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I wanted to make a Goblin Alchemist for my groups Doomsday Dawn, but the class is such a mess as it is now. Beyond the massive RP, Bulk, money issues, lack of alchemical items, problematic action economy, issues with poisons and mutagens not being viable, and several issues with feats. It honestly looks like they made it first and then made all the other classes and never came back to bring it up to par. So I'm wondering when you think they will release a fix for it? Or are they just going to leave it an ineffectual mess?
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I have an Alchemist in my game doing pretty solidly right now. The only main issue we see, that hasn't had some response to it, is that we would like to see Alchemical items give an Alchemical bonus instead of an item bonus.
What problems exactly do you see with the Alchemist and how would you like to see it fixed?
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Bulk:
After testing out making an alchemist, he had 2 bulk for the required Alchemist's tools (60 sp) , the free but required formula book is 1 bulk, crossbow is 1 bulk (30 sp), bolts are Light, leather armor (15 sp) is 1 Bulk. That 5 bulk and 1 Light object at the end of character creation. That's before making any alchemical items such as bombs or elixirs.
Potential solution: Could be to give the Alchemist a class only Tool set that weighs nothing due to the fluff reasoning of they know how to minimize and store stuff on their person idk. I would also make All alchemical items just 1 Bulk.
RP & Quick Alchemy & Action Economy:
This is kinda meshed with action economy too. You can make some items at the start of the day at the expense of the ability to make them on the spot with QA. I get that and its understandable. My problem with QA is the lost of effect at the end of the round (or next round with lv 4 feat Enduring Alchemy). If you can't manage to use the item that round its a wasted RP. That's fine too until you try to use poison, which in most cases you can't because it takes 3 actions to apply almost all the poisons. So unless you have quick that doesn't work at all. Also handing some items to use fellow players costs them RP to use after you already spent some?
Potential Solution: QA takes 1 or 2 actions and allows you to use whatever item it is you made. So for example you make Black Adder Venom (injury poison) and apply it to your weapon all as one Activation. This still doesn't make contact or ingested poisons viable since they loose effect at the end of your turn. As to the RP, just give Alchemist a class pool like pretty much everyone else. Spell points and ki and channels, its not hard to separate the ability to make alchemical items (which aren't magical) from RP and make it easier.
Money Issues:
The limits on making items and having to constantly fall back on a weapon due to limited RP to make enough bombs for encounters per day isn't bad, but how many bombs do they get per day? And at the cost of their support/utility. Casters get cantrips to fall back on why can't alchemist get a ability of a low 1d4 or 1d6 bomb with splash at will? Also crafting Alchemy items in the down time is a lot of money and don't gain the infused trait. That means they don't get any Alchemist feat benefits for the most part. I could be wrong but that would also mean that the bombs won't scale since they don't benefit from Empower Bombs at 3rd level.
Potential Solution:
This is really just an extension of the RP problems to me. I think they would have the same solution. Giving Alchemists a way to create more items via "spell points" just seems like the easiest way. Otherwise the alchemist will never have enough downtime or money to actually make enough items to carry around so they dont have to constantly rely on making an item via QA in order to meet a demand on the spot. I mean they are alchemist why should it be so hard for them to make stuff in down time?
Mutagens:
I'll be honest I haven't looked at them in the book too closely, but from what I understand they aren't available until level 5 I believe? Then they take 2 rounds after using them to take effect? That seems a bit slow to activate, but maybe that's just me.
Potential Solution:
I don't really have one since I, admittedly, don't know much about them.
I am curious what level the alchemist in your group is and if they have any comments or concerns about the class? Maybe not now but some they see as the character levels up?
One of my groups has an Alchemist and he has been MVP. I'm not sure about balance issues in the class, I've heard a lot about them, but at least in this case he's been stellar.
As for when fixes or overhauls will take effect, I'm guessing after the playtest is done. I think we've seen most of the major revisions that we're going to see on a class by class basis.
I am curious what level the alchemist in your group is and if they have any comments or concerns about the class? Maybe not now but some they see as the character levels up?
The one in my game is of the groups for parts 1/4/7 and currently we are running part 4. She's been fairly effective dropping persistent damage and playing emergency healer.
She did note and I thought the same that bulk is an issue for Alchemists for effectively the same reasons you mentioned.
We haven't tried using poisons yet but those are probably best prepared at the start of the day with Advanced Alchemy and not used with Quick Alchemy.
Quicksilver Mutagen is the only one we have found much use for at the moment. Partially because of the Item Bonus thing and also because they just don't seem all too useful.
Side note: Have you looked at the Resonance test? I think the changes for Alchemist in there are going to be excellent for the class.
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For me, I’m quite disappointed with the alchemist. I love playing mine in pf1. The 2e alchemist feels a bit restricted. Parts of it don’t come online until much later. The pf1 alchemist has so many build options to go into from the get go.
What I would like to see is an approach similar to druids. Instead of the circles, you have your builds: bomber, mutagen beast, infusion specialist, tumour pet etc. And within each build, you can get better the more you specialise. Of course, like the Druid circles, you can still dip into the others if you want a bit of what the other builds offer.
Having played an alchemist a few times, I can say they do actually work fairly decent at lower levels; in particular, smoke bomb has been surprisingly good.
That said, they feel a lot less... open than they used to. A lot of really neat options, making potions and oils with their class features, comes in way too late, and the fact that you can't ever add more formulas for them feels kinda bluh, and even precise bomb coming in at level 6 is painful.
I won't say my alchemist feels boring to play, and I feel their core mechanic of Advanced/Quick alchemy feels really cool. Their first take on focus gives the alchemist a fairly nice buff, too, since their reagents are now seperate from their items slots, and focus boosts on many elixirs are genuinely good. Bombs being leveled, rather than requiring infusions, is also nice, since they do have tue option of preping them in down time, as well, and perhaps more importantly, opening up 6 more class features to gain new abilities.
I do think, now that focus is a thing, additives should work in any elixir, infused or not, instead of quick alchemy ones, and just have a focus point cost. Its seems weird to me that these abilities weren't powered by spell points to start, but, as others have said, it seems as though the alchemist was one of those early designed classes before the design philosophy of powering abilities with spell points and offering multiple speciality paths really came to crystallize
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The biggest problem with the Alchemist was forcing them to use Resonance to power their class features, which the Resonance Test makes clear is being fixed.
That said, I think they should get class DC on all items made with Advanced/Quick Alchemy (basically all infused items) because it just feels bad not to get that until super high level.
The other thing I would like to see is some sort of cantrip-like at will ability to that they have something to do when they run out of reagents.
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The biggest problem with the Alchemist was forcing them to use Resonance to power their class features, which the Resonance Test makes clear is being fixed.
That said, I think they should get class DC on all items made with Advanced/Quick Alchemy (basically all infused items) because it just feels bad not to get that until super high level.
The other thing I would like to see is some sort of cantrip-like at will ability to that they have something to do when they run out of reagents.
Just personal opinion, but I like the idea of being able to set in your daily preparations a possibly nerfed alchemical item or two that you know to be quick alchemy-able at will, and at various levels getting to prep higher level items for it.
One of my groups has an Alchemist and he has been MVP.Could you please elaborate on what the Alchemist did that made him the MVP?
He's spammed the secondary smokebomb effect to provide cover for the other players (resulting in the sneak, act, sneak tactic I've described elsewhere), staggered persistent damage to great effect, played bluff with a thunderstone & an alchemist's fire (by RAW to no effect but it was still awesome and demonstrated that Alchemists should have Feint with Bombs), and just generally been very clever. It's not necessarily the class - he's one of those players who could make a smokestick useful in Pathfinder First Edition.
Apparently, major changes are coming to Alchemist this Monday.
I'll stop whinging until they hit (and reprise soon after).
Hopefully they'll make it possible to play a non-bomb obsessed alchemist.
Apparently, major changes are coming to Alchemist this Monday.
I'll stop whinging until they hit (and reprise soon after).
I am really hoping that reworked alchemist is something I love. I love the new rogue, if one of my other thematic favourites is something I love, then this will be a double win for me.
I really like the alchemy system principle it has going right now, but the actual class definitely needs some tweaking.
It’s more of an issue of ‘alchemist can get free items, but he’s the same as everyone else after’.
I get it that’s basically Batman, but Batman is also a monk. Alchemist is just the guy with more items and less features.
Hopefully they'll make it possible to play a non-bomb obsessed alchemist.
If the resonance test is any indication, I expect that either by this update or the final book this will be a thing. Empower bombs was scrapped, and instead higher level versions of all the bombs were created. I reckon that leaves all the bomb stuff as optional feats and also lets bombs remain useful to non-alchemists at higher levels.
Now, I'm not sure if completely neglecting bombs will be a good idea, because they might still be one of the more effective items you can create, but I don't think you'll have any dead class features if you do.
1.6 is going to have significant changes to every class. Since they have identified the Alchemist and Ranger as "least popular classes" they will likely get the most attention.