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I know this was "decided" on 2011, but was there any good reason for Accelerated Drinker to not work on extracts already held in the hand of an alchemist.
The text reads "An extract is “cast” by drinking it, as if imbibing a potion—the effects of an extract exactly duplicate the spell upon which its formula is based, save that the spell always affects only the drinking alchemist."
I mean, ok, it takes a standard action to "activate" it? I guess? But a potion of the exact same spell only takes a move action to "activate"? I just makes little to absolutely no sense given the text.
Thoughts (ps. This isn't a "I want it to work that way" thread, it is a "it literally says its activated just like a potion so why did they decide 8 years ago it isn't the same????" Thread)
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Balance reasons. Effectively, it would allow an alchemist to *cast* two *spells* a round. Spellcasters have to take quicken for that, and with good reason - it's a powerful thing.
A potion is not likely to function as powerfully as an alchemist's extract - especially after the first few levels - meaning that with a potion you're making a decision to spend an ever-increasing amount of gold to have a potion at caster level.
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Read even more and it seems to come down to this:
Potions are potions.
Extracts are extracts (even if treated like potions in all others senses)
Elixirs are elixirs - even if the common definition is "a magical or medicinal potion."
Since elixirs aren't mentioned, they are excluded. Since extracts aren't mentioned, they are excluded.
Despite both elixirs and extracts being potions for all practical purposes in "common sense reality" this is a game, and we're throwing reality out the door in favor of strict RAW interpretation.
So for PFS I'll run it as faq (required); but there's no way I'm taking this stupidity to a home game. Extract of true strike - can't drink, but a potion of the same is ok? Nonsense. Pure nonsense.
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Balance reasons. Effectively, it would allow an alchemist to *cast* two *spells* a round. Spellcasters have to take quicken for that, and with good reason - it's a powerful thing.
A potion is not likely to function as powerfully as an alchemist's extract - especially after the first few levels - meaning that with a potion you're making a decision to spend an ever-increasing amount of gold to have a potion at caster level.
Nope. This isn't the official reason. Why? Because one potion in hand allows an alchemist to cast two "spells" a round with accelerated drinker AND it's offset with the drawing of the item and the having it in hand requirements. With one potion in hand it's the same thing as casting two spells (in effect).
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*looks around* Nope, I didn't say it was the "official" reason. But as I mentioned before, drinking an extract and drinking a potion is a different balance equation than drinking two extracts. In the end, most rulings are made with game balance in mind.
Regardless, it's not likely you're going to get a dev to come in here and justify the ruling to you eight years after the fact. It is what it is.
As other have stated the real reason it does not work is because of balance. But if you need further justification then there is the fact that if an extract leaves the alchemists possession it becomes inert. The description of Accelerated Drinker states that it works because you do things like not using your hands or tossing it into the air. That seems to imply that the extract does in fact leave the alchemists possession for a short time. While it does become active once it returns to the alchemist possession that may take a split second to occur. That time is enough to delay the activation of the extract so that it still takes the same amount of time to work.
If you are the GM in your home game than it is your right to change how the trait works. If you are a player don’t be surprised if you GM decides that it does not work the way you think it should. I don’t know of any GM who would let it work the way you want it to.
(ps. This isn't a "I want it to work that way" thread, it is a "it literally says its activated just like a potion so why did they decide 8 years ago it isn't the same????" Thread)
Because it's not a "this thing behaves exactly like a poison" thing but a "so that you understand what the rules say, think of it as a kind of potion" thing. We don't know how extracts differ from potions in-universe, because the books focus on the rule side.
Extracts are extracts (even if treated like potions in all others senses)
In all other sense except for what spells can be used, creation time, cost, and limit per day you mean?
Maybe the cheap one-minute-to-create extracts aren't as easily drinkable as potions which are made for the open market?
You want an in-universe explenation? Because you don't take the time and use the proper appliances (like destilleries) to create extract, you need to vigorously shake an extract after mixing it together to get it to work. Because of building pressure, normal flasks would become uncorked, and thus extracts require special flasks that don't open as easy.
The answer is because of balance. That's the "real" reason. There are lots of things in the game that are in place purely for balance reasons. Now, certainly you could argue that balance isn't achieved but that doesn't mean that it wasn't the reasoning behind it. Other examples
Arcane Spell Failure
Not being able to trip someone to keep them from standing up
Not being able to use the "treat deadly wounds" option on a character more then once every 24 hours.
That there are weapons with the "monk" property that are not part of the monk weapon group and vise versa.
There are a whole bunch more but those are the ones I can name off the top of my head. IRL or even just Logically these things don't make sense, but it's the way they are handled by the rules because it would "unbalance" the game in some way if they weren't.
The GM is welcome to make whatever ruling they like even if it directly contradicts the rules. But until the GM makes such a ruling when you sit at a table you can assume the rules as the default no matter how little sense they might make from a logical standpoint.