Alchemy Sneak Attack Balanced?

[eriktheguy]

The eladrin can take a feat to use longswords with sneak attack, I think dwarves get something similar. Would a feat that allowed you to sneak attack with alchemy be balanced? It would be a racial feat. I would be giving it to goblins in my campaign (where goblins happen to like alchemy), but the particular race doesn't really matter. I'm just wondering if there are any obvious exploits or sneak attack alchemy is imbalanced in general.
For example, I think you only deal sneak attack damage against one target, even when you hit many, so AoE alchemy shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Smeelbo]

Since the Alchemist's Acid/Fire/Frost can already be made into ammunition at the cost of a level higher, I'd say it's okay. It wouldn't apply to things like Tanglefoot Bags, since they don't deal damage.

I'd look at the rules for Ammunition from Adventurer's Vault II.

Smeelbo

 

[Niflheim]

If you're giving it to monsters just make sure to note that extra ability when you are balancing encounters. If you are allowing PCs to have this ability.. Well, personally, if a PC want to burn gold to do a fairly underwhelming attack, I say sure.

 

[Saeviomagy]

With sling/xbow ammunition versions of the alchemical weapons, you can already sneak attack. The non-ammo versios are even worse, so there's no balance problem.

 

[RangerWickett]

Yeah, I really don't know why the designers put in the weapon restrictions with sneak attacks. Like apparently you can't catch someone off guard with a shortbow, but you can with an arbalest. Sure.

Honestly, the feats for sneak attacking with other weapons are weak. In my own game, I let sneak attack work with any one-handed weapon (including thrown weapons) or ranged weapon.