[3.5] Alchemical Gish!

[koboldish]

I created a post a while back on making a non-magic alchemist. Having finally given up, I decided to play a gnome wizard who will do most of his damage with things fired from a gnome calculus. Fitting with the "mad scientist" theme, I think I would like to specialize in transmutation, and do lots of self buffing. Any bulid ideas for an alchemical gish?

[Larkas]

Eh, is Pathfinder material available to you? Because PF's Alchemist (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advanced/baseClasses/alchemist.html) is pretty much exactly what you want.

[koboldish]

Nope. I looked at the class though and it seemed pretty awesome.

[Larkas]

Nope. I looked at the class though and it seemed pretty awesome.

Ah, what a pity... Well, then I think the best way to go would be to go Focused Specialist Transmuter, with a creative ban of opposing schools. If only you could ban Divination... Anyways, take Brew Potion as a feat and go into Magic of Faerun's Master Alchemist. You will be brewing 9th level spells potions in no time!

[koboldish]

Thanks. Any ideas on how to buff craft alchemy? Magecraft, perhaps?

[Flickerdart]

You'd probably be better off as an Artificer if "mad scientist" is your vibe. Either way, check out the Alchemist Savant in Magic of Eberron.

[ericgrau]

If you're stuck with 3.5 then there's point blank shot, quick draw, rapid shot, far shot, precise shot and two weapon fighting. That's 5 feats meaning it requires a level 12 human. At that level the damage won't keep up, but they are several touch attacks meaning you get lots of easy hits. You could go into arcane trickster or spellwarp sniper for sneak attack damage. Precise shot is also handy for quickened ray spells. So your attack routine might be: Alchemical weapon, secondary attack alchemical weapon, rapid shot alchemical weapon, off hand alchemical weapon x2, haste attack alchemical weapon, quickened ray spell. Sneak attack X 7. 4d6 + 1d6 each, with good chances of hitting. It's not a broken amount of damage but it's pretty good and you have other spells too. You might open a fight with a battlefield control spell or area damage to manage large numbers of foes for example, then switch to single target damage.

If you want you might also focus on crafting and lobbing wondrous items. At low levels you have necklace of fireballs, tree feather tokens (BOOM! 60 foot tall tree cover. Blocked those guys off), dancing whips via whip feather token, summons via bags of tricks, elixirs of fire breath to spit streams of flame at foes, etc., etc. At very high level round 1 you lob the portable hole, round 2 you lob the bag of holding. If you can get the items cheap enough to make it worthwhile you could have tons and tons of zany yet effective fun with this.

Don't be afraid of expendables btw, fighting in D&D is incredibly short. If you can afford 1-3 uses of any given item and around 10-15 total items per level to blow then that's plenty. And no you aren't throwing treasure away when you use one you're saving money vs. the much higher cost of permanent items (even after re-using them).

[Larkas]

Eh, totally forgot about the "gish" part... Okay, you can take Fighter 1/ Wizard 6/ Master Alchemist 10/ Abjurant Champion 3, I guess. You'd end up with a BAB of +12 and only a single spellcasting level lost. Not particularly optimized, but can certainly work. Be sure to (responsibly) use Polymorph and its kin!

EDIT:

Thanks. Any ideas on how to buff craft alchemy? Magecraft, perhaps?

Hmmmm... Masterwork tools, Skill Focus [Craft (alchemy)], stuff like that? Oh, and don't forget that, with alchemy, you can make some quite potent poisons!

[koboldish]

My internet just died for a bit, so sorry for not responding sooner. What about trying to fit some sneak attack in? I think I can still get 9th level spells. Would that be more effectove than just casting and chucking flasks of explosive stuff?

[Larkas]

My internet just died for a bit, so sorry for not responding sooner. What about trying to fit some sneak attack in? I think I can still get 9th level spells. Would that be more effectove than just casting and chucking flasks of explosive stuff?

Not really, though sneak attacking with a bomb-like weapon can be fun.

Check this build, then:

Rogue 3/ Wizard 4/ Master Alchemist 10/ Arcane Trickster 3

Access to 9th level spells (some of which you'll be turning into potions, anyways, so there's not much problem losing the spell slots!), +3d6 Sneak Attack and a few more goodies. +11 BAB, so 3 attacks, which is good. Can probably get more optimized than that too.

And please note, you can mess around with the organization of the classes in the build, I just put them like that for simplicity's sake.

[Beelzebub1111]

Playing a halfling gives you a bonus to thrown weapons, and Races of Eberron a feat that lets you count two adjacent targets as a direct hit with grenade weapons.

[Vaz]

Use Rogue, Ranger, Scout, Ninja, Artificer, Beastmaster, Combat Trapmaster, Renegade Mastermaker etc all together to make up some unholy matrimony of a scouting making trapped weapon stashes, using his scouting animals to help identify good areas to scan for enemy routes of entry, possibly carrying traps and quickly made stuff.

[koboldish]

Great! Thanks for all of the help. How should I get lots of alchemical items with just my starting gold at level 1?

[XmonkTad]

Great! Thanks for all of the help. How should I get lots of alchemical items with just my starting gold at level 1?

Roll an aristocrat?

There really isn't a lot you can get. My personal recomendation is a tindertwig, because you can't afford anything else, and a tindertwigs uses are practically unlimited!

[ericgrau]

At level 1 you can use flasks of oil for a silver piece each and they act as alchemist's fire. They take a full round action to prep and light so you'll be doing half as much damage as alchemist's fire, but on a low budget it's something.

Alternatively ask your DM if it's ok for your unseen servant to prep them for you. Still takes a spell slot, and round 1 of combat if you don't know that there will be an enemy within the next hour, but it's faster.

[koboldish]

Okay. That sounds good. Mabye I could try to rule a flamethrower type thing with tindertwigs and a sprayer (AaEG, i think). At higher levels, how good woul a gnome steam bow or the one crossbow that holds things be?