Beastmorph surprise

[FeebleMindEater]

After I rolled 100 on the critical fumble chart and having my ranger fire a manyshot critical into her own head, I've decided that my next character would be an Alchemist using the beastmorph archetype. I need some help balancing my character based on the play-style I'm going for. I'm not new to pathfinder but I am terrible at narrowing my feats and stats down into the best case for the character.

I'm starting at lvl 6 and my combat play-style flow will be: pop mutagen, use melee claw/bite attacks and breath weapon discovery to use my bombs while in melee.

15 point buy
Str:14
Dex:12
Con:12
Int:16+2 (+2 human)
Wis:8
Cha:8

1)I know I need Int for alchemist to maximize bombs and extracts, crafting potions and things, etc. I'm going melee once I pop mutagen so I went Str after that and bumped con so I could take a hit. If I use Str mutagen buff that will give me +2 Str as well while mutagen is affecting my character. Is this decent reasoning?

2) When I pick the animal for my mutagen, I noticed some base animals get simple special attacks. Ex: velociraptor gets a modified charge ability. Do I get to take advantage of that since it's in the base creature build? Do I only get to take advantage of that if its included in Beast Shape I/II/III? It makes sense that it has to be in beast shape list but i'm hopeful it might stick based off the base creature.

3) When selecting feats, is it more beneficial to take feats for my melee character to do more damage/increase hit? Should I try to boost Alchemist abilities first? Do I do both? Whats the best way to weigh these without filling out 3 or 4 full character sheets and comparing the individual attacks?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Gallant Armor]

I would strongly recommend stacking Vivisectionist and forgoing bombs.

1) That sounds good.
2) You only get the benefits listed for Beast Shape I/II/III
3) Get as many natural attacks as your GM will allow.

[Derklord]

Quite frankly, if your GM uses some extremely stupid and martial-hostile critical fumble rules, are you really sure you want to make a character that uses attack rolls? Isn't it only a matter of time before your seasoned adventurer hurts him/herself in a way that's not even physically possible?

FeebleMindEater wrote:

2) When I pick the animal for my mutagen, I noticed some base animals get simple special attacks. Ex: velociraptor gets a modified charge ability. Do I get to take advantage of that since it's in the base creature build?

"The alchemist gains his choice of two of the abilities listed in the beast shape I spell" - you can only grab what's in the spell's description between "listed ability:" and the next period. For Beast Shape I, that would be "climb 30 feet, fly 30 feet (average maneuverability), swim 30 feet, darkvision 60 feet, low-light vision, and scent".

You don't actually pick an animal - it's not a polymorph effect. You don't need to look at a single stat block, you just pick a number of effects from the respective spell's list. Note that natural attacks are not on that list, so you can't choose any.

There aren't really many feats that noteworthily improve natural attacks (beyond Power Attack, obviously), so you should spend yourn feat on defense (Iron Will, Toughness, etc.) and possibly Extra Discovery.