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View Full Version : Let's talk alchemy [3.5]



spamoo
2009-09-01, 03:26 PM
While looking through a booklet of weaponry my DM compiled from various WoTC and Third Party sources over the years I came across an interesting weapon. It basically lets me launch vials of Alchemical materials with a similar range to a light crossbow. Upon brushing up on my alchemy rules I was dismayed to learn the impracticality of using such a weapon. It is going to cost me ~8 gold per shot for Alchemist's Fire or 5 gold per shot for Acid assuming I make the ammo myself.

What I'm wondering is how do I go about making this character slightly more powerful while not making firing this thing prohibitively expensive. I will likely be an overall support character for the party (no other characters have been decided yet) at around level 7. My DM is very accepting of third party/homebrew materials so I would appreciate anything of that sort too. Finally, any new sources of alchemical items will be greatly appreciated.

Elfin
2009-09-01, 03:29 PM
Couldn't you just use normal bolts? You could save a few vials of alchemist's fire for when you need to burn something, but otherwise bolts will be much more practical and do more damage.

Sallera
2009-09-01, 03:29 PM
Well, I'm not sure of anything to do about the cost, but the (applicable, if weak) Grenadier feat in either Complete Warrior or PHBII adds to splash weapon damage. Complete Scoundrel and the 3.0 Arms and Equipment Guide have a bunch of useful alchemical items.

Cieyrin
2009-09-01, 03:33 PM
While looking through a booklet of weaponry my DM compiled from various WoTC and Third Party sources over the years I came across an interesting weapon. It basically lets me launch vials of Alchemical materials with a similar range to a light crossbow. Upon brushing up on my alchemy rules I was dismayed to learn the impracticality of using such a weapon. It is going to cost me ~8 gold per shot for Alchemist's Fire or 5 gold per shot for Acid assuming I make the ammo myself.

What I'm wondering is how do I go about making this character slightly more powerful while not making firing this thing prohibitively expensive. I will likely be an overall support character for the party (no other characters have been decided yet) at around level 7. My DM is very accepting of third party/homebrew materials so I would appreciate anything of that sort too. Finally, any new sources of alchemical items will be greatly appreciated.

Alchemy can be a little expensive but it's certainly cheaper than going through Brew Potion or something like. The Gnomish Calculus from the Arms and Equipment Guide lets your hurl alchemicals at sling ranges, as well as there being a whole host of useful alchemicals in there for screwing with people.

Magic of Eberron has the Alchemy Blade, which is essentially a short sword that channels alchemist fire out to the blade to do whatever energy damage you put into the weapon. There's also some other variant alchemicals in there, as well.

spamoo
2009-09-01, 03:40 PM
Couldn't you just use normal bolts? You could save a few vials of alchemist's fire for when you need to burn something, but otherwise bolts will be much more practical and do more damage.

I could, but I would rather have the grenade-launching maelstrom that the concept was based on. Plus this gives me much more range with the alchemical items.


Well, I'm not sure of anything to do about the cost, but the (applicable, if weak) Grenadier feat in either Complete Warrior or PHBII adds to splash weapon damage. Complete Scoundrel and the 3.0 Arms and Equipment Guide have a bunch of useful alchemical items.

Thanks for that. I knew there was such a feat somewhere, but I couldn't remember where the heck it was.


Alchemy can be a little expensive but it's certainly cheaper than going through Brew Potion or something like. The Gnomish Calculus from the Arms and Equipment Guide lets your hurl alchemicals at sling ranges, as well as there being a whole host of useful alchemicals in there for screwing with people.

Yeah, I'm just worried about launching off 2-3 alchemist's fires in a round. The sling sounds useful. I may use that instead of the crossbow to get around load times.

ericgrau
2009-09-01, 04:02 PM
Simple solution: get richer. At higher levels this amount of gold will be chump change. Heck, even a +1 arrow costs 40 gp. A +1 bane arrow (for something that's actually useful), is 160 gp. Frankly +1d6 damage for 25-50 gp is a steal. Enchant your bow while using non-magical alchemical ammo and you can stack more damage with only the one time cost of the bow.

In fact, I wouldn't bother crafting the alchemical items to save money. It takes way too long. You can get money 100 times faster by adventuring. But if you have a TON of downtime and nothing better to do with your skill points, I suppose it's not the worst thing you could do.

Slings can't fire multiple shots in a round because they take a move action to reload and the rapid reload feat does not apply.

Cieyrin
2009-09-01, 04:15 PM
Slings can't fire multiple shots in a round because they take a move action to reload and the rapid reload feat does not apply.

Only b/c WotC thinks bows are the best thing since sliced bread and that slings, as a piece of cloth throwing a rock, is clearly a slow process that can't be done rapidly, fire as far or do as much damage as a bow.:smallmad:

ericgrau
2009-09-01, 04:56 PM
IIRC bows and slings were at odds with eachother for a good chunk of history, then finally composite bows came into play and became the preferred choice. But I dunno how you'd represent the true differences in D&D (vs. the existing rules), or if it's worth getting into that much detail. Sounds like perfect house rule territory to me if you're into that sort of thing.

Cieyrin
2009-09-01, 06:30 PM
IIRC bows and slings were at odds with eachother for a good chunk of history, then finally composite bows came into play and became the preferred choice. But I dunno how you'd represent the true differences in D&D (vs. the existing rules), or if it's worth getting into that much detail. Sounds like perfect house rule territory to me if you're into that sort of thing.

Eh, we talked about it a couple weeks ago in a different thread and mostly, from some of the research I did, it came down to that becoming trained in slings took far longer than it did with a bow. The good slingers of history had trained how to sling since childhood and their training showed. Archery skill was much more quickly achieved. So ultimately, it came down to costs in time that the sling lost its appeal. I also believe that, with time going be, there were just less trained slingers to go about, since you generally grabbed them from rural folk, who were moving into towns for the most part, so the skills just weren't about, either.

ericgrau
2009-09-01, 06:38 PM
IIRC archery with a composite bow also took lifelong training. In fact, the brits required weekly training for everyone, soldier or not. Relevant bones were thickened and deformed so much that we can see it in their remains. But crossbows were a lot easier.

Cieyrin
2009-09-01, 08:24 PM
IIRC archery with a composite bow also took lifelong training. In fact, the brits required weekly training for everyone, soldier or not. Relevant bones were thickened and deformed so much that we can see it in their remains. But crossbows were a lot easier.

I'm not discounting that bow training wasn't taxing, I think what it was with the sling is it took long to be reasonably competent and longer to be awesome. At least with bows, you could get competent in a matter of weeks and then continue to work to master from there. It's that initial working so that you use the weapon with enough skill to be a threat that made the difference and why crossbows and guns eventually won out over bows, the shorter training times to become competent.