Ways to increase the DC of alchemical items?

[rs2excelsior]

So I'm floating a character concept of a rogue (possibly with the Underground Chemist archetype from the ACG) who invests heavily into the Craft (Alchemy) skill and makes extensive use of alchemical items--smoke grenades, bombs, thunderstones, ghost retch flasks, and the like. Problem is, a lot of these have very low reflex or fortitude save DCs (most seem to be around 12 fortitude or 15 reflex), which is very low past the initial levels. Is there any way to increase the DC to resist the effect of an alchemical item you craft? I haven't been able to find one thus far. Feats, class features, etc. welcome. Preferably Paizo but I'll look at 3rd party as well.

Thanks!

[Ellrin]

Full pouch (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/full-pouch) is a 2nd/3rd level spell on several lists that duplicates any consumable alchemical item you can lay hands on (with a mere 1gp worth of material components). If the item has a DC, the new one uses the original DC or the spell's DC, whichever is higher. You can, therefore, theoretically buff an alchemical item's DC to whatever you could normally buff a spell's DC to.

[rs2excelsior]

Alright, thanks... might be able to work that in.


The new item functions as the original in all ways except the copied item suffers a slight reduction in quality. Saves against the new alchemical item’s affects use the original item’s save DC or the save DC of this spell, whichever is higher.

Is is just me, or does the fluff for this spell not really match the actual effect? :smalltongue: It suffers a reduction in quality but the save DC is potentially higher...

[Holya]

Take a dip in alchemist? I mean the class depending on how your DM reads it means all the DCs of everything you craft scale with the class poisons included as the class treats all poisons as alchemical items. You also get throw anything as a free feat which adds your int mod to anything you throw along side adding your int mod to any splash damage the item can do.

Or I could be wrong and it could technically be a house rule by my DM.

[rs2excelsior]

I've looked over the Alchemist class, and I don't think that's there by RAW. The only thing in there about creating alchemical items is that you get a bonus on your check equal to your class level. There's the concentrate poison discovery that increases poison save DC and frequency, but it's only for poisons. The save DC of various alchemist bombs do scale with level, but not "mundane" crafted items, as far as I can tell. I could just make the character an alchemist instead of a rogue... but I feel like rogue works better. I'll see.

Plus, throw anything just gets rid of the improvised weapon penalty and gives a +1 bonus on splash weapon attack rolls. I think the +int to attack is a houserule also :smalltongue:

[Holya]

I've looked over the Alchemist class, and I don't think that's there by RAW. The only thing in there about creating alchemical items is that you get a bonus on your check equal to your class level. There's the concentrate poison discovery that increases poison save DC and frequency, but it's only for poisons. The save DC of various alchemist bombs do scale with level, but not "mundane" crafted items, as far as I can tell. I could just make the character an alchemist instead of a rogue... but I feel like rogue works better. I'll see.

Plus, throw anything just gets rid of the improvised weapon penalty and gives a +1 bonus on splash weapon attack rolls. I think the +int to attack is a houserule also :smalltongue:

All alchemists gain the Throw Anything feat as a bonus feat at 1st level. An alchemist adds his Intelligence modifier to damage done with splash weapons, including the splash damage if any. This bonus damage is already included in the bomb class feature.

I copy and pasted that. So it actually scales with your int as long as the thing you are throwing could be argued as a splash weapon. Also is it that you want sneak attack or what for your rogue? There are archetypes that make a sneaky alchemist rogue of doom. The Vivisectionist gives you the sneak attack of the rogue and a few other things but replaces your bombs. You could stack it with the Internal Alchemist to get a few more bonuses but you lose swift alchemy and bombs from the combo but you are generally well off. If you want to focus on poisons and third party is allowed you could go Fumigant. But Fumigant can't be mixed with Vivisectionist. It can be mixed with internal alchemist tho.

[rs2excelsior]

Yeah, it does scale with int. So do the save DCs, and the base damage. The Underground Chemist gives you +int to splash damage too. You don't add Int to attack rolls with splash weapons, either due to alchemist class features or the throw anything feat, which is what I was disagreeing with in your first post (unless I misunderstood what you wrote).

It's mostly fluff reasons that I'd prefer to keep a rogue. That, and this is partially character concept for a game, partially thought experiment to see if it could work. I like alchemist as a class, but the fluff is just... weird. Most of it's done for game balance rather than actually making sense. As soon as you set a bomb or an extract down, it no longer works? You draw the materials, mix a bomb, and throw it, all as a standard action? I'm going for a batman-kind of rogue, who uses down time to make a bunch of alchemical gizmos to help out in a pinch. Less doing things on the fly, more working in a lab and experimenting beforehand. Ironically, more like the perception I have of an actual alchemist.


There are archetypes that make a sneaky alchemist rogue of doom. The Vivisectionist gives you the sneak attack of the rogue and a few other things but replaces your bombs. You could stack it with the Internal Alchemist to get a few more bonuses but you lose swift alchemy and bombs from the combo but you are generally well off. If you want to focus on poisons and third party is allowed you could go Fumigant. But Fumigant can't be mixed with Vivisectionist. It can be mixed with internal alchemist tho.

See, the thing is, bombs are the one thing I would want from the alchemist class. I'm not really interested in the mutagens or extracts. Or poison use as much, though that'd be closer to the concept I'm thinking of. Still, I might poke around the alchemist archetypes and see if anything grabs me.

[Rainshine]

For Alchemist archetypes to look at, Grenadier is pretty good for ranged murdering and combos well with alchemy. Mindchemist isn't terrible and lets you buff your int even. I'd highly recommend just looking through the different types of mutagens (inspiring, experimental, etc) and deciding what style best matches what you're trying to do.

[Ellrin]

Alright, thanks... might be able to work that in.



Is is just me, or does the fluff for this spell not really match the actual effect? :smalltongue: It suffers a reduction in quality but the save DC is potentially higher...

The reduction in quality is supposed to indicate that the copies are unsellable, I think, to prevent WBLmancy (turning 1gp into whatever the most expensive alchemical item in the books is).

[Holya]

Yeah, it does scale with int. So do the save DCs, and the base damage. The Underground Chemist gives you +int to splash damage too. You don't add Int to attack rolls with splash weapons, either due to alchemist class features or the throw anything feat, which is what I was disagreeing with in your first post (unless I misunderstood what you wrote).

It's mostly fluff reasons that I'd prefer to keep a rogue. That, and this is partially character concept for a game, partially thought experiment to see if it could work. I like alchemist as a class, but the fluff is just... weird. Most of it's done for game balance rather than actually making sense. As soon as you set a bomb or an extract down, it no longer works? You draw the materials, mix a bomb, and throw it, all as a standard action? I'm going for a batman-kind of rogue, who uses down time to make a bunch of alchemical gizmos to help out in a pinch. Less doing things on the fly, more working in a lab and experimenting beforehand. Ironically, more like the perception I have of an actual alchemist.



See, the thing is, bombs are the one thing I would want from the alchemist class. I'm not really interested in the mutagens or extracts. Or poison use as much, though that'd be closer to the concept I'm thinking of. Still, I might poke around the alchemist archetypes and see if anything grabs me.

Ah yeah I think we had a misunderstanding. I mean if you want the downtime. The class level bonus to your craft alchemy is nice and the discoveries give you some very easy entrances into certain crafting feats like golems and such. Even more so are the alchemical golems as nice. Also hitting is fairly easy with a alchemist since everything is to hit touch ac. So unless you are fighting monks or creatures built to have stupidly high touch ac you will rarely if ever miss.

That and yeah I agree with the fluf of the alchemist. Its weird. Thats why we generally ignore the fluf of most classes and build it off the back story of the character. Though the rogue can be a good batman. So can a wizard or pretty much everything else. It all depends on how efficient you want to be a batman. If you want a crafter batman then alchemist is good since they get craft alchemy and bonuses out the arse to it. If you want to be a skill based Batman then a rogue works nice because of specific things you can do. The wizard is well.. Depending on if your doing purely pathfinder or pathfinder and 3.5e mixed can be everything.

So what exactly are you wanting to batman? The skill checks? Having something that will help in every situation? Or?

[rs2excelsior]

I'm looking for a character who functions like a rogue (so stealth, trapfinding, etc.; generally very mobile) and pretty much fights like a rogue, but who has alchemical items in their "back pocket" so to speak. Bunch of guards grouped up? Toss a fuse grenade into the middle of them before attacking. Need a distraction? Thunderstone'll do. Got to cover some open ground? Let me toss out this smokestick. Maybe I can't kill this enemy (or I don't want to kill anyone), but some sneezing powder or a ghoul retch flask will incapacitate them nicely for a bit. That kind of thing.

As far as wizard, yeah, it kinda goes without saying that wizards can do everything :smalltongue: For the character concept, I'm hoping to do this without magic (or with a minimum of magic). This isn't really going for an optimized character, particularly, just seeing if there's a way to do what I'm thinking of in a way that stays relevant past level 2 or 3. Alchemist bombs can do most of the things I want... but I lose several quintessential rogue things, and I'm really not interested in the extracts or the mutagens. Grenadier does look kind of nice, but again, it's close without quite getting there.

The person who'd likely be DMing if this character ever makes it to the table has okayed a feat to let me add Int mod to the DC of crafted alchemical items. I was just wondering if there was a way to accomplish it without resorting to homebrewing a feat. Frankly I'm surprised it doesn't already exist in some form (or at least it doesn't seem like it, from what I've seen so far).

EDIT: Basically, this is less a question about the character build, more about whether you can keep items made with the Craft (Alchemy) skill relevant past very low levels.

[Ellrin]

It would be nice if Paizo treated mundane alchemy as something more than an ugly stepchild, but that would mean giving mundanes nice things, and we can't have that.

[rs2excelsior]

It would be nice if Paizo treated mundane alchemy as something more than an ugly stepchild, but that would mean giving mundanes nice things, and we can't have that.

I know, especially since there are some really neat, useful (at very low level), and flavorful items available. And given that PF is generally an improvement over 3.5 for mundanes, at least in my experience. (A fighter in PF is clearly better than a fighter in 3.5--still nowhere near the same league as a wizard, but still).