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There's also a huge gulf between "low-strength alchemist loaded down with multiple weapon options is practically not even a functional character concept"
Except "loaded down with multiple weapon options" isn't even what's being discussed. 1 bulk armor, 2 bulk kit, 1 bulk book (per your own post in the spoiler thread), 1 bulk backpack. That's 5 bulk.
An 8 strength alchemist is now encumbered without any weapon at all. A 10 str alchemist can carry one L weapon and up to 8 alchemical items, but that's it.
You can drop the backpack, obviously, which lets the 10 str alchemist pick up a crossbow or have a little breathing room and the 8 str alchemist have a dagger and 8 potions, but that still puts you in "at or near the limit of your encumbrance with bare minimum gear" territory, which is a far cry from the "loaded down with tons of extra stuff" line that keeps getting repeated.
I think it doesn't include the book since that's given for free from the class feature the
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Uh oh. The example Alchemist in the book is a Chirurgeon wielding a crossbow.
Graystone is never gonna let us hear the end of this now. :P
EDIT: Also, something is seriously wrong with the listed weight of the Alchemist's Kit. Doing the math myself it comes to 6.4 Bulk:
1 - Studded Leather
0.1 - Dagger
0.1 - Sling
0.2 - Sling Bullets
2 - Adventurer's Pack
2 - Alchemist's Kit
1 - Formula Book
0 - Bandolier, sheath, caltrops
So uh... I guess it weighs less as a set? :/ In any case, if those weights are correct, then count me firmly switching over to Graystone's side in this debate...
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I believe Adventurer's pack is 1 bulk.
This was confirmed in a thread somewhere. The kits reflect the 1 bulk weight, the 2 bulk weight in the item's listing is incorrect.
That would still put the set at 5.4 bulk individually using MaxAstro's numbers, contrasted with the 4.6 bulk listed.
If you assume that the formula book is supposed to be L rather than 1, that puts the components of the kit at 4.5 bulk, now the kit is one light heavier than its actual pieces. So even then something is wrong with the final numbers.
That said, even if 4.6 is the right number, that 8 strength alchemist can carry all of 3 alchemical items on top of their kit before hitting encumbrance, which is still a long way away from the "Fine unless you're carrying tons of weapons" thing that some people in this thread have been insisting.
10 Str alch is a little better off, but 1.3 bulk is still not exactly a lot of breathing room and that drops back down to almost nothing if they go for basically any other weapon.
10 Str alch is a little better off, but 1.3 bulk is still not exactly a lot of breathing room and that drops back down to almost nothing if they go for basically any other weapon.
Or they have healer's tools...
Another contribution to the discrepancy is that the kit there lists a Basic Crafter's Book (all the common gear formulas) which is L.
It doesn't include the formula book (which is 1 bulk), actually, which you get for free.
So it definitely still seems screwy, just not quite as bad.
I'd strongly recommend that an alchemist with 8 or 10 strength not wear studded leather armor, when padded armor is a thing. It's bulk L, it's only down 1 AC, same dex cap (not as good as leather, but it should be fine if you're maxing Int at level 1), and you won't be penalized on dex-based stuff because you won't have the ACP. It's also 2 sp instead of 3 gp, so you can spend a bunch more on items you can't carry because you don't have any strength.
I'd strongly recommend that an alchemist with 8 or 10 strength not wear studded leather armor, when padded armor is a thing.
Is padded still fragile?
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I'd strongly recommend that an alchemist with 8 or 10 strength not wear studded leather armor, when padded armor is a thing.Is padded still fragile?
Nope, they got rid of all of the negative armor traits except noisy, which they accidentally forgot to give a defined mechanical effect. Plus it's got the comfort trait, so you can rest normally while wearing it.
(Armor check penalties and speed penalties still exist, but aren't traits.)
I'd strongly recommend that an alchemist with 8 or 10 strength not wear studded leather armor, when padded armor is a thing.Is padded still fragile?Nope, they got rid of all of the negative armor traits except noisy, which they accidentally forgot to give a defined mechanical effect. Plus it's got the comfort trait, so you can rest normally while wearing it.
(Armor check penalties and speed penalties still exist, but aren't traits.)
Cool, that makes it more workable to me; Fragile was the big hurdle in my wearing it.
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Also, for fun and unintuitive optimizing:
Formulas can also appear on parchment sheets, tablets, and almost any other medium; there's no need for you to copy them into a specific book as long as you can keep them on hand to reference them.
A writing set (L bulk) lets you draft correspondence and scribe scrolls. It include stationery, including a variety of paper and parchment (plus some other stuff like quills and ink). Extra ink and paper can be purchased and have negligible bulk.
The optimal low-level alchemist is clearly an absent-minded professor, scrawling formulas on whatever's at hand.
Cool, that makes it more workable to me; Fragile was the big hurdle in my wearing it.
Hm. So I didn't even remember what fragile did, and it made it so a single dent meant your armor was broken. Well, that's replaced with hardness and HP for items.
Cloth armor (which padded is) will have 1 hardness and 4 HP, with a broken threshold of 2.
So a 3 damage hit to to the armor will break it. 5 damage will completely destroy it. It might as well still have the Fragile trait under the playtest rules. I don't want to mislead you here.
But...how often is your armor getting targeted? Sunder isn't a generic combat maneuver anymore. I can't think of an ability I've seen in the last six days of reading the core rulebook that would do that.
A creature that attacks you doesn't normally damage your armor or other gear, even if it hits you. However, the Shield Block reaction can cause your shield to take damage as you use it to prevent damage to yourself, and some monsters have exceptional abilities that can damage your items.
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Wait, the crafter's book and formula book are different and the formula book is thus on top of the 4.6 Bulk (or, I guess, 4.5 if they got it wrong)?
Okay, I'm on Graystone's side now. 5.5 or 5.6 Bulk for the bare minimum for your Class is inordinate and excessive.
4.6 is high, but acceptable, as it gives you more than 1 Bulk of room to play with even at Str 10. 5.6 gives you no room for anything else whatsoever and I'm not okay with this.
But...how often is your armor getting targeted?
That's a big unknown to me: there must be a way it can be damaged [or a way that it's planned for in the future].
Honestly I'm not sure why the formula book is 1B when the crafting book is only L?
Ironically, if you assume that:
-The adventurer's pack is only 1B,
-The Alchemist's Kit is meant to include a formula book as well as a crafting book, and
-The formula book is only L
...then the weight does come out to 4.6B. This is what I will be ruling, most likely.
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Honestly I'm not sure why the formula book is 1B when the crafting book is only L?This confuses me as well.
They were the same in the playtest and did the same things.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm also bummed that you guys aren't happy that I solved the problem with a writing kit.
But...how often is your armor getting targeted?That's a big unknown to me: there must be a way it can be damaged [or a way that it's planned for in the future].
I mean, the hardness rules for armor aren't front and center. I wouldn't worry about it in the same way that I've never worried about cloth armor on casters for the last decade of PF1.
Well...unless you run into a black pudding. That'll destroy your generic padded armor right quick. "Corrosive Touch: When the pudding hits a creature with its pseudopod, any acid damage is dealt to the creature's armor or clothing as well as the creature." That would be 2d6.
But...how often is your armor getting targeted?That's a big unknown to me: there must be a way it can be damaged [or a way that it's planned for in the future].I mean, the hardness rules for armor aren't front and center. I wouldn't worry about it in the same way that I've never worried about cloth armor on casters for the last decade of PF1.
Well...unless you run into a black pudding. That'll destroy your generic padded armor right quick. "Corrosive Touch: When the pudding hits a creature with its pseudopod, any acid damage is dealt to the creature's armor or clothing as well as the creature." That would be 2d6.
Well I generally didn't see much sunders and such in PF1 but we have a different dynamic now: what happens to runes if the item they are on is destroyed? If they survive, destroying weapons and armor seem like a much better option than before if you can just dig through the pile and sort out the runes at the end of a fight.
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I'm also bummed that you guys aren't happy that I solved the problem with a writing kit.
I'm happy about it, it's a neat trick. It's just the kind of workaround that it's annoying there's a need for. The kind of thing that punishes new players who aren't looking for exploits unnecessarily.
It's a step backwards towards the worst parts of PF1 and I dislike it.
Well I generally didn't see much sunders and such in PF1 but we have a different dynamic now: what happens to runes if the item they are on is destroyed? If they survive, destroying weapons and armor seem like a much better option than before if you can just dig through the pile and sort out thertunes at the end of a fight.
I was wondering the same thing, so I've been looking through the rules since I posted about the pudding. I don't see an answer. I also don't see any rules specifically like the old editions about magic items getting saves, etc. It's kind of like the assumptions of the system have shifted so much to "only shields get broken/destroyed, or like doors and walls when the PCs are bad at picking locks" that the detail may have been overlooked. Or I just can't find it in 10 minutes of searching, which might also be the case.
I think in the short term, I'm going to assume runes survive for re-etching.
I'm also bummed that you guys aren't happy that I solved the problem with a writing kit.I'm happy about it, it's a neat trick. It's just the kind of workaround that it's annoying there's a need for. The kind of thing that punishes new players who aren't looking for exploits unnecessarily.
It's a step backwards towards the worst parts of PF1 and I dislike it.
Yeah, that's actually how I feel about it. I've found a small amount of unintuitive optimizations that I'm not a fan of, but they've been pretty minor compared to the weirdness of PF1. I still think that this is an edge case where bulk is kind of showing its worst, but that's based on wondering how it didn't come up more in the playtest if that's not the case.
But I'm also the kind of person that can't help but look for unintuitive optimizations, so...
Uh oh. The example Alchemist in the book is a Chirurgeon wielding a crossbow.
Graystone is never gonna let us hear the end of this now. :P
EDIT: Also, something is seriously wrong with the listed weight of the Alchemist's Kit. Doing the math myself it comes to 6.4 Bulk:
1 - Studded Leather
0.1 - Dagger
0.1 - Sling
0.2 - Sling Bullets
2 - Adventurer's Pack
2 - Alchemist's Kit
1 - Formula Book
0 - Bandolier, sheath, caltropsSo uh... I guess it weighs less as a set? :/ In any case, if those weights are correct, then count me firmly switching over to Graystone's side in this debate...
The kit comes with 2 sets of caltrops that are each Light bulk, and the basic crafter's book is also Light bulk. So the actual total of the Alchemist class kit should be 4.7 and the free formula book from the class pushes that to 5.7.
Pretty rough, but I think the kits are designed to be for the average member of the class so you can just grab it and go. Or so that you can swap out pieces if the entire thing doesn't suit your character. A chirurgeon with a crossbow and healer's tools might want to swap the armor for a lighter alternative, drop the adventurer's kit (or let someone stronger carry it), or/and give the formula book to someone else to carry.
I'm not sure if quick alchemy requires you to have your formula book on you, or if you just need the proper formulas in your book, wherever it is.
Counting out the bulk of the other kits, it seems that the bard should also be 1 Light bulk heavier, with one commonality being the sling with 20 bullets that could be easily mistaken for 2 Light bulk instead of 3.
The rest of the kits seem correct outside of the monk kit, which looks to be 1 entire bulk heavier than what's listed for 5.2 bulk.
2 - longspear
1 - staff
1 - adventurer's pack
1 - climbing kit
L - grappling hook
L - lesser smokestick
- - bandolier
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Well I generally didn't see much sunders and such in PF1 but we have a different dynamic now: what happens to runes if the item they are on is destroyed? If they survive, destroying weapons and armor seem like a much better option than before if you can just dig through the pile and sort out thertunes at the end of a fight.I was wondering the same thing, so I've been looking through the rules since I posted about the pudding. I don't see an answer. I also don't see any rules specifically like the old editions about magic items getting saves, etc. It's kind of like the assumptions of the system have shifted so much to "only shields get broken/destroyed, or like doors and walls when the PCs are bad at picking locks" that the detail may have been overlooked. Or I just can't find it in 10 minutes of searching, which might also be the case.
I think in the short term, I'm going to assume runes survive for re-etching.
Gah. I edited this post in time for the cutoff, but a web error ate the update, so now I'm rewriting it and replying to myself.
Okay, so after another 30+ minutes of poking through the rules and pondering this, I think I figured out the interactions.
The key is that an item being destroyed just means it cannot be repaired; it doesn't actually replace the Broken condition. For all items other than armor, Broken already makes it useless; it can't be used for its normal function, nor does it grant bonuses. Armor is a partial exception, in that broken armor continues to grant its item bonus to AC, but also adds a status penalty of -1/-2/-3, depending on if it's light/medium/heavy. That likely still includes the bonus granted by the potency rune. A broken item still imposes penalties and limitations normally incurred by carrying, holding, or wearing it.
So a set of padded armor that met an untimely end to a single black pudding attack would grant +0 AC + whatever the potency rune boosted it by, but not any other bonuses from runes. But there's no reason to believe the runes would also be broken or destroyed. They don't have HP. They're not made of anything. There doesn't appear to be a rule preventing the rune from being transferred from a broken item, nor a destroyed one. Once you got back to a town, it would basically be a penalty of 10% of the cost of the runes + the time taken and the time spent without a potentially important item.
Same for destroyed weapons used against a black pudding, presumably.
It could potentially complicate the otherwise very uncomplicated house rule for reflavoring potency runes as item quality, but it still won't come up in 99.9% of games.
Anyway, the Bestiary has rust monsters and black puddings, both of which can break/destroy worn items, but they're very much those classic exceptions (which is how I quickly found them). I still don't see any rules covering classic "unattended magic items get saving throw" kinds of things that protected magic items in PF1, so if you drop your magic ring in lava it's still going to take a lot of damage and be destroyed basically instantly.
It's potentially an FAQ eventually, or at least the lesser version where a dev gives an interpretation that's not potentially worth editing the written rules in a future printing (however those tiers work).
Ironically, if you assume that:
-The adventurer's pack is only 1B,
-The Alchemist's Kit is meant to include a formula book as well as a crafting book, and
-The formula book is only L...then the weight does come out to 4.6B. This is what I will be ruling, most likely.
You get a formula book as part of being an alchemist. That's why it's not included.
Honestly I'm not sure why the formula book is 1B when the crafting book is only L?
It should be the other way around if they're going to be different.