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So, as might be expected, Blue_frog's What classes got the biggest buffs in remaster ? thread got a fair amount of Alchemist discussion.
I had meant to chime in with my experiences, but I didn't get to it, and the Alchemist discussion wasn't really fitting with the original topic. So I thought I'd create my own thread.
I play two Alchemists in PFS, a L12 Bomber and a L11 Mutagenist. I've converted both of them to PC2 rules.
Generally speaking, the Class is still fun for me. I do miss being able to make a lot of stuff every daily prep, but with some adjustment the fun is still there.
The Bomber: I make four Quicksilvers, a Darkvision Elixir, an Antiplague, and a couple of Antidotes every day. As I didn't need Calculated Splash anymore, took Efficient Alchemy as the L4 Feat, so 11 AA items each day. The three left over? Those I'm open to what the party needs, but I've tended towards Bravo's Brews.
Versatile Vials? Out of Combat, Versatile Vials are amazing. However, if an Encounter seems likely, I hoard them. Can't use Additives without VVs, and the Boss fights at these levels tend to go pretty long. Almost ran out a couple of times.
While I'm not terribly thrilled with Quick Vials, I gotta admit that the addition of Special Materials has helped.
As for the Mutagenist: I have a rather different approach with him. Namely, making him really, really hard to kill. I'm regularly burning three Versatile Vials every ten minutes (thank you, Powerful Alchemy) to keep up Bravo's Brew, Eagle-Eye Elixir and Cheetah's Elixir all the time. Start of combat, hit the Collar for a thirty minute Bestial Mutagen and ten temp HP. I do like the Mutagenist Field Benefit.
Start of Combat is usually a Combine Elixirs Numbing & Soothing super Tonic. Then it's into the fight.
I haven't used the Field Discovery yet, but I'm glad it's there. Failing a Fort Save can often ruin the encounter. As for the Field Vials ability (and the advanced effect: I haven't really used it yet.
I usually have two Versatile Vials left over once Encounter Mode hits, and I am a firm subscriber to the belief that Versatile Vials are Tools... so I could use one or both for the Field Vials abilities at an Action a pop. Thing is, I'm used to just accepting the Drawback of Bestial... and the Drawback of PC2 Bestial isn't as bothersome as the Core Rulebook variety was. I might run into a situation where the Physical Damage Resistence might be useful though. I dunno... we shall see, I guess. Wish I got to play these characters more often, but high level PFS Scenarios don't grow on trees.
Going forward, it's going to be trickier with the Mutagenist. See, I spent two Class Feats to get Martial Artist Dedication and Follow-Up Strike. Which has been great, don't get me wrong... Follow-Up Strike when you have a 3d12 Astral Shock Deadly d10 Bite attack is absolutely fantastic. Thing is, it leaves him a bit short on Advanced Alchemy items. He has a Familiar, and I do take Extra Alchemy daily, but that's only ten items total. Come L13 I'm going to have to make some adjustments to add a second Mutagen into the routine. Might try to take Efficient Alchemy at L14 to get a couple of more a day.
So yeah, I consider both of those Research Fields to be in a pretty good place. I have some thoughts on Chirurgeon and Toxicologist as well, but I don't actually play them, so I think I'll just leave it at this for now.
Thoughts?
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I always respect your take on the alchemist, but I'm not clear what thoughts you're looking for here. It sounds like you've used your system mastery to retain your enjoyment of the class despite your initial misgivings about the remaster. So, good? I'm glad the remaster wasn't the full battle oracle experience for you.
I ran a remaster Chirurgeon 11-20 through Stolen Fate, and have another L13 Chir in Str o Thousands.
My #1 recommendation is for all Alchs to dip outside the class for a 3+ ability familiar to get the Independent + Manual Dex + Lab Assistant combo.
Being able to use your familiar's Independent action for Quick Alch is such a big difference for the class post-remaster, that they didn't reprint Lab Assistant, ha ha.
Needing to burn 1A for Quick Alchemy every time is a huge albatross around remaster Alch's neck, and removing it outright with this trick is the single biggest +FUN change I've found. And it's not anything close to a balance concern.
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Witch is still the goat pick for that goal, as the Dedication grants the familiar essentially for free, and you get a 3rd f.ability for taking the Basic Witchcraft feat.
Meaning, you have your pick of any Witch L1-2 feat, and any other Witch feat all as personal flex choices.
If the flavor / mechanics of a shoulder-riding familiar don't fit, ask your GM for homebrew. The SoT Chir is set up with "Mutant Face" instead of a familiar, does Q-Alch via mouth, and has a crazy tongue for the extra hands.
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As far as Chirurgeon overall, it kinda sucks even more than it used to. Previously, you could make up for low combat performance with a ton of out of combat buffs and in-combat elixir spam.
You cannot do either anymore.
The entire time through Stolen Fate, using dedication Witch spells was always competing with my Alchemy actions, and kinda being better much of the time. Seriously, once I used R6 Slow, I had an "Oh s!*&. This is just waaay too good" moment, as yeah, it's hard for anything a Chir can do to compete.
I also gave up on all the VVial upgrade feats, as they are a waste of slots. The base VVial is such a total joke, that even when upgraded it's just not viable in combat at all.
The once per day poof some extra VVs feat actually earns a strong recommendation. It lets you genuinely push your VVs down to 0, while still leaving you with some emergency VVs in the can.
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Another quick tip is that it's totally RaW to use Combine Elixir to make double mutagens, it doesn't cause issues w/ the polymorph trait. This means that if you are going to "sustain" a VVial buff to match the recharge rate, there's strong reason to make it a double mutagen.
Stone Body + Quicksilver works amazing if you can take damage for your team. The only ally you are always going to be in elixir feed range of, is yourself. (Chir kinda works best as a "tank," no I'm not kidding.)
But after L18+, I've swapped to Sanguine + Drakeheart. Failing saves just sucks really, really bad at high level, and Alch really likes the boost to Initiative rolls that Drakeheart also provides. Great pairing for an all the time passive bonus.
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One accidental exploit / bug they added in the remaster: Additives like Combine no longer edit item level. This means that you can RaW use Combine Elixir with Eternal Elixir to render an elixir buff of any level indefinite. At the moment, my L20 is testing the max cheese of Eternal Potion of Quickness + True Numbing Tonic.
Honestly... even when intentionally testing max cheese, still struggling to be relevant in a party of L20 PCs...
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I'm shooting more Bola Shot than I am making elixirs or throwing bombs at this level.
I'd like to see someone in my group see if they can make the alchemist function competitively with our playstyle, but on paper it looks difficult.
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You should really start adding time for focus point casts and Alchemists to regain their resources. If you don't no matter how hard you try to force Alchemist without their resources they are weaker then cantrip slingers. 1d6 quick VV acid bombs are not good, heck I even struggle to consider they thought 4d8 was strong enough for bombs.
Without that they fall short much like Psychics in that regard.
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I still say that the main buff of Alchemist is that they no longer feel like a trap option at low levels because of running out of Reagents. That was a big problem for inexperienced players previously (see here and here).
Yes, it was possible to play an alchemist at low level previously. But it wasn't simple to build or run. People who were unfamiliar with alchemist mechanics often struggled with it.
And yes, that same change to Versatile Vials and Advanced Alchemy can feel like a bit of a nerf to the high level alchemist play where they had so many Reagents that there was little risk of running out no matter how many problems they solved with their high level item bonuses. To be fair, that seems like a nerf that is a bit justified.
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The only major thing I still want to see for Alchemist is to remove the name collision of Versatile Vial. That one term has three separate meanings.
Versatile Vial => Versatile Vial: The 'focus point like' quantity of reagents that you have available to create alchemical items with using Quick Alchemy.
Versatile Vial => Quick Vial: The especially short-lived vial that can be created for free using Quick Alchemy but has a very small set of items that it can create.
Versatile Vial => Quick Bomb: The bomb created by throwing a Quick Vial (and maybe a Versatile Vial) directly.
You should really start adding time for focus point casts and Alchemists to regain their resources. If you don't no matter how hard you try to force Alchemist without their resources they are weaker then cantrip slingers. 1d6 quick VV acid bombs are not good, heck I even struggle to consider they thought 4d8 was strong enough for bombs.
Without that they fall short much like Psychics in that regard.
Yup, this is why every single Alch I have played has picked up Witch or Wiz archetype. No matter what, you never ever want to use the base Quick Vials in combat. (and base Alchemist lacks the feat to upgrade their (now Construct only and inferior) familiar, for... reasons)
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And also why I keep either/both Athletics and Bola Shots at the ready as fallback actions.
Alchemist can be on ~par with any skill action user, which can be a great way to make up for low power class actions.
Which doesn't just mean base skill actions, but also things like going Medic to take Dr's Visitation on Chirurgeon, Wrestler, etc.
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After the remaster, Alchemist is technically overpowered now, but in the very worst / least fun way possible.
If your party commits to scouting and seeing fights coming, being able to use recharging VVs for prebuffs like Numbing before the door kick seriously breaks combat balance. I had to self-ban my Alchs from doing this, because it genuinely trivializes combat.
Being reduced to Trip + EA slinging (but should be scroll casting or using other archetype actions) will be waaay more combat performance over trying to use VVs after initiative is rolled.
Even if the Alch goes all the way with this, and starts the fight at 0 VVs, and performs 0 Alch actions after initiative, this is a back-assward, but crazy well performing, Alchemist PC.
(and when the design of Alchemist is just to provide free items, this is kind of the only logical outcome of that design concept. Using the power of said free items for as few actions as possible.)
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Seriously though, Alchemist and its items were designed around daily limited alchemy at its very core.
Even if the quantity got very high at high level, that hard reagent limit meant players would hesitate a lot before committing 4/8 items to 1/2 party prebuffs.
Now that VVs recharge, this reverses the psychology / incentive. You want to cash in all your VV power up front and for 0A before the fight starts, freeing up your actions for archetype/etc stuff.
In theory, Paizo designed this prebuffing to mean an Alch would be reduced to their horrible freebie Q Vials. That would, (kinda sorta) keep it balanced. But, because the QVials are just so bad, and players have brains, basically all Alchs will want to archetype.
Normally archetype actions are balanced around the opportunity cost of your action economy. This is why getting a Reaction on a non-Reaction class is so good, while getting some 2A power attack can be rather meh. The very concept of archetypes was not designed to function when the main class's power is being put into prebuffs and not competing for actions.
If you start a fight at 0VVs, that means each turn throwing archetype actions is waaay "stronger" than intended, as the Alch is "supposed" to be in a very nerfed state.
This type of passive power being a big balance problem is also why the Exemplar Dedication has had so much discussion. It's a big 0A improvement in the reverse, with the Exmp Dedication granting 0A passive power to the main class actions.
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But, it's hard to ever say if the "prebuff Alch" would ever be better than any other class archetyping into Alch (+ Firework Tech). Fewer VV prebuffs per fight, same recharge if you want it, same items, at the same unlock level. Even same count of daily temp items*. (wtf were they thinking)
I doubt a "main Alch" can ever compare to that. So, besides the single specific "Fumbus Bomber Build," Paizo have kiiiinda just taken Alchemist class out behind a shed and put a bullet in it's brain. Possibly by accident. Don't want to play that exact kind of Bomber? Then you should not pick Alchemist.
Why bother trying to make Alchemist work? If the archetype's daily hard limit is not enough, then you can take another to enable VV recharge.
If prompted by a player tempted to try Alchemist, I genuinely would/do recommend they instead pick something like Fighter w/ Alch archetype, pretending and RPing as a real Alchemist despite the paper-PC being a fighter/whatever. A "real" Alchemist is just that blatant of a downgrade.
Unlike Kineticist, Paizo even wrote the DC upgrade feat of archetype Alch to use your main class' DC. If this was an error, it should have been hit w/ errata by now.
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The simplest way they could have avoided this reality was to make Alchemist genuinely improve the items they create in a meaningful way, that whole Additive mechanic. If alch items were genuinely better when created by an Alchemist, that could have saved the class and given it a reason to be selected.
Instead, Paizo went the opposite direction, neutering the crap out of Additive as a concept, and made it into an albatross that only works with formula items, only for Quick Alch. They couldn't even bring themselves to let the freebie QVials be Additive compatible, because that just might make the freebies worth using. What a joke.
Seriously, the only "unique alchemist" abilities from it's late game feats are about getting more free, but not enhanced, buffs/ items. Some potions now count as Elixirs, but are unchanged. Can make one self-drunk item indefinite. These just pseudo increase the free items quantity.
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Ugh, there is another "legit" Alchemist besides Fumbus that I should mention.
A PC that wants to use poisons as a main thing does give a reason to pick Alchemist:Tox, and their feats do legitimately improve the ability to use poisons and upgrade the items themselves.
It is still seen as a miserable way to play, but this subclass really does/did have the right approach in terms of design theory. Most of Tox is not about increasing the quantity, but the quality. On paper, it should be a simple numbers buff to make Tox work in pf2.
But, yeah, the remaster giveth, and taketh.
Immunity bypass for "alchemical poisons" yay, low item count nay, prep items work with Powerful Alchemy yay, wait, bombs are not alch poisons nay, etcetera.
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Playing a bomber in one campaign, and watching a player struggle to play a Chirurgeon in another, has been a pretty interesting experience. Neither of us had event bothered considering the class before the remaster, since it looked like such a planning nightmare in the early levels and really set off the brain worms of the other player.
I think the class is really fun, and can be pretty effective given the right circumstances. Versatile Vials, when pacing allows recharge, feel pretty nice. It definitely feels like the class is very biased towards throwing bombs (and the Bomber subclass) and hoping your GM likes enemies with elemental weaknesses, and the ways to maximize the effectiveness (in a general sense) of most anything else the class wants to do seems to involve play and build habits that drive me and some friends absolutely mental. That's probably not as big a deal to do for some people, but it's definitely been a challenge my playgroup has had to tinker with to get satisfying.
Harassing my party to stop just before we jump into a fight so I can hand out quick alchemy buffs is a pace killer, but is objectively the correct way to do it because otherwise applying the buffs in combat is just absolute misery as I either force a fight to slow down, or spend turns chasing people down. Watching the Chirurgeon in our other campaign constantly scrambling around really drives home that there not being just a reliable FFT chemist style "hurl item at ally to activate it" ability on the alchemist of all classes, not even on just Chirurgeon, seems crazy. (No, Healing Bomb doesn't count, I actually kinda find it an outright offensively bad implementation of the idea?)
I utterly despise the "use an independent shoulder familiar perched on your shoulder to press your quick alchemy button for you" tech, and think at that point the Alchemist chassis should just be able to make and use an item at the same action cost as just activating the item. I could be making use of the tech since I do have witch free archetype, but I took that archetype almost entirely for the RP value (and to check the box of "had a game with a fairy familiar"-somehow not achieved for a decade prior to this), before knowing about the tech, and have felt too bullheaded in finding the tech asinine to change course.
I'm currently level 5 on my bomber, and really feel the proficiency lag, and I can already tell I'm going to start feeling the limitations of cantrip VV's not being allowed to use additives once I finally hit 6. The GM threw me a bone by dropping a few waves of enemies with fire weakness recently, and mostly that just made me realize how much hitting enemies with the cantrip vials feels like almost useless tickling when there isn't a weakness to hammer on.
I could probably yell about feats, but I don't think I could keep a coherent, useful train of thought going for that conversation right now.
I know it's a bit of a tangential, anecdotal skill issue, but there's something really funny to me about being an Int based PC investing in relevant knowledge skills, who got access to a Loremaster Lore, and my group has on multiple occasions lamented the fact the Thaumaturge I'm subbing in for (due to a player having to step away for a while due to IRL) isn't present on the scene. They've caught themselves after the fact and realized how silly that is in hindsight, but still.
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there not being just a reliable FFT chemist style "hurl item at ally to activate it" ability on the alchemist of all classes, not even on just Chirurgeon, seems crazy. (No, Healing Bomb doesn't count)
Another option that came about in the Remaster and is hidden enough that it may be missed:
Throw the item to the ally and then they can use/drink the item normally on their turn.
No feat tax required. It is up to the GM what happens if the throw check misses - so it could be as non-punishing as having the item land at the feet of the recipient.
Downsides:
* The ally does need a free hand to catch the item with.
* The GM may be more punitive and rule that the item goes much farther away to a less convenient place or even that the item breaks and is wasted.
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Playing a bomber in one campaign, and watching a player struggle to play a Chirurgeon in another, has been a pretty interesting experience. Neither of us had event bothered considering the class before the remaster, since it looked like such a planning nightmare in the early levels and really set off the brain worms of the other player.
I think the class is really fun, and can be pretty effective given the right circumstances. Versatile Vials, when pacing allows recharge, feel pretty nice. It definitely feels like the class is very biased towards throwing bombs (and the Bomber subclass) and hoping your GM likes enemies with elemental weaknesses, and the ways to maximize the effectiveness (in a general sense) of most anything else the class wants to do seems to involve play and build habits that drive me and some friends absolutely mental. That's probably not as big a deal to do for some people, but it's definitely been a challenge my playgroup has had to tinker with to get satisfying.
** spoiler omitted **...
Or hey, how about you maximize recharging vials by handing allies an appropriate mutagens on their every skill check? It's not narratively weird at all if your bard does a vial of LCD you hand them just before they start their diplomatic overture to the king.
It's really strong but also infuriating.
I played with bomber a few times. I always found the alchemist interesting because I never liked the magic for magic spaces (especially Vanciana/prepared) so I had a high interest in it.
The first was at CRB's first print on a 1-4 level adventure, which was honestly very bad experience. I basically could only use Advanced Alchemy and yet the bombs ended up very quickly.
At the time I tried to combine. Since I still didn't know how to play well, it didn't take long for my bombs to end up making all the attacks with them, until I noticed that I needed a gun, when I got a crossbow and found that the experience of recharging and shooting with Map-5 was very bad.
The second problem is that I had calculated that I would join the persistent damage of accidents Flask + Blight Bombs + Alchemist's Fire. However, I noticed that my enemies often recovered from persistent damage before I started the combo, and putting the same amount of each of the 3 pumps simply made me without the combo, I had to readjust even a proportion of 5, 2, 1 among them. Moreover, the fact that only Flask and Alchemist's Fire that could be my signatures, as the list was limited to CRB bombs, ignoring those of APG. Which basically always left me with insufficient bombs. It was a very frustrating experience.
After that, I just tried to play again as an alchemist when TV and fourth print were released. Because I wanted to review the experience this time with Skunk Bomb as a signature and played to level 7.
The experience was quite different this time. It was still bad at the lowest levels (1-3) because the number of reagents was still insufficient and forced me to pretty much only to prepare skunk bombs and nothing else! But once I had enough skunk bombs the experience was interesting. Skunk Bomb is the perfect debuff, it was very cheap, caused a little damage, practically always caused Sicked 1, when the target in save Slow 1 is also great and at times when enemies failed critically, it proved brutal !!!
This time I used a shortbow as a secondary weapon, which was obviously a better experience than using a crossbow (even than the alchemical crossbow), but it was still a low damage that I only did with Map (because I didn't want to spend my bombs just for Splash) and very often wrong.
In addition, the fact was curious that the progression of the hit was only at level 7 weighed a lot at level 5 and 6, because the game already readjusts the mons of monsters to wait for a player with expert in the hit, it was as if the game was more difficult to suddenly, where I only hit the bomb and less often, the bow seemed to be a lucky bonus.
When I finally arrived at 7 the experience improved a lot. The hit was back to normal and I was able to use Skunk Only the perpetual and Alchemist's Fire as perpetual in Map actions and I simply threw the bow away, and the Calculated Splash, guaranteed me almost 16 damage in the round. This change changed the effectiveness of my damage enormously. I didn't follow the martials or casters yet using slot/focus spells, but I felt to be able to collaborate with the group much more than just as debuffer.
And finally there was the time I played in Bomber at the last Playtest with the alchemist Remastered to level 14, which was a much better experience.
The Versatile Vials, although weak, guaranteed me the possibility of not having to resort to weapons as outline, and the management of resources is much simpler. Now it simply used advanced alchemy to make elixires and mutagenic and reserved the quick alchemy for pumps, without any stress to run out of resources (most of the fights, our master gives us easily 30 minutes of rest, which we use to scour the room, reflect and prepare to move on. Very rarely paste some pressure on it).
This simply resolved the Calvary that it was necessary to wait for the class to start to get good level 7. Now splash is equal to INT alone at level 5, additives became usable at low and average levels and without many becoming unviable due to level penalties which made the character even more debuffer. And finally, as enemies with weaknesses became more common, even the DPR of the class began to compete with the others, as it is the seestile vials of Bombadeiro allow you to choose the type of damage, and to give the same damage to the weaknesses of the target multiple times.
The big point here is that I even miss the perpetual of the fourth print. But for me, it was a smaller loss compared to the benefits of exploring enemy weaknesses very easily. But mainly, to be able to enjoy the low levels and not just survive until it has enough level (7) to really play.
I understand that you have a good amount of players here that consider low levels as obstacles to overcome until the character's structure is ready. But for me that I enjoy every level, what the Remaster did in the bomber was phenomenal. I can finally feel a true diversity in the alchemist in conjunction with an efficiency with bombs in general.
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The big point here is that I even miss the perpetual of the fourth print. But for me, it was a smaller loss compared to the benefits of exploring enemy weaknesses very easily. But mainly, to be able to enjoy the low levels and not just survive until it has enough level (7) to really play.
This was the central problem with the old alchemist. Resource management was hard, but at high level it was doable and doing it well felt rewarding.
At low level you just didn't have enough resources to make it workable, and the class felt absolutely awful to play as a result.
Classes need to feel good to play at all levels of play, and shouldn't need to wait a third of the entire level range (and two thirds of most APs) to feel good. That is not good design, especially when it comes to introducing it to new players. Anyone showing up for a PFS game at a con and picking Fumbus premaster was in for a rough time (saw it happen myself).
The remaster helped this part significantly. Bomber especially lets you do its thing at level 1 now and not have to resort to being a lousy crossbow wielder that also occasionally has some alchemy.
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I recently played a remastered bomber from lvl 5-10.
He was a smart goblin, enraged at the stereotypes others had on his people, and always speaking in a painstakingly erudite way. His true name was Fizzball but he chose to be called Enguerrand de la Mare, just because it felt less cliché.
Anyway, of course he took Burn It ! And he was a blast to play, pun intended.
I took some control bombs like skunk bomb, which are certainly great, but most of the time I used him as a DPS with interesting results. From lvl 7-10, my accuracy was actually higher than all martials but the fighter (using collar with quicksilver), my fails still dealt splash damage (i.e. my INT modifier) which made throwing a third bomb a viable strategy, and my damage was not too shabby.
When attacking (with far lobber and quick bomber which feel like feat taxes) I usually used a versatile vial on first action, then free vials on MAP actions. That allowed me to keep my vials supply high.
From levels 5-7, Alchemist's fire dealt 2d8 damage + 5 splash damage + 3 persistent. Free bomb turned to fire dealt 2d6+5, without persistent.
From levels 8-9, it got ugly. Alchemist's fire now dealt 2d8 +6 splash damage + 10 persistent damage.
And at level 10 with expanded splash and int +5 , it dealt 2d8+ 12 splash + 15 persistent damage.
At level 12, I'll be able to deal 3d8 + 14 splash + 17 persistent. Fun times !
Of course, if there's a weakness to exploit, it's incredibly easy to do since free vials can be fire/acid/cold/electricity while versatile vials can basically cover everything.
I always had bravo's brew and eagle eye elixir on me, and a numbing tonic on my hand if needed (10 temporary HP EVERY SINGLE ROUND IS NUTS). Gave a couple numbing tonics at the beginning of the day to friends in case of emergency, and that was that for permanent vials.
As for versatile vials, boy did they make me MVPs. DM made us fight in a room filled with smoke ? Cat's eye elixir. Healer next to me got double crit ? Combine elixir for 2 moderate elixir of life, make him drink for 10d6+24 (av 59) at a level where a max heal is 5d8+40 (av 62). Need to climb a cliff to ambush opponents ? Spiderfoot brew. Annoying bleeding monster ? Blood booster. And silvertongue mutagen to the bard before he enters a room to bluff, and so many more.
Never before have I felt like Batman. And that's only with common options, because I didn't want to overshadow my team mates.
Another confounding issue w/ Alchemist talk, especially after the remaster, is that it is really easy to accidentally buff the class in very significant amounts via misreading abilities, such as changing Tox's immunity bypass from "alch poisons" --> "poison trait items".
I hate, hate to be the 'nuh uh' bad guy, but if the 'um akshually' RaW needs to be set straight anywhere, it's on the pf2 forums.
Sticky Bomb's damage is another common misread, sorry to say.
You can mix in a sticky additive to an alchemical bomb to make its contents adhere and continue to deal damage. A creature hit by a sticky bomb also takes persistent damage equal to and of the same type as the bomb's splash damage. If the bomb already deals persistent damage, combine the two amounts.
In my reading, this feat is keyed to the bomb, as in the item / object /formula. There is 0 textual reason to think this Sticky damage is keyed to the attack / throw itself.
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The easy to miss part is that Expanded Splash is bonus damage to the throw. It's a throwing technique, not a change to the bomb. For it to be bonus, means that it is separate from the base, not modifying that base.
... "If you do, you gain a status bonus to the bomb's splash damage equal to your Intelligence modifier." ...
The same issue is even there for the Bomber's passive / old Calc Splash. It's not a change to the bomb item, it's a throwing technique. You only get one Additive to actually alter the item's formula.
Think of the Sticky edit to the bomb's formula being PC agnostic. You could brew then pass a Sticky bomb to the fighter, and the extra persistent damage should be the exact same regardless of who makes the actual Strike.
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An Alchemist still gets a very serious damage boost from using all three abilities at once, but you do *not* get to multiply [(Calc + Expanded) * Sticky] like that.
Nothing in the entire pf2 system multiplies / double dips damage boosts like that.
I really don't like using the "too good to be true" as any sort of disproof, but I'll at least show a quick number comparison to spotlight how egregious it is.
At L10, the Acid Flask is doing 3d6 persistent damage. When you plug that into an avg calculator: 10.5
The "Expanded Sticky Splash" adding 10 persistent would be doubling your attack's damage.
I do not know of anywhere in the system where a passive power outright doubles the attack like this. Especially not one that is 0 resource, every turn, 0 risk. No other 2 feat combo works like that. If two different feats passively boost damage, you can bet your ass they do so independently of one another.
And imo, that's because this isn't at all the RaW nor RaI.
Even when run RaW, Sticky is a good passive damage boost. And when you can put a weird persistent type onto a foe for off-turn weakness proccing, it is plenty amazing. Sticky Ghost Charges ticking away with Positive damage is a pretty common example.
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P.S.
Another "uh oh Alchemist" detail I've seen accidentally ignore-buffed is that Expanded Splash explicitly only works if you boost the AoE size (... If you do ...) It cannot be used at the same time as Bomber's "only 1 square" splash shrink ability.
The two were very clearly written to be incompatible. You've gotta choose one or the other.
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Another confounding issue w/ Alchemist talk, especially after the remaster, is that it is really easy to accidentally buff the class in very significant amounts via misreading abilities, such as changing Tox's immunity bypass from "alch poisons" --> "poison trait items".
I hate, hate to be the 'nuh uh' bad guy, but if the 'um akshually' RaW needs to be set straight anywhere, it's on the pf2 forums.
Sticky Bomb's damage is another common misread, sorry to say.
** spoiler omitted **...
Sticky bomb:
A creature hit by a sticky bomb also takes persistent damage equal to and of the same type as the bomb's splash damage. If the bomb already deals persistent damage, combine the two amounts.
Expanded splash:
You gain a status bonus to the bomb's splash damage equal to your Intelligence modifier.
If you have 5 int and throw a bomb with 2 splash damage, the creature takes 7 splash damage (2 from the bomb + 5 from expanded splash).
To me, it's pretty clear the splash damage is 7 and so sticky bomb makes it +7.
(Also, it's not 0 resource since you cannot use it on a free bomb).
Another "uh oh Alchemist" detail I've seen accidentally ignore-buffed is that Expanded Splash explicitly only works if you boost the AoE size (... If you do ...) It cannot be used at the same time as Bomber's "only 1 square" splash shrink ability.
The two were very clearly written to be incompatible. You've gotta choose one or the other.
This one is true, though, you have to choose.
Expanded saying "status bonus to splash damage" 100% unambiguously prevents it from boosting Sticky.
For there to be "bonus damage" it means that you have separate, distinct splash damage to be boosting.
[bomb's splash damage] + [bonus Expanded splash damage] = Strike's splash damage
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Sticky Bomb very clearly does *not* say "the Strikes damage" or "the throw" , etc. It's keyed to just the bomb's splash damage. It's like when normal classes with rune-usable weapons talk about damage dice.
Abilities all over the system explicitly exclude scaling with bonus damage / total damage, which Sticky also does.
Bombs in particular technically lack "number of damage dice" (because that's based on runes) leading Paizo to need to use weird scaling like this so abilities can improve as the bomb tiers go up.
Note that this does mean otherwise forgotten bombs with above the curve splash, like Crystal Shards, do get a bigger boost when made Sticky.
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Expanded saying "status bonus to splash damage" 100% unambiguously prevents it from boosting Sticky.
For there to be "bonus damage" it means that you have separate, distinct splash damage to be boosting.
[bomb's splash damage] + [bonus Expanded splash damage] = Strike's splash damage.
Sticky Bomb very clearly does *not* say "the Strikes damage" or "the throw" , etc. It's keyed to just the bomb's splash damage. It's like when normal classes with rune-usable weapons talk about damage dice.
The bomb splash damage in this instance is the original + the status you add to the damage.
Same as any status bonus, really. If your attack bonus is +11 and you get a level 6 heroism thrown on you, your attack bonus becomes +13. If your damage is 2d8+6 and you get inspire courage, then your damage is 2d8+7. I don't understand why you suddenly want to do things differently here.
You can try to argue the opposite and die on that hill, but I've always seen it played like this, all alchemist guides mention it like this and, more importantly, my DM plays it like this.
But if you're the only one playing it differently, I can see where you might find that the bomber lacks damage.
It really is not dude.
Swap "bomb" for "weapon" or "gun" because that's what a bomb is, a weapon. It's an item, not an attack.
You are keying off a number in the weapon's item entry.
Something like:
A creaturehitshot by asticky bombyour gun also takes persistent damage equal to and of the same type as thebomb's splashgun's damage.
If you then had a feat to make a fancy shot to boost your Strike with bonus damage, you would *not* get to also boost the bleed. You did not change the gun's damage, just the Strike's.
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Again, think of such an item mod as being PC agnostic. It's the bomb/gun, not the shooter. If you hand the modded gun/bomb to an ally, the persistent needs to be the exact same for it to make sense.
You are re-writing Sticky Bomb to key off the total attack damage *before* adding it's own boost, which never happens in pf2.
(Because you would end up with absurd boosts like doubling your Strike damage)
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Even looking at it chronologically, it does not pass the smell test.
You make the Sticky Bomb first. At that moment, the bomb itself is locked in and finalized. The extra spinny throw making the acid more potent after it's already been brewed makes no sense.
It really is not dude.
Swap "bomb" for "weapon" or "gun" because that's what a bomb is, a weapon. It's an item, not an attack.
** spoiler omitted **
A creature shot by your gun also takes persistent damage equal to and of the same type as the gun's damage.
I don't see the problem here, if you get a bonus to the gun's damage, you get a bonus to the persistent damage.
It's too late to edit the post but I made a mistake in the maths above, adding burn it! bonus and sticky bomb bonus together as they're both status bonuses. So of course they don't stack.
The item and the attack are different things.
A boost keying off of an item's stats and numbers, is *not* keying off of the final attack made with that item.
If you do that, you end up with silly results like outright doubling your Strike damage. Pf2 is built explicitly to avoid that kind of math.
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The few times you *do* get to scale off final Strike / damage numbers, it's for things like Exemplar's Drink of my Foes, where you regain HP of 1/2 the damage of your previous attack. It's not a damage boost, but a separate ability taking place afterward.
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The item and the attack are different things.A boost keying off of an item's stats and numbers, is *not* keying off of the final attack made with that item.
That's what you believe, but you give me nothing to back off your claims except that it's too good to be true.
And, as I said, all alchemist guides go my way. I'd rather believe them than a random guy on the internet - no offense.
It's not about me, and attempting to make it about the speaker is a common tactic to avoid confronting the content of what has been explained.
Expanded Splash granting bonus damage means that it is not editing the base bomb's damage.
It is leaving the exact number that Sticky uses, the bomb's splash value, untouched, and instead is adding it's own chunk of bonus damage to the final Strike made with that bomb.
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Rephrased: Expanded Splash specifying bonus damage means it 100% does not edit the bomb's splash number, which is what would be needed for Sticky to combo like that.
It's not about me, and attempting to make it about the speaker is a common tactic to avoid confronting the content of what has been explained.
You're right, it's not about you, but the crux of the matter is that you believe it is so, while I don't, so we kind of reached an impasse.
And since you're not my DM nor am I yours, we can both live our happy lives without arguing any further.
I agree with Trip.H.
I don't think that the status bonus should be accounted to the Sticky Bomb additive.
It's easy to misunderstand, but the Sticky Bomb description “A creature hit by a Sticky Bomb also takes persistent damage equal to and of the same type as the bomb's splash damage” while Expanded Splash says “you gain a status bonus to the bomb's splash damage equal to your Intelligence modifier”.
So IMO they don't interact, the Sticky Bomb refers to the bomb's splash damage not to your splash damage using bombs that do splash damage. Same for bombers' Field Discovery.
Exactly, the PC's super power to make better use of a ___ is completely separate from a special formula to create a better ____
You can trigger both at the same time, but the super throw does alter the chemistry of the acid to burn harder.
Every table I have played at, the GM had to just trust me on Alchemist details like that.
When I do a turn that's
[2A spell] + [Familiar Draw + drop] + [Reflexive Catch xbow] + [1A Activate ammo] + [1A Quickened Strike shoot]
my GM is trusting me that the very actions themselves are valid, and there is 0 chance of the GM checking the tiny minutiae of how multiple passive feats combo together.
The way you phrased that, is making me guess that it is a similar story at your table.
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The onus is on the player.
"It's not cheating until the GM calls it out" is not an honest way to play. In my experience, if you approach honestly and ask the GM for a houserule like that, odds are they will be happy to grant it.
That said, if you use the bombs wisely, you can stack different persistent damage types. So Sticky Bomb additive still pretty strong! Including when used with insta generated Versatile Vials with different damage types.
While I recommend that homebrew change, Remaster Additive explicitly bans Quick Vials from being Additive compatible ._.
Yeah, Alchemist is really, really not allowed to have nice things in Paizo's world
OK, I missed that part.
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I think Blue_frog's reading is more reasonable. If it had said "persistent damage equal to and of the same type as the bomb's base splash damage" then it would have clearly been Trip.H's way, but that's not what it says.
I suppose it's a matter of how you read the sequence of events;
You make the Sticky Bomb first. At that moment, the bomb itself is locked in and finalized. The extra spinny throw making the acid more potent after it's already been brewed makes no sense.
I see it differently:
1. You make a bomb that has sticky splash damage2. You're particularly good at delivery splash, so the enemy gets covered more efficiently with sticky.
As for bonuses not doubling, yes they do all the time. Any time you'd be
Nothing in the entire pf2 system multiplies / double dips damage boosts like that.
Critical hits multiply all of the damage bonuses too, so actually this is really common in the game.
Especially not one that is 0 resource, every turn, 0 risk.
It does cost a resource; you can't do this with quick vials.
And there's not 0 risk, since you can't do this while shrinking the splash area. Which means that if your allies are in melee contact with the enemy, there is risk. And if they weren't in melee at round 1, they'll probably be in round 2, so it's definitely not 0 risk every turn. You could use Directional Bombs but then we're already at a 3 feat combo.
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Pointing to critical hits as evidence against that claim is rather disingenuous.
Especially when you were already aware that I was speaking within the context of feat 0A power boosts. And again, as far as I know, not a single feat in pf2 multiplies as would that ruling of Sticky.
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If it had said "persistent damage equal to and of the same type as the bomb's base splash damage" then it would have clearly been Trip.H's way, but that's not what it says.
That [base] is already the meaning of that text. While it might help the feat avoid the need to be so scrutinized in an online discussion, that word would be redundant.
Pf2 abilities & feats are constructed in a manner where they are discussing everything in an isolated, base form context.
Because the text has no mention of other sources of splash damage, such as splash boosting throws, it cannot be talking about them, nor need to specify that they do not apply.
Because Sticky is only talking about a bomb, there is no need to specify which splash damage is being talked about.
Again, if it was supposed to apply to the final throw damage, it would use a different term,
because, your demand for an extra word can be mirrored back at you.
If it had said "... as the bomb's final splash damage" or "...splash damage [when thrown]" then I would reverse my stance.
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Again, we do not get to inject specific contexts into a feat to change its meaning. Like all feats, Sticky is written in a blank, 0 outside ability manner. When it says "the bomb's splash damage" it means the number listed in the item's entry.
It's like demanding that a metamagic/etc talking about "the spell's damage" must say "spell's base damage" because possibilities like Sorcerous Potency exist.
Pf2 is simply not written like that, and it could not function if so, as that is demanding every feat/ability be future proofed against every single other ability.
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You instead read that spell metamagic in context; it is quite possible it is talking about the spell's damage after being cast, like in Exemplar's Drink of my Foes. But if it is talking about modifying the spell itself, like this bomb Additive is, then you need to be honest about that.
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This same idea is why Expanded splash needs to explicitly talk about and name Bomber's passive to stack with it.
Furthermore, as a super-throw ability, Expanded's context *does* already have to deal with a bomb's listed [base] splash damage, which is why Expanded labels its extra splash damage as a status bonus to begin with.
To make sure no one thinks that it's editing the bomb item's base splash number.
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There is a joke I do with my players about the Ambiguous Rules rule that I say is the following.
If there are 2 possible interpretations for a rule, forget TGTBT or TBTBT, the correct one will always be the weaker!
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Again, if it was supposed to apply to the final throw damage, it would use a different term,because, your demand for an extra word can be mirrored back at you.
If it had said "... as the bomb's final splash damage" or "...splash damage [when thrown]" then I would reverse my stance.
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I think it would be simpler. If the designer's intention was to apply to the effect of the final splash, he would not even use the term “as the bomb's splash damage”, he would probably do as Expanded Splash itself and indicate that it would be “your splash damage” getting something like “Creature hit by Sticky Bomb also takes persistent damage equal to and of the same type as the your bomb's splash damage”. This change would be enough to indicate that the benefit would be based on the splash damage that you do with the bombs, not the own bomb's splash damage.
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I've been busier than expected lately... keep meaning to start making a whole bunch of replies to all of this. Been a really interesting round of discussion.
Just wanted to quickly mention this: While not an official source, the Foundry PF2 devs have implemented Sticky Bomb as detailed by Blue_frog: the Bomber's L5 Field Discovery and Expanded Splash both increase the amount of Persistent Damage.
I've run some math on this... it's not exactly world-shaking damage. But it's enough to keep Bombers right in the pack of those who aren't combining Cantrips with Ranged Strikes. Which is decent company to be in, IMHO.
Especially when you were already aware that I was speaking within the context of feat 0A power boosts. And again, as far as I know, not a single feat in pf2 multiplies as would that ruling of Sticky.
This logic is flawed.
You're saying:
At L10, the Acid Flask is doing 3d6 persistent damage. When you plug that into an avg calculator: 10.5The "Expanded Sticky Splash" adding 10 persistent would be doubling your attack's damage.
I do not know of anywhere in the system where a passive power outright doubles the attack like this. Especially not one that is 0 resource, every turn, 0 risk. No other 2 feat combo works like that. If two different feats passively boost damage, you can bet your ass they do so independently of one another.
Except it's not the case.
Let's go through it step by step.
Acid flask is doing 3d6 persistent damage, average 10,5. So far so good.
As a bomber, you're doing 5 splash damage with your +5 int.
So your damage is 5 splash + 10,5 persistent first round and 10,5 persistent later if it's not stopped.
Sticky bomb adds 5 persistent damage. This is pretty clear, well defined, and I don't think you contested that. Your acid bomb thus goes from 5 splash, 10,5 persistent to 5 splash, 15,5 persistent.
So Sticky bomb is a 0 resource, 0 risk feat that gives a +33% power boost to your damage in the first round, and 50% afterwards.
Now let's add expansive splash to the mix and let's say I'm right, just for the sake of discussion. Your splash goes from 5 to 10 and your persistent damage from 15,5 to 20,5. This means you deal 30,5 damage average on the first round and 20,5 afterwards - this is less than a 50% increase on the first round, and a 33% afterwards.
So yeah. How would sticky bomb not be overpowered but expansive splash is ?
I thought I was clear that it would be Sticky that would be the problem.
Saying "Sticky Expanded Splash" was to refer to Sticky not doing the bomb's listed splash, but for it to be 2x INT thanks to Bomber + Expanded. That is 5 + 5 -->10.
Base is 3d6(10.5) and Sticky Expanded Splash is 10 at that level. Meaning that you have doubled your bomb's damage in a single feat (once it's inappropriately boosted by Expanded Splash)
All that 10 is from the mis-read Sticky in that scenario. It's not Expanded's fault, it is clearly labeled as bonus damage.
Note that you are also gaining significant damage from the boosted splash during the throw, but that's not Sticky, which is why I didn't go into that previously.
Even if you do gain yet more damage from other places, I was, and am, talking specifically about this mis-read of Sticky Bomb causing inflated damage numbers.
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So yeah. How would sticky bomb not be overpowered but expansive splash is ?
This is so disconnected from anything I have posted, I do not even understand what exactly you are accusing me of.
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Sticky being able to 2x the persistent of "the persistent damage bomb" is a red flag that something has gone wrong, as nowhere in pf2 does a 0A feat double one's damage like that.
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Having such a big damage difference in a ruling creates a big rift when people try to talk about Alchemist objectively.
If someone says that Alch lacks damage, who tf knows how to even take that. Are they running Additive as once per turn? Additive QVial compatible? "Final Splash Sticky?"
I've seen players just casually mention that they wave all Draw actions, or all ammo Activates, only after they are a few comments deep, and I just have to pause and sigh.
I don't think any other class has this much variance based on GM gimmie rulings like this, and many times they seem to be genuine accidents.
It just gets a little frustrating that even on the official forums, it's so hard to agree to what even is the baseline.
I'd bet $100 that had Blue_frog encountered Sticky being run with the bomb's (base) splash first, they would believe it to be RaW when later exposed to the Final Splash Sticky ruling.
You’re saying that one feat shouldn’t be « too good to be true » and shouldn’t double the damage of a bomb.
I’m answering that it doesn’t work this way but it’s progressive. No feat doubles the damage. The bomber field adds 50% damage to your acid bomb. - provided you are a bomber. The sticky bomb feat adds 33%/50% damage to that - provided you spend a Vial. The expanded splash feat adds an extra 50%/33% to that - provided you expand the splash.
If you really want a comparison, bleeding finish turns at level 9 a rapier attack dealing 6d6 + 2 damage (assuming 12 starting star) into 6d6+2+4d6 bleed, which is a much bigger increase than any of those feats, even with a single tick.
And I find incredible that, when every guide rules one way, when foundry rules the same way, when other players tell you they rule this way, your reaction is to believe that everyone is wrong instead of thinking that maybe, just maybe, you’re the one who misinterpreted it.
As I previously said, the "too good to be true" is only a flag / smell / etc to signal one to double check the text.
It's the actual text that is pretty damn clear on how it works. Sticky is written to scale similarly to "number of damage dice" abilities, and is talking about the weapon, not attacks made with it.
It absolutely is *not* written to scale off the final throw damage.
All the examples and napkin math are just leading toward that same bit of reading comprehension.
A creature hit by a sticky bomb also takes persistent damage equal to and of the same type as the bomb's splash damage.
Is not talking about "your throw" , etc. There is no context nor mention of a throw/attack inside the feat to begin with. The Sticky Feat's context is that of an Additive, it's an alteration to the base item via Quick Alchemy. It is very carefully written ~backwards to avoid mentioning the PC's attack with the bomb.
This is like the *one* possible way the author could structure this to include the new effects the bomb, without any mention of a thrower. It is very deliberately making sure the reader *cannot* misread it to say "your attack" , etc.
(this is what I was talking about with the "thrower agnostic" bit earlier.)
There is simply 0 textual reason to read Sticky as giving the bomb the superpower to scale with your throw's final splash damage.
To go farther than that misread, and only calculate and apply Sticky *after* one has added in the explicitly labeled "bonus damage to splash" is just blatantly not how you do damage in pf2.
Can you find a single example of one extra damage passive also being boosted by status/etc bonus to damage?
Only crits and other specifically written effects work like that.
For Sticky to work like crits, you need it to be written like crits:
If you critically succeed at a Strike (page 418), your attack deals double damage.
The text doesn't need to add a bunch of extra words, say "final splash" , etc.
YuriP is quite correct that Paizo prefers to use the context of the player's present-moment attack as the main way to separate that rare all-together boost from things like "weapon's number of damage dice" style boosts.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Sure, man, play however you like.
Now can we go back to the topic at hand ?
Well, uh.
What's every Alch's favorite (non-familiar) dedication to pair with Alchemist after the dust of the Remaster has settled?
For my "give throwing builds the best chance" PC, I was pleasantly surprised at how nice Ranger pairs with Alchemist. Gravity Weapon is one of the only boosts that works with bombs, though honestly it's kinda a filler pick, as it doesn't enable any new possibilities, it's just a small damage plus.
The GM did wave to allow throwing weapons to work with Hunted Shot, but getting a Reload 0 bow or action-compressing a reload xbow are not impossible.
If you can get something like Ranger to help with the action economy, I actually find Ooze and Exsanguinating ammunition to be great items for my daily prep.
Ooze took a realization that it's the unique effect of the ooze that imposes the persistent, meaning that a recovery roll for the persistent passing doesn't actually end the effect. The persistent is just instantly reapplied, as the ooze is still on them.
The foe either pays the action tax to get rid of the ooze, or it keeps suffering the whole fight. And converting all the damage to acid also comes in handy surprisingly often.
Ooze ammo also (probably mistakenly) forgets to type the speed penalty, meaning it stacks with everything in case someone is trying some kind of kite the foes cheese.
Exsanguinating requires the foes to be capable of bleeding, but it's also quite nice due to the specific way it functions. It's not an enhancement to any specific attack or bleed; if you hit, the 1 min debuff is applied, no save, etc.
It provides a meh/decent damage boost to bleeds, but the real kicker is that the very first version ups the recovery DC by 2. And because the debuff is it's own thing, foes can recover from a bleed, but still suffer the enhanced version if they get hit with another bleed later in the fight.
This DC bump even makes the L4, 14gp Exsanguinating ammo a rare candidate for buy/crafting hard versions of. I have a wood Kin in one party who loves Hail of Splinters, making this quite appealing.
Being able to find a spare action somewhere to Activate and pull one of these to impose a +2 to the recovery is nice perk.
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Medic is nice to pair with Bomber. You've got the free hand(s), you've probably got the actions because Quick Bomber is very efficient, and Doctors Visitation is a pretty handy way to dart around the battlefield giving people a boost while also repositioning yourself to throw more bombs. Two bomb strikes, a Stride, and a Battle Medicine is a very solid 3 actions.
Obviously also works with Ciurgeon.
The designers well could have put an additional Alley-Oop to also allow abilities capable of creating consumables with an action.
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Interesting that the ability works for all "can be" 1A consumables. That means that even scroll of heal/harm are eligible.
I suppose the closest thing to that in alch items would be Lozenges. Takes 1A to mouth them, to ready for the usually 2A bite later.
I keep forgetting to give Galvanic Chews another real try, in theory, stunning a foe on their turn is so good, that they chew includes a once per day limit to it's own stun Reaction. Never actually stunned a creature with one.
And I hate to say it, but Alley Oop really likes it when an Alchemist has a Lab Assistant familiar to make the Quick Alchemy action much easier to manage.
And, of course, Alley Oop is really bizarre in that it motivates one PC squad mate to carry another PC's special ammo.
Which could be a Captain's follower, I think.
Or it could be a Lab Assistant familiar that just created the ammo.
It could even be the Commander ordering themself to throw the ammo to themself to trade 2A for 1A 1R, lol.
As it is, Alley Oop specifically cannot work with Item Creation of any kind.
Signal a squadmate within the aura of your banner who is holding or wearing a consumable that can be activated as a single action.
So, holding, or wearing. The item has to already exist when the Commander uses the Tactic.
Still really cool,