Super cool to see another homebrew alchemist, pretty interesting angle to just go for Focus Spells outright. And full polymorphing.
Always neat to see how commonly desired themes like the "grow a venomous thing" and "add Time alchemy" vary in their implementation.
I actually had a Mutagenist bomb-eater ephemeral that got cut, but mine was more of a spit than your cone version. Trying to land cones has been absolutely miserable in my experience, lol.
I made a homebrew a while ago since Alchemist was my favorite 1e class (next to Witch and Occultist), but still couldn't convince any players to make one.
I mostly tried to push the feats more, make the specializations more impactful, add in focus point functionality, and include a rarity of item exclusive to Alchemists to basically make an Alchemist "spell list" like 1e.
Really, ultimately, I think I just wish they'd push the design back towards the 1e approach of not having the Alchemist's power tied to items anyone else can buy. That's what makes this class so fundamentally difficult, in my mind, because it's not self-contained and is basically coming pre-nerfed because its abilities are items, and items (as Paizo designs them) need to be weaker than class abilities. I think we're too far gone at this point, though.
The "Alch is just making store-bought items" issue is why I focused a lot on making sure that any Alchemist no matter the Field had evergreen items that cannot be bought, and evergreen Additives that are flat +dmg, healing, ect to give even those store-buyable formulas more oomph than what can be bough off the shelf.
Really, ultimately, I think I just wish they'd push the design back towards the 1e approach of not having the Alchemist's power tied to items anyone else can buy. That's what makes this class so fundamentally difficult, in my mind, because it's not self-contained and is basically coming pre-nerfed because its abilities are items, and items (as Paizo designs them) need to be weaker than class abilities. I think we're too far gone at this point, though.
While I like the 1e spellcaster model, I sort of disagree here. There's some awkwardness from items, the biggest problem Alchemists have tend to come from utilization issues, not the items themselves. In terms of raw output, most alchemists have the potential to be pretty decent... but then they stumble over themselves with action economy, accuracy, and feat tax issues. In other words, it's the opposite. A lot of alchemical items are good, but the actual alchemist chassis is terrible at everything other than making those items accessible.
Alchemical items are somewhat broken, but mostly in the sense that they're a subsystem that's not really accessible to anyone else.
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I suppose we do disagree, because the action economy is inherent to the alchemical items. You can't separate the action economy from their use and say that, once you do, they're actually good. An alchemist's fire is, for all intents and purposes, as Paizo created it, a two action consumable. To make it "good" the Alchemist essentially has to be designed to ignore everything that the alchemist's fire is and turn it into a ranged strike. It doesn't compete with other two action abilities. It competes with one action abilities insofar as they're inexhaustible, but bombs aren't. The fact that the Alchemist can't use a bomb any better than anyone else without at least one feat that does nothing more than shore up a problem inherent to the bomb is just icing on the cake. When you add on feat taxes, accuracy issues, and the other pain points of getting party members to actually use alchemical items, Alchemists' reliance on them as printed becomes even worse.
My players have never looked at a mutagen and considered it to be an attractive purchase. I don't have players ever buying grenades not just because they're expensive but they also don't get you anything for that expense beyond what a regular runed weapon can except maybe the chance to spend two actions targeting a weakness (potentially after an action identifying it). Poisons fail constantly and their DCs are almost immediately outpaced by monster Fort saves. Elixirs are maybe the closest to being useful, but a lot of what they do can either be replicated by spell slots/scrolls/wands or, again, they aren't worth the cost (money and actions) for a consumable. A cost that is intrinsic to the design.
But yes, we do agree that alchemical items are broken because "they're a subsystem that's not really accessible to anyone else", and they're not accessible to anyone else because of how they're designed. They aren't worthwhile to any class, most of whom can rely on their class features and skills pretty well, or niche situations where you're shopping for a specific magic item to figure out a specific adventure wrinkle.
So at that point, if only the Alchemist is using them, why even have this weak facade of an item system that in theory anyone can use but in practice only the Alchemist has to use because they have no alternative?
I agree with Puna'chong. It's easy to see how alchemical items are inviables just see that Alchemist's Fire is basically a throwable 1d8 weapon that get fundamental runes benefit in some different levels (+1 and extra dice at lvl 3 instead of lvl 2 and 4 respectively, +2 and 2 extra dices at lvl 11 instead of lvl 10 and 12 respectively, +3 and 2 extra dices at lvl 17 instead of 16 and 19 respectively) with an additional effect and splash similar to a dmg property runes (the persistent damage + splash) but it's a very expensive consumable that never worth for non-alchemists and that the players usually only get during adventure but will never buy or craft it.
Even for alchemists it's effectiveness is questionable because you will need to use your reagents to craft you top level bombs so it's usage needs to be considered (like not thrown them when you are in MAP) to not run out and you making you to need to keep a secondary weapon at last until you don't get perpetual infusions.
The only thing IMO that makes bomber alchemists worth today is the Skunk Bomb due Powerful Alchemy + Perpetual Infusions makes you thrown them every turn without worries and due its successful effects and splash effect it hits a lot. But for other bombs you basically needs to control well your reagents and you will have basically a caster weapon proficiency (just improves it a bit earlier) what's terrible once that different from casters you need this proficiency as your primary attack bonus. Even your own "class aditional damage" that is Expanded Splash costs you some feats and you get pretty late and it's weaker when compared to other classes.
Mutagens are in a bit better situation IMO. Many of them have pretty problematic drawbacks but depending from your class, tactics and mutagens effects they may worth. Yet they are expensive for its duration.
For support focused mutagenists the situation improves because you can easily get a pretty large amount of formulas and use them when needed with Quick Alchemy. But for alchemist itself it's a pretty meh. For example Bestial Mutagen that's considered the main mutagen for battle mutagenists just compensates your key attribute not be useful for attacks and its drawback is pretty worse than a Rage and you are still locked to expert proficiency to both hit/critical rate and weapon specialization additional damage.
Non-mutagen elixirs probably are in the best options for non-alchemists Elixir of Life are a bit weaker version of Healing Potions that also gives bonus vs diseases and poisons it's not meh because the elixirs improves in levels intercalated to potions. Other potions are interesting because they usually "attacks" the effects that magical potions doesn't get, for example an Antidote helps against more "traditional" venom effects while Antivenom Potion if focused into recovery from venom persistent dmg.
For chirurgeons these itens basically makes you a portable grocery. Every one in the party will love you but you probably will pretty weaker in battles compared to your allies what could give you the sensation of "I don't really make a significant diference here. If I make all the elixirs and distribute them between my allies and stay in the tavern it wouldn't make too much difference" what's not really true because in battle you stay useful as a distraction to use your medicine skills, give some dmg, flanking, save some allies action applying the the elixirs yourself instead of their use their own actions. Yet a warpriest probably would make all this considerably better than you.
Poisons are already discussed here and are pretty bad. Their fixed DC doesn't helps and they are expensive.
For Toxicologist due Powerful Alchemy at last the DC is better but due your lower weapon proficiency and non-kas you using it is pretty bad. Probably the best you can do is to apply to your allies weapons.
I know that I'm repeating myself here because I pointed all this before but this is to demonstrate again that alchemists still need to improve a lot in almost all their areas. They need to compensate the lack of KAS better into their attacks, they need to get the same weapon proficiency progression that all martials have, they need more versatility in Perpetual Infusions (not only 2 items but all items of that type that you know), get it earlier (lvl 3), they need a way to use Additive with Advanced Alchemy not just only with Quick Alchemy, better mutagens, more common will/mental poisons and a lot of other adjustments.
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Yeah, the current Alchemist right now is in a dire state.
In the Reformulated homebrew, the ability to draw 4 items at once helps with the need to make them 1-action use to be worth it at all (and Knuckle Pinch doesn't limit that needed action-helper to 1 item type like Quick Bomber)
All the basic Additives are usable during Infused Alchemy (renamed Advanced Alch)
Powerful Alchemy is built into Infused Alch, if it's got the infused tag it gets the option of the DC upgrade.
Chiurgeons only need to match the healing trait, and can get an elixir trait later. Which will double +1 the batch size. Also a Feat for boosting Additive potency for each matching trait.
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I would be very careful saying chiurgeon is any better than the others in the item department. The live Chiurgeon only gets the 3-per-reagent if the item is BOTH elixir & healing, which sucks really bad. Numbing Tonics, Emetic Paste, Skinstitch Salves. More than half of what I want to use as a Chiurgeon have ZERO relevance to the Chiurgeon. No boosted healing, no +1, literally no interaction with being a Chiurgeon.
I'll say that again, more than half the healing and medical items I want to make and use as a Chiurgeon Alchemist wouldn't care if I was a Bomber.
That's how much of a f$+~ing disaster the current Alchemist is. And I hope you were not planning on healing at all until level 5, because you are stuck with a 1d6 + 0 healing elixir of life until then. Average 3 healing, for an average of TWO ACTIONS to use, maybe THREE if you need to Stride.
Chiurgeon healing is a joke in the RaW Lvl <10 game. Numbing Tonics are better most of the time, and they are not a Chiurgeon item.
Even the Medicine --> Crafting sublimation has issues, because as written, you can't use medical items that boost Medicine! So you just get Assurance and throw up your hands. That also got an extra sentence in the Reformulated homebrew to fix it.
I suppose we do disagree, because the action economy is inherent to the alchemical items. You can't separate the action economy from their use and say that, once you do, they're actually good.
Why can't I? When one of the core issues is action economy, it seems prudent to be able to say that.
Things like Quick Bomber or a Rogue's Poison Weapon feat make their respective items vastly more effective, so I'm not really sure why pointing that out should be off the table.
The fact that the Alchemist can't use a bomb any better than anyone else without at least one feat that does nothing more than shore up a problem inherent to the bomb is just icing on the cake.
It's not 'icing on the cake' when it's the main thing holding the class back (and even then, only barely in the case of the dedicated bomber).
Like I'm just not sure what good it does to gnash our teeth about 'fundamental' problems and willfully ignore the specifics of the issues and how to fix them in favor of just pining after 1e.
TBH, I'm looking forward to seeing the remastered alchemist.
I am considering a toxicologist (if that research field is retained) focusing on food and non-mutagen elixir formulas, in addition to selected poisons, for the future Curtain Call AP; throw in a bottled monstrosity or two as well.
Well, I think we can be pretty confident that the Toxicologist will return in PC2. There hasn't been a lot "taken away" in the Remaster so far... they didn't give the Ranger their Snare options, but we're told that's because they're focusing that on the Snare Crafter archetype which will be in PC2.
About the only other thing I can think of is the Eldritch Trickster Rogue Racket, and in that case there was almost universal agreement that it never worked.
I want to like the Bottled Monstrosities, but they left the crafting requirements too vague for my tastes. I honestly can't tell if your could Advanced Alchemy or Quick Alchemy a Bottled Monstrosity. Which is really annoying.
Things like Quick Bomber or a Rogue's Poison Weapon feat make their respective items vastly more effective, so I'm not really sure why pointing that out should be off the table.
One thing I'm really hoping for in PC2: that Toxicologists get the equivalent of the Rogue's Poison Weapon. I'm not a fan of Poisons, or of Toxicologists really, but it's always seemed a bit unjust that Paizo has Rogues better at applying Poisons in combat than Toxicologists.
And also, to rant for a moment: Why does Poison Weapon let you put a Contact Poison on your weapon? Why?!?!?!?
I'm not so confident. I didn't expect that the designers would remove the Eldritch Trickster but they did so I don't doubt that they may remove the Toxicologist too. They can simply do the same that they will do with the snares that put then exclusive to Snarecrafter archetype and make the poison subclass and feats exclusive to Poisoner archetype.
It's been a lot of work, but it's also been fun to get the Alchemist: Reformulated homebrew up to ver .93
More info and download can be found in the homebrew thread. I hope it's everything yall want to see in the remastered Alchemist.
Here's a few changes/teasers that are in this "do over" re-imagining of the Alchemist.
* All infused items scale their DC
* "cantrip items" for each Field that require 0 reagents to make. Gravel Bomb, Proactive Patch, Toxic Treacle, ect.
* No need to forecast entire day during daily prep. Infused Alchemy can be performed throughout the day.
* Infused reagents can be spent on infused items directly, or 2 reagents per adds another 10-min refilling "reservoir of quintessence" for the reimagined Q-Alch
* Default Additive triggers are "you create an infused ___" to allow for Additive-boosted prep items.
* Some gun / reload / ammo based Feats. L1 Gunnery to unlock gun prof, L6 Alchemist's Reload [Reload + Activate](flourish) for 1 Action, and L8 Bomb Sabots to turn bombs into 1-action alch ammo*.
* Infused items by default decay if not attended by (not carried by) the Alch. No more need to push your items upon your party for combat use, but all long duration buffing is still there. L6 Feat unlock to change back to old style + bonus.
* "All book @ all times" fun-killing cognitive load of old Quick Alchemy is removed as core class Feature. It's now a L8 Feat "Instant Alchemy." Burn reagent to perform one batch of prep alch instantly; synergizes w/ other prep alch improvements and is contextually "better" to match cost of being a Feat.
* Draining a Reservoir (reimagined & restrained 10min refilling Q-Alch) enables boosted Additives, and can be a Free Action flourish. Enables alch items to be a bit stronger for an Alchemist, helps attrition, helps action economy.
* Instead of Q-Alch, core class feature #1 is to hold mult Bulk L items in each hand, and a 1 Action flourish Draw to fill to capacity.
* Core class Feature #2 Lvl5 unlock is "Flourish of Footwork" to add a Step when you perform a flourish*. The other half of Alch item action problems is Reach and the Stride. Emphasizes the Alch as a class that ought be moving near melee without crippling their actions, helps save Alchs from Provoke-pancaking all the time, ect.
* All Research Fields get 4 custom item & 4 custom Additive discoveries paced out across odd Lvls from 1-7. These are designed to be evergreen options that help shape and foster fun playstyles. Very importantly, there's no Feat tax to get a small set of Additives to pick from. Allows one to viably use Additives w/o spending a class Feat to unlock an Additive.
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This was built from the discussions here as much it was from my own experiences, so all forms of feedback are welcome and encouraged!