemist Rogue 4(*)/Wizard (Evoker (Generator)) 6(*)/Arcane Trickster 10.

(*)Normally you would want to enter after as few levels as possible of each base class, especially Rogue, but you actually need the 4 levels of Underground Chemist Rogue as noted above for the other build, and you need a decent number of Wizard levels to get some weight capacity on your Wind Servant ability, which is not advanced by any other classes. So no 9th level spells on this build unless you go Epic. Also, even with Magical Knack, you will be 2 caster levels behind character level. Since spells quickly evolve (as you level up and gain access to more levels) to become more awesome than any Alchemical Weapons short of those you could get by having actual Alchemist levels, that means this build actually isn't very good. The only way to make it really good would be if VMC were expanded to include archetypes -- VMC Underground Chemist Rogue would get you use of Sneak Attack with splash weapons instead of Evasion (of standard VMC Rogue) at 11th level and still give you Sneak Attack starting at 7th level, and starting with a 1 level dip in Vivisectionist Alchemist would give you Alchemist's Throw Anything and +1d6 Sneak Attack, leaving you with anywhere from 6 to 9 levels of Wizard to increase your Wind Servant weight capacity (and get a Wizard Bonus Feat or Arcane Discovery and maybe even your 8th level Arcane School Power) before going into Arcane Trickster. (The smallest number of Wizard levels is before you get your first +1d6 Sneak Attack from VMC (Underground Chemist) Rogue, and so requires another +1d6 Sneak Attack from Accomplished Sneak Attacker).


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Thanks for the in-depth response, I particularly appreciated the link to that most recent damage bonus FAQ. On that basis, it appears that neither smite nor an alchemist's Int bonus from Throw Anything would apply to more than one splash weapon per use of the ability. Your underground chemist builds look interesting, but are still limited by the fact that their sources of damage can't apply to multiple hurled splash weapons at once.

The original build idea that sparked my interest in this school was a actually a samsaran cleric (herald caller) with VMC wizard (generation school). Warning: minor tangent ahead.

The mystic past life trait lets you grab a few spells from the paladin list, including litany of righteousness and litany of thunder. When you gain your lingering evocations school ability, these turn from nice 1-round tricks to spectacular swift action effects that shape the entire combat. By 7th level, you can incapacitate casters with a swift action litany of thunder calling for a Fort save to avoid four rounds of confusion and permanent deafness. Martials can be dealt with more easily by hitting them with a litany of righteousness - if they fail their Will save, they take double damage from the attacks of all creatures with good auras/subtypes for the next four rounds.

How do you distribute this damage, you ask? Well, that's where the herald caller part comes in. Casting these spells with your swift actions leaves the rest of the turn free for summoning monsters (or only a standard action, with Sacred Summons). Litanied enemies can be beaten down by lantern archons and hound archons (or by foo dogs and foo lions with Summon Good Monster). But your standard actions are also free for using the other generation school power: wind servant. If a level 7 herald caller VMC wizard hits a litanied enemy with seven vials of hybridized acid/alkali, they will take approximately 28d6 damage. Seems pretty useful.


^Weird -- I had seen several Litany spells before, but it hadn't occurred to me to look for whether they are Evocation -- intuitively I would have thought they would be something like Enchantment. Actually, most of them are, with a few Transmutation and 1 each of Conjuration, Divination, and Necromancy spells thrown in -- Litany of Righteousness and Litany of Thunder are the Evocation Litany spells. Unfortunately, most Arcane Schools and their Subschools do not have any equivalent to Lingering Spells, but in addition to Evocation, Conjuration does -- as long as you don't pick the Extradimension Subschool(*), Summoner's Charm does for Conjuration spells what Lingering Spells does for Evocation spells, and you even get to pick the Teleportation Subschool if you want, which replaces the lousy Acid Dart power with Shift (although to get the full benefit of this, you will need the Dimensional Agility feat, which means you are out **6** feats instead of "only" 5). The Conjuration Litany spells are Litany of Entanglement and Entanglement, but unfortunately, the latter is Instantaneous, and thus will not be augmented.

(*)For a Tyrant Antipaladin, you could even pick Infernal Binder as long as you found some way to squeeze in a Familiar before you hit level 19, assuming that VMC Wizard V (Conjuration (Infernal Binder)) treats the 7th level Imp Familiar Arcane School Power as the "8th level" Arcane School Power for VMC purposes.


UnArcaneElection wrote:
Summoner's Charm does for Conjuration spells what Lingering Spells does for Evocation spells

Unfortunately, it only applies to conjuration (summoning) spells, and litany of entanglement is calling. But I like this line of thinking - it's sort of like how the illusion school capstone lets wizards use shades (music of the spheres) for a permanent aura of energy resistance and fast healing.

UnArcaneElection wrote:
(*)For a Tyrant Antipaladin, you could even pick Infernal Binder as long as you found some way to squeeze in a Familiar before you hit level 19

Wizard VMC gives you a familiar at 3rd.


^Oops -- you're right on both counts. Dain bramage -- too late at night. (Like it is again . . . .)

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