As the subject says, new to PF and trying 2e. Have played D&D since AD&D1E to 3.5 so experienced, mostly with Wizards so uses to complicated characters, actually enjoy them.
Going to GrandCon in Grand Rapids, MI this weekend and, if allowed, plan to play this character from 1LV and advance him through the 4 Friday PF2e low level games, up to 3rd or 4th.
I think my biggest issue with the Alchemist is that there is a LOT of errata for them in 2e so I have watched a lot of videos on updates. Just want to make sure I have things right. Here are my assumptions, please correct if I get something wrong.
Crafting:
1. Alchemy: You can use regular crafting with the regular rules to create alchemy items that have no time restriction and no quantity limit. These cost money to make, take X amount of days to do. You can even sell these if you wanted to.
2. Advanced Alchemy: You can use reagents to cook up [4 + Intelligent mod per day]. These only last till your next daily prep (aka, ~24h). Use them or loose them. These are best for handing party members healing potions and such.
3. If you have an Alchemy Familiar, they can produce 1 extra reagent per day.
4. Quick Alchemy - Create Consumable: During your daily prep, you can create [2 + + Intelligent mod per day] of "Versatile Vials". This is the MAX you can hold per day. These last ~24h and can be used to create potions on the fly (1 Action).
5. Versatile Vials: After using X number of Versatile Vials, you can spend 10 min foraging to gain the components to create 2x more vials. You can never go past your MAX allotment.
5. Quick Alchemy - Quick Vial: You can create a alchemy items that must be used in 1 Turn. The duration of it's effects cannot last longer than 10 min. These have 0 cost, are unlimited, takes 1 Action to create.
6. All Versatile Vials are acid by default until a reagent of some sort is added.
Formulas:
7. When you advance in levels, you can automatically transcribe the higher level formula for one already known, "figuring out how to improve it".
Research Field - Bomber:
8. On the fly, you can change a Versatile Vial from acid to either fire, cold, electrical without a Action cost
Feat - Quick Bomber:
9. This feat allows you to bypass the Action cost to prepare a Versatile Vial or Quick Vial. Not clear but assume this ONLY works for bombs and no other alchemy item.
OK, that was a lot, and this is just 1LV. Thanks in advance for any feedback/corrections.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Mostly correct, just addressing the incorrect details.
It's easier to think of the VVs as your recharging items. You get some dailies from Advanced Alch, and you get a recharging supply of not-yet-made items as your VVs.
Those VVs recharge fully passively. If you are ever below max, after 10 min 2 of them will be recharged.
Quick Alchemy has 2 actions.
One is Quick Vial. This only makes the basic VV item, cannot be used for your book formulas. All Alchemists can throw it like a bomb, and have a special use based on their research field.
Note that Quick Vial is free, and costs only actions to do.
The other Quick Alchemy is Create Consumable. This is the "any item in your book" option, and requires you to burn a VV to make the consumable. Any effects of the item only last 10 minutes, and you need to actually spend the action(s) to pop and use the consumable before it becomes unusable next turn.
.
Quick Bomber I would phrase like:
"Any time you don't already have a bomb in your hand, this will reduce the cost of using a bomb by 1 Action."
Without Quick Bomber, you may need to spend an action to Draw it off your belt or spend an action on Quick Alchemy to create it. Quick Bomber lets you take all those action costs and just throw the bomb with that same action.
|
Crafting:
1. Alchemy: You can use regular crafting with the regular rules to create alchemy items that have no time restriction and no quantity limit. These cost money to make, take X amount of days to do. You can even sell these if you wanted to.
Correct. This is a bit of a slow play, but can be a nice supplement.
2. Advanced Alchemy: You can use reagents to cook up [4 + Intelligent mod per day]. These only last till your next daily prep (aka, ~24h). Use them or loose them. These are best for handing party members healing potions and such.
Yes. This is also what you'd use if you want an item that lasts longer than 10 minutes.
3. If you have an Alchemy Familiar, they can produce 1 extra reagent per day.
Sorta: this used to be one Master Ability before the remaster, now it's two abilities (PC2, page 170). "Extra Alchemy" gives you an extra usage of Advanced Alchemy during daily preparations, Extra Vial gives you an extra versatile vial once during the day.
I guess it's a way to spend a level 1 feat to get an extra consumable per day, but I'm not thrilled - there are other feats I want more.
4. Quick Alchemy - Create Consumable: During your daily prep, you can create [2 + + Intelligent mod per day] of "Versatile Vials". This is the MAX you can hold per day. These last ~24h and can be used to create potions on the fly (1 Action).5. Versatile Vials: After using X number of Versatile Vials, you can spend 10 min foraging to gain the components to create 2x more vials. You can never go past your MAX allotment.
Yes.
5. Quick Alchemy - Quick Vial: You can create a alchemy items that must be used in 1 Turn. The duration of it's effects cannot last longer than 10 min. These have 0 cost, are unlimited, takes 1 Action to create.6. All Versatile Vials are acid by default until a reagent of some sort is added.
Yeah. Calling them VVs is a bit of a misnomer in the book, it could have just been it's own standalone ability and that would have been clearer. You could throw an actual VV, but there's no good reason to; it's much better to either:
- turn the VV into a more powerful bomb and throw that- create a quick vial and throw that
Formulas:
7. When you advance in levels, you can automatically transcribe the higher level formula for one already known, "figuring out how to improve it".
In the remaster they changed how formulas work. This actually applies to all characters, not just alchemists. Once you have a formula for any level version of an item, you can also use it for other versions of that item (as long as it's not above your own level of course). So most of the time you'd just be buying the lowest level version because that's cheapest.
Research Field - Bomber:
8. On the fly, you can change a Versatile Vial from acid to either fire, cold, electrical without a Action cost
Yes
Feat - Quick Bomber:
9. This feat allows you to bypass the Action cost to prepare a Versatile Vial or Quick Vial. Not clear but assume this ONLY works for bombs and no other alchemy item.
Yes. As you can see, it's pretty clear what feat a bomber alchemist is expected to take :)
I'd also recommend the Far Lobber feat, because that bit of extra distance can matter a lot in this game.
Just trying to be sure I understand the wording of Quick Bomber:
You interact to draw a bomb, draw a versatile vial, or use Quick Alchemy to create a bomb, then Strike with the bomb.
In 1 action, can I do any/all of the options (draw a bomb, draw VV, use QA), and Strike?
Or can I only do one of those list of actions, then Strike?
If I want to draw a VV, use QA to turn it into a bomb, and then Strike with it, how many actions is that?
Just trying to be sure I understand the wording of Quick Bomber:
The way I understand it...
Without Quick Bomber:
You pull a VV from your bandolier (a free Action) and spend 1 Action charging it. Then a 2nd action throwing it or consuming it.With Quick Bomber:
You pull a VV from your bandolier (a free Action) and then charging with the bombing agent and throwing is all one Action.The limitation is that it is restricted to only bombing 4 elemental agents.
You COULD, theoretically, do this for all three Actions but the 2nd and 3rd throw would incur that repeated attack penalties.
Thank you for the detailed review. :)
Thank you for everyone to pipped in to comment. I think I should be good for my first game.
|
|
Just trying to be sure I understand the wording of Quick Bomber:
You interact to draw a bomb, draw a versatile vial, or use Quick Alchemy to create a bomb, then Strike with the bomb.In 1 action, can I do any/all of the options (draw a bomb, draw VV, use QA), and Strike?
Or can I only do one of those list of actions, then Strike?
If I want to draw a VV, use QA to turn it into a bomb, and then Strike with it, how many actions is that?
One.
Quick Alchemy's requirement isn't that you're already holding a VV (or that you draw one) when you Create Consumable, but that you're wearing your alchemy toolkit.
So without Quick Bomber it's two actions: create the thing, throw the thing. With QB you can do that for the price of only one action.
A pretty solid approach is to use your first attack to throw a real bomb, then with the other two actions throw some quick vials.
Interesting. Not what I had interpreted when I initially read it, so this is very helpful!
|
|
They put a lot of work in remastering the alchemist.
* By firmly separating the morning prep resource from the versatile vial resource, players no longer need to agonize so much about how to split the pool.
* Only needing one formula per type of item means a lot less tracking which level you have. (And saves a lot of gold.)
* No more problems with running out of steam at low level.
* Any alchemist that knows the formula for a healing elixir can do solid out of combat healing. So one more class that can fill that niche in the long-working-day party.
* Alchemists scale well to working days of any size.
* Because VVs can turn into any formula you know, you're still having the "complexity" of getting to do nitty gritty item research. This class is a lot more powerful in the hands of someone who's read a lot of PF books. That's considered a "working as intended" I think. Paizo wants to make simple classes for people who wanna play simple, and complex classes for people who want to play a complex class. But the complexity has moved away from fussy resource tracking and towards cool figuring out which item is good for this situation.