My PFS alchemist is reaching 10th level, and I'm not so sure I want to stick with the plan I've previously made.
So far, I've taken Far Lobber (Natural Ambition), Quick Bomber (1st), Wizard Dedication (2nd), Calculated Splash (4th), Debilitating Bomb (6th), Sticky Bomb (8th). Some of these may be mistakes, but I'm not going to retrain more than one of them, and it'd probably be Wizard Dedication if anything.
The original plan was Expanded Splash (10th), Greater Debilitating (12th), and True Debilitating (14th), giving both options of debilitating or sticky by 14th. I know Greater Debilitating sucks, so the only reason to get it was to get True Debilitating, which I think is good enough to warrant two feats. Here's the rub: ever since I've gotten Sticky Bomb, I've rarely been using Debilitating at all. I'm questioning whether it's too expensive to try to keep advancing both the Debilitating feat chain and the Sticky feat chain.
Option 1: True Debilitating is worth the investment. Pick up GDB and TDB, but not Expanded Splash. Maybe Uncanny Bombs? Retrain out of Sticky at some point, TDB 4 Lyfe.
Option 2: The Debilitating chain is just too expensive. Pick up Expanded Splash and maybe Uncanny, forget GDB and TDB, and actually go back and retrain out of Debilitating (for Directed Bombs, probably). Sticky 4 Lyfe.
Option 3: Stick with the original plan, it's better to have both options, even if it kind of takes up all the feat slots.
Option 4: A plan I haven't considered?
Option 5: Alchemist sucks, play something else. (Thanks for sharing, we've got enough alchemist debate threads, please go bump one of those.)
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Of the two, I think that the Debilitating Bombs are more valuable than the Sticky Bombs. Unless you already have another character in your party that is regularly throwing out conditions onto the enemies.
Sticky Bombs let you do some additional damage - which is nice. But it is only for your lower level bombs which already do less initial damage. Also, the alchemist dealing damage isn't often how fights are won.
Alchemist dealing lots of different conditions and such, that is how fights are won. Now it becomes a minigame: which combinations of conditions will be the most useful to deal with two actions (make debilitating bomb, throw bomb).
Currently I am looking at: Thunderstone (deafened) with dazzled to help an ally sneak up to or away from an enemy. Dread Ampoule (frightened) and flat-footed to help other characters attack.
It's PFS, so there's no consistent party composition. It's one of the reasons I had originally planned to try to get both feat chains in there.
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Ah. I don't have any experience with PFS, so take my advice for the uneducated guessing that it is. But I would expect that there would be no lack of people wanting to play characters that do a ton of damage. Having one throwing out appropriate conditions would be very beneficial. Frightened and flat-footed are probably covered already, but dazzled, deafened, enfeebled, stupefied, and move speed penalties are not likely to be seen as much.
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Getting the debilitating line on level is too difficult. Do you find yourself needing the extra range from uncanny often? If not, I’d suggest getting Dual weapon warrior and dual thrower
Retrain wiz ded into DWW ded and take dual thrower at 12, then Greater Debilitation at 14, True at 16, Perfect at 18. This will let you use Debilitating Bomb more often, because you can Quick Alchemy (with double brew) two bombs with additives (one sticky, one debilitating) and throw them both with less penalty.
Would definitely take Expanded Splash at 10 no matter what. It’s practically non negotiable.
Otherwise cut the debilitating line entirely, go Combine Elixirs at 6, Uncanny Bomb at 12, Extend Elixir at 14, Eternal Elixir at 16, Improbable Elixir at 18.
I personaly find both Sticky Bombs and Debilitating Bombs to be too weak to be taken.
Sticky on perpetual bombs does as much damage than a regular bomb for twice the number of actions. It costs less reagents, but reagents are not a problem at that level in PFS. Sticky on regular bombs is worse than throwing 2 bombs and costs more reagents.
Debilitating asks for so many checks. The best debuff for an Alchemist is the Bird animal companion for dazzled with no check (an attack roll, but you must avoid critical failures only, so 95% chance to dazzle, a boss killer).
I agree with Exocist: if you want to use bombs, you need Calculated and Expanded Splash (and Quick Bomber).
Among the great feats you have forgotten:
- Potent Poisoner (unless you don't use poison which is a bad idea as it's 20% of your contribution that you lose for no reason).
- Alchemical Familiar for 1-action Elixirs of Life.
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Getting the debilitating line on level is too difficult. Do you find yourself needing the extra range from uncanny often? If not, I’d suggest getting Dual weapon warrior and dual thrower
Retrain wiz ded into DWW ded and take dual thrower at 12, then Greater Debilitation at 14, True at 16, Perfect at 18. This will let you use Debilitating Bomb more often, because you can Quick Alchemy (with double brew) two bombs with additives (one sticky, one debilitating) and throw them both with less penalty.
That's an interesting line that I hadn't thought of. I had assumed True at 14 or bust.
- Potent Poisoner (unless you don't use poison which is a bad idea as it's 20% of your contribution that you lose for no reason).
I tried poison for a bit, but it wasn't working well, so I stopped. It was a combination of martial characters being reluctant to accept it, forgetting to offer a few times, and of the few times it was successfully applied, monsters ended up being immune. Not sure what the highest barrier was.
- Alchemical Familiar for 1-action Elixirs of Life.
Yeah, I regret not taking Familiar, but I'm not really considering revising that now. I've already retrained a whole lot (even before the APG came out, which is why I have the massively short-sighted wizard dedication and not something from APG), and just decided to roll with what I've got. If I make another alchemist, it'd definitely start differently.
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- Alchemical Familiar for 1-action Elixirs of Life.Yeah, I regret not taking Familiar, but I'm not really considering revising that now. I've already retrained a whole lot (even before the APG came out, which is why I have the massively short-sighted wizard dedication and not something from APG), and just decided to roll with what I've got. If I make another alchemist, it'd definitely start differently.
It wouldn't work for PFS because of obvious reasons, but I would 100% let you go, 'oh, I didn't actually get Wizard dedication, that was Witch dedication.' Especially since you created this character before APG came out.
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you can Quick Alchemy (with double brew) two bombs with additives (one sticky, one debilitating)
Be careful with that, as it's GM dependent. You can only trigger one free action at once, and even if you can argue that you brew 2 bombs and as such are getting 2 different triggers, the GM can consider that you used one ability to brew 2 bombs and as such can only have one trigger out of it. As it's PFS, I wouldn't invest in things that can be interpreted differently depending on the GM.
- Potent Poisoner (unless you don't use poison which is a bad idea as it's 20% of your contribution that you lose for no reason).I tried poison for a bit, but it wasn't working well, so I stopped. It was a combination of martial characters being reluctant to accept it, forgetting to offer a few times, and of the few times it was successfully applied, monsters ended up being immune. Not sure what the highest barrier was.
Yes, players are reluctant about poison. It really depends on who you play with (even if I play in a big group, I tend to play with the same people, so I've showed them that poison was just another buff).
Also, poison starts to really shine at level 8. When you start dealing 5d6 damage on a failed save, it's hard to ignore it.From my experience, poison is highly random, but I've seen bad series of rolls (nat 1 happens, even on bosses) and it's basically free damage (in PFS, reagents are not much of an issue).
you can Quick Alchemy (with double brew) two bombs with additives (one sticky, one debilitating)Be careful with that, as it's GM dependent. You can only trigger one free action at once, and even if you can argue that you brew 2 bombs and as such are getting 2 different triggers, the GM can consider that you used one ability to brew 2 bombs and as such can only have one trigger out of it. As it's PFS, I wouldn't invest in things that can be interpreted differently depending on the GM.
You're saying it would be contested to Double Brew a sticky bomb and a debilitating bomb?
Or that it would be contested to Double Brew two sticky bombs?
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you can Quick Alchemy (with double brew) two bombs with additives (one sticky, one debilitating)Be careful with that, as it's GM dependent. You can only trigger one free action at once, and even if you can argue that you brew 2 bombs and as such are getting 2 different triggers, the GM can consider that you used one ability to brew 2 bombs and as such can only have one trigger out of it. As it's PFS, I wouldn't invest in things that can be interpreted differently depending on the GM.You're saying it would be contested to Double Brew a sticky bomb and a debilitating bomb?
Or that it would be contested to Double Brew two sticky bombs?
Two sticky bombs is straight up disallowed (it has a once per turn limit). Debilitating and sticky is in question because the trigger is
Trigger You use Quick Alchemy to craft an alchemical bomb that is at least 2 levels lower than your advanced alchemy level.
And given the general rules that you can only respond once to a given trigger, it’s a question of whether double brew gives 2 triggers (one for each bomb) or only one.