Ratfolk Alchemist Concept

[undertow92182]

Hey all, first time poster here and just wanted to get your opinions on an idea for a character I had. This is just a basic character concept so I won't go too detailed into where I'd put feats/discoveries at given levels.

Race: Ratfolk
Class: Alchemist (Plague Bringer & Vivisectionist)

If you read the Plague Bringer's Plauge Vial it clearly states that any weapon the Plague Bringer licks will get a dose of the disease. It also clearly states that the Sticky Poison discovery will effect the Plague Vial so if you drink it first thing in the morning you can lick all your weapons (and the weapons of your party members, if they allow it) and have multiple doses of a save-or-suck disease to go around.

Side Note: If you are desperate for the effects of Mutagen you can always pick it up as a discovery later and you shouldn't really need it early on.

This is where things get fun. You now have your disease and whatever poison you want to craft, but what weapons do you use?

Weapon: Tail Blade
Trait: Adopted: Tusked
Feat: Sharpclaw

Thats right, at first level this character can have 4 natural attacks, 3 primary and 1 secondary. Ratfolk already have huge sharp teeth so the adopted trait is wicked easy to explain.. you just learned to be a scrappy fighter from some half-orc and fight dirty, thus you bite. The trade-off here is that if you want to use poisons you better use injury only poisons on your teeth or you're gonna be ingesting them (thats even if your DM allows it, though RAW there is no reason it shouldn't work). If there is a contact poison you want to work it clearly states that the poison must make contact with SKIN. So tail blade and claws are still viable, as long as you don't mind the group mocking you for painting your nails before going into a fight.

So, you have 4 natural attacks, all of which can benefit from sneak attacks assuming you can come out of hiding/be flank someone. Small race gives you the hefty +4 to stealth and all it takes is using your other trait (or turn a feat into 2 traits) for you to nab stealth as a class skill. Add in Invisibility Extract and you'll make excellent use of those claws, teeth, and tail.

Now, lets top liberally with cheese. Greater Magic Fang is only a level 3 spell, meaning it can be made into a potion. At EVERY Magic shop in EVERY town ask if they have one from a maxed caster level to get the +5 bonus. Even if you don't have the gold this moment (750gp) offer to pay extra if they will hold it for you. Finding the potion should be much easier than finding a druid for most alchemists. Once you have the potion you are set. Go to any wizard college anywhere and ask to purchase castings of permanency. Use your level 2 extract Alchemical Allocation to "drink" the potion and enhance one of your natural attacks. Then, ask whomever is casting the permanency spell to go right ahead and make Greater Magic Fang permanent. This should cost 7,500gp in components so even at double that cost to pay for the casting it would only cost 15,000gp per natural attack. This totals to four +5 magical natural weapons which you can use all of in a full attack action for the bare bones total price of 60,750. Thats only 10k more expensive than it costs to get ONE +5 magical weapon.

Note: The only issue you may run into is getting your DM to approve using Greater Magic Fang on the tail blade as it IS a manufactures weapon yet clearly states it is used as a natural weapon. Discuss and if all else fails just get it enchanted the old fashioned way.

Extra Cheese: Amulet of Mighty Fists. Need I say more? Ignore making your natural attacks magical.. you already got that handled. Now, you can focus on giving your natural attacks all those extra effects like Speed, Flaming, and Agile (Natural attacks count as light weapons and as such are viable for the Agile enchantment.) a +5 Amulet of Mighty Fists is 120,000gp When you factor in that you will be effecting four natural attacks thats a bargain.


So, that is 4 natural attacks all counting as +5 weapons. With Amulet of Mighty Fists you can make them all speed weapons so getting to attack with them all twice.. thats 6 primary natural attacks (full attack bonus) and 2 secondary (-5 attack bonus) all of which can be sticky poisoned/diseased, let you add your dex modifier to damage, AND toss in an extra +1 enchant of your choice (I'd suggest any elemental effect to get to add an extra 1d6 damage both when sneak attacking and not) All of this only costs about 180,750 gp

Thoughts, opinions?

[undertow92182]

Any opinions are welcome.

The game is today and I'm just wondering what people think. Any way to improve it? Are there rules preventing the build from working as presented?

[StreamOfTheSky]

Why shell out so much for permanency rather than just use AA on the potion for each weapon daily?

Four pearls of power, 2nd level, are 16000 gp, a fraction of the cost of those permanencies, and dispels won't screw you over beyond one day with that approach.

Also, CL 20 potion of GMF is 3000 gp (50 x 3 x 20), not 750 gp. It's 1500 to create.

[undertow92182]

Because I believe that Pearls of Power do not work for Alchemists.

[eggs]

The AA+GMF+Natural Attacks thing is a classic Alchemist trick, so I won't comment on that (but that Permanency is expensive).

The Plaguebringer part is more interesting: it looks like you could be hitting things with Sickened conditions without much trouble. That's neat, but it's not a game-ender, and I'm not sure it has a huge advantage over Mutagen on its own.

So to turn it into a game-ender:

I'd expect Swift Poisoning+a one-handed weapon to be the most direct option (the weapon would push the primary attacks into secondaries, but would allow multiple poison attacks per round with Sticky poison). Even with Sticky Poison, most of the options aren't cheap, but keeping a few good cheap status effect and Con poisons at hand would probably be a good call.

Or if 3e materials are fair game, the Staggering Strike, Terrifying Strike and Aleval School feats could stack with the sickened status to leave a target with -6 to just about everything and only 1 standard action per round. That's basically the next best thing to taking the target out of the fight, but Sticky Poison+ even a low-DC poison could finish the target off.

[undertow92182]

Thats actually a good idea with the sticky poisons on weapons. Especially considering using daggers as they can also be thrown. So, if we went that route, would it be wiser to go with two weapon fighting and going down that path while also using my bite and tail blade as secondaries. Then I can just carry multiple sets of daggers on me until I get swift poisoning/magical daggers. This will impact the natural attacks into making the amulet of mighty fists pointless but then I could enchant the tail blade using standard rules instead and only need to use AA + GMF for my bite attack every day.

It's a less potent but less risky tactic which will allow for slightly better game balance I suppose.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Because I believe that Pearls of Power do not work for Alchemists.

Why not? They're prepared spellcasters. They have a spell list which they can draw from the wizard's spellbook for known spells, they can create magic items, they have a caster level...

[Larpus]

Why not? They're prepared spellcasters. They have a spell list which they can draw from the wizard's spellbook for known spells, they can create magic items (other than potions), they have a caster level...
I've seen DMs have problems with the bolded parts.

Mostly because it's mentioned that they're not exactly casters, the "treat their level as their caster level" and the clause for Brew Potion, which some people take for it bypassing the "be a spellcaster" limitation, not just the level one.

Of course, if that's the definition that's going, then Alchemists' extracts function for 24 hours (forever with infusion) and only take up daily slots until used/discarded, so with careful planning an Alchemist can effectively double their daily allotment of extracts with relative ease by preparing extracts before going to bed.