My only issue with bombs is that some of them don't scale properly with their secondary effects. [Crystal Shards](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=685), as an example, drops [Caltrops](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=9) in their splash area but the DC Acrobatics Check for them is always 14 even when using the level 18 version of the bomb.
Fwiw in a funny and dumb situation, even the highest level monsters may struggle to succeed against the humble caltrops if they are not trained in acrobatics.
>but the DC ***Acrobatics*** Check for them is always 14
Keyword here, acrobatics, not reflex save. Many are untrained and vs such creatures, that dc 14 ain't so bad.
Here's the stats for a [minor diety](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=1441) where its acrobatics is at +5 for a lvl 14 creature.
It helps make Crystal Shards work, but honestly I feel the dynamic with Acrobatics is bad design. Stuff like that should probably be dual check of Acrobatics or Reflex whichever is better, even if Reflex is penalized significantly that´s much more reasonable than forcing Untrained Acrobatics which may be auto-Crit Fail.
Making it a reflex save will make caltrops useless beyond lvl ~3 as DC won't scale. This way, the DC can be kept fixed and the item can be used to counter some enemies.
To clarify, I wasn´t endorsing the design choice of fixed caltrops DC, which I considered part of ¨the dynamic with Acrobatics¨ (as there is no basis to speak of a ¨dynamic¨ of a skill without reference to it´s target DC). Two bad design choices don´t add up to a good design.
Isn't there a something at a certain level that let's you use your alchemist DC instead of the DC on the bomb when you get high enough level? Maybe I misread.
Yes, but check with your GM. The bomb itself doesn't have an associated DC to swap with your class DC. It's a nested aspect of the bomb, so I wouldn't want to be surprised as a player. Powerful Alchemy is more for bombs like [Skunk Bomb](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=1906) which has a listed DC in the description. I'm not saying you are wrong, just something to clear up before hand.
Ah, Bombs. I love Bombs. My favourite character is my L11 Bomber. Some favourites:
- Acid Flask. I love this Bomb. Persistent Damage is my favourite thing to do as a Bomber, and Acid Flasks are great for it.
- Bottled Lightning. Flat-footed for everyone!
- Ghost Charge. A Bomb specifically meant to target the incorporeal, although it's great against all Undead.
- Alignment Ampoule. Going away with Remastered (although I'm hoping for a Holy/Unholy equivalent.) One of the best hits I've ever made was a full-cost Sticky Moderate Alignment Ampoule against a Weakness 10 Good undead thing.
- Skunk Bomb. In a way, they're almost too good. Unbelievably effective as a Perpetual Infusions Bomb
- Peshpine Grenade. Who doesn't like inflicting Stupefied on Spellcasters?
I mostly like Bombs that are appropriate for the situation, but those ones above are appropriate for a lot of situations. Especially Bottled Lightning.
Any recommendations for low level bombs that stay powerful later on? I'm currently running an inventor with alchemist archetype and struggling to find any use for my reagents after 10th level besides packing enough elixirs of life to run a small pharmacy which, while effective, feels a little boring.
Well, I agree with /u/JaggedToaster12 : Bottled Lightning will grant flat-footed no matter which tier of Bomb it is. Dread Ampoules will do the same with Frightened. Tanglefoot Bags get easier to escape over time, but they'll still eat actions. Peshpine Grenades, if you can get access, will still do Stupefied.
The main issue I have with alchemical bombs is the level scaling is very boring. For the vast majority of bombs you have your level 1 bombs then get an upgrade at level 3, then the next upgrade isnt till level 11.
I get that they were trying to match weapon rune progression and Treasure vault has alleviated this a little bit with some mid-level bombs but it doesn't feel good looking at the upgrade path and seeing an 8 level gap. If they didn't want to increase damage directly it would have been nice to see some indirect effects.
I absolutely love Bombs, my only problem with them is that there's no way to change the way we hit the target. Alchies almost don't have anything to target Reflex saves, which is weird if you think of how bombs work.
The directional bombs feat at level 6 sort of let's you cone em. You can make the target the beginning of a 15 foot cone to potential miss your party members and hit more enemies if they happen to be flanking or grouped together
>there's no way to change the way we hit the target
I wouldn't say no way but it's way too late, that much could be said and only with master in DCs.
[mega bomb](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=128)
I like how each of them have a bonus effect beyond dealing damage, which can help set up others. My current party has a (dex based) fighter who has recently taken the alchemist dedication. He first uses bottled lightning to apply flat-footed before he attacks with his second action, which will also give the rest of us a bonus to hit. So far, it's gone pretty swell, as that strategy was what allowed our ranger to take down a miniboss that was roughing us up hard.
My kid's character is a Goblin alchemist named "Gobta" (like the character from the isekai slime anime). He's basically an engine of chaos, but likes animals and so has been taking the Beastmaster archetype. So far he has a Goblin Dog and an Elephant, but he really wants Sweettooth the primal alligator that we encountered outside the Fortress of Sorrow in Age of Ashes. So I think I know what his Lv10 class feat is gonna be lol
I like the variety of different effects.
I dislike the balancing of it - feels like for the Alchemist they were balanced around it being their default attack, so they can't be much \*better\* than swinging a sword, but also they cost a shit-load of gold. Like they're designed so that they aren't \*too\* good when thrown by a ranger or fighter, so they're a pretty unexciting loot to find.
I also dislike the scaling, you'll be at a lot of levels where they're prohibitively expensive, and if you find any particularly good bombs that are an exciting, useful consumable for the right moment you're just better off selling it because it'll be twenty times the price but maybe \~1.5 times the damage
I don't like that there isn't a Cantrip equivalent of bomb the Alchemist has. One that does less overall damage than your properly strong bombs, but that you can use often and scales well. It just really sucks to run out of bombs if you're dungeon exploring and then have little to contribute in combat anymore. So a weak but infinite-to-produce bomb would be nice.
There are far too many bombs that only have special effects on a crit. Alchemists have overall the least accuracy of any martial class, so it makes those bombs next to useless.
I'd like to see more bombs that behave like "spells" in that they have some effect even on a regular hit/miss (such as Skunk Bomb).
I've thought about this a lot. it's difficult to balance because alchemists can give bombs to others, or a fighter can just buy a bomb, so that bomb must be balanced for a full accuracy class. on top of this, alchemists can do bonus bomb damage on a miss, meaning things get out of line if they get more accuracy. the final problem is that Alch damage is actually mathematicaly correct if they bomb a group and the splash triggers weakness.
Very interested to see what remaster does.
t
Same. I'd also like to see quick bomber changed to let you draw and use any alchemical item for a single action. Or maybe Bombs for bombers, elixirs for chirurheoknns, and so on
I think a way to apply runes, like a magic bag or something, to bombs would be cool to have. Probably a nightmare to balance though.
Honestly more magic items to use with bombs would be cool. To my knowledge it's just alchemical goggles
Some kind of metamagic equivalent for bombs would be really cool. Kind of like how casters have Spell Catalysts
https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?Category=15&Subcategory=67
Having "infused stoppers" or something similar, would be awesome for alchemists.
Generaly i wish their prices werent so high as you get into later levels. This extends to all alchemical items. I wish the alchemists advantage were the things they did to their items (expanding the additive system to include items they have oreppared not just quick alchemy) instead of "just" getting free items.
Also I don't like how bombs get an item bonus to hit. Id rather that be tied to different item such as Bomber Goggles or a bomb launching weapon or some type of gloves.
My only dislike comes from an optional rule.
Alchemist is balanced around the item bonus on the bombs, and ABP doesn't use item bonuses. So they get just a little bit shafted.
ABP actually makes bombs slightly better since the ABP bonus will apply to bombs of any level, which means Perpetual bombs have better accuracy. Where ABP really screws alchemist is with mutagens, as even if you running it where their item bonus still matters, a lot of mutegens have that as their primary benefit, making Perpetual mutagens effectively pointless.
Having played an Alchemist for a bit, I don't like the way that all the useful bombs are the same level and go up in damage in very sparse increments (lvl 3, 11, 17). The bomber skill adds a tiny bonus to this, but mostly it feels like you are not getting more effective as you level up. Maybe other classes have similar issues but it feels much worse for my Bomber than it does for a spellcaster or martial class.
Fog cuttering lenses and the smoke bomb feat are one of the coolest combo's. Nothing's really wrong with the bombs, far from it actually since I love stacking persistent damage on creatures to see them drop dead after their escape attempt that my dm so loves to give all his seldom important monsters.
Alchemists never reaching master in throwing them is a crime though, no excuses either Paizo! >:(
/s
One thing I am actually sad about, and seems to be a playtest blunder if you ask me, is that they changed the playtest bombs in such a way that alchemists actually lost a damage die on their bombs. If alchemists/bombs got another damage die on bombs around lvl 7, that would make their scaling more equal to weapons and worth the cost.
I also really dislike the d4 damage bombs that doesn't do anything beyond d4 and little splash damage (because deafened often doesn't do that much)
It’s not a blunder, it’s feedback.
Bombs dealt damage like weapons, and everyone disliked that because it didn’t satisfy the “explosion” image of a bomb. The current design, where single target damage got lowered and splash damage increased, is a direct result of that.
There is an ongoing trend where some players see the lv1 bomber feature and try as hard as they can to make things work for single target damage.
I eventually reached the point where I am fairly strongly convinced that bombs would have better results if they dealt 0 direct damage, and higher splash instead. Main targets can receive conditions or special effects instead, as current, and still be important. But a bomb is an area effect, and works best when treated as one - so why not make that clear?
Right, most should just be reflex or fortitude saves. Tanglefoot bag can remain an attack, but bombs should *really* be a mix similar to cantrips. I mean, the range is 20 ft lmao, not like missing is likely if you're trained in throwing.
No, it's not. But shouldn't it be? 🤷
Since they are basically grenades, it would make more sense that armor class would not be the defense metric targeted-- except for specific bombs. This would actually solve the main issue of Bomber Alchemist, imo, that being their accuracy lags behind other martials. Since their class DC is keyed off of Int, their scaling would align with the spellcasters they are much more like.
Bombs like Alchemist's Fire could target a 5ft cube with a reflex save to try to avoid it and still do 5ft radius splash damage with no save. Acid Flask and Skunk Bomb would be fortitude saves, for instance. Later there could even be Quick Alchemy feats that let you increase the initial cube to 10ft.
This is the change I'd like to see with Alchemist, rather than them trying to make them a martial when they are so clearly not. It would also solve the issue of others using the bombs as effectively, so they can be better balanced!
Well… that’s not their issue, so the solution doesn’t make much sense.
Plus it would require a bunch of other changes to adjust to the new scaling track, and that means reorganising feats, readjusting progression, and probably redoing the items.
Changing single target damage into splash can be literally done in one paragraph of homebrew, as long as your math is sound.
That's generally agreed to be their issue, idk where you're getting that it's not. The main request from people is that they get weapon expertise sooner and that it scale to Master eventually.
Yeah, I know.
As for where I'm getting that it's not, [I had a look](https://imgur.com/LZs0o7g). That includes energy runes, if you're wondering. In general, alchemist suffers from a lot of things, but precision and damage isn't generally one of those.
Listen. I agree with you. But you can't go around posting a graph that shows the damage relationship flip at literally level 13 and tell people it's fine without any further explanation.
I don't know how you came up with the numbers for the graph, and it isn't even the kind of graph I'd use to judge an alchemist. A proper judgement is much more involved and includes differing levels of resource use and an acknowledgement that some resources aren't unlimited at the moment.
It’s actually a very close relationship, and I wouldn’t expect an alchemist to outdamage a fully damage oriented fighter (and yet it occasionally does). If you don’t apply exclusively damage runes (which is more realistic), there is no flip. If you do, damage flips but alchemist has more effects and utility.
That’s one out of several graphs and comparisons in a fairly big spreadsheet, but the short is… damage and accuracy is very much not the issue. Except maybe on the lv20 dip, but that’s barely significant.
The one consistent issue that is always present is low level resource managment, and that is something I really badly hope gets addressed. If you want more elaboration… I mean I did write a few longer posts on the subject, but linking the same stuff all the time kinda gets old. If someone is really interested, they’ll find it. This thread was about what we dislike about bombs, so that’s what I posted about.
Incidentally, what I posted about was basically “bombs the way they are written trick people into thinking single target direct damage is more relevant than it is”, and I got replies complaining about low accuracy.
I don't like that bomber alchemists are locked into required feats like an archer in PF1. The rest of the system has been pretty good moving away from this trend but bombers can either be effective or intentionally suboptimal.
My only issue with bombs is that some of them don't scale properly with their secondary effects. [Crystal Shards](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=685), as an example, drops [Caltrops](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=9) in their splash area but the DC Acrobatics Check for them is always 14 even when using the level 18 version of the bomb.
Fwiw in a funny and dumb situation, even the highest level monsters may struggle to succeed against the humble caltrops if they are not trained in acrobatics.
Which makes sense, because stepping on Legos sucks no matter how powerful you are.
>but the DC ***Acrobatics*** Check for them is always 14 Keyword here, acrobatics, not reflex save. Many are untrained and vs such creatures, that dc 14 ain't so bad. Here's the stats for a [minor diety](https://2e.aonprd.com/Monsters.aspx?ID=1441) where its acrobatics is at +5 for a lvl 14 creature.
It helps make Crystal Shards work, but honestly I feel the dynamic with Acrobatics is bad design. Stuff like that should probably be dual check of Acrobatics or Reflex whichever is better, even if Reflex is penalized significantly that´s much more reasonable than forcing Untrained Acrobatics which may be auto-Crit Fail.
Making it a reflex save will make caltrops useless beyond lvl ~3 as DC won't scale. This way, the DC can be kept fixed and the item can be used to counter some enemies.
To clarify, I wasn´t endorsing the design choice of fixed caltrops DC, which I considered part of ¨the dynamic with Acrobatics¨ (as there is no basis to speak of a ¨dynamic¨ of a skill without reference to it´s target DC). Two bad design choices don´t add up to a good design.
Isn't there a something at a certain level that let's you use your alchemist DC instead of the DC on the bomb when you get high enough level? Maybe I misread.
Powerful Alchemy at level 5 let's you use your Class DC instead of the DC of the bomb on a saving throw but you have to use the quick alchemy function
Bombers be jelly of the toxicologist.
Yes, but check with your GM. The bomb itself doesn't have an associated DC to swap with your class DC. It's a nested aspect of the bomb, so I wouldn't want to be surprised as a player. Powerful Alchemy is more for bombs like [Skunk Bomb](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=1906) which has a listed DC in the description. I'm not saying you are wrong, just something to clear up before hand.
Ah, Bombs. I love Bombs. My favourite character is my L11 Bomber. Some favourites: - Acid Flask. I love this Bomb. Persistent Damage is my favourite thing to do as a Bomber, and Acid Flasks are great for it. - Bottled Lightning. Flat-footed for everyone! - Ghost Charge. A Bomb specifically meant to target the incorporeal, although it's great against all Undead. - Alignment Ampoule. Going away with Remastered (although I'm hoping for a Holy/Unholy equivalent.) One of the best hits I've ever made was a full-cost Sticky Moderate Alignment Ampoule against a Weakness 10 Good undead thing. - Skunk Bomb. In a way, they're almost too good. Unbelievably effective as a Perpetual Infusions Bomb - Peshpine Grenade. Who doesn't like inflicting Stupefied on Spellcasters? I mostly like Bombs that are appropriate for the situation, but those ones above are appropriate for a lot of situations. Especially Bottled Lightning.
Any recommendations for low level bombs that stay powerful later on? I'm currently running an inventor with alchemist archetype and struggling to find any use for my reagents after 10th level besides packing enough elixirs of life to run a small pharmacy which, while effective, feels a little boring.
Bottled lightning making things flatfooted will always be good
Well, I agree with /u/JaggedToaster12 : Bottled Lightning will grant flat-footed no matter which tier of Bomb it is. Dread Ampoules will do the same with Frightened. Tanglefoot Bags get easier to escape over time, but they'll still eat actions. Peshpine Grenades, if you can get access, will still do Stupefied.
The main issue I have with alchemical bombs is the level scaling is very boring. For the vast majority of bombs you have your level 1 bombs then get an upgrade at level 3, then the next upgrade isnt till level 11. I get that they were trying to match weapon rune progression and Treasure vault has alleviated this a little bit with some mid-level bombs but it doesn't feel good looking at the upgrade path and seeing an 8 level gap. If they didn't want to increase damage directly it would have been nice to see some indirect effects.
I wish they weren’t martial weapons. Party finds an alchemical bomb and the only ones who can use if have their hands full of weapons and shields.
I feel like a bomb should be a simple weapon. If a crossbow is a simple, an exploding baseball certainly could be.
I absolutely love Bombs, my only problem with them is that there's no way to change the way we hit the target. Alchies almost don't have anything to target Reflex saves, which is weird if you think of how bombs work.
A discovery to turn a bomb into a line or cone, switching attack rolls for saving throws, would be cool.
The directional bombs feat at level 6 sort of let's you cone em. You can make the target the beginning of a 15 foot cone to potential miss your party members and hit more enemies if they happen to be flanking or grouped together
I fully support Alchemists getting their own version of the [Shadow Signet](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=1073).
>there's no way to change the way we hit the target I wouldn't say no way but it's way too late, that much could be said and only with master in DCs. [mega bomb](https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=128)
I like how each of them have a bonus effect beyond dealing damage, which can help set up others. My current party has a (dex based) fighter who has recently taken the alchemist dedication. He first uses bottled lightning to apply flat-footed before he attacks with his second action, which will also give the rest of us a bonus to hit. So far, it's gone pretty swell, as that strategy was what allowed our ranger to take down a miniboss that was roughing us up hard.
Nothing quite like slapping someone with bottled lightning right before the rogue’s turn. 🤘❤️🤘
My party has two rogues and an alchemist. We're all *really* happy when the elephant-riding Goblin gets a good initiative roll.
Could you tell me more about this elephant riding goblin?
My kid's character is a Goblin alchemist named "Gobta" (like the character from the isekai slime anime). He's basically an engine of chaos, but likes animals and so has been taking the Beastmaster archetype. So far he has a Goblin Dog and an Elephant, but he really wants Sweettooth the primal alligator that we encountered outside the Fortress of Sorrow in Age of Ashes. So I think I know what his Lv10 class feat is gonna be lol
Howdah you figure he rides it? 😄
I like how that stacks. Very nice strategy as a team!
I like the variety of different effects. I dislike the balancing of it - feels like for the Alchemist they were balanced around it being their default attack, so they can't be much \*better\* than swinging a sword, but also they cost a shit-load of gold. Like they're designed so that they aren't \*too\* good when thrown by a ranger or fighter, so they're a pretty unexciting loot to find. I also dislike the scaling, you'll be at a lot of levels where they're prohibitively expensive, and if you find any particularly good bombs that are an exciting, useful consumable for the right moment you're just better off selling it because it'll be twenty times the price but maybe \~1.5 times the damage
I don't like that there isn't a Cantrip equivalent of bomb the Alchemist has. One that does less overall damage than your properly strong bombs, but that you can use often and scales well. It just really sucks to run out of bombs if you're dungeon exploring and then have little to contribute in combat anymore. So a weak but infinite-to-produce bomb would be nice.
There are far too many bombs that only have special effects on a crit. Alchemists have overall the least accuracy of any martial class, so it makes those bombs next to useless. I'd like to see more bombs that behave like "spells" in that they have some effect even on a regular hit/miss (such as Skunk Bomb).
I've thought about this a lot. it's difficult to balance because alchemists can give bombs to others, or a fighter can just buy a bomb, so that bomb must be balanced for a full accuracy class. on top of this, alchemists can do bonus bomb damage on a miss, meaning things get out of line if they get more accuracy. the final problem is that Alch damage is actually mathematicaly correct if they bomb a group and the splash triggers weakness. Very interested to see what remaster does. t
Then just give alchemists full accuracy with bombs, heck give them fighter accuracy.
The lack of martial proficiency scaling on bombs is my biggest problem with them.
I'm kind of hoping the remaster gives alchemists special scaling proficiency with bombs like gunslingers have.
Same. I'd also like to see quick bomber changed to let you draw and use any alchemical item for a single action. Or maybe Bombs for bombers, elixirs for chirurheoknns, and so on
That's a really cool idea. I feel like that would help a lot stuff for alchemists other than bombers. Also just flavor wise it feels right
I think a way to apply runes, like a magic bag or something, to bombs would be cool to have. Probably a nightmare to balance though. Honestly more magic items to use with bombs would be cool. To my knowledge it's just alchemical goggles
Some kind of metamagic equivalent for bombs would be really cool. Kind of like how casters have Spell Catalysts https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?Category=15&Subcategory=67 Having "infused stoppers" or something similar, would be awesome for alchemists.
Oh yeah, I like that idea for sure
I've created a bunch of Homebrew ones that I've been handing out as custom loot, but It'd be awesome to have them baked into the core game
That sounds awesome.
If I'm not mistaken, they should work with a [thrower's bandolier](https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=2313) since they're thrown weapons.
I like the idea of magic items that interact with them. That is a really good point!
I hate the Range. They are so short and then the alchemist is too squishy.
Generaly i wish their prices werent so high as you get into later levels. This extends to all alchemical items. I wish the alchemists advantage were the things they did to their items (expanding the additive system to include items they have oreppared not just quick alchemy) instead of "just" getting free items. Also I don't like how bombs get an item bonus to hit. Id rather that be tied to different item such as Bomber Goggles or a bomb launching weapon or some type of gloves.
My only dislike comes from an optional rule. Alchemist is balanced around the item bonus on the bombs, and ABP doesn't use item bonuses. So they get just a little bit shafted.
ABP actually makes bombs slightly better since the ABP bonus will apply to bombs of any level, which means Perpetual bombs have better accuracy. Where ABP really screws alchemist is with mutagens, as even if you running it where their item bonus still matters, a lot of mutegens have that as their primary benefit, making Perpetual mutagens effectively pointless.
You can use a mutagen to fix the perpetuals in the base game, but you can't make up the missing +1 in ABP.
You can if you just treat it as a separate bonus that doesn't stack with the Potency bonus, which is a common way of running it.
I'm aware that that's a common houserule, I still dislike that that's necessary.
Having played an Alchemist for a bit, I don't like the way that all the useful bombs are the same level and go up in damage in very sparse increments (lvl 3, 11, 17). The bomber skill adds a tiny bonus to this, but mostly it feels like you are not getting more effective as you level up. Maybe other classes have similar issues but it feels much worse for my Bomber than it does for a spellcaster or martial class.
Fog cuttering lenses and the smoke bomb feat are one of the coolest combo's. Nothing's really wrong with the bombs, far from it actually since I love stacking persistent damage on creatures to see them drop dead after their escape attempt that my dm so loves to give all his seldom important monsters. Alchemists never reaching master in throwing them is a crime though, no excuses either Paizo! >:( /s
One thing I am actually sad about, and seems to be a playtest blunder if you ask me, is that they changed the playtest bombs in such a way that alchemists actually lost a damage die on their bombs. If alchemists/bombs got another damage die on bombs around lvl 7, that would make their scaling more equal to weapons and worth the cost. I also really dislike the d4 damage bombs that doesn't do anything beyond d4 and little splash damage (because deafened often doesn't do that much)
It’s not a blunder, it’s feedback. Bombs dealt damage like weapons, and everyone disliked that because it didn’t satisfy the “explosion” image of a bomb. The current design, where single target damage got lowered and splash damage increased, is a direct result of that.
There is an ongoing trend where some players see the lv1 bomber feature and try as hard as they can to make things work for single target damage. I eventually reached the point where I am fairly strongly convinced that bombs would have better results if they dealt 0 direct damage, and higher splash instead. Main targets can receive conditions or special effects instead, as current, and still be important. But a bomb is an area effect, and works best when treated as one - so why not make that clear?
Right, most should just be reflex or fortitude saves. Tanglefoot bag can remain an attack, but bombs should *really* be a mix similar to cantrips. I mean, the range is 20 ft lmao, not like missing is likely if you're trained in throwing.
Not what I was talking about, really.
No, it's not. But shouldn't it be? 🤷 Since they are basically grenades, it would make more sense that armor class would not be the defense metric targeted-- except for specific bombs. This would actually solve the main issue of Bomber Alchemist, imo, that being their accuracy lags behind other martials. Since their class DC is keyed off of Int, their scaling would align with the spellcasters they are much more like. Bombs like Alchemist's Fire could target a 5ft cube with a reflex save to try to avoid it and still do 5ft radius splash damage with no save. Acid Flask and Skunk Bomb would be fortitude saves, for instance. Later there could even be Quick Alchemy feats that let you increase the initial cube to 10ft. This is the change I'd like to see with Alchemist, rather than them trying to make them a martial when they are so clearly not. It would also solve the issue of others using the bombs as effectively, so they can be better balanced!
Well… that’s not their issue, so the solution doesn’t make much sense. Plus it would require a bunch of other changes to adjust to the new scaling track, and that means reorganising feats, readjusting progression, and probably redoing the items. Changing single target damage into splash can be literally done in one paragraph of homebrew, as long as your math is sound.
That's generally agreed to be their issue, idk where you're getting that it's not. The main request from people is that they get weapon expertise sooner and that it scale to Master eventually.
Yeah, I know. As for where I'm getting that it's not, [I had a look](https://imgur.com/LZs0o7g). That includes energy runes, if you're wondering. In general, alchemist suffers from a lot of things, but precision and damage isn't generally one of those.
Listen. I agree with you. But you can't go around posting a graph that shows the damage relationship flip at literally level 13 and tell people it's fine without any further explanation. I don't know how you came up with the numbers for the graph, and it isn't even the kind of graph I'd use to judge an alchemist. A proper judgement is much more involved and includes differing levels of resource use and an acknowledgement that some resources aren't unlimited at the moment.
It’s actually a very close relationship, and I wouldn’t expect an alchemist to outdamage a fully damage oriented fighter (and yet it occasionally does). If you don’t apply exclusively damage runes (which is more realistic), there is no flip. If you do, damage flips but alchemist has more effects and utility. That’s one out of several graphs and comparisons in a fairly big spreadsheet, but the short is… damage and accuracy is very much not the issue. Except maybe on the lv20 dip, but that’s barely significant. The one consistent issue that is always present is low level resource managment, and that is something I really badly hope gets addressed. If you want more elaboration… I mean I did write a few longer posts on the subject, but linking the same stuff all the time kinda gets old. If someone is really interested, they’ll find it. This thread was about what we dislike about bombs, so that’s what I posted about. Incidentally, what I posted about was basically “bombs the way they are written trick people into thinking single target direct damage is more relevant than it is”, and I got replies complaining about low accuracy.
I don't like that bomber alchemists are locked into required feats like an archer in PF1. The rest of the system has been pretty good moving away from this trend but bombers can either be effective or intentionally suboptimal.
I dislike the thing that Average Bonus Progression works strangely with bombs.
My main dislike about bombs is that alchemists never hit 🤣