Alchemical bombs are technically martial ranged weapons, and so can have a 4 gp level 1 potency crystal talisman attached to them. This doubles their damage dice, right?
So, can one attached a potency crystal to, say, moderate alchemist's fire to do 4d8 damage + 2 persistent fire damage and 2 fire splash damage? That is about 2x damage for 2x cost (if you are not an alchemist using reagents to create the bomb). But at 11th level you get 2x (6d8) damage for about 1/80th the cost...
A Striking Rune doesn't double the dice, it adds one die.
It'd be a huge waste of money, if allowed at all, unless there was a way to make the Rune survive. The progression of bomb damage already accounts for level increase, much like the better bombs get an attack bonus to better line up with weapons of comparable level. So I doubt there'll ever be a mechanism for reusable Runes on bombs.
It would be pretty funny to give an enemy a delayed bomb w/ Returning. They keep throwing it away. :)
Yeah, potency runes increase the damage dice by 1 for the lowest level, by 2 for the middle, and by 3 for the top tier. It doesn't double.
I'm also not sure you can even apply talismans to bombs. Even if you can, you've found a not particularly cost effective way to slightly increase damage by increasing the cost, and the talisman would be destroyed.
So, maybe you can do this. But it's probably not worth it.
Yeah, potency runes increase the damage dice by 1 for the lowest level, by 2 for the middle, and by 3 for the top tier. It doesn't double.
I'm also not sure you can even apply talismans to bombs. Even if you can, you've found a not particularly cost effective way to slightly increase damage by increasing the cost, and the talisman would be destroyed.
So, maybe you can do this. But it's probably not worth it.
I agree that it only adds 1 die. Thanks for pointing that out. Potency crystals are talismans, and so can only be used once anyway. At higher levels, changing a 3d8 bomb to a 4d8 bomb for 4 gp seems worth it to me. I increased the damage of my bomb by 33% for a cost increase of less than 2%. And 4 gp is easily affordable at 11th level.
On a lesser bomb it gives you a cost increase of 40% and a damage increase of 50% (if you only count the damage dice), still worth it if you can afford it at 3rd level.
Striking doesn't actually add a die - it sets the number of dice to the listed value. So if you were to apply the effects of, for example, a Greater Striking rune to your moderate alchemist's fire, the RAW interpretation is that it would reduce the damage to 3d8 since a weapon with that rune "deals three weapon damage dice".
This is naturally ludicrous. Almost as if striking runes aren't intended to be used on things that already scale their damage dice up on their own.
I imagine that as more types of weapon talismans are created, there will be ones that are specifically made to be attached to bombs.