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First Post
Houserule Proposal:
1. Magic Ammunition and Reagents become subclasses of Alchemical items, and thus gain associated formulae so that PC's with the Alchemist feat can create them. All Magic Ammunition have Arcana and Thievery as associated skills, and all Reagents have Arcana and Nature as associated skills.
2. The cost of Alchemical Formulae for Magic Ammunition and Reagents is equal to 40 gp times the level of the lowest level version of the ammunition or reagent in question. (Based on the list of market prices of alchemical formula in Adventurer's Vault pg. 21)
3. Attacks using magical ammunition or reagents are not considered 'attacks with alchemical items'.
The most important effects this will have, in brief: Wizards and Artificers have reason to choose Alchemist over Ritual Caster, taking the Alchemist feat on its own is not a waste of a feat, and ranged PCs have better theme choices.
I was just thinking about how the Alchemist theme can potentially hurt a character's performance in combat by, for example, encouraging an Artificer to spend a standard action using Alchemist's Fire when that would almost always be a waste of a turn. In early heroic tier, the damage on Alchemist's Fire is not much worse than Wizard at-will damage, and if you need fire damage for something it can be useful. Past level 5, though, monster hp has gotten way bigger, and the attack bonuses on alchemical items starts to fall behind badly. At that point, an Alchemist can get a free formula for a reagent or piece of ammunition that will help him when he uses his good, in-class powers.
It would also address another problem in a much more subtle way. See, currently Fey Beast Tamer and Noble Adept are far and away the best themes for ranged weapon and implement PCs, simply because they have no really good themes like Sohei and Pack Outcast and Guardian. This change would make the Alchemist theme competitive with Fey Beast Tamer, which will reduce the number of Fey Beast Tamers we have in the future, which will simplify games in general, since DMing for parties with multiple Fey Beast Tamers becomes arduous pretty quickly.
Thoughts?
1. Magic Ammunition and Reagents become subclasses of Alchemical items, and thus gain associated formulae so that PC's with the Alchemist feat can create them. All Magic Ammunition have Arcana and Thievery as associated skills, and all Reagents have Arcana and Nature as associated skills.
2. The cost of Alchemical Formulae for Magic Ammunition and Reagents is equal to 40 gp times the level of the lowest level version of the ammunition or reagent in question. (Based on the list of market prices of alchemical formula in Adventurer's Vault pg. 21)
3. Attacks using magical ammunition or reagents are not considered 'attacks with alchemical items'.
The most important effects this will have, in brief: Wizards and Artificers have reason to choose Alchemist over Ritual Caster, taking the Alchemist feat on its own is not a waste of a feat, and ranged PCs have better theme choices.
I was just thinking about how the Alchemist theme can potentially hurt a character's performance in combat by, for example, encouraging an Artificer to spend a standard action using Alchemist's Fire when that would almost always be a waste of a turn. In early heroic tier, the damage on Alchemist's Fire is not much worse than Wizard at-will damage, and if you need fire damage for something it can be useful. Past level 5, though, monster hp has gotten way bigger, and the attack bonuses on alchemical items starts to fall behind badly. At that point, an Alchemist can get a free formula for a reagent or piece of ammunition that will help him when he uses his good, in-class powers.
It would also address another problem in a much more subtle way. See, currently Fey Beast Tamer and Noble Adept are far and away the best themes for ranged weapon and implement PCs, simply because they have no really good themes like Sohei and Pack Outcast and Guardian. This change would make the Alchemist theme competitive with Fey Beast Tamer, which will reduce the number of Fey Beast Tamers we have in the future, which will simplify games in general, since DMing for parties with multiple Fey Beast Tamers becomes arduous pretty quickly.
Thoughts?
