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.
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Copy/pasting the stream quote here:
"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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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.
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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.
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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!