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It all comes down to Perpetual being almost completely useless for all except bomber. Meaning that everything you want to do costs reagents.
In my opinion, you can't think an Alchemist without an "at-will" ability. Mostly because you don't want to use resources when a combat is nearly over and it's clear it's a win. Bombers have Perpetual Bombs, Mutagenists can smash heads, and Chirurgeon have to multiclass/grab a weapon.
Roughly, an Alchemist uses 2 Alchemical Items per round (you'll have hard time using more than that during combat). Around level 10, it's supposed to be ok for you to last 3-4 fights a day. You should catch up spellcasters in terms of sustainability.
At level 9, a Wizard has 14 spells. With an average of 4 battles a day, he must use 3.5 spells per fight, considering that they are scattered between level 1 and 5. I don't feel the Alchemist is in a worse place than the Wizard at that stage. What is infuriating is when your second level Alchemist has no more Reagent left after 2 fights. But once he is as sustainable as other casters, I think he's in the right spot.
meanwhile, alchemist has to fall back to weapon use while having caster proficiencies and 0 combat feats to back that up...
That's what I said: An Alchemist needs a fall back, a valid at-will ability. Perpetual Bombs is a good fall back, and a Mutagenist is supposed to hit honorably. And Alchemists can have Focus spells also, it's a feat for most casters, and a few feats for an Alchemist, nothing incredible.
I haven't played a high level Alchemist (I'll soon start to play PFS2, when my gaming group will start it). But on paper, it sounds doable. I agree it needs a little bit of planning, but nothing impossible at first glance.You edited:
and again, that doesn't even begin to cover the absolutely INSANE costs of alchemist abilities
On that, I fully agree. Most of the Alchemist's feats are bad. It's annoying, but it also gives lots of space for multiclassing. Combine Elixirs is supposed to be used once a day, only for emergency situations.
I honestly wish you good luck on your alchemist escapades
Thanks!
I think I'll have hard times in the beginning, but should start to shine around level 5.Unfortunately, due to my family welcoming a third member soon, I will certainly play too rarely to bring you a return of experience in a timely manner.
Also, I like your houseruling. In my opinion, it doesn't change much the strength of the class, but fixes some ridiculous parts of it.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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Hi all,
I feel like I'm late to the game, but I'm trying to follow along and getting lost over and over. Here are my questions:
-I keep seeing people talking about a Mutagenist getting -2 to AC. What's that about?
-I see what people are saying about the level 1 ability not doing anything, since it's pretty obvious that they changed things part-way through development such that mutagens work on anyone with no penalty now. But is there something else that makes the Mutagenist so much worse than any other alchemist?
Thank you, and I hope it's not too annoying to have to answer these questions so far into these discussions. :)
Tyler
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-I keep seeing people talking about a Mutagenist getting -2 to AC. What's that about?
Feral Mutagenist 8th level Alchemist feat. It's necessary to increase your mutagen's damage, but further reduces your AC.
-I see what people are saying about the level 1 ability not doing anything, since it's pretty obvious that they changed things part-way through development such that mutagens work on anyone with no penalty now. But is there something else that makes the Mutagenist so much worse than any other alchemist?
It's been confirmed by the Devs that every character has their unarmed go up at the same rate as their simple weapons by default: this means that the increase to unarmed that is the second part of the ability is something everyone gets, hence people saying it's useless as both the first and second benefits are useless.
I've made a calculation on another thread. For me, the tipping point was 9th level. At that stage, the Alchemist was, without a single feat investment besides Combine Elixirs, doing quite well. Not as well as a Cleric, but well enough to be main healer, and even sole healer, in a party.
The issues the Alchemist is having only happen at low level. Everything's fine with it as soon as you have enough reagents to:
- Not care about the reagent cost from poisons
- Have enough Elixirs of Life to sustain heal better than a Cleric
- Have enough Mutagens lasting long enough for an adventuring day
- Have enough Bombs (the hardest issue, by far)And the Alchemists specialization are just small advantages. Mutagenists no more exists. You are an Alchemist, with a small specialization in mutagens. A Mutagenist is expected to heal, toss bombs and use poison as much as a Chirurgeon or a Bomber.
I would also agree. The biggest issues of alchemists have start going away at level 5 or so. By then you can boop your strength up so carrying capacity is not that much of an issue. Also your efficiency for making stuff during downtime jumps so you have enough bombs/mutagens/healing stuff to really do your job.
mutagenists though seem to be worst off out of the gate. Until they get their second version of bestial they can't really survive doing their dr jeckyl thing and it won't do enough damage to be useful. As they get better versoin's they draw a lot more into line damage wise with where they should be. There is still the issue that they are going to basically have the worst AC in the game when hulking out and that means they are going to get critted more than anybody else and are not well situated to survive that.
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Hi all,
I feel like I'm late to the game, but I'm trying to follow along and getting lost over and over. Here are my questions:-I keep seeing people talking about a Mutagenist getting -2 to AC. What's that about?
-I see what people are saying about the level 1 ability not doing anything, since it's pretty obvious that they changed things part-way through development such that mutagens work on anyone with no penalty now. But is there something else that makes the Mutagenist so much worse than any other alchemist?Thank you, and I hope it's not too annoying to have to answer these questions so far into these discussions. :)
Tyler
The problem with alchemists is that, unlike every other class, they cannot get by in combat focusing their attributes and build around a single focus of specialization.
Bombers do alright because they can really focus on INT, then Dex and their weapon, the bomb, does a fair bit of covering for their lack of accuracy, becasue of splash damage, and their lack of defense, because of being able to keep some distance and not get attacked as frequently.
the Chirurgeon can focus on the same attributes, still use bombs, but not nearly as well, and provide a fair bit of healing. This option still seems less than ideal to me but at least it is not being pushed into being terrible.
The mutagenist is pushed into prioritizing INT, then STR, but absolutely cannot afford to tank Dex or Con, and is thus in a pretty bad spot as far as expecting to have any defenses at all or accuracy. They can still throw bombs, but at an even worse accuracy than other builds because they prioritizes STR over Dex, and get none of the bomber's innate boosts to their bombs. Bestial mutagen gives you the impression that you have three weapons now that will enable to you close into melee combat and make lots of attacks, but your melee attacks don't do anything on a miss and you don't get the proficiency bonuses to make up for you attribute deficiency and thus relying on multiple attacks is actually a terrible build. Especially because if you move up to attack an enemy, and then make two attacks, you are a sitting duck for the retaliatory 3 strikes that have a good chance of hitting because your defenses are bad. You do not have to focus on Bestial mutagen's but at the point that you are a mutagenist to focus on having a ranged weapon and utilizing poisons, you might as well just wait until the poisoner becomes an actual kind of mutagenist.
You can tell that the mutagenist is a mess of a class build because the suggested one has intimidate as a recommended skill and their is a mutagen and a class feat dedicated to the idea that a mutagenist might somehow have a decent enough charisma to ever think about using that mutagen. It is a class build designed to reject specialization in a game that demands a certain level of specialization to be functional.
I was mostly trying to redirect the thread away from a comparison between the Chirurgeon and a cleric as "functional healer," which probably is a different thread somewhere.I can understand but healing is something every alchemist can do, it just depends on how much resources you put into it. As such, IMO, it's really hard to call out healing comparisons as out of place for any alchemist debate: how much an alchemist can heal is pretty important mutagenist as melee + mutagenist = a beat up mutagenist. :P
Yes bulk is one of the weird issues of alchemists but overall they are going to be off loading a lot of their elixers to team mates so their daily potion load gets distributed pretty well.Well, the current bulk totals have the alchemist encumbered at start without keeping a single elixir. We'll see if the fixes actually fix the poor, poor alchemist.
On hands... Yeah, it's a mess.
Also you can load a kit into bandolier so I think most alchemists will be running two bandoliers one for alchemy kit + flasks and one for healing kit if they have medicine.I don't think bandoliers change the number of hands needed for kits, just the action needed to use: making an alchemy roll requires alchemist tools the the actual medicine actions require the healer tools. So your 4 hands can grab the tools without needed an extra action. :P
The weird thing is logically the hands thing makes no sense but game play wise it works fine because most of the things don't require you to USE the kit. You just have to have it on you.
Cost 1 batch of infused reagentsRequirements You have alchemist’s tools (page 287), the formula for the alchemical item you’re creating, and a free hand.
So the hands thing while logically not sensible in practice is not an issue. You need to have the tools but somehow don't really need to use them I guess presumably you have the stuff you need on the fly packed in such a way you can easily grab them with one hand.
The mutagenist is pushed into prioritizing INT, then STR, but absolutely cannot afford to tank Dex or Con, and is thus in a pretty bad spot as far as expecting to have any defenses at all or accuracy. They can still throw bombs, but at an even worse accuracy than other builds because they prioritizes STR over Dex, and get none of the bomber's innate boosts to their bombs. Bestial mutagen gives you the impression that you have three weapons now that will enable to you close into melee combat and make lots of attacks, but your melee attacks don't do anything on a miss and you don't get the proficiency bonuses to make up for you attribute deficiency and thus relying on...
Sorry, but in my opinion, you go a bit too far away with this comment.
If you take a Human Alchemist, you can have 16 Dexterity, 16 Strength, 14 Intelligence and 12 Constitution. It makes a decent fighter out of your Alchemist. And Intelligence is not much required for an Alchemist, especially if you want to specialize yourself in melee attacks.You can then play defensive. If a monster goes in melee range from you, you attack him, and then retreat. In my opinion, the best way to play an Alchemist is to split your 3 actions amongst very efficient moves (attack with no penalty, 1-action heal with your familiar, these kind of things).
So, if the enemies try to target you, you are at your highest efficiency. If they don't try to target you, you can live your Alchemist's life. And if you find a very juicy target, like a caster, you can attack it as you don't fear retaliation.
Now, if you want to stand toe to toe with the party Barbarian, you're good for a world of pain.
Edit: And I can find many other ways to do that. Champion Dedication allows you to go expert with heavy armors, solving your AC issue without investing a single point in Dexterity. And as you need no weapon in hand, you can easily use a shield.
At high levels, you can use 2 Mutagens at the same time. Stone Body gives you DR. So, you can have a decent defense, too.
And a little bit of multiclassing can give you very nice stuff, like Flurry of Blows...
Ah! Great, I'm understanding better now. So giving the mutagenist a useful level 1 ability would at least be taking things in the right direction. Got it.
Thanks guys!
I think give mutagenists either reduction in penalties associated with the mutagens or give them the second tier of mutagens at level 1. The second tier of mutagens puts their damage much more near to something like the animal barbarian. They are still more fragile and stats are never going to be as good as a dedicated martial but it would pull them a lot closer.
So instead of the normal one they would start with this for bestial
Bestial Mutagen (Moderate)Item 3
Source Core Rulebook pg. 546
Level 3; Price 12 gp
You gain a +2 item bonus, your claw deals 1d6 slashing damage, your jaws deal 1d8 piercing damage, and the duration is 10 minutes.
The extra plus helps offset what is going to be not as good of str bonus and it ups the damage to be solid. Note that the animal instinct barbarian can oftentimes have 1d10 damage plus better extras so it is not stealing their thunder but at least drawing them closer.
Its also only a level 3 item so it should not be game breaking if they gain access to it a couple levels early.
starting with 14 int gives you 3 reagents at 1st level.
First level is irrelevant for an Alchemist. You don't have enough reagent anyway, half of the time you'll be a peasant with a crossbow.
At fifth level, you have one less reagent, considering that you have 8/9 of them, it's not much of a big deal.And at that stage you deal 1d8 damage, with 18 Strength, which is what I call decent. You're not a Fighter or a Barbarian, but you can dish out some damage when someone decides to get physical with you.
One other kinda odd way to play a mutagen spec alchemist that had a build like the one from the stream would have been to instead of bestial go quicksilver. The stream spec had a high enough con to easily absorb the penalty for using it without much hardship. It would up their accuracy with all ranged weapons to basically be similar to what a bomber would normally start with as well as making them physically faster move speed wise.
You could make really good use of slings or xbows and be one of the fastest things on the battlefield at low levels so maintaining distance should be doable. Advantage of sling would be still leaves a hand free so you could quickdraw a bomb and follow up with a sling attack in the same round.
It would be a weird build that at low levels would play more like a bomber until you got high enough for your other stats to come online well enough to go to town in melee.
I'm kinda wishing the Alchemist had incentives for stat placement that went outside the traditional roles they play for everyone:
I.E. your Constitution being directly tied to the amount of "punishment" your body can handle in terms of a Mutagens/Poisons you were able to reliably create (say they needed to be "tested" first).
I do think that Mutagenist should get a boost for using their own brand bonus though.
Perhaps even the baseline number of alchemical items should get a boost, because as many have mentioned the PT sort of accounted for the ability to "flex" into more items via the rolling against the Resonance total. Without that, a slight bump on the baseline would help low level alchemists a lot.
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It seems like a pretty serious step backwards if the mutagenist in PF1 was up and running quickly and a favorite build of enough people to justify bringing over into the core rulebook, and then the best builds for them involve deliberately making your character against expectation and accepting 5 dead levels at the beginning of the game. There is no way that was the intended thought process going into the class. The playtest mutagenist got three abilities that were so essential to the alchemist class, they became default.
If the mutagenist is supposed to be better at taking their own mutagens than giving them out as support, they need that to be a level 1 ability. If melee combat is an expected part of the class (the point of giving their proficiency a boost in the playtest) they need that as well, and some ability to defend themselves would be cool, bonus points if it is not just regular armor proficiency, but something that plays into the class’ niche.
at least with 16 starting Int, you abandom the mutagens for the first few levels, grab a few bombs, grab a healing potion, and have like a contribution for 1 fight a day... that's something!
You can't reasonably tell me that having 16 starting Int instead of 14 Int suddenly makes you a valid bomb tosser.
Alchemist is very simple:- Level 1, you don't do much. There is not a single valid Alchemist build at that stage.
- Level 2, you don't do much more. Same, but you can at least get a Cantrip if you multiclass into a spellcasting class, an armor if you multiclass into Champion or a Greatsword if you multiclass into Fighter.
- Level 3-4, you toss bombs, unless you started with 8-10 in Dexterity. Bombs are just awesome at these levels as they are the first items to get to 2 dice.
- Level 5+, you play a proper Alchemist based on the build you designed.
The weird thing to me about Chirugeon is that a Champion with lay on hands is just a flat better downtime healer - over the course of an hour, a Champion can heal 36, which would be a significant number of infusion uses to match. And those lesser healing elixirs don’t really heal enough to be super useful in combat outside of the guaranteed stabilize. What are you really getting?
And comparing healing elixirs to a cleric - like not even close. Heal, especially at higher levels, is really strong for Clerics
FYI (at max levels at least, I think it starts spiking hard around level 4) a chirurgeon fully dedicated to healing will blow out (by around a 30-40% margin) a cleric doing the same. Do not underestimate the sheer amount of healing they can put out.
And with Merciful Elixir, they can also combat remove conditions, and that's worth a lot.
Returning to the main topic, it's hard to judge the mutagenist right now given their primary class feature apparently does nothing. The later discoveries don't really help them *that* much, though Double Mutagen at 9th might do some decent work.
If that's fixed, we'll have to see then.
I have a hard time seeing that.
A healer focused cleric that also uses his spellslots (akin to how chirurgeon has to use his reagents) and feats for healing will easily outheal the chirurgeon.
Plus, they are quite better than removing conditions (channel succor>>>merciful elixirs).
The main boon of a cleric is that it's extremely action economy efficient in said healing as opposed to chirurgeon who feels much more like an ooc healer (made kinda redundant with medicine and lay on hands spam)
Level 5 for both. Let's say the chirurgeon uses 5 reagents versus a super-specced cleric with 5 divine fonts.
Chirurgeon: 15 * 3d6+6 = 15 * average 16.5 = 247.5
Cleric: 5 * 3d10+24 = 5 * average 40.5 = 202.5
If we also add in every cleric slot:
3 * d10+8 + 3 * 2d10+16 + 2 * 3d10 + 24 = 15d10+120 = 202.5
The chirurgeon needs 24.5 elixirs to equal, or 8/9 reagents on most chirurgeons (an optimized one can get 10 reagents). And that's against the cleric optimized for that.
The number I was originally quoted at level 20 was something like 5k healed for the chirurgeon, versus 3.8k for the cleric.
Looking at the exact things covered by Channel Succor vs Greater Merciful Elixir, it's hard to compare the two, because they hit such different things.
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It seems like a pretty serious step backwards if the mutagenist in PF1 was up and running quickly and a favorite build of enough people to justify bringing over into the core rulebook, and then the best builds for them involve deliberately making your character against expectation and accepting 5 dead levels at the beginning of the game. There is no way that was the intended thought process going into the class. The playtest mutagenist got three abilities that were so essential to the alchemist class, they became default.
If the mutagenist is supposed to be better at taking their own mutagens than giving them out as support, they need that to be a level 1 ability. If melee combat is an expected part of the class (the point of giving their proficiency a boost in the playtest) they need that as well, and some ability to defend themselves would be cool, bonus points if it is not just regular armor proficiency, but something that plays into the class’ niche.
How about this as a house rule:
Mutagenicist research field: You start with 2 additional Mutagens in your Formula book. In addition, whenever you take one of your own mutagens, you gain the benefits of the next higher type (a Lesser acts as a Moderate, a Moderate acts as a Greater, a Greater acts as a Major, and a Major gives you the normal benefit but without the drawback)
To balance this and preserve the uniqueness of each Research Field, I would say that when the Bomber uses his own bombs, they act as the next higher type for free (and the Major gives an additional +1 Item bonus on attack rolls and an additional +1 die of damage), and when the Chirurgen uses or applies an Elixir he has created it counts as the next higher type for free (for Elixirs that don't have specified levels, it simply extends the duration as follows: 1 minute -> 10 minutes -> 1 hour -> 24 hours)
Using these changes, each type of Alchemist will become a true specialist in his field, gaining extra benefits from his kind of formulas, though he can still use the other 2 types (bombs, elixirs, mutagens) at their normal listed potencies.
What do you think?
It seems like a pretty serious step backwards if the mutagenist in PF1 was up and running quickly and a favorite build of enough people to justify bringing over into the core rulebook, and then the best builds for them involve deliberately making your character against expectation and accepting 5 dead levels at the beginning of the game. There is no way that was the intended thought process going into the class. The playtest mutagenist got three abilities that were so essential to the alchemist class, they became default.
If the mutagenist is supposed to be better at taking their own mutagens than giving them out as support, they need that to be a level 1 ability. If melee combat is an expected part of the class (the point of giving their proficiency a boost in the playtest) they need that as well, and some ability to defend themselves would be cool, bonus points if it is not just regular armor proficiency, but something that plays into the class’ niche.
How about this as a house rule:
Mutagenicist research field: You start with 2 additional Mutagens in your Formula book. In addition, whenever you take one of your own mutagens, you gain the benefits of the next higher type (a Lesser acts as a Moderate, a Moderate acts as a Greater, a Greater acts as a Major, and a Major gives you the normal benefit but without the drawback)
To balance this and preserve the uniqueness of each Research Field, I would say that when the Bomber uses his own bombs, they act as the next higher type for free (and the Major gives an additional +1 Item bonus on attack rolls and an additional +1 die of damage), and when the Chirurgen uses or applies an Elixir he has created it counts as the next higher type for free (for Elixirs that don't have specified levels, it simply extends the duration as follows: 1 minute -> 10 minutes -> 1 hour -> 24 hours)
Using these changes, each type of Alchemist will become a true specialist in his field, gaining extra benefits from his kind of formulas, though he...
Making the class work at your table with a house rule like this is great. It is a little too complicated for me to want to deal with myself as a player, and that complexity leads me away from thinking it would get Errata'd in, but if again if it works at your table to make the class feel fun and balanced, I'd say it is a fine house rule.
I am probably even fine with the possibility that there will be no change to the mutagenist as is and that they just release enough new archetypes to effectively call the build a dead one unless you are starting a game at much higher levels.
nah, to be fair, at level 1 with 18 int and familiar that's 6 reagents that's 12 items, you can do some things for like... 2-3 battles with those.
16 int is 1-1.5 battle (8 items).
14 int is like, 1 battle.
p.s. how are you supporting 14 cha for MCing champion?
12 items mean... nearly nothing. Bombs deal 1d8+1 damage, Elixirs of Life heal 1d6 and Mutagens last 1 minute for nearly no bonus. At that stage, doing anything relevant will ask for a very specific build. It's better to grab a few items of each type and try to get the right item at the right moment. And tell everyone that your character really starts at level 3.
If you MC into Champion, you can dump Dexterity.
Mutagenist not building for bestial mutagen, but building for silver tongue mutagen and going STR 16 INT: 14 CHA: 16 and then MCing into Shylen's champion might actually be an interesting build to test out as far as what you can do with intimidate and deception trained might be interesting as early as level 2 or 3, but your offensive attack options will be abysmal and your character will barely play as an alchemist. Also, you could just have an 18 CHA rogue or bard that you feed the mutagens to and be a bomber and it would all work out just as well.
The major effect being that you can't critically fail any CHA skill check. But that kicks in at level 1 so it is a mutagen that might actually be worth stockpiling as a consumable once you get high enough level.
EDIT: I recognize that the level 1 version only works for 1 minute and wont boost any diplomacy or other check that requires a significant amount of time.
i like to think bombs at this levels as minor debuffs on damage riders instead of damage with debuff riders^^
so yeah, throwing a "you get flat-footed" bomb, followed by a bolt, or having a quick heal, or Acid flasks (which are the only ones that can do some sort of damage), or a +2 to search for traps for the rogue, and etc.
It usually will carry you for 2-3 battles in early levels. After that, battles get longer and nastier, but you are finally a class as well.
they aren't really anything impressive, but they are better than "i load my crossbow, i fire my crossbow, i load my crossbow, i fire my crossbow X infinity"
The only thing I say is that you won't do much with an Alchemist at level 1 and 2. Starting at level 3, you have valid options. And at level 5, you have enough reagents and attribute boosts to start playing your Alchemist the way it is intended.
yeah, i didn't disagree on that.
i disagreed on the stat array, because harming your Int to get early physical boosts for something that you'll engage mostly at level 5+ seems counterpoductive to me, seeing as you can simply put the boosts towards physical stats at 5 instead and start with a bit higher Int to be a bit more useful early on and have a bit more enjoyable leveling experience.
Or you can grab a Longspear and deal 1d8 + 3 damage at 10 ft. In my opinion, it's far more valid at that level.
the Chirurgeon can focus on the same attributes, still use bombs, but not nearly as well, and provide a fair bit of healing. This option still seems less than ideal to me but at least it is not being pushed into being terrible.
I have to say, the Chirurgeon tends to be pretty awful even a you go up in levels: your Perpetual items are a joke and your special ability requires 4 hands and 3 bulk to use! The only real bonus is extra big batches of healing at the start of the day.
I can't see any good reason for EVERY alchemist not to be a Bomber: Perpetuals actually DO something and the special ability is actually useful and gets better as you level up [and get free bombs].
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the Chirurgeon can focus on the same attributes, still use bombs, but not nearly as well, and provide a fair bit of healing. This option still seems less than ideal to me but at least it is not being pushed into being terrible.I have to say, the Chirurgeon tends to be pretty awful even a you go up in levels: your Perpetual items are a joke and your special ability requires 4 hands and 3 bulk to use! The only real bonus is extra big batches of healing at the start of the day.
I can't see any good reason for EVERY alchemist not to be a Bomber: Perpetuals actually DO something and the special ability is actually useful and gets better as you level up [and get free bombs].
Check out my listed suggestions above to show how each of the Research Fields can be improved.
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I kinda like Samurai's approach.
It could be codified to be less confusing I think, if all the research fields came with a line "You treat Alchemical items you imbibe or attack with as one tier better."
Then you can just create a "Master" level increase (similar to the 17th level Ranger increase for Hunt Prey) that adds a unique benefit based on the research field (i.e. Bombs do an additional dice of damage, Mutagens have no drawback, Elixirs can be drank twice, Poisons operate as if they used two doses).
Fairly easy to insert as an errata if you try something like the above, and some kind of "every field" gets a buff to Alchemist wouldn't be super out of place given it's current state.
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Alchemist bad, so what
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Alchemist bad, so what
Here is our one new CRB class to kick off our new system. It has one build that might be playable but it requires you be a pyromaniac goblin to pull off...I guess I can kind of see the logic here.
PS: I am not hating on Paizo or PF2. So far I like a lot of things very much. I suspected I had no love for the alchemist and then I saw one played at level one. I am just not seeing the fun here, but if others are, great! It just sounds like that might not happen much if people feel like they don't inhabit their class until level 5.
Then again, people have been saying that about the wizard since 1st edition and that has always been my favorite class to play.
Alchemist bad, so what
I mean, the "our update made the mutagenist 1st level ability do literally nothing" is probably a thing they're going to fix. I'm content to just wait to see how they fix it.
Alchemist bad, so whatHere is our one new CRB class to kick off our new system. It has one build that might be playable but it requires you be a pyromaniac goblin to pull off...I guess I can kind of see the logic here.
PS: I am not hating on Paizo or PF2. So far I like a lot of things very much. I suspected I had no love for the alchemist and then I saw one played at level one. I am just not seeing the fun here, but if others are, great! It just sounds like that might not happen much if people feel like they don't inhabit their class until level 5.
Then again, people have been saying that about the wizard since 1st edition and that has always been my favorite class to play.
what's not to love about level 1 wizard? you did a sleep or a color spray and basically ended a whole encounter in 1 spell^^
but yeah, it's kinda sad that the "unique" pathfinder class is in such a shape.
if the removal of the resoance did such a number to them (it really didn't, the move from resonance to reagents went kinda smoothly in the playtest) they should have flat out removed the class from the crb and reintroduced it, in a fixed state, in the APG.
The thing is, the original idea of them making "consumables" and not some weird potion magic is indeed a great idea. But maybe the whole problem ties in with the other ongoing discussion about the viability of the consumables.
the consumables are generally not worth their "cost". Be that in gp or in reagents.
it really is painful to see a once great class with many and flavorful options reduced to such a state.
I was talking D&D first edition. 4 hp, a terrible AC and nothing better to do than throw darts badly for levels.
ehh, 1d8+3 at 10ft vs 1d6+1+condition at 20ft, i wouldn't call the spear better than a bomb.
Well, after a few rounds, you will :)
It says something about the class when even the person defending it is telling you to pretty much give up on the first quarter of your campaign because it's such a disaster.
2 levels. Alchemist's fine at level 3. And there are tons of classes in PF1 that are having the same issue, and people are playing them without stating they're a disaster.
Check out my listed suggestions above to show how each of the Research Fields can be improved.
Houserule suggestions don't do me a lot of good as I'm a player that has multiple DM's. That and we're in a Rules Discussion thread, so houserules in general aren't really an answer to a question/issue here.
Now, no judgement on the quality of said houserules: they just aren't really applicable here.
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Check out my listed suggestions above to show how each of the Research Fields can be improved.Houserule suggestions don't do me a lot of good as I'm a player that has multiple DM's. That and we're in a Rules Discussion thread, so houserules in general aren't really an answer to a question/issue here.
Now, no judgement on the quality of said houserules: they just aren't really applicable here.
Well, I'm just trying to find a solution, and I'm hoping that since the Mutagenist needs to be changed, maybe Paizo will see this thread and make the changes official. With that goal in mind, I'll just post the final version as listed in my house rules and then not derail the thread any further:
Alchemist
Each of the Research Fields specializes in 1 type of academical item, though any alchemist can learn and use any formula at the listed potency.
Bomber: Your Class Stat bonus is either Int or Dex. In addition to the 2 extra bomb formulas and the ability to prevent the splash damage from affecting adjacent targets (such as your allies), whenever a Bomber throws his own bombs, they act as it they were the next higher type. So a Lesser acts as a Moderate, a Moderate acts as a Greater, a Greater acts as a Major, and a Major gets an additional +1 attack bonus and +1 die of damage.
Chirurgeon: Your Class Stat bonus is either Int or Wis. In addition to the listed benefits in the book (2 free Elixir formulas and using Crafting as Medicine), when you use or apply your own Elixirs they act as if they were the next higher type. For Elixirs that don’t have specified types, it doubles the Duration.
Mutagenist: Your Class Stat bonus is either Int or Str. In addition to the 2 extra Mutagen formulas you are Trained in Medium armor, and it increases when you increase your Light Armor Prof. (The listed bonus of Unarmed attacks being equal to Simple Weapons is now standard for characters of all classes) Whenever a Mutagenist consumes one of their own mutagens, it acts as the next higher type. So a Lesser acts as a Moderate, a Moderate acts as a Greater, a Greater acts as a Major, and a Major does not suffer from the Drawback.