Are Alchemists really the worst class in Pathfinder 2e?

[Music] welcome Adventures today I am beginning a deep dive well actually a really shallow and impressionistic dive into all of the classes in the Pathfinder 2E system starting at the top and where it all began at least for me with The Alchemist [Music] welcome to Rebel then King a new channel dedicated to the Pathfinder second edition system I hope to give you some insights into the mechanics of the game but more importantly talk about how those core mechanics translate into actual gameplay experiences and yes my first gameplay experience was playing as an alchemist little did I know that would turn out to be a controversial and according to some poor decision but before we get into that let's take a look at the core mechanics of the class an alchemist is an intelligence based class it is trained in simple weapons as well as alchemical bombs it has light and medium armor proficiency and eight hit points per level an alchemist is trained in a number of skills equal to three plus its intelligence modifier so you can see it's sort of a medium light Marshall build there are four subclasses which are called research Fields there is the bomber the mutagenist the toxicologist and the chi urgent or is it charging or horizont or Jean I think it's called kyogen that's what research seems to indicate to me is the way we pronounce it in American English so that's what I'm going to say like don't hate me for it thanks so let's start off with the good things about The Alchemist What drew me to the class well first of all it is very flavorful and unique you're not a true martial character dealing strictly physical damage to your enemies but you're also not a Caster because Alchemy is simply not magic in the second edition system your dealing Elemental damage still you're buffing yourself and allies you're debuffing enemies but you're doing so with your smarts [Music] as I started playing The Alchemist one thing that was immediately apparent is how versatile the class is and this is something that most people can't agree on even if they aren't really fans of the class Alchemists work by learning alchemical formulas which they store in their formula book and by using infused reagents which are basically raw ingredients these reagents can be used to create bombs poisons mutagens and elixirs an alchemist can make any item in their formula book using those reagents and they begin with eight formulas at the start of an adventuring day an alchemist can take one batch of infused reagents and turn it into two alchemical items using a feeds called Advanced Alchemy for further flexibility throughout the day they can always use Quick Alchemy which lets you take one infused reagent to make one alchemical item now at first level this is about the same amount of Versatility as you might see with most casters but as you level up that does change you see it is much easier to learn formulas than it is to learn spells and by level three or four you might have 25 to 30 total formulas in your formula book and remember you can craft anything in your formula book at any time so imagine being a sorcer who has 20 can trips at their disposal no Caster is capable of that which arguably makes The Alchemist the most adaptable class in the game [Music] okay so that sounds amazing right so why is The Alchemist so often on the list of worst classes why am I literally the only player in any of my campaigns or even in campaigns that I've listened to to play as an alchemist I think in part because they are complicated they are unique and that is a bad combination although each class in the system is unique there are a lot of shared learnings across other classes for example playing as one Caster prepares you pretty well for playing as another the difference between most martial classes tends to be their kind of one special action like the Barbarian Rage or the inventor's overdrive the difference with Alchemists is everything [Music] I think another issue that people have with the Alchemist is that due to it being intelligence based and having no additional bonuses to attacks or damage you really do need to work harder than other players in order to keep up with damage output in encounters getting the most out of an alchemist is really really tough as you really need to know the system you you need to know how Buffs and debuffs work as well as weaknesses and resistances and all of that you need to know on top of the complicated core Alchemist mechanics as a bomber you'll often be attacking through cover and you won't be able to get into flanking positions so you'll never really get an attack bonus as a toxicologist well in my opinion poisons work a lot better for Monsters than they do for PCs I'll have a video on that later as a mutagenist well almost all of your buffing mutagens come with a pretty severe debuff which sometimes makes them hard to justify using and then finally as the kyogen well you just have no combat bonuses whatsoever and honestly that story did play out for me from time to time I still remember an encounter against a swarm and I thought I'm The Alchemist I know swarms are weak to Splash damage I am going to shine in this encounter and sure I hit it with an alchemical bomb and sure I activated that weakness but I still didn't do all that much damage and then a few turns later the Barbarian went in and despite that swarm being resistant to the barbarian's damage the Barbarian hit so hard I think with a crit probably that the Swarm just disintegrated okay now we're really ragging on Alchemist because Alchemists are tied to alchemical items sort of obviously and thankfully many good ones have been added over the years but a lot of them really aren't that great I spoke earlier about mutagens where the debuffs that come along with a lot of them make them really hard to justify and the bonuses provided by some elixirs are arguably not worth the cost of your precious infused reagents in my campaign my teammates outright refused to take mutagens I prepared for them because the benefits they offered either weren't worth the actions in combat or they weren't worth the penalties or debuffs that they imposed yeah and sort of the last part about the Alchemists that did bum me out and probably bummed me out the most is that an alchemist without reagents and without any alchemical items is basically just reduced to being an NPC you have no bonuses to attack no bonuses to damage you no longer are applying Buffs or debuffs I mean you kind of sit in the back and recall knowledge and make very ineffective melee strikes and let me tell you nothing feels worse than using one of your last few remaining precious items and missing I mean I literally would hold my breath while rolling dice because I was thinking gosh I hope this works because if it doesn't I'm just going to be standing waving a dagger around like an idiot it was tense and stressful and maybe when you're playing a game that's not what you're after [Music] okay wow sorry that got dark I promise it's not all bad news as The Alchemist there are Great Moments to be had I still remember one encounter against a group of lower level enemies seeing that big squishy group Target I decided to throw an alchemist fire into the middle I landed a hit I did damage to that primary target into all Targets around I think it was five or six total creatures then my GM told me by the way they have a weakness to fire so I activated that weakness and every single creature and did about 50 or 60 points of damage in that one strike it felt fantastic thank you another really positive way to look at The Alchemist is to literally quantify how much you're crafting for free every day a level one Alchemist is typically crafting level one items that cost about three gold pieces and that Alchemist is going to make I don't know eight to ten of those a day that's 24 to 30 gold pieces of goods on a daily basis no other class can claim that think of Alchemist as like a little roaming Auto replenishing loot box because that's kind of what they are and it's a fantastic thing to have in your party so in conclusion what do I think of The Alchemist it's fine I'm curious to know what you think uh has anybody else played as an alchemist what was your experience like do you have any recommendations what I play as an alchemist again I think yeah I think it could be fun as a bomber I would say concentrate on debuffs and not on damage output you just won't be able to keep up strictly in damage but if you can let's say flat foot those enemies using a bottle lightning well you are going to buff your party so much and it'll really work out well in the end as a toxicologist I think it would be super fun to make a bunch of poisons buy a bunch of daggers and throwing knives poison them all and just walk into combat with knives daggers stuffed in your boots in your pockets and just start whipping them around the battlefield get that poison damage in early let that persistent damage boil away on the enemies and just watch him drop before you even have to get close as a mutagenist I would definitely pick An ancestry that has a nice unarmed like claws or Jaws attack allowing you to maybe hold two different mutagens as you enter combat and take the most appropriate of the two drop the other and then get to work and then as the kyogen well just lean into healing it's what you do I would recommend a house rule that my party ended up using which is introducing a level three elixir of life that does two D six plus three healing the reason for that is that the elixir of life which is the primary means of healing for an alchemist has a level one version and a level 5 version which means that level three and four you are using your reagents to do a piddly 1d6 of healing so make that level three version that does 2d6 plus three and it'll work out a lot better so that's it let me know what you think in summary is an alchemist a marshall no is it a caster no is it great no is it bad no it's just an alchemist [Music]

Channel: RebelThenKing

Views: 6,973

Keywords: pathfinder, p2e, pathfinder2e, alchemist, classes, dnd, ttrpg

Id: oeDQCPVwpgk

Length: 12min 54sec (774 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 25 2023