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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6933261" data-attributes="member: 6787650">Thanks, Zardnaar. Now I'll do my best to answer Werebat's question...Werebat, the obvious answer to "why play an alchemist?" is "unlimited Wish at 18th level." Unlike the normal Wish, which burns out when used for impressive effects, the Philsopher's Stone takes some time but could eventually grant everyone in your party resistance to every damage type permanently. If you can't think of any good Wishes after that you could just make 25,000 gp every ten days. This is pretty thematic BTW and I kind of like it, but it's definitely quite strong. (By RAW of course a wizard can get exactly the same unlimited Wishes by abusing Simulacrum and Wish, but "abuse" is a key word there. For an alchemist this usage is clearly intended, not abusive.)Incidentally, the Philosopher's Stone totally obsoletes Elixir of Life (available at the same level). Not only is the Philosopher's Stone more potent and versatile, but it can get you the exact same life extension while still being quicker and easier to create!The other potential answer to "why play an alchemist" is "so you can get Cure Wounds V and Inflict Wounds V as at-will cantrips at 20th level." But it is so little, so late, and with zero multiclassing allowed there's just not a lot of temptation there.So basically, aside from the Philosopher's Stone, there's zero reason to play an alchemist. Weak spells, no really interesting features. Sure, you can get a flesh golem (greater homonculus) eventually, at the same level where wizards have just acquired a Simulacrum--but if you lose your greater homonculus, it takes 80 days (!) to make a new one, whereas the wizard can just make a fresh Simulacrum in a day. And your greater homonculus isn't much if at all better than the elementals (and potentially fey/fiends) that the wizards/bards/clerics/druids are Planar Binding at the same level, even before you take the greater homonculus's inconvenient berserker rages into account (because Flesh Golem stats) and the fact that it eats your action economy to make it attack/dodge/etc.The Destruction gives you a bunch of spell options which are all right compared to spells (e.g. by 9th level you can be chucking 6d8 Burst Bombs with your 3rd level spell slots, which are almost as damaging as Fireball but has a more versatile damage type: acid/thunder/fire/etc.), but you're only a half-caster so you of course have much fewer spell slots.I think you could potentially have a lot of fun as an alchemist (Warlock 2/Alchemist 18 springs to mind) but from a powergaming perspective it isn't really an attractive option except as a way of <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CherryTapping" target="_blank">Cherry Tapping</a> the game. "Yeah, I bested Orcus using a 12th level solo alchemist, a vial of Sovereign Glue, and my knowledge of structural engineering" will gain you a lot more street cred than "I killed Orcus with an Oathbreaker Paladin and a Necromancer's skeleton army plus forty Planar Bound Fire Elementals." <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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