Please forgive me if this has been gone over in another post. I am very new.
1) I have been having trouble deciding which deity to worship that will benefit my Alchemist the most. I've heard plenty of "use what you want", that's not what I'm asking. Which deity gives the most benefit to a ranged/bomber mindchemist.
2) I have always had trouble determining what traits to use. Again, I really don't need to hear "play what you want". Here is a tid bit to help you help me.
Bomber, Support, Ranged. Boom.
3) What skills should I be putting points into? I have 9 points to spend on skills.
Also, if this helps anyone make a more informed decision on their advice, the toon is level 1 and will have his debut this Friday (7/7).
Thank you in advance for not hazing and giving me genuine advise, the rest of my party will also appreciate it.
I was going to possibly go with Iomedae for the +4 to Diplomacy as a deity.
As for traits I took Firebug for the +1 to hit with splash weapons and focused burn for the additional fire damage on direct hit.
As for feats... well.. I'll run out of bombs eventually so I chose a human as the race so I could take Precise Shot and Point-Blank Shot. Those will not be changed as I would refer to remain as useful in combat as possible.
Eventually yes. Assuming there is a deity worthy of obeying.
The questions 2 and 3 are far more valuable to me answered though. The deity will have to wait regardless. The traits and skill points will need to be useful in 2 days time.
Ok. Thank you very much!
2) I have always had trouble determining what traits to use. Again, I really don't need to hear "play what you want". Here is a tid bit to help you help me.
Bomber, Support, Ranged. Boom.
Being a ranged class, your Dex is likely to be quite high and your party will love you for throwing out your debuff bombs early (before they get into melee, preferably (until you get Precise Bombs, that is)). As such, Reactionary (+2 to Initiative) is quite nice.
Since you have a) quite a lot of skill points and b) a very good Int value, making UMD based off of Int rather than Cha (the classic dump stat for Alchemists) with Pragmatic Activator can be really useful, but since you have all the Cure spells on your spell list, not a super high priority. Getting access to Detect Magic and being able to fool magic items later on is pretty nice, though. If Cha is your dump stat, that's an effective +5 to +7 to UMD.3) What skills should I be putting points into? I have 9 points to spend on skills.
Perception, obviously. It's a class skill, too.
Knowledge (arcana) and Knowledge (nature) are class skills and you have the Int to make it work.Spellcraft because why the heck not. Again, you have the Int and you're gonna wanna do a lot of copying into your formula book.
Use Magic Device at level 1 is probably not going to make that big a difference, but it's quite good at later levels. If you take Pragmatic Activator, you'll have a bonus of +9 which is respectable and a good chance of getting wands to work. But as said, you have the Cure spells on your list, so you don't need it for that. Having access to Detect Magic is handy, though, so your choice.
Disable Device, surprisingly. You're not going to out-rogue the rogue, but it's a Class skill and your high Dex as a ranged class is going to come in handy.
Crafting is useful and makes you money, so put some into Craft (Alchemy).
And for the rest, I don't see any super high priorities. Stealth is quite useful, some more Knowledge skills, maybe a point in Survival (class skill, but Wis is not a high priority for bombers). Mindchemist is a beast with Knowledge skills, though, so consider spreading the love around Knowledge at later levels.
Edit: I'm looking at your trait choices and I'm not entirely convinced by Focused Burn. Increasing your damage by 1 every four levels seems a bit underwhelming to me. Firebug seems quite good, though it's going to seriously devalue later on when your BAB gets higher, but enemies' touch ACs barely do.
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Alchemists can actually craft mundane alchemical items in PFS. So Craft: Alchemy is relevant there. All you have to do is put Crafter's Fortune in your formulae book to count that bonus for your Dayjob check and crafting between scenarios, so it's fairly easy to get to +15, which will let you take-10 crafting most alchemical items.
Pragmatic Activator is great, as UMD is a very useful skill. Student of Philosophy lets you use Int for common uses of Diplomacy and Bluff, or there's the trait that lets you use Int for any one Cha skill (blanking on the name right now).
For skills, since your Int will be so high, go with the knowledge skills. Perception is always useful. And I usually like to have one of either Diplomacy, Bluff, or Intimidate, but those might require using a trait in order to be any good. UMD is a plus. It's less necessary on an Alchemist, since there are some wands you can activate, and CLW is included in that. But it's still a useful skill. You may not want to use both traits on improving skill, though.
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I will second student of philosophy. UMD is good but look up what wand you will want to use it for to decide how high it need to be. Typically 10 total is more than enough for wands your I'll not use in combat (longstrider). There is a case for getting it to 19 but I don't normally bother. Most ranged alchemist will get more out of pragmatic activator.
I find with my bomber I go first or last. If I go first enemies are often clumped and I can hit bunch. If I'm in the middle the enemies has often split some having acted and some having not gone yet. Then I frequently delay and wait for them to pile up. This REQUIRES precise bombs. I say this because reactionary is good but not necessary and it is better to play the class flexibly.
6 monster knowldeges, perception, craft alchemy, spell craft.
Knowing what spell is being cast is really important tactically. Especially when you get dispel bombs. This requires spellcraft and knowledge arcana. Then when you get a head band have it improve UMD.
Couple more questions:
1) I was told there is no crafting in Pathfinder Society, which is what I play. Is this true?
2) I was also told that no evil alignments may be used in PFS, therefore I would not be able to worship a neutral evil or chaotic evil deity as my alignment must be within one step of my deity. Because of the no evil alignments the lowest I can go on the spectrum is chaotic neutral. Correct?
1) I was told there is no crafting in Pathfinder Society, which is what I play. Is this true?
I made this mistake, too! Yes, crafting is generally forbidden in PFS, even mundane crafting. However, alchemists and investigators are the exception, as detailed in this FAQ. So, craft away!
Highly recommended alchemical items at lower levels are Tanglefoot Bags and Acid. Tanglefoot Bags are a guaranteed entangle and possible "glued to the floor". Acids are cheap and basically like bombs at lower levels, but with a better damage type. Don't forget that your Int bonus to damage applies to all damage-dealing splash weapons!2) I was also told that no evil alignments may be used in PFS, therefore I would not be able to worship a neutral evil or chaotic evil deity as my alignment must be within one step of my deity. Because of the no evil alignments the lowest I can go on the spectrum is chaotic neutral. Correct?
Sort of. Yes, you aren't allowed to be evil, but I don't think there's rules against worshipping evil deities. So, you could be a True Neutral worshipper of Urgathoa.
I'm not all that convinced by Potion Glutton, though. If it allows you to drink extracts as a swift action, that is absurdly powerful, even overpowered, I'd say. But since Accelerated Drinker is explicitly stated not to work with extracts, I would be very surprised if your GM allowed Potion Glutton to work with them. It also states that, normally, drinking potions is a move action which is flat-out wrong.Edit: Found this FAQ for PFS. Potion Glutton reduces drinking potions, elixirs and other potables (but explicitly not extracts) to a move action. So, it's good, better even than Accelerated Drinker (though not by much), but not horribly broken.
Consider getting Alchemy Handbook so you can use spontaneous alchemy, which is surprisingly legal in PFS.
Consider getting Alchemy Handbook so you can use spontaneous alchemy, which is surprisingly legal in PFS.
I don't know if I'd recommend that. Yes, spontaneous alchemy is much faster, but it's just so expensive. It's not just more expensive than normal crafting, it's more expensive than just buying the darn things.
For comparison, buying an Antitoxin costs 50 gp.Crafting it normally costs 16.67 gp.
With spontaneous crafting, it takes 7 gold (5 gp each), 17 myrrh (5 sp each) and 23 urea (5 sp each) which adds up to 55 gp.
Yes, the advantage to spontaneous crafting is that you can just jam your backpack full of alchemical reagents and be ready for everything. The downside is that you have to jam your backpack full of alchemical reagents to be ready for everything. Reagents aren't cheap and early game, you don't have that much money to throw around.
For normal crafting, I'm personally a big fan of the Master Alchemist feat which multiplies your crafting speed by 10. Although I admit that that's basically selling your feat for not a lot of money (but a lot of time).
Basically, if you want to be able to craft during adventures, you're either going to bog yourself down with reagents and pay much more (spontaneous alchemy) or pay with a feat (Master Alchemist, available at level 5). Otherwise, it's solely a downtime thing.