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Kittenwolf
2016-12-07, 02:01 AM
Hey there :)
So I'm throwing around some ideas for improving Craft: Alchemy in order to keep it relevant and scaling into higher levels.

What do people think of these additional rules for Craft: Alchemy? I *think* the numbers work okay (crafting costs shouldn't be too far off a scroll of a roughly equivalent effect) but they may fall apart at high level play..


Increase damage: You can increase the damage that an Alchemical splash weapon deals.
* Increase the primary and secondary damage by one dice, and increase the splash damage by one point. This triples the base cost of the item and increases its crafting DC by 2. Can be done multiple times, but no more than one dice increase per rank in Craft: Alchemy
Eg, increasing an Acid flask by 2d6 damage would increase the DC by 4 and cost nine times the base price.


Convert to Explosive flask: Improving a splash weapon to an Explosive flask makes the Primary Effect hit a 5ft burst rather than single target. Roll to hit each target in the 5ft burst.
The splash area is increased to a 15ft burst.
This doubles the base cost of the item and increase the crafting DC by 10
Requires 5 ranks in Craft: Alchemy


Convert to Bomb: Converting a splash weapon to a Bomb makes the primary effect hit everyone in a 20ft area burst, with splash damage out to 40ft.
This quadruples the base cost of the item and increases the crafting DC by 20.
Requires 10 ranks in Craft: Alchemy


Improved DC: Increase the DC of all saves required by the item to 10+½ your level+your Intelligence bonus.
Doubles the base cost of the item and increases the crafting DC by 5

Additional Note: Any items thus improved become more volatile than usual. This means that any damaging items cannot be combined with other damaging items via a Hybridisation Funnel, though a damaging and non-damaging item can still be combined.

inuyasha
2016-12-07, 10:03 AM
I feel like this is what the Alchemist class is for, being spontaneously able to generate bombs and upgrade them as you level up, developing herbal concoctions for healing etc.

If you like the alchemist class and want to give them a power boost, I'm considering doing a houserule in my current game where alchemists can bypass the requirement of knowing a spell in order to make potions, allowing them to increase the creation DC by 5 to make a potion of a spell that's on their class list if they don't actually know it, to represent experimentation and tinkering.

Morphic tide
2016-12-07, 11:50 AM
As already stated, this sounds like stuff for Alchemists.

More specifically, you are probably better off making it so that you add a way to include normal Alchemical item effects as part of the Alchemist bomb buff list. That way, you have stuff for any character able to archetype into bombs to get the bonus.

I'd type it up, but I don't have access to the PFSRD, so I can't check the rules for balance attempting purposes. Generally, I'd go with something along the lines of being able to make a bomb from alchemical items with a craft DC lower than you levels in classes that grant bombs. A similar thing for some Rogue/Alchemist mixed class, like how the Bloodrager is a mix of Sorcerer and Barbarian, would give a form of on-hit effect setup to work with for a few other alchemical items that don't work as bombs.