Anyone try the Remastered Alchemist? Is it better? Is the versatile vile mechanic better than all at once?
Bomber arguably got net positive buff (arguably, not easy to say that), the other 3 Alchemists are all imo nerfed significantly by the remaster.
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VVials do not provide more items unless you fight many times each day and are low level. To be clear, at the very lowest levels, you definitely get more items via VVials.
Worse is that old Alchemist let you choose your own balance of prep vs quick, but new Alch mandates you use Quick Alch. This completely wrecks your action economy, and is why "all Alchs are bombers now," as only bombs are 1A via the Quick Bomber feat. That 1/2 action cost (and their nature as the use-at-range items) completely skews the cost:benefit of combat alch items.
Even a Chir or Muta will know that throwing un-upgraded bombs is typically better than anything else they can do.
Just about every buff came with some nerf.
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Quick Alchemy used to be great for out of combat problem solving and pre-fight buffing. After you notice a change in monster / hazard theme, you could Quick Alch some antidotes for 6 hr protection.
Gone. Nerfed. Quick Alch only lasts 10 min. If you don't spend your precious few prep items, and you have the ability to see the future during daily preparations, then you'll never want to spend another prep item on a niche effect like that.
I'm genuinely glad I got to play Gatewalkers when I did, because my Chir being able to prep anti cold and anti plague items for the whole party was a real "alchemist" moment for the finale of that campaign, and just those 12 items would be over my max daily limit, and impossible to do in New Alch.
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All perpetual items were deleted. Those were actually very helpful, proving lower rank but free buffs, healing, etc. Spending a feat to get an unlimited Skunk Bomb on my Chir was super worth it, but that's all gone now.
Perpetuals were typically a full rank behind, but considering that's only 1d_ for bombs, they really were not a bad feature. Quick / Field Vials are pretty much a downgrade in every way. (it's the Quick Bomber feat buff that makes new Bomber's FV good, the feature alone is pretty meh / bad)
And those freebie infinite Quick Vials / FVs that are *not* Bombers? So bad it's an actual joke. Like, actually a trap action to do in combat. Muta spends 2A to remove a mutagen debuff until their next turn. They lost infinite perpetual items for that.
Chir's is still spending 2A to heal 2d6 at level 11 (1 p target p 10 min). Like, what the actual f&%+ happened there. I think it's the worst healing in the system. I'd trade away every Chir feature to get Thaum's Chalice, and I actually did take Kin's Timber Sentinel (for when things actually get dangerous)
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New Alch caps Additive to once per turn. Not much to say there, likely nerfed because of the Quick Bomber buff. Used to be 2A minimum to get an Additive into a bomb.
Now that Quick Bomber was buffed to make that 1A (and only bombs were buffed like that), it's incredibly easy to point the finger to say that the nerf happened to stop Bombers from throwing 3 Additive boosted bombs per turn.
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Prep items now scale DC (but only via your L5 feature slot, it's not free baseline), but of course they still snuck a nerf in there. We can no longer make temps of permanent items like Collars or Sun Dazzlers. Even the prep items are consumables only now. This outright kills the viability of those "fun" items like Sun Dazzlers, as their non-scaling nature leaves them dead in the water.
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But hey, there is a certain smoothness to recharging VVs, and it is actually broken OP in some ways too. The Alchemy item list was designed around every creation either being a lower R perpetual that you specifically picked as your infinite, or the creation was daily-limited. That was important for psychological reasons, no one wants to "waste" a daily resource on a minor skill check. Now, any time there's no combat, the new-Alch is incentivize to stop the table every time someone is about to make a roll, and poof out a 10min buff each and every time.
It's honestly an asinine degree of play stoppage (don't forget all the follow up "has it been 10 minutes yet?" questions afterward), and every new-Alch seems to eventually grow bored of it and let those skill checks happen buff-less at some point.
Other things like condition removal items are now a foregone conclusion, just sit on your butt and keep waiting for the high counteract roll before you open the next door. No reason to ever risk a lingering debuff like that.
All Alchs more or less solve out of combat healing thanks to Soothing Tonic granting fast healing.
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I've no clue how NorrKnekten thinks that Tox is viable without prebuffing poisons. 1A to create, 1A to apply, and 1A to swing as a non-martial. That might be the very worst combat routine in the game.
The loophole rule to "sustain" some injury poisons via popping VVials every 10 min is the only thing that keeps Tox sane. It's just 2 or 3 poison attempts per fight, but without that, Tox would run out of prep poisons stupid fast.
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Did want to edit in what is a really nice QoL buff we got though. The item formula-heightening feature saves the Alch soooo much gp in gold tax. Like, holy crap, it is like at least 2,000 gp for my L14. That was absurdly expensive. And I pity Tox players, whose item list doesn't have lesser/mod/greater/etc versions. Though I suspect many are just rocking Clown Monarch at all levels now, lol.
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Like, even random "eh" feats like Healing Bomb were nerfed into "never ever take this" territory. Like, who the hell was worried that *Healing Bomb* was a balance problem???
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I could go on, so feel free to ask about anything specific.
So the remastered alchemist still not so great. Maybe better at low level, but not so great at high level. When I was looking at it, it did seem a little worse at high level with the Versatile vials taking a while to recover. Way more than a focus point.
2 plus your intelligence modifier is very limited.
So the remastered alchemist still not so great. Maybe better at low level, but not so great at high level. When I was looking at it, it did seem a little worse at high level with the Versatile vials taking a while to recover. Way more than a focus point.
2 plus your intelligence modifier is very limited.
7ish VVs really is "just right" if you are a Bomber who preps non-bombs, and Quick's only bombs. Seven Strikes is comfortably enough for a single fight, and if you're being conservative, you can stretch that to 2 ish fights.
Being able to recharge VVs passively and w/o meditating is good on paper, but doesn't help much in practice. If you as an Alch are the last one who wants another 10 min to top off your VVs, you feel pressured to start walking and just hope 10 min pass before the next fight initiates. And if you use the "VV sustained effects" trick, that's another 10 min added to that, after every fight.
It's oddly clunky.
The bigger issue is that spellcasters have cantrips, scrolls/wands/staves, daily slots, AND focus spells to spread out their resource usage.
Alchemists just have prep items, VVs, and the quick vial _d6. Bombers can use all 3 of those for 1A thanks to Quick Bomber, and their Q Vial being a "0 effect bomb" means that it is also the closest parity to a real item (it also gets boosted by bomber feats).
All the other 3 types generally can try to prebuff with VVials if they are at a door, but are all waaay more reliant on using prep items for combat, which makes it completely miserable to budget in the mornings. You want some Antiplague to give all-day protection to your party? Not a chance, unless you're fine with that being 4/9 of your limit. A Bomber might be able to swing that, but a Tox or Chir? No freaking way can they afford it.
And yeah, that's as seriously game-changing as it sounds. Alchemist does not have the resources to buff allies anymore.
My highest is a L14 Chirurgeon/Witch, and it's been over a level since I have buffed an ally in combat via a Combine Elixir. It's just better to throw a Haste at a distance, and maximize the Blood in the Water focus spell via Sticky Junk Bombs.
I've also given up "fairness" and started using the VVials for prebuffing more often, typically asking ~"who wants a buff" and trying to keep it limited to one. Because getting the benefit for 0 combat actions is the best spend of a VV.
Prebuffing w/ VVials is also stupid OP, as in, genuinely a balance problem if you know a fight is about to happen. You just cannot balance item effects as both requiring actions and resources to obtain in combat, and have that still be balanced if the party walks into every fight with 7 buffs.
My PC is fine with using a hand crossbow, archetype spells, and even Athletics in such circumstances. It's just not fun to know that your best way to contribute is by turning into a buff dispenser, and that any time you *don't* do that, you are just risking the lives of your party for the sake of fun.
Because, yeah. Paizo kinda F-ed up big time. IDK if they were even aware of the "item dispenser" pejorative and attempt to address it, or if they were that out of touch, but intent does not matter.
The new-Alchemist has infinitely recharging items, which are painful to use in combat, and refill passively.
Instead of the old item dispenser, new-Alch is the "infinite buff dispenser."
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Hmm, tox didn't lose out. Being able to affect those who were previously immune to poison looks like a huge buff.
I'm no alchemist expert so I can't comment on anything else, but the toxicologist in our group was moved to tears by this change.
I called out old Investigator as nearly being non-functional due to how hard it was to get the 0A version of DaS, never used that language for old Alch. I might have used similar language in a more specific point, like calling Quick Alch as "basically non-functional" or something like that.
I did write an entire Alchemist: Reformulated homebrew remaster, which has a Foundry & Pathbuilder module, after Paizo teased that Alch was getting recharging alchemy.
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I knew from the jump that recharging alchemy was both good and bad; making play smoother but creating new unfixable problems, like that issue where you want to buff before every possible roll because you've lost that "technically daily limited" psychology factor.
One of ways I addressed that was by preserving the "prep VS quick choice" and making the refilling "Reservoirs of Quintessence" start 1 free, then others being the new daily prep choice at the cost of 2 i.reagents per RR.
While feat-changeable, Reformulated's default Q-Alch alternative was limited so you could only insta create items w/ traits matching your specialty. Prep items became a 1 min out of combat thing, so all Alchs still had full-book access for non-combat needs (and you no longer needed to predict the future during daily prep).
That paradigm helped Bombers, etc, not have that mental issue where they wanted to spam infinite elixirs and could focus on their bombs.
I also put in the work to actually give the Reformulated "real" cantrip items & Additives as automatic features, all designed to scale and remain usable late game, which imo new-Alch still completely fails to do. I am still completely bewildered that new-Alch has 0 Additives bundled into the class, and still *require* class feats to get.
That's like if Rogue had all this text explaining their "Debilitation" mechanic, but not actually having any as a part of the chassis. The lack of a default Additive is just baffling.
Basically every single issue with new-Alch was visible from a mile away to old-Alch players.
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I certainly did *not* foresee that the new Archetype Alchemist would get buffed to such an absurd degree, that it genuinely hurts the viability of Alchemist as a class.
My next PC is 100% going to be a ___ / Alchemist to really see it for myself, but the Arch-Alch getting max R items, and full-book-any-time Quick Alch is just dumb.
I genuinely wonder how many people will think about playing new-Mutagenist, then realize they should just go Fighter(whatever) / Alch instead. If you don't need to spam items, there is no point to picking the class.
Most adventuring days, my Chirs do *not* use more items than the Arch-Alch features could provide, but every single day they suffer from having the inferior Alch chassis. That is seriously oof.
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Welcome to the new reality of the Remastered Alchemist. ;P
Lol, oof that stings.
"You may not like it, but this is what peak New Alchemist performance looks like. I can apply fourteen actions of buffs for zero combat actions, before every single fight."
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Hmm, tox didn't lose out. Being able to affect those who were previously immune to poison looks like a huge buff.
I'm no alchemist expert so I can't comment on anything else, but the toxicologist in our group was moved to tears by this change.
That was my thought too. The fact that tox now can affect basically every thing with their stuff is a huge buff compared to before when there were wide swaths of common enemy types you could not use any of your normal tools on.
Where things are still a bit unclear with Toxicologists is whether or not their Poisons can inflict conditions on the immune, or if it's simply a damage type swap.
Field Benefit:You can apply an injury poison you’re holding to a weapon or piece of ammunition you’re wielding as a single action, rather than as a 2-action activity. In addition, you flexibly mix acidic and poisonous alchemical compounds. Your infused poisons can affect creatures immune to poison. A creature takes acid damage instead of poison damage from your infused poisons if either the creature is immune to poison or that would be more detrimental to the creature (as determined by the GM). Typically, this benefit applies when the creature has an immunity, resistance, or weakness to one of the damage types.
There has always been support for Immunity not applying when the damage type doesn't match the Trait to which Immunity applies (ie, having a different damage type works around Immunity):
However, some complex effects might have parts that affect you even if you're immune to one of the effect's traits; for instance, a spell that deals both fire and acid damage can still deal acid damage to you even if you're immune to fire.
So, it's hard to say. My personal interpretation is that a 1st level Toxicologist can now do Acid damage to a Skeleton with Giant Centipede Venom, but the Skeleton won't be fatigued or clumsy if the Poison advances past Stage 1.
Still a major improvement, but not quite as good as it would be if Tox could hit Immune creatures with the major Debuff poisons.
Now, the Field Benefit completely avoiding Poison Resistance is just a complete win. And who knows, maybe some time a Tox will encounter something Weak to Acid and that will be a fun win too.
Welcome to the new reality of the Remastered Alchemist. ;P
That's not the Remastered Alchemist... that was the Core Rulebook Alchemist. Kinda.
I played a Core Rulebook Bomber Alchemist in Outlaws of Alkenstar. At the end, I was doing the following:
- Making four Moderate Elixirs of Life, one for each party member, for emergency in-combat healing. (We were lacking in that area.)
- Four Silvertongue Mutagens for the Bard.
- Four Numbing Tonics for our frontliner Armor Inventor.
- Two Life Shot bullets for our Vanguard Gunslinger (he wanted some emergency ranged healing.)
And that was on top of everything I made for my Bomber's personal use... and he never ran out. There were a couple of spare Batches in there for Alchemical rabbits too.
Simply can't do that anymore. My PFS Bomber (11th level) is going to need his Versatile Vials for Sticky Bombs, and at 11 Advanced Alchemy items a day, he's not going to be doing a lot of support.
Alchemical rabbits though, I admit that PC2 Alchemist will be better at that. It's simply going to be a question of "can I afford to give up Offense to do this?"
So the remastered alchemist still not so great. Maybe better at low level, but not so great at high level. When I was looking at it, it did seem a little worse at high level with the Versatile vials taking a while to recover. Way more than a focus point.
2 plus your intelligence modifier is very limited.
7ish VVs really is "just right" if you are a Bomber who preps non-bombs, and Quick's only bombs. Seven Strikes is comfortably enough for a single fight, and if you're being conservative, you can stretch that to 2 ish fights.
Being able to recharge VVs passively and w/o meditating is good on paper, but doesn't help much in practice. If you as an Alch are the last one who wants another 10 min to top off your VVs, you feel pressured to start walking and just hope 10 min pass before the next fight initiates. And if you use the "VV sustained effects" trick, that's another 10 min added to that, after every fight.
It's oddly clunky.
The bigger issue is that spellcasters have cantrips, scrolls/wands/staves, daily slots, AND focus spells to spread out their resource usage.
Alchemists just have prep items, VVs, and the quick vial _d6. Bombers can use all 3 of those for 1A thanks to Quick Bomber, and their Q Vial being a "0 effect bomb" means that it is also the closest parity to a real item (it also gets boosted by bomber feats).
All the other 3 types generally can try to prebuff with VVials if they are at a door, but are all waaay more reliant on using prep items for combat, which makes it completely miserable to budget in the mornings. You want some Antiplague to give all-day protection to your party? Not a chance, unless you're fine with that being 4/9 of your limit. A Bomber might be able to swing that, but a Tox or Chir? No freaking way can they afford it.
And yeah, that's as seriously game-changing as it sounds. Alchemist does not have the resources to buff allies anymore.
My highest is a L14 Chirurgeon/Witch, and it's been over a level since I...
I don't know if 7 would be enough as we like very long, involved brutal combats against a lot of enemies. If you're playing the standard game going from moderate to severe encounter with plenty of room between, then 7 is maybe ok. If you're doing like us where we're plowing through an entire dungeon room to room with minimal rest between, 7 is a really low number. The old method still ran out, but you could at least have a bunch at high level and with the continuous infusions of lower level bombs never run out.
This new paradigm probably works for people running things in a very modular fashion, but not sure how great it is for groups like ours with a huge number of collapsing encounters in non-stop succession.
Welcome to the new reality of the Remastered Alchemist. ;PThat's not the Remastered Alchemist...
Eh. My goal wasn't so much to make a point so much as to make people laugh.
Your infused poisons can affect creatures immune to poison.
This to me looks like the monster would be fatigued/clumsy - unless it's immune to the condition being given (like a golem immune to fatigue).
At least, that's how our GM rules it in this specific game.
Oh, yeah it really is not enough in that use-case.
I've done that during a hurried manor raid, and ended up using ~1.5 ish VV per fight.
That pace did help a 10min buff mutagen on the Kin last for 3 fights, but I certainly had more [Electric Arc] + [throw Spear] turns than normal during that marathon. I honestly can never imagine playing a pure Alchemist without spellcasting or something, you need fallbacks.
That type of quick-raid realism pretty much puts new-Alch's VVials as a pure downgrade over old Alch. The VVials need to be fully used and recharged multiple times to break even with the old item count. That's mostly why Archetype Alch is so good, because their main "lack" is that the VVs do not recharge.
As again, even old Bomber had their infinite perpetuals that had their potent hit effects, but at 1 dmg die less (and their splash was still maxed) for a worst-case 2A bomb.
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I've already posted it to the errata thread, but the "either or" difference that determines how one reads the Tox thing is if they think the first sentence is an actual instruction and rule granting the blanket ability to override immunity, or if it is only an introduction to the concept, and that sentence #2 is the actual mechanical implementation.
If you read that #1 has no mechanic behind it, then the only real mechanic is the damage conversion of #2, and there's nothing that allows for the effects to also function.
[#1]Your infused poisons can affect creatures immune to poison. [#2] A creature takes acid damage instead of poison damage from your infused poisons if either the creature is immune to poison[...]
Anyone try the Remastered Alchemist? Is it better? Is the versatile vile mechanic better than all at once?
It's not much better. But it's much easier to play. So depending on how you were handling it pre remaster you'll find it either similar or finally usable (and as such much better).
Still, there are very interesting feat chains now that puts the Alchemist appart from other classes. So it's at least much more unique.