Any info on remastered Alchemist?


Pathfinder Second Edition General Discussion


Just about to start playing Outlaws of Alkenstar for the first time and someone wants to play an alchemist. Do we have any info (like from interviews or anything) about what's being changed for the player core 2? Not necessarily every detail, but at least the general theme of what's being changed? Is it being simplified? Expanded? Is it going to be easier or harder to play?


What we know up to know is that the Alchemist class is get an additional resource called versatile vials that will be used for Quick Alchemy instead of reagents creating 2 resource pools por alchemist one, the reagents, that will be used for advanced alchemy and another, versatile vials that will be used for Quick Alchemy. Also versatile vials will be recoverable in exploration mode in a way similar to focus spells. We don't know if will still possible to use reagents for Quick Alchemy nor how many versatile vials the alchemist will get and how many and how much time they will be recovered. The interview info is very very vague to take any conclusions.

This is basically all what we got up to know. There's also a question about proficiencies that they avoided to talk about in the discord saying that "No comment on proficiencies since enough has changed internally with the structure of the class that it likely won't be very contextualized. We do hope the remastered alchemist is both easier to grasp and has a more consistent playstyle at the table, though" what created a long discussion about this here in the forum if this is a bad news or not about one of the most asked features for alchemists.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Copy/pasting the stream quote here:

Logan's words on-stream wrote:

"So now the Alchemist has two different, uh, kinda pools. They still have a bunch of items they can create at the start of the day, but they no longer have to kinda decide how to balance the items they make at the start of the day VS ones they make during battle and, uh, exploration with Quick Alchemy.

Instead they have a pool of Versatile Vials. Uh, which kinda take the place of your reagents, and they are things you can turn into alchemical items really quickly, and also, in exploration you can replenish them. So we wanted a way that the Alchemist can kinda keep doing alchemy all day, and had kind of a more stable base to them.

So that is gonna kinda be your main ability. The versatile vials can also be used on their own. You can just throw a versatile vial like an acid bomb, basically. It's a little different, but each Research Field also has its own specific way it can use them. Like the Toxicologist can make a poison, and the Chirurgeon can make a healing item, and there's a kind of like a special limitation on there so you have infinite healing basically. But those kind of special uses will mean your Research Field is kind of useful all the time."

Basically, a lot of Alch players are worried.

It appears 99% that Alchemist offense proficiencies are not getting improved.

Quick Alchemy is going to be gone, and replaced by the V Vials.

If V Vials can more or less do what Q-Alch could, that's the one scenario that's an unambiguous improvement.

If V Vials do not have the flexibility, then Alchemist is loosing a whole lot of flexibility/utility for those Field-specific Vial actions. Leaving the addition of the focus-spell like V Vials to "make up for" the loss of Q Alchemy. The chances of them "evening out" is... not good, IMO.

It is possible that Alchemist will loose Reagents per day in exchange for the addition of V Vials.

No reason to think Alchemist will be allowed to perform Advanced Alchemy (the 2/3:1 prep alchemy) during the day, they will likely still be locked into needing to prep (now all) of their reagents into the correct items during Daily Preparations. IMO, this is the #1 lost opportunity. The class would be helped soooo much by letting Alchemists "reactively prepare" items as they got close to encounters, allies caught plagues, ect.

The other half of that "lost opportunity" is that there is also 0 mention of Alchemist items being allowed to scale their DCs, specifically when daily prepped.

If Alchemist is still not allowed to increase the DC on their prep items, it just means fewer reason to ever prepare items with a DC. 90+% of the "fun items" are unusable due to that, and likely will continue to be after the Remaster.


3 people marked this as a favorite.

I'd ignore the doomsayers on the topic. Alchemist is getting better sustain at least, and we don't know if it's getting simpler or not. It's best to kick back and wait for more details. Less than two months to go.


2 people marked this as a favorite.

I think the biggest reason for my personal pessimism is that Paizo is continuing to demonstrate a design philosophy that is the very reason why Alchemist became the complicated mess it presently is.

Instead of ever daring to go back and tweak, let alone overhaul the core features of the class, they continue to "improve" the class by adding more patches on top.

V Vials take this to a bit of an absurd point.

Instead of genuinely editing any existing features, like permitting Advanced Alchemy do be done as an exploration activity, give the Alch an option (even if it has a cost!) to prepare items with scaling DCs, ectetera...

We are going to get an entirely new mechanic thrown on top of the existing Alchemist.

Not only will players need to mind and maximize the potential of the daily infused reagents as before, but every Alchemist will need to maximize the potential of an entirely separate budget/mechanic, Versatile Vials, or else leave that design-allocated power wasted. And as it seems likely that these V Vials are coming at a direct cost elsewhere... it does not engender optimism for those who have played the class.

The lack of synergy between Quick & Advanced Alchemy, with Features & Feats only benefiting one and not the other, was a huge pain point. And it looks like V Vials will only further separate and isolate the two different methods from one another.

===============

To restate / summarize:

It seems the Alchemist Remaster is going to "improve" Alchemist by adding an entirely new mechanic and resource to an already overloaded class. Zero mention has been made about improvements to existing features, nor about fixing common problems/pain points, like item action economy.


7 people marked this as a favorite.

Just because they haven't provided a fully write up of the class that will be in buyer's hands in about a month does not mean that they haven't changed or improved something.

We know what we know: they added Versatile Vials.

BUT! We also don't know what we don't know. doomsaying speculation is unhelpful at best. OP asked what we know, not for a speculative dissertation on why Paizo messed the Alchemist up again.


Yeah I was mostly looking for the design philosophy behind the changes. And it seems to be "make them less of a prepared caster-type and more of a ranged striking type". Which is fine.


Having played a Bomber Alchemist through Outlaws of Alkenstar, I would encourage your fellow player to go for it. I had such a good time with that AP.

If they go with a Bomber, just focus on Bombs and Quicksilver for the first Book or so. Four Quicksilvers and the rest in Bombs. Keep a crossbow or sling (heck, keep both) as a backup until Level 3 or 4.


I agree that is too much earlier to worry about class changes that we know too little but I'm still afraid of what we will got.

In some ways I agree with Trip.H's concerns. The feeling I have based on the presentation and the discord responses is that there is a mismatch in what the designers saw of issues that were driving players away from the class, from what players who played or analyzed the class (considering playing it and gave up) see problem with the class.

For the designers, based on what I understood from the presentation, the problem with the class is an excessive complication of the class that keeps players away from using quick alchemy. For players who have played (I include myself in this) or who have considered playing with the class, the problem with the class is that at low levels the more limited amount of resources force players to only use advanced alchemy (that's for sure that versatile vials can solve) to the point that the alchemist is forced to use a weapon, but the main problem is that at higher levels the class progresses poorly in terms of pure vertical power.

To the point that I personally don't care much about quick alchemy, I basically start using it when I gain access to perpetual infusions and use it more frequently at high levels due to the surplus of reagents. But it's not like using advanced alchemy bothers me in any way. Because like most players, I simply create strategies to use only 3-5 different alchemical items in 99% of encounters, and quick alchemy is more for circumstantial situations. For me, the lack of progression and even power for alchemical bombs, the restrictions on the use of mutagens, the limited usefulness of the surgeon, and the low efficiency of the toxicologist weigh much more than whether or not to use quick alchemy all day long.

Anyway, all of this is VERY speculative and based on my fears. We need to wait for the release of PC2 to really see if what we have will make me and other players really want to give the alchemist as a class another try.


I've done thinking about what could go wrong, but followed by how to avoid those problems. For Versatile Vials, wrong would be taking the Quick Tincture feature from Alchemical Sciences Investigator and swapping the word Elixir or Tool for Healing, Poison, Mutagen, or Bomb. This is because current Quick Alchemy can make any formula you know. The right way would be to keep Quick Alchemy, and also make new effect(s) specific to each field.

For the example of throwing a vial like an acid bomb, the wrong way would be "As a ranged splash weapon with an increment of X ft," or "Treat the vial as an Acid Flask (lesser). As your alchemist level increases..." This is wrong because some current medium armored alchemists would have a difficult time making use of a weapon that uses Dexterity for its attacks. The right way would be for the acid to attack using your key ability, or require the target to save against your class DC.

For the example Mutant Physique feat, that adds an extra effect when under Juggernaut, Bestial, or Quicksilver Mutagen. The wrong way is to combine the three physical mutagen feats (Invincible, Elastic and Feral) into one feat. The right way to do it is to write a boosted effect for as many mutagens as possible and allow a character to unlock those effects by taking the feat. Alternatively, write one benefit for the feat to give under any mutagen, like how revivifying mutagen works with any mutagen. This is called future proofing, except the future is now, because books with non-core mutagens already exist.

For Additive feats, the wrong way to do them is to restrict them to a very narrow selection or creation method of alchemical items. The right way to do them is like spellshape actions where one can be applied wherever the effect makes sense, to advanced alchemy or quick alchemy alike, with whatever action cost makes sense for the ability. Healing Bomb would be Elixir Bomb, for instance. This is like how Spellshape feats mostly work for all spellcasters but psychic Amp feats mostly don't work for psychics. It sucks having a bunch of daily-use abilities that don't interact with your class feats at all. Also, just improve the power level of some of the existing feats. Healing Bomb is probably not intended to be 1d6 healing until level 7. Revivifying Mutagen is probably not expected to be mostly 1d6 healing until level 11.

Verdant Wheel

What if they blog about it today or soon!

I feel that it is time...


Unless they do one blog every few days I don't think we are going to get blogs this time. I think last time we got one every week, but since there's less than 8 weeks for release and there's 8 classes they should showcase I think its likely this isn't going to happen. I guess Paizo doesn't want people being all passionate about PC2 without the full context, that or they know the issues people have with this classes don't align with the problems Paizo think they have.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
exequiel759 wrote:
Unless they do one blog every few days I don't think we are going to get blogs this time. I think last time we got one every week, but since there's less than 8 weeks for release and there's 8 classes they should showcase I think its likely this isn't going to happen. I guess Paizo doesn't want people being all passionate about PC2 without the full context, that or they know the issues people have with this classes don't align with the problems Paizo think they have.

To be fair, we didn't get a blog for every class from Player Core. We got one for the Wizard, Ranger, Witch and Cleric. We didn't get one for the Fighter, Rogue, Bard or Druid. We also got blogs for Ancestries, Spells and Spellcasting, and for Exploration Mode.

So I can see something similar happening this time around. Maybe we'll get blogs for classes like Alchemist, Champion, and Oracle, but maybe classes like the Monk or Sorcerer won't get a blog due to how little has changed with them.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Ezekieru wrote:
exequiel759 wrote:
Unless they do one blog every few days I don't think we are going to get blogs this time. I think last time we got one every week, but since there's less than 8 weeks for release and there's 8 classes they should showcase I think its likely this isn't going to happen. I guess Paizo doesn't want people being all passionate about PC2 without the full context, that or they know the issues people have with this classes don't align with the problems Paizo think they have.

To be fair, we didn't get a blog for every class from Player Core. We got one for the Wizard, Ranger, Witch and Cleric. We didn't get one for the Fighter, Rogue, Bard or Druid. We also got blogs for Ancestries, Spells and Spellcasting, and for Exploration Mode.

So I can see something similar happening this time around. Maybe we'll get blogs for classes like Alchemist, Champion, and Oracle, but maybe classes like the Monk or Sorcerer won't get a blog due to how little has changed with them.

And lookie there! We DID get a blog today about Remastered classes, this time about the Champion! And it looks like what I suspected: We're only getting blogs about 4 of the classes, along with some more fiction, too!


Nice. Well I think my player is going to choose before an alchemist blog post materializes, but neat anyway.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Second Edition / General Discussion / Any info on remastered Alchemist? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.