Please help! I'm playing an Iron Gods campaign in a party of 6. However, our 2 melee characters (a paladin and a barbarian) play roughly 1 out of 3 sessions. This leaves our party in bad shape. We have an unoptimized Gunslinger, a Mystic Theurge, an unoptimized chained Rogue, and myself, a decently optimized goblin mindchemist bomber.
We just leveled up to 15 one session into Chapter 6. I'd like to make a few tweaks to my character that will give him the flexibility to take on a tanky melee role when our pally and barbie are not at the table.
I'm assuming that Monstrous Physique or Beast Shape will be the linchpin to making this work, but maybe there are other/better ways. My non-buffed build is below. A few notes on it:
a) My DM has allowed me to take the Improved Familiar feat, and I've equipped it with poisoner's gloves and a variety of useful wands and scrolls (haste, true strike, clw, etc.)
b) I've got a number of high level potions I use with Alchemical Allocation for long lasting buffs (ablative barrier, barkskin, countless eyes, heroism,magic circle vs. evil, stoneskin).
c) I also tend to use Amplify Elixir with the above and the following extracts: echolocation, greater false life, freedom of movement, orchid's drop and overland flight.
d) I could probably do a limited amount of retraining if need be.
e) I have a feat and a discovery to select at minimum.
Thanks in advance for the brilliant answers that I know will come rolling in.
No-No Boomchucker
Male goblin alchemist (mindchemist) 15
CG Small humanoid (goblinoid)
Init +15; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +25
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Defense
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AC 23, touch 18, flat-footed 17
hp 123 (15d8+45)
Fort +19, Ref +23, Will +15
Immune poison
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft.
Ranged blinding bomb +19/+19/+14/+9 () or
. . bomb +19/+19/+14/+9 (8d6+10 Fire) or
. . force bomb +19/+19/+14/+9 (8d4+10 Force)
Special Attacks bomb 24/day (8d6+9 fire, DC 26)
Alchemist (Mindchemist) Extracts Prepared (CL 15th; concentration +24)
. . 5th—communal air walk[UC], beast shape III, overland flight, universal formula[APG]
. . 4th—cure critical wounds (2), echolocation[UM], greater false life[UM], freedom of movement, greater invisibility (2)
. . 3rd—alchemical allocation[APG] (2), amplify elixir[APG], channel vigor (2), displacement, orchid's drop
. . 2nd—alchemical allocation[APG] (8)
. . 1st—heightened awareness[ACG] (2), illusion of calm[UC] (DC 20), shield (2), targeted bomb admixture[UC] (3)
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Statistics
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Str 6, Dex 22, Con 14, Int 28, Wis 12, Cha 5
Base Atk +11; CMB +9; CMD 25
Feats Brew Potion, Craft Wondrous Item, Extra Discovery[APG], Extra Discovery[APG], Improved Familiar, Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Throw Anything
Traits fate's favored, glory of old, reactionary
SQ alchemy (alchemy crafting +15), avarice, cognatogen, discoveries (blinding bomb[UM], cursed bomb, fast bombs, force bomb, greater cognatogen[UM], infusion, precise bombs [9 squares], tumor familiar[UM]), loyal bodyguard, perfect recall, shield master, swift alchemy
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Is the most important thing to prevent the enemies from beating the snot out of your rogue, or do you need to be able to do pretty significant damage or fill other gaps left by the absence of your melee guys?
Vine Strike could be very helpful by limiting the enemy's ability to move if combined with Beast Shape to give a reasonable number of natural attacks. The main problem I see is that you'll probably have difficulty hitting things without Weapon Finesse.
Alternatively, maybe you could take something like Promethean Disciple and craft a golem to provide some assistance on the front line rather than having to wade in yourself? It's not a real replacement for a 15th level PC, but it might be enough to fill the gap, particularly if you can also enlist your Mystic Theurge to summon a monster to help it out.
Is the most important thing to prevent the enemies from beating the snot out of your rogue, or do you need to be able to do pretty significant damage or fill other gaps left by the absence of your melee guys?
@Cenorin: Thanks for the tips on Vine Strike and Promethean Disciple. I can see how either one could be helpful with what I want to accomplish. I'll need to spend some time studying the Craft Construct feat to see if that's a viable strategy for this purpose.
Regarding your question above, I really need to be a triple threat: 1) shield the others from damage; 2) deal some healthy damage myself; and 3) stay alive long enough to accomplish 1 & 2.
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The simplest solution would probably be to convince one of your melee fighters to give you a copy of his character sheet so that you can play him when he's not around. I realize that a lot of players might balk at that, but it's something to consider if you think you can impress on them what a difficult situation this creates for the group.
Assuming that doesn't work, here are some more thoughts...
How sympathetic is your DM to your situation? For example, if you stop a session without resting and next week your meat shield has vanished off the face of Golarion, are you allowed to change your prepared spells?
I think that with the right buffs and Weapon Finesse, you should be able to make this work; the problem is going to be buying yourself the time to get those buffs in place (which, to be clear, is a problem that many melee alchemists have). The tanglefoot bomb discovery might be helpful for buying you some time, particularly if your teammates can also hinder the enemy with things like smoke clouds, illusory walls, and such.
Depending on the type of damage you usually take, Caustic Blood could supply a significant amount of damage if the enemy manage to penetrate your defenses. Unlike Fire Shield and a lot of similar effects, it isn't subject to SR, so it should affect constructs and such just fine.
If your familiar can use it, a wand of mirror image might be very nice.
After doing some searching, I'm not particularly impressed with the Promethean Disciple idea - at your level, I suspect the enemy simply does too much damage to be worth the investment, unless your DM is willing to be flexible (I've only played a small part of Iron Gods, but I could imagine ruling that you could produce a golem with substantially less time and money than usual if you have access to, say, lots of spare robot parts...).
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I like Cen's idea. Play the absent PC's as NPC's. If they don't want to risk death, you could 'hire' them on as Mercenaries.
Other than that, buy an Admixture Vial, allows you to combine two Extracts. Bull's Strength/Displacement, then drink your Mutagen. That should make you tanky enough for some encounter.
Admixture Vials are a great investment for an alchemist in general. Although Displacement would be helpful to make you tankier, I would not suggest bull's strength in your case as it wouldn't make much difference.
Definitely look into extracts that give miss chance or ways to negate damage (one of my favorite level 4 extracts is fluid form). If you plan on going melee at all, maybe snag a spear and combat reflexes.
You character looks well built as is though, so I'd think you would just need to adjust extracts to suit a more "tanky" style.