In general, a LOT of the power budget of Alchemist, excluding Bomber, is weighted way too late in the progression.
Chirurgeon, as mentioned, is good after level 13, bad before. Same for mutagenist, who until the double mutagen at 13 has almost 0 subclass features. Toxicologist desperately needs level 8 to have a passable chance to inflict his poisons, and etc.
Yeah alchemists at low levels can do a lot of things OK like bombers can be a party healer or a chir can do a lot of mutagen stuff or bomb because at lower levels the difference between being specced for it or not is not that huge. I think tox is one of the few that really isn't great for others to dabble in.
One thing for chirugeon They have a fair bit of options to help remove/mitigate a variety of conditions even at lower level as an additive . So even though their healers are not as good at those levels directly but they still have a lot of utility for helping with conditions.
Those condition removers are trap feats that should be avoided at all costs.
There's like 3 layers of stars aligning before you'd ever use them, and when you do, it's only a counteract roll and not guaranteed. (And Alchemist uses martial progression for DC / potency stuff, not spellcaster)
Out of combat, you have the condition counteract items like contagion metabolizer, which now are infinite due to VVials. The only real play lingering condition that I've not been able to cleanse with the alch item list across 4 APs is Drained. Continuing to adventure while Drained genuinely happens once ish per AP, but that's not enough of a use case for the feat investment.
I cannot stress enough how horrible, abysmal of a cost:benefit it is to spend 3+ class feats on gaining the ability to add condition counteract checks to your elixirs.
You can dip into and out of any archetype in the system for that many feats.
A super-familiar that can give you 0A Quick Alchemy via Lab Assistant, with f.abilities left over to +1 daily item and +1VVial (this one's kinda bad, don't take it).
You can dip into Exemplar to get their universal counteract Ikon, and still have the feat to poach something else while getting a more usable combat cleanser.
I'm genuinely salty as hell that those cleanser feats were published in the remaster in such a state. They are the worst kind of trap, because it's so easy to overestimate their utility, and they are very thematic.
Agree on skipping cleanser feats (though soothing elixir is kinda nice), chirurgeon already has reasons to want medicine, so medic dedication + treat condition + doctor's visitation + paragon battle medicine escapes the archetype while offering comparable if not better condition removal along with actual healing ability (woefully absent on chirurgeon base class).
Invigorating is actually a really good feat, Sickened can absolutely wreck an Alchemist and you flat out ignore it, and that's in addition to the actual cleansing
Then use a Pepper Poultice to lower it by 1, guaranteed.
Or an Emetic Paste to get a lasting bonus, then a roll.Or a Ginger Chew to prevent the condition on Reaction.
An uncommon condition is not worth permanently locking a class feat to add counteracts to other elixirs, that's still completely absurd cost:benefit.
There are actually rather few [healing] [elixirs] btw, staples like numbing tonic are incompatible with the Invigorating feat line.
Don't forget you're not allowed to use Additives with your quick vials, so you have to be spending a VV on a consumable.
Meaning that you're stuck with soothing tonics or elixirs of life as your generic Invigorating carrier.
Which kinda suck.
Edit: rofl, I forgot that they even gave Invigorating a 1 p 10min cooldown! WTF, how is that in there. I don't know of any counteract items that invoke a cooldown pass or fail like that, that's completely *insane* they decided you get one chance, then the feats are genuinely useless for the rest of the fight for that patient.
Again, looks good on paper, but is beneath trash in practice.
The cleansing alch feats are the fetid juice that collects on the bottom of the bin beneath the trash sacks.
Invigorating is actually a really good feat, Sickened can absolutely wreck an Alchemist and you flat out ignore it, and that's in addition to the actual cleansing
Sure but the medic loadout I mentioned covers that (and often while healing you, and can be bundled with a stride), and as Trip said so do actual alchemicals you could quick alchemy without any feats at all.
[snip]Invigorating is also bundled up with every single elixir you want to use. [snip]
It really, really is not. Numbing Tonic is the #1 "always good" generic, and after that, I've found most of my allies their sometimes mutagen they appreciate being dosed with.
Neither are Invigorating compatible.
It really is just Soothing and El o Life that'll have a chance to get used in practice. Blood Boosters, Antiplagues, etc, are not going to coincide with Invigorating like that. Contagion Metabolizer is rare to use in combat, but if the disease poison imposes a matching condition, Invigorating would be helpful to double the counteract chance. But. The chances of me wanting to cleanse a psn/disease in combat is very low, I'll generously guess twice per AP. That's stupidly rare, and Invigorating only adds 1 counteract roll chance, then goes on cooldown.
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Invigorating looks good-ish on paper, but it does not exist in a vacuum. It is an Additive class feat.
Aside from the niche of a niche of a maybe issue, the next reason why Invigorating is below trash is because Combine Elixirs is right there.
Invigorating is not competing against nothing, you only get 1 Additive per turn.
Worse, Combine is usable with all elixirs, while Invigorating is usable with only healing elixirs. So every single item you could use Invigorating, you also could use Combine.
Yes, Invigorating does not cost a VV, while Combine does.
But the 1 p 10 min ability to add a counteract check for a few debuffs is competing against the 2A action saver of Combine.
And yes, Combine elixir saves ~2A every time you invoke it. You skip both the Q-Alch and the Activate of that 2nd elixir.
Being able to use your VVials quickly via Combine is like half the power of Alchemist right now.
Being able to open a fight with
Stride --> Double Brew Quick Bomber: Skunk --> Activate: Combine double buff
is Alchemist's bread and butter. It sucks to burn half your recharging resource to do it, but getting 3 alch effects ticking away on turn 1 within 2A like that is exactly how Alchemist can manage to pull their weight despite the class'... everything else. Alchemist is a genuinely good class! For those 2 turns of VVial burn, lol.
(Seriously though, I do recommend the 3VVial opener to Alch players. But after that, how to use the remaining VVials is much more nebulous. Post L13, Chir does like to max-math heal, and if you sustain a buff or two, that'll reserve all remaining 2ish VVials, lol.)
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I have never encountered a situation in combat where I wished I had Invigorating because an ally was Sick, etc. And I've lost the Skunk gamble and Sickened an ally via splash before. That time, I hammed up the RP and used some Emetic Paste.
If I had Invigorating, that essentially would have been one bonus El of Life or Soothing Tonic to go with the cleanse roll, that's it. I'm not going to occupy my class feat slot with something that is dead 95% of the time, and only gives the value of a low tier combat item, once, when that rare alignment of the stars happens.
Now that Pepper Poultice is a thing, even if I had the feat for free, I'd honestly rather spend the VVial to guarantee the cleanse instead of 0VV and making it a gamble via Invigorating.
(off topic, but item power creep is bad for the game Paizo! Even the Chirurgeon player is telling you it's a bad idea!)
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Lol, I forgot that the Tian Xia book added the Glitter Crystals feat.
No counteract roll, no cooldown when used, it just works.
Each time it's consumed, lower by 1 / remove listed conditions. Drained Dazzled Stupefied Deafened.
An odd list, but 3 of those actually happen, and could be desirable to remove mid combat. Compatible with healing elixirs, and with alch food.
No way in hell I'd ever take Invigorating, lol.
I’m sure invigorating felt good when it came up but instead of invigorating you could have had treat condition + paragon battle medicine + glitter crystals, which would have treated everything invigorating does plus more, usually without a counteract, and often bundled with movement or healing.
That would have felt just as good if not better and also does way better healing.
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Yeah, the opportunity cost is just insane in pf2, with the whole archetype system.
Archetype into Exemplar and pick Victor's Wreath, rofl. Whenever you don't need the reroll, you're giving a +1 status bonus to attack rolls.
And because Invigorating is stuck at 1 p 10 min anyways, thinking of the Trans ability to reroll ANY negative effect as a 2A activity makes it just completely eclipse Invigorating. Woof. Not seeing the reason to stan for that horrid feat line.
(paragon wasn't usable since Rare tag and only 1 teacher for it made it unaccesible)
F in the chat, another character struck by the [random lore character]’s double slice phenomenon. Hurts to see, but when you got a DM like that you gotta either cut your losses and leave or stick to a class where most of it’s good shit happens to be common (fighter or cleric are good options).
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F in the chat, another character struck by the [random lore character]’s double slice phenomenon. Hurts to see, but when you got a DM like that you gotta either cut your losses and leave or stick to a class where most of it’s good s*$@ happens to be common (fighter or cleric are good options).(paragon wasn't usable since Rare tag and only 1 teacher for it made it unaccesible)
Literally a core assumption of the game is that uncommon and rare stuff isn't automatically available and needs GM approval. And it's a good thing, since it's pretty easy for a GM to turn off if they don't care, while it's much harder to go in the other direction.
Some people have just forgotten that and long for the days of "an AP book printed a Runelord specific spell that hasn't existed for thousands of years, but I'm allowed to just know it somehow as a level 5 wizard on level up because RAW says so."
Yea and the way it was done is one the worst things the game ever did. Depending on your GM there’s a good chance you end up playing half the game instead of the full game, and for little to no benefit - Paizo doesn’t actually make rare stuff much stronger if at all. There’s so many perfectly fine combat feats and such that hardly ever see the light of day because instead of being printed as Double Slice, they’re printed as [super special blorbo]’s Double Slice.
For example, The Harder They Fall. Why does my rouge character get to take the feat that does trip damage no questions asked, but if I’m playing a ranger with trip damage I have to beg for this “super secret technique” and win an out of game charisma check with the DM. It’s just stupid, unfun, and unfair to players who can’t bullshit backstory well. How big a sandbox you get to play in depends substantively on how well you can bullshit a justification as to why you should get to enjoy cool toys, and Paizo set it up that way.
And again, it’s not about power because probably the strongest build in the game, disruptive stance reach fighter, is like 95% common, certainly all the essential pieces are. Hell so was resentment witch, and if you want something actually outright broken most drowning tech well. Or sneak savant stealth bullshit, I’ve seen someone almost solo treerazor with that (they lost because they f$&!ed up and forgot the holy rune).
Back in 1e the rarity system actually could have served a valuable purpose, because they printed all sorts of wack shit. But in 2e the writers mostly just don’t print it at all. And when they do it’s common half the time anyways!
Look, I admit there’s some plausible version of the rarity system that would be good. Something where different reasons are marked clearly, where out of combat utility game changers like teleport are tagged as such and separately from “this way of swinging your sword is often used by x faction”, or “being a robot is weird flavor”. But we don’t got it. What we have is worse than useless, because it tells DMs to toss the baby right out with the bath water.
The only reason I don’t say it’s flat out the worst part of the game is because static item DCs exist and those take a bit more effort to fix then literally just ignoring them.
At the very least, Alchemy stuff is the exception to the rarity thing. (though I doubt it's the exception, and I can say that spells also gate power by rarity too)
It's 100% true that rare, and even uncommon, alch items are way more powerful.
Some options like Prey Mutagen are so overpowered, I pretend they don't exist and do not even think about asking the GM for some quest unlock or something.
You want a tea that stops you from falling unconscious when you hit 0 HP? The [rare] Dragon Pearl does that. Again, it's honestly not okay to claim that rarity doesn't factor into alchemical power. It does.
Yes, it's true that not every alch item with a tag is going to be blatantly OP, but same as there's gaps between trash and great common items, there's also a gap btwn the best and worst uncommon, rare, etc.
The uncommon inhalation poisons (which feels like most of them…) are much stronger than the common ones, for another example.
And dragon pearl tea isn’t that big a deal, like every other 1 minute activation, 10 minute duration thing. (“I’d only have four nickels, but it’s odd that it happened that many times”)
The uncommon inhalation poisons (which feels like most of them…) are much stronger than the common ones, for another example.
The sample size of inhaled poisons is probably too low to draw any meaningful conclusions. But it’s not like inhaled poisons are that good in general so I don’t see any balance concerns anyways.
At the very least, Alchemy stuff is the exception to the rarity thing. (though I doubt it's the exception, and I can say that spells also gate power by rarity too)
It's 100% true that rare, and even uncommon, alch items are way more powerful.
Some options like Prey Mutagen are so overpowered, I pretend they don't exist and do not even think about asking the GM for some quest unlock or something.
You want a tea that stops you from falling unconscious when you hit 0 HP? The [rare] Dragon Pearl does that. Again, it's honestly not okay to claim that rarity doesn't factor into alchemical power. It does.
Yes, it's true that not every alch item with a tag is going to be blatantly OP, but same as there's gaps between trash and great common items, there's also a gap btwn the best and worst uncommon, rare, etc.
If you have to reach so far that the example you pull out is an item that isn’t even in the game anymore, having been overwritten by a completely different item, and which was never that good in the first place - 180gp, one minute activation, 10 minute duration, for a bog standard orc’s ferocity style deathloop effect there’s plenty of ways to get? - Come on, be serious, you’re making my argument for me.
You could have at least citied bottled vim , an actually OP rare alchemical - though it’s probably only tagged rare instead of unique because technically the guy that makes them can make multiple, same as sun orchards. I make no assurances as to the balancing of unique items, those are actually unbalanced in general.
As for prey mutagens, as I’ve stated before they’re not the best polymorphs have to offer. Most characters are better off with other options, such as energy mutagens for extra damage (especially with new weakness rules lmao), size increasing polymorphs, attack bonus mutagens if they have alchemist to print them on the cheap, or, ya know, the greater juggernaut mutagens that give you fortitude evasion. Prey mutagens are good, especially at lower levels, but they are not some super special broken polymorph effect to rule them all.
do you need better example than:
https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=497
that wars are fought over it and kings kneel to get in line to get?"just" a Rare elixir.
I already addressed this, that item is effectively unique and doesn’t even have a price. The only reason it’s not tagged unique is because the writers thought it would be weird to tag an item with multiple copies unique.
Hell the formula is even explicitly tagged unique, meaning that you can’t get it even if you’re not putting any restrictions on rare items - formula isn’t rare so alchemists can’t make it and the item doesn’t have a listed price with which to buy it at.
Apart from Frightened and maybe Enfeebled, Sickened is the next more common condition. Drained and Stupefied only comes up once in a blue moon, I literally never encountered Deafness, and Dazzled is either for 1 round or reapplied every round.
Here's an interesting detail. The most common conditions we encounter in adventures are Frightened and Sickened. However, these are conditions that are usually not worth fighting.
Frightened, in the vast majority of cases, resolves on its own and is usually no higher than 1 or 2 (unless someone fails critically). Sickened is more annoying, but the character with Sickened can try to remove it themselves.
Even rarer conditions are often not worth dealing with, especially if the duration is only 1 round. And even if it lasts longer, it will depend heavily on the target character:
- Clumsy is only worth trying to remove if the character uses Dexterity or fights on the front lines.
- Deafened is completely ignorable if the target is not a bard.
- Doomed is usually only a problem if it's very high or if the character is already wounded.
- Drained is a bigger problem when applied because it acts as extra damage. In fact, removing it during combat against opponents capable of inflicting it will only increase the damage these opponents take when they reapply Drained.
- Enfeebled only affects Strength-based characters.
- Fascinated is a meme.
- Fatigued goes away with rest.
- Stunned goes away on its own.
- Stupefied is basically only significant when it occurs on spellcasters.
This creates a problem with resource costs, where it's simply not worth the cost of hit points, spell slots, focus points, and even actions just to remove these conditions.
The only conditions that, in my opinion, are worth fighting against when they last longer than one round are:
- Blinded (which can still be partially circumvented if the character is an AoE spellcaster).
- Confused
- Controlled
- Dazzled (if the target doesn't have Blind-Fight or similar)
- Paralyzed
- Petrified
- Slowed
Even these, with the exception of Slowed, are quite rare. Petrified is even more difficult to apply because it requires the target to fail many times before reaching it, and most of them have the incapacitation trait.
This creates an opportunity cost problem, where it's often simply better to ignore the condition. Where in the Alchemist archetype, it's necessary to spend several feats to remove them, and as Trip.H rightly said, to do this only once per target for 10 minutes, if you pass and the target receives the condition again, that's it, and if you fail, not even that.
And even the Medic archetype has an opportunity cost problem because it doesn't treat the worst conditions I listed. Only Blinded, which is actually treated with the Legendary Medic skill feat and doesn't depend on the archetype. Those who truly deal with these things are conjurers, and they too have their own opportunity costs.
Sickened can pretty easily get you killed by preventing you from drinking what you need to survive (soothing tonic, potion of expeditious retreat.
Clumsy I agree isn’t a priority but getting AC back is good.
Fatigued often lasts until long rest so getting rid of it early is a big plus.
No, Prey Mutagens are absolutely ridiculous and should be banned.
Nothing else in the game scales their speed bonus like that.
The Reaction is already better than Raise A Shield by L3, which requires a shield hand for the +2. Meanwhile, the mutagen is also letting you Step after that attack is resolved.
This means you can break foe action economy by stepping out of range, requiring them to move back in for a 2nd Strike.
It also breaks multi-Strike activities outright, which become invalid to complete.
The L11 mutagen offering +30 speed and +3AC is already "should ban" territory imo, and I'm usually very permissive.
Rogue's FEATS Nimble Dodge + Roll only provide 10ft of movement if the hostility fails. This allows the Step on any outcome. The notion that a mutagen is balanced when it's a very close sidegrade to an L1 + L8 class feat is absurd.
Sorry, forgot about the movespeed again. It's an upgrade. If I spent 2 feats on Rogue, I'd consider it an upgrade to swap their benefits to instead be permanently under the effect of the Prey Mutagen.
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Yet another example is Bottled Night. A L3 uncommon that just outright cripples foes that don't have Darkvision. Because alch has access to all-day Darkvision via the elixir L8 and up, this item is extremely easy to abuse.
A 1A consumable to make your whole team Hidden is absurd. It's not going to be applicable every fight, but when it works, it's busted. I'd recommend limiting it to 3 rounds or something.
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Even that Pepper Poultice is a clear example of this rarity power.
The common Emetic Paste provides a bonus and a reroll, while the uncommon Poultice provides a -1 Sicken with no fail chance.
It's honestly astounding to see someone genuinely claiming that power and rarity are not linked.
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It's not so much that rarity and power are linked so much as it happens that there are some good and some broken options locked behind rarity. There are plenty of useless uncommon and rare options too.
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I could list “OP” commons all day long as well.
How about soothing tonics, where a 3gp level one item typically outperforms a level 19 elixir of life because it gets you back on your feet multiple times, and for quite literally under 1/100th the cost?
How about juggernaut mutagens, which give casters a major martial class feature: fortitude evasion?
How about pucker pickle, which gives any jaw attack based creature a -2 to hit you for the rest of the fight? And f@@&s up their swallow whole.
How about attack bonus mutagens, which give you a flat +1 item bonus to all of your attacks over what you’d normally get at that level. Sure, alchemist the class is balanced around having them, but is the fighter you handed them to? Or the fighter that took alchemist dedication?
How about the skunk bomb, that inflicts sickened 1 on a success?
How about insight coffee, that just gives investigators more damage once it becomes trivially cheap
How about cat eye’s elixir, that enables one way concealment through many means, including in conjunction with another common and cheap alchemical?
How about frog skin tincture, which is an hour prebuff that inflicts poison on any creature that uses jaw attacks?
How about ginger chew, which - same as pepper poultice - removes sickened with no roll. Sure, you gotta prebuff it, but it’s also cheaper and doesn’t need to be drawn. Seems like a substantial improvement to me.
How about fury cocktails, which are AFAIK the only way to get an item bonus on spell attacks, bringing melee spell attacks to above fighter accuracy in connection with touch focus.
How about silver salve, which removes 99% of the reason you’d ever want a silvered weapon, and for vastly cheaper.
Clearly, common alchemical items are overpowered and players should not have access to common alchemicals.
It's not so much that rarity and power are linked so much as it happens that there are some good and some broken options locked behind rarity. There are plenty of useless uncommon and rare options too.
Exactly.
Though the only thing I’d call actually broken is bottled vim, IMO there are no other alchemicals that broken in the same way sneak savant or drowning tech is.
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Yea and the way it was done is one the worst things the game ever did. Depending on your GM there’s a good chance you end up playing half the game instead of the full game, and for little to no benefit - Paizo doesn’t actually make rare stuff much stronger if at all. There’s so many perfectly fine combat feats and such that hardly ever see the light of day because instead of being printed as Double Slice, they’re printed as [super special blorbo]’s Double Slice.
For example, The Harder They Fall. Why does my rouge character get to take the feat that does trip damage no questions asked, but if I’m playing a ranger with trip damage I have to beg for this “super secret technique” and win an out of game charisma check with the DM. It’s just stupid, unfun, and unfair to players who can’t b!!$$$&@ backstory well. How big a sandbox you get to play in depends substantively on how well you can b+!!*~&+ a justification as to why you should get to enjoy cool toys, and Paizo set it up that way.
And again, it’s not about power because probably the strongest build in the game, disruptive stance reach fighter, is like 95% common, certainly all the essential pieces are. Hell so was resentment witch, and if you want something actually outright broken most drowning tech well. Or sneak savant stealth b~!!~++@, I’ve seen someone almost solo treerazor with that (they lost because they f*#!ed up and forgot the holy rune).
Back in 1e the rarity system actually could have served a valuable purpose, because they printed all sorts of wack s+%+. But in 2e the writers mostly just don’t print it at all. And when they do it’s common half the time anyways!
Look, I admit there’s some plausible version of the rarity system that would be good. Something where different reasons are marked clearly, where out of combat utility game changers like teleport are tagged as such and separately from “this way of swinging your sword is often used by x faction”, or “being a robot is weird flavor”. But we don’t got it. What we have is worse...
It doesn't tell the GM to throw it out ..it tells them to look and consider before allowing anything that's not common. I think that's a perfectly reasonable expectation, be it for story or balance.
The longer the edition goes on the more it feels like a well intentioned, very creative, but ultimately flawed decision to tie alchemist to actual in game items instead of some kineticist like pseudo-casting by way of class and feat abilities. The breath of options and their varying power, coupled with all the feat fixes in class for alchemist makes it seem bloated to me with too many knobs, buttons, and levers. It's the only class in the game that still feels like it's living in 3.X: nickle and diming for every ounce of efficiency it can muster......but 3.X is gone and most of the math lies in expected curves, so I guess the real benefit for alchemist is having more versatility than any class in the game.
I'm a fan of versatility only up to the point where I have to dig through options to sift the benefits. I hope a potential 3e alchemist isn't balanced around an item system.
...Yea and the way it was done is one the worst things the game ever did. Depending on your GM there’s a good chance you end up playing half the game instead of the full game, and for little to no benefit - Paizo doesn’t actually make rare stuff much stronger if at all. There’s so many perfectly fine combat feats and such that hardly ever see the light of day because instead of being printed as Double Slice, they’re printed as [super special blorbo]’s Double Slice.
For example, The Harder They Fall. Why does my rouge character get to take the feat that does trip damage no questions asked, but if I’m playing a ranger with trip damage I have to beg for this “super secret technique” and win an out of game charisma check with the DM. It’s just stupid, unfun, and unfair to players who can’t b!!$$$&@ backstory well. How big a sandbox you get to play in depends substantively on how well you can b+!!*~&+ a justification as to why you should get to enjoy cool toys, and Paizo set it up that way.
And again, it’s not about power because probably the strongest build in the game, disruptive stance reach fighter, is like 95% common, certainly all the essential pieces are. Hell so was resentment witch, and if you want something actually outright broken most drowning tech well. Or sneak savant stealth b~!!~++@, I’ve seen someone almost solo treerazor with that (they lost because they f*#!ed up and forgot the holy rune).
Back in 1e the rarity system actually could have served a valuable purpose, because they printed all sorts of wack s+%+. But in 2e the writers mostly just don’t print it at all. And when they do it’s common half the time anyways!
Look, I admit there’s some plausible version of the rarity system that would be good. Something where different reasons are marked clearly, where out of combat utility game changers like teleport are tagged as such and separately from “this way of swinging your sword is often used by x faction”, or “being a robot is weird flavor”. But we don’t
It tells them to make the player justify themselves in an annoying fashion never required for any common option, and (at least from what I’ve seen from the forums) apply 10x or more the scrutiny. Want to play a resentment witch? No second glance suggested for your DM, fire away. Disruptive stance fighter in your DM’s caster enemy centric game - no check required! But god forbid you want to have a katana without having to bullshit some reason the DM should deign to allow it, and god forbid you play a trip ranger without jumping through whatever hoops the DM thinks Paizo is asking them to set up and passing an IRL charisma check at each step.
And of course there’s all sorts of terrible mechanics associated such as arbitrarily increased repair DCs.
An alch item vs the nothing absence doesn't factor into the rarity=?power talk at all.
It's about comparing equivalent alch items, and seeing the power:rarity between existing items.
Emetic Paste vs Pepper Poultice is a very good point of evidence.
Prey Mutagen is a mutagen, and has that opportunity cost A vs B baked in. If I honestly look at the mutagen options, Prey is absolutely the most powerful.
Even uncommons like Warblood are very apt to examine.
There are a number of mutagens that give a benefit of +1 above the curve to your attacks, but Warblood is notable in that foes cannot ever invoke its drawbacks.
A player can plan to use Warblood, and never be bothered by the concentration flat check & "can't drop" drawbacks.
After double checking the cheese works, I'm genuinely tempted to swap from my Harmona gun to a Gun Sword, because Quicksilver's penalties are genuinely dangerous, and have almost gotten me killed at lest twice. I don't use it solo anymore, and Combine it with something like Stone Body.
It is a double-cheesy loophole to drink Warblood while holding a 2H combination weapon in 1H, even if it looks RAW, GM might shut it down. Text shoulda said wielding.
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Example aside, the point stands.
Whenever you have alch items that fulfill similar functions, it is the norm for the uncommon and rare options to be more powerful and desirable than the common. While the uncommon/rare will sometimes be more niche and specific, that doesn't remove the power they grant. Smoke bomb & misform elixir vs bottled night, etc.
It is completely backwards that when I mention the Dragon Pearl tea you would cite "well, that item got deleted via replacement anyways!" as a point in your favor.
It is huge evidence for my argument; it is incredibly rare for Paizo to hit that emergency button and actually remove the old item by specifically replacing it w/ a same name update.
I'm craving to figure some AoN search to check how many items have been deleted via replacement, because my speculative guess would be around a dozen items, at most. And I'm hankering to see what the distribution of common/uncommon/rare is.
I don’t think Dragon Pearl tea got deleted at all by the same name but totally different item in Draconic Codex. Paizo is infamous for incompetently reusing names to cause confusion. 2e is much better but we still have several double uses (compared to probably a dozen 1e triple and even quadruple uses of the same name for different (or the same!) mechanical categories).
The longer the edition goes on the more it feels like a well intentioned, very creative, but ultimately flawed decision to tie alchemist to actual in game items instead of some kineticist like pseudo-casting by way of class and feat abilities. The breath of options and their varying power, coupled with all the feat fixes in class for alchemist makes it seem bloated to me with too many knobs, buttons, and levers. It's the only class in the game that still feels like it's living in 3.X: nickle and diming for every ounce of efficiency it can muster......but 3.X is gone and most of the math lies in expected curves, so I guess the real benefit for alchemist is having more versatility than any class in the game.
I'm a fan of versatility only up to the point where I have to dig through options to sift the benefits. I hope a potential 3e alchemist isn't balanced around an item system.
If they believed in their own design, it could have worked. When you read the OG alchemist, it sounds like they set up the class where a lot of its power is not from the items themselves, but from the enhancements and additives that only an Alchemist can infuse into items.
In practice, the actual power of such enhancements was such a tiny pittance, they backed even further away from it in the remaster and dumbed it down further for simplicity.
The more chassis Alchemist power that came from their own abilities, and not from the alch item list, the easier it would have been for Paizo to adjust knobs and levers to get the class into a good place.
Instead, Paizo are absolutely terrified of Alchemist being able to spam items, to the point of leaving Lab Assistant legacy and trying to funnel folk into the downgrade of Item Delivery.
They refuse to accept that the item spam meta is *because* there is no good chassis Alchemist power, such as powerful (chassis) Additives. Every update I've seen, they kept trying to nerf the benefit of the item-spam strategy, without understanding that's all Alchemist has. And the weaker it becomes, the harder Alch has to commit to milking it. And the more the class itself is trashed in comparison to its peers.
Think about how often folk criticize classes like Ranger and Investigator for needing to spend empty actions on setup like Hunt Prey.
Even the manual Spellstrike recharge is considered a rarity to perform.
Paizo knows that the remaster chained the alch to the Quick Alchemy action, badly. They did that on purpose, and it hurts. Old Paizo built the og Alchemist with Quick Alchemy as a flex fallback option, the class encouraged folks to save actions by avoiding the action as much as could via smart prep. They even offered Lab Assistant, which was not even that popular due to how much rarer it was to lean on Q-Alch.
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Because the Alchemist chassis itself has only Double Brew at L9 to improve Q-Alch itself, Alchemist PCs have to invest in things like Quick Bomber, Combine Elixir, and Lab Assistant familiars.
Paizo refuses to make such action compression chassis to the class, and this kills it.
Those "makes doing alchemy better" options, especially Lab Assistant, are poachable by anyone.
Paizo being scared to give the Alchemist chassis meaningful power means that my Summoner/Alch with a familiar could play Alchemist better than my Chirurgeons for a fight or two. (No F-Tech)
The Summoner can draw-dodge prep items better than an Alchemist (eidolon got hands), and even has 0A Quick Alch via Lab Assistant.
The changes made in the remaster, especially removing the lagging item level from the archetype, means that Paizo has genuinely killed the numbers balance of Alchemist. It got some nerfs that hurt, but it mostly is killed from the other direction, those buffs to archetype alch are legit insane.
If you want to play Alchemist now, and know the system, you have to intentionally choose the roleplay of the class in spite of knowing it'll mean tanking your combat prowess.
'Upgrading' to a low tier, off-stat, wave caster like Summoner has been ridiculous in comparison to my playtime as Alchemists. Even with the same alch action saver setup to maximize it's appeal, my SMN choosing btwn A: SMN actions, and B:Alch actions is nuts. I need to exhaust a lot of SMN stuff before bothering with alch gains appeal.
(Thankfully, the low daily resources of SMN does mean I'll start making use of the 6+ alch & familiar feat investment any adventuring day with >2 fights)
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The best way to play an Alchemist-Alchemist is to sustain a 10min buff or two, spam VVials turn 1/2, then play like another class while you keep the last VVial for emergencies. Prep items go toward daily buffs like darkvision, and go toward sprinkling a few into your turn 1/2 item spam.
After your opening item spam... all that's left is archetype & skill actions like Athletics. Without chassis mechanics to enhance Strikes, alch legit sucks when making Strikes, I've never gotten it into a good place. Too much passive power baked into real martial chassis to compare. If you're attempting that, focus on poaching one non-damage meta strike/action from an archetype, like a trip-on-hit thing, but know that it's still going to be a painful downgrade compared to a martial doing the same thing.
And because turbo item spam that hits empty turn 2 is the "powerful" way to play Alch, it already reveals that you probably would be better off playing another class, and dip into Alch as an archetype. If you find yourself wanting more alch items, then 1 feat into Firework Tech will grant recharge.
That is if you even do find the VV spam to be useful anymore. It legit works low level, I'd say peaking at like L5 before martials snowballing their upgrades, item spam it requires significant investment to be able to burn them quickly, and the payoff doesn't seem to keep up as PC power level is expected to creep upwards.
(Seriously, think about how bombs typically just add 1dX dmg on upgrade, mutagens keep pace with their buffs, etc. How much passive chassis power is Alch gaining in parallel to their item heightening? Now compare that to how much passive chassis power the other classes are gaining. Bomber's last real power upgrade is a L10 feat, FFS)
Now that I've had 2 Alchs get to Lvl >= 15, I personally notice myself doing less turn 1 VV spam by about L12. Either the archetype martial stuff, or archetype spellcasting overtakes the alchemy.
(yes, if your PC literally does not have archetype investment, they will obviously still spam alchemy)
High speeds & flight make touch range buffing a huge issue, and my L15 who carries a big gun (w/ property runes!) means the benefit of getting in bomb range keeps dropping. It's hard to even use [alch] Ooze Ammo when [magical] Bola Shot is right there.
It also seems that L13 ish zone is the time that the below-caster alch DC become a big problem. I legit cannot remember the last time a foe failed one of my Fort saves.
I pretty much try to stay 1 Stride from allies for Dr's Visitation as my allies prioritize damage, while I try to waste foe actions. I'm more likely to cast Pillar of Water or Wall of Stone than to use alch offensively anymore.
If we take enough damage, I'll usually break from offense to heal for a turn, which can mean invoking Chir's L13. Haven't procced the ability for 3ish fights though, including a big Str o Thousands climax boss.
I don’t think Dragon Pearl tea got deleted at all by the same name but totally different item in Draconic Codex. Paizo is infamous for incompetently reusing names to cause confusion. 2e is much better but we still have several double uses (compared to probably a dozen 1e triple and even quadruple uses of the same name for different (or the same!) mechanical categories).
That would be f-ing hilarious if it was accidental. But I doubt that is the case for dragon pearl, especially when the books were released almost a year apart. AoN does consider it a "more recent version" as well.
Irrelevant anyways as the item was never that great to begin with. Not with the 1 min activation 10 min duration, the effect was accessible in much better ways.
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I don’t think Dragon Pearl tea got deleted at all by the same name but totally different item in Draconic Codex. Paizo is infamous for incompetently reusing names to cause confusion. 2e is much better but we still have several double uses (compared to probably a dozen 1e triple and even quadruple uses of the same name for different (or the same!) mechanical categories).That would be f-ing hilarious if it was accidental. But I doubt that is the case for dragon pearl, especially when the books were released almost a year apart. AoN does consider it a "more recent version" as well.
I don’t think they did it to remove the item. They probably did it on accident or didn’t care there was some mediocre rare item nobody cares about that they were overwriting for their completely different and frankly more dragon themed item.