Seriously, there are a number of cool effects by they only work if you're using them with quick alchemy. You're punished for preparing your academical items in advance. You can't use Deliberating Bomb in bombs you've prepared, you can't give potions use Merciful Elixir on your potions you've prepared.
Also, Smoke Bomb is still terrible and would be better as an actual bomb instead of an additive.
Quick alchemy imposes an action economy limitation and ensures you can’t throw one as your first action.
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Xenocrat wrote: Quick alchemy imposes an action economy limitation and ensures you can’t throw one as your first action. They also cost 200-300% more.
With the limitation that it already costs 3x to use Quick, I find it seriously absurd that "additive" trait also requires lower level items.
Quick alchemy early on probably does not get used a ton. But as you get enough bombs to not have to worry so much having some you can change/modify on the fly is pretty useful. At some economy cost you gain the ability to adjust to a specific creatures vulnerabilities on the fly which could be worth the cost.
Later on the bulk of your main combat stuff is being made during preperation for the day but you should have more than enough reagents to save a few for emergency quick alchemy uses.
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kaid wrote: Quick alchemy early on probably does not get used a ton. But as you get enough bombs to not have to worry so much having some you can change/modify on the fly is pretty useful. At some economy cost you gain the ability to adjust to a specific creatures vulnerabilities on the fly which could be worth the cost.
Later on the bulk of your main combat stuff is being made during preperation for the day but you should have more than enough reagents to save a few for emergency quick alchemy uses.
isn't then a massive waste that your class feats only apply to those "few bombs used for emergency" instead of, you know, your main bombs...
they are class feats that basically say: if you're not a bomber, with perpetual bombs, don't look at us, we are worthless for 80% of the time.
just imagine if fighter feats, an an example, only worked every 4th round of a combat.
Quick alchemy seems to be for emergency useful items or perpetual bombs, since that seems to pair with debilitating or sticky bombs. I wonder if sticky bombs counts the extra damage from calculated splash or just straight bomb splash, cause the latter is pretty meh.
I honestly don't think I would use debilitating bombs until I got p bombs at lvl 7. You get 10 reagents, maybe 11 if you pass on bomber feats and get a familiar. That's 5 hits at 2 dice plus and maybe splash and a 1 round debuff to the target. And you lose all your utility and tool items unless you shell out to craft them in downtime.
You could quick alchemy a bomb to take advantage of a vulnerability but as stated it's a pretty expensive bomb (3x's!) to miss with half the time. Assuming I grind out the levels to the point an alchemist is actually fun at lvl 7 I'd probably pre craft like 3 of each bomb, 4x2 tool/buffs, and 2 quick alchemy for emergencies. Debilitating bomb all the things, and I guess a bow/sling attack or two? Or maybe recall knowledge to find out that the thing you're fighting is resistant to the two damage types your p bombs do and you can't ever change them short of complete retraining.
Maybe we're not supposed to use infused reagents for anything but quick alchemy? Maybe we're supposed to downtime craft everything we use out of pocket.
Aricks wrote: Quick alchemy seems to be for emergency useful items or perpetual bombs, since that seems to pair with debilitating or sticky bombs. I wonder if sticky bombs counts the extra damage from calculated splash or just straight bomb splash, cause the latter is pretty meh.
I honestly don't think I would use debilitating bombs until I got p bombs at lvl 7. You get 10 reagents, maybe 11 if you pass on bomber feats and get a familiar. That's 5 hits at 2 dice plus and maybe splash and a 1 round debuff to the target. And you lose all your utility and tool items unless you shell out to craft them in downtime.
You could quick alchemy a bomb to take advantage of a vulnerability but as stated it's a pretty expensive bomb (3x's!) to miss with half the time. Assuming I grind out the levels to the point an alchemist is actually fun at lvl 7 I'd probably pre craft like 3 of each bomb, 4x2 tool/buffs, and 2 quick alchemy for emergencies. Debilitating bomb all the things, and I guess a bow/sling attack or two? Or maybe recall knowledge to find out that the thing you're fighting is resistant to the two damage types your p bombs do and you can't ever change them short of complete retraining.
Maybe we're not supposed to use infused reagents for anything but quick alchemy? Maybe we're supposed to downtime craft everything we use out of pocket.
Honestly I am curious how much of your last point plays into what we are seeing with how much actual items are we expected to be making.
Unlike the early playtest making even things like bombs during downtime is viable if pricey. Things like healing potions/elixirs even more viable especially with the feat for better batch efficiency. You could crank out a pretty good amount of healing potions/utility elixirs. If you are making stuff below your level some of the buffs are still lasting a very usable amount of time so at 5th level its not unreasonable to just spend downtime making a batch or two of stuff like antidotes or antiplagues to hand out so everybody in the group has one or two. If you split the cost up across the group its probably not even that bad price wise.
kaid wrote: Aricks wrote: Quick alchemy seems to be for emergency useful items or perpetual bombs, since that seems to pair with debilitating or sticky bombs. I wonder if sticky bombs counts the extra damage from calculated splash or just straight bomb splash, cause the latter is pretty meh.
I honestly don't think I would use debilitating bombs until I got p bombs at lvl 7. You get 10 reagents, maybe 11 if you pass on bomber feats and get a familiar. That's 5 hits at 2 dice plus and maybe splash and a 1 round debuff to the target. And you lose all your utility and tool items unless you shell out to craft them in downtime.
You could quick alchemy a bomb to take advantage of a vulnerability but as stated it's a pretty expensive bomb (3x's!) to miss with half the time. Assuming I grind out the levels to the point an alchemist is actually fun at lvl 7 I'd probably pre craft like 3 of each bomb, 4x2 tool/buffs, and 2 quick alchemy for emergencies. Debilitating bomb all the things, and I guess a bow/sling attack or two? Or maybe recall knowledge to find out that the thing you're fighting is resistant to the two damage types your p bombs do and you can't ever change them short of complete retraining.
Maybe we're not supposed to use infused reagents for anything but quick alchemy? Maybe we're supposed to downtime craft everything we use out of pocket.
Honestly I am curious how much of your last point plays into what we are seeing with how much actual items are we expected to be making.
Unlike the early playtest making even things like bombs during downtime is viable if pricey. Things like healing potions/elixirs even more viable especially with the feat for better batch efficiency. You could crank out a pretty good amount of healing potions/utility elixirs. If you are making stuff below your level some of the buffs are still lasting a very usable amount of time so at 5th level its not unreasonable to just spend downtime making a batch or two of stuff like antidotes or antiplagues to hand out so... anyone can mundane alchemy craft.
or do you think that spending a class feat just to save yourself 4 days or so makes it so that only alchemists are good at crafting alchemical items in downtime?
if downtime alchemy is worthwhile or not, that has nothing to do with viability of the Alchemist class.
Now, if they had a feature, or even a feat, actually making some serious impact on mundane crafting, like per example the extra batch from the feat being actually free (so basically half cost on crafting) then maybe, but now? it really does nothing for the Class.
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