alchemist quandary

[vampiricshaman]

what I don't understand is how an alchemist is a viable option for an adventurer. how are they carting around 100's of flasks or potion bottles to throw around all willy nilly? how at low levels does this stuff not break? how are they paying for just the bottles? flasks cost 3 copper a pop. i just want to know how they're carrying them around, how they're paying for them etc that makes sense.

second issue is pathfinders rules on crafting so lets say one flask of acid is 10 gold. you convert that into 100 silver. lest say at 1st level an alchemist has a +8 to craft alchemy. now lets say to make that flask of acid they roll a 15 yay 23. so 23 x 15 (the craft dc of the acid) = 345 awesome a little over 3 times as much it cost in silver. so that means it still took him about 2 days to complete a single flask of acid. yet they're making mutagens and highly explosive bombs in single rounds?

[Guardianlord]

Well first, Bombs and Extracts aren't true potions; they are reagents pre mixed then the Alchemist uses their own personal magical energy to "activate" them for a very short duration of time. Not much different from a Wizard loading a pouch full of ingredients and activating 99% of a spell to be completed in a single standard action.
You can think of mutagens as a spell perfected potion that is personalized to their anatomy, it still requires an hour of brewing with the appropriate tools in order to be "primed" as a drinkable substance until high levels.

Vials are not super heavy, and for the number an alchemist can use at lvl 1, likely not a huge amount either. Who is to say they are glass anyways? Maybe the alchemist makes ceramic vials as part of the process each day by molding found clay with some magic for instant ceramic vials?

As for crafting, they do Buy a crafting kit, without this they cannot do anything as Alchemy and Brew potion require the appropriate tools, time, and a clear workspace. This does net them a +2 equipment bonus though. Extract of Crafter's Fortune also adds a +5 to the check. As well they get a bonus of their class level to the check. Meaning realistically they could get a +16. At level 2, they can up that to a +18 (+1 lvl, +1 skill point).

Yes, the mundane crafting for alchemists starts pretty slow, but hat makes swift alchemy that much better of a class ability.

[vampiricshaman]

but even at higher levels, or until they get a bag of holding ceramic would weigh them down and possibly not break like they want. and what spells are they casting to make it so they have glass things to throw? i don't think any 0 level is gonna help with that. say they're going on an adventure it'll take a month how are they adventuring? will a shatter just break all their whatevers? what about falling? i just can't wrap my mind around it be an actual adventurer. sure if it's a city thing totally beliveable. but treking into the mountains with no cities or towns. what are they gonna do?

[Mysterious Stranger]

You are making several assumptions that are not necessarily true.

The first is that the flask an alchemist uses is the same size as those used for other things. The description in the Bomb section specifically calls out it uses a small vial. It could easily be something the size of a perfume sample. An alchemist could carry hundreds of them without any trouble.

There is also no reason they could not mix a substance in a vial and it turns into a mud like substance that they form into a ball and throw. This would allow them to reuse the same vials over and over again. Nothing in the class description states that the vials are not reusable.

The extracts could be created by mixing a small amount of a substance into a vial and drinking it. You don’t need a separate flask for each extract just for each base component. Since the exact details of how many ingredients are required to create an extract are not given it may be that an alchemist only needs a dozen or less to create any number of extracts. Since it also does not state how much is used they probably only need a small amount. A single flask of a particular ingredient could make hundreds of extracts.

An Alchemy Crafting kit cost only 25gp and weighs 5 pounds. It has everything the alchemist needs to make bombs and extracts. As you said a flask cost 3cp and it also weighs 1.5 pounds. This makes it pretty obvious the alchemist is not carrying around dozens of standard flasks.

[Name Violation]

Also potions are 1 ounce.
For comparison a 5 hour energy drink is 2.5 ounces.

1 ounce is freaking nothing

[Mark Hoover 330]

You do bring up one excellent point V-Shames: how does an alchemist replenish supplies on a long adventure. Here are a variety of ways my own players have used with the Investigator in the group:

1. Excess supplies purchased at the outset: they didn't know they'd be gone for a week in the woods but they DID know the dungeon they were headed to was "a couple days' walk" so the Investigator purposely stated he was buying "excess goods" to replace materials used during the adventure
2. Craft is an Untrained skill and Repair is an option: so after some more remote, wilderness encounters the Investigator would take 20 on Perception in the area to gather up the broken phials, vials and ampules he'd used. He'd then spend 1/5 of the gold needed for a "vial for ink or potions" which purchased in a settlement are 1 GP/EA. So he'd erase 2 SP for each one he repaired. I handwaved the Investigator having the material needed but otherwise you could say this is contained in the Alchemy Kit. Finally the Investigator would make a DC 10 Craft: Glass check to fix their stuff, using the skill Untrained. With a +4 from Int and the druid always handing off a Guidance spell this was pretty easy
3. Make Whole: the find/repair drill got old fast so the party wizard started making scrolls of Make Whole. Now I know that this is only supposed to work on 1 object at a time but let the party get away with repairing lots of mundane ammo or the Investigator's vials all at once. The point after all was to circumvent some of the discomfort of using an Untrained skill.

Now after several wilderness adventures and a lot of grumbling at the table of how time consuming all of this was, we just took to ignoring it altogether. Way I figure it: once you hit 6th level I don't think you should really have to spend game time scrounging for shards of clay or glass in the dirt.

[Weirdo]

The Alchemist is assumed to be able to carry the supplies he needs to use his class features, with no cost aside from that of the basic crafting kit. How you justify that, flavour-wise, is up to you. But requiring the Alchemist to spend money or make Craft checks in order to resupply is a house rule that unnecessarily hampers the class. Even in a campaign where mundane resource management is important, I would be cautious since it gives a relative advantage to certain classes that don't need resources (eg sorcerers).

[Jane "The Knife"]

[sarcasm]I've always found it a problem in RPGs that PCs seem to be able to travel for long distances, thru varied environments all the while using a large amount of very specialized gear (armor and weapons) that requires A LOT of maintenance and upkeep to keep in working order.

how?

It's a real quandary...

Even just plain Iron armor rusts something fierce in any type of damp and has to be constantly maintained. Wire brushes, files, oil, specialized tools (the screw driver was invented to work on plate armor), all that has to be available and maintained itself in order to keep metal armor in good order. Leather goods (armors, saddles, tack, backpacks, cod pieces, bridles, riding crops, sex toys... wait wha?) all have to be oiled, kept dry, repaired, and, again, constantly maintained - and again this all takes specialized tools that ALSO must be available and maintained... "it takes a village" should be applied to what it takes just to keep an adventurer in equipment to get thru his day.

here's a link for you...
http://knyghterrant.com/index.php/tutorials/modern-plate-armor-maintenance/

Yeah... How many mules do you have carrying the gear to get you average fighter to the dungeon and back?

[/sarcasm]

[MerlinCross]

And if your that worried about the vials breaking, Iron Vials are a thing and a good pick up if you think the GM is going to account for how fragile glass is.

Now hope he doesn't use Heat Metal spells. Or a Blue Dragon.

"TO SAAAAAAAAND!"

[Jane "The Knife"]

MerlinCross wrote:

And if your that worried about the vials breaking, Iron Vials are a thing and a good pick up if you think the GM is going to account for how fragile glass is.

Now hope he doesn't use Heat Metal spells. Or a Blue Dragon.

"TO SAAAAAAAAND!"

Do I detect the sound of Pop-Corn?

[lemeres]

With a proper potion, the ingredients have to be able to be able to be able to hold onto the magical energies, even when there is nothing left that provides a source for the power. Potions have to be long lasting- presumably indefinite as long as they are stored well.

Extracts are different. They are tied to the alchemist that made them. Unless they specifically train in special methods (infusions), the extract is inert after it leaves the alchemist. The extracts constantly rely upon the alchemist's power. They normally fizzle out after a day without use, and they are not long lasting.

Under this, it is fairly safe to assume that there is a much lower requirement for ingredients used in an extract compared to a potion, since it mostly relies upon the alchemist. I'd assume that you could even make do with random herbs and insects found on the road side.

The only reason why you need to 'brew' the extract using special tools is likely because you need to knead your power into the ingredients- crushing, mixing, melting in water. All by hand, all while you can pour your power over it.

[kaid]

Potion and extract vials I assume get reused a lot so you have a limited number that gets washed out and reused often. For bombs there are some easy options such as leather/waxed cloth pouches to thick paper. Just look at firecrackers you take the alchemical powders mix them into a paste then wrap it in paper and implant a wick. Vials would be convenient but there are a lot of materials you could use for bombs especially when they only have to keep the stuff save for one day.