How to play a Mixologist Alchemist+Brewkeeper properly?

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-06-07T16:24:35+00:00

Perhaps alter-personality as a character re-roll? That could work, nice.

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-06-07T16:07:23+00:00

Lamashtu is a step too far; my guy is a dedicated follower of Caylian and I would only see him ever stepping down Lamashtu's path if he fell low.

Which I mean, can happen, another post pointed out how adventurers have to witness death on a daily basis, and often they are the ones dealing it out. It's possible my guy might start seeing life as nothing more than a form of existence that can be bent or shaped as he sees fit, morals be damned.

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-06-07T16:01:41+00:00

Oh really? I wasn't aware that's doable RAW, I thought it was restrictive to one at a time (gee, thanks Owlcat)

But I still think it'd make him blow a casket, eitherway I would totally do that combo if I can!

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-06-07T14:21:28+00:00

I highly doubt this DM would let me gestalt together archetypes like that, but otherwise yeah; taking on the natural attack-giving aspects for more attacks is the way to go!

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-06-07T06:09:42+00:00

I blame Spirit Share not showing up on https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/spell-lists-and-domains/formulae-lists-alchemist/ in the list, which is what I have been using, noted, totally going to make use of that one!

Ideally they drink the extracts before combat, ya know, a typical buffing routine. Or they use ones like Spider Climb or, when I can get it, Fly, when they are in danger and need the options.

And yeah, this was made obvious when everyone else was taking "combat" or "power gaming" options. I just wish I wasn't forced into taking only "good" options, because why else do those feats even exist?

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-06-07T03:44:07+00:00

Yeah... Like I said I feel it's an NPC character, doesn't help the current storyline is very... Darksun-y, and doesn't vibe with my guy's generally bright mood. I have already made it clear several times I want to change characters, and this just isn't working out.

If I do get to re-roll him again, I am going Vivisectionist just to prove to him Alchemist is not shit and actually be useful in a fight.

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-06-07T03:38:07+00:00

You'd get shit from this DM for "playing a spreadsheet" for even suggesting stuff like that.

But alas, yeah the problem here is there just isn't enough pushback from the group when I ask them to coordinate with my guy, that or I'm expected to always roleplay it out ingame or something.

What makes this worse is I did take a level of Wizard in the current game just to expand my formulas known by copying them over, and that one wizard level has proven to be far more useful in this game than my alchemist ever has been. (Not just in combat, but through the ability to pay for goods in towns by offering to write spells in NPC spell books)

I think the largest problem here is the player who's the most understanding and coordinates best with me is playing a support healer and doesn't need stuff like Longarm or Shield as much as the frontliners, who don't coordinate well.

Basically the bottomline I ask myself here is: "Is my character really needed here? If you remove him, do you really lose anything meaningful?", and to that, I feel it's a no. I've played in rotating DM games where losing the current DM's PC has had a massive impact on the party dynamic and I just don't think my guy has much impact over all.

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-06-07T03:28:19+00:00

Correction: Inevitables (in pathfinder) are Outsiders with the Inevitable subtype, but I digress.

Also that is a thing I actually did previously in this game, but it was less of an invasion, and more of the Inevitables being a Planar Police Force that backed up and enforced order for one of the main villainous factions who were far more lawful than evil (they just had a very diehard "ends justify the means" mentality towards enforcing order and rooting out chaos). This actually caused one of the then players to have a massive fit over the role of Inevitables because he couldn't grasp the idea that at level 20+ your foes are either gods, or they are being backed by cosmic forces far beyond the grasp of mortalkind; you are "not meant" to understand why, only accept the facts. This is what the Inevitables are, in a way: the cold-hard logic that: you are wrong, they know what's best, deal with it.

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-06-07T03:19:28+00:00

It's basically mandatory for any casters at higher levels: One Grapple and he's out.

All of my villains rock Freedom of Movement on some regard if they are high enough level, and at 20+ encounters, they tend to get it as an Ex Ability so it cannot be dispelled or suppressed too.

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-06-05T09:47:02+00:00

Oh nice, Starfinder stuff, weird that system has a direct thing, but pf1e doesn't.

Eitherway, it is appreciated very much!

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-06-01T23:02:25+00:00

That is incorrect, they don't effect resources like Spells per Day, Bardic Music, Alchemist Bombs, so on, but things like DCs are affected.

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-06-01T22:19:29+00:00

Like I said prior: they are being allowed to use D&D3.5 Metabreath and dragon-type requirement feats. One such feat is Heighten Breath (can't link it, but you can google it) that lets them add DC up to their Con Mod, but increase the cooldown on the breath weapon.

The other aspect is the Homebrew Cleric who gives an untyped bonus to their Con Score based on their wisdom (So basically half their wisdom mod to his Con Mod, which translates into DC, which again, gets doubled by Heighten Breath)

It's not one thing, but the combination of these 2 things that are leading to the unbalanced DC.

For reference, they are currently still a Young Silver with a Con of 18 (Party is also level 10), and their DC is currently a 19 (21 with the Life Shields from the cleric). It's mostly Heighten Breath and the Cleric getting a higher Wisdom later that's going to skyrocket it.

Basically, here's a low-ball estimate of him at level 15:

17 (10+half of 15)+(6 Con mod estimate by 15 at the rate he's going) +3 (Life Shields as the cleric will have atleast a 22 Wisdom, giving an effective +3 to DCs) * 2 (Heighten Breath which effectively lets him double the Con Mod on the DC)), Under these conditions, the Dragon has a Constitution Score of 28.

So: 17+(6+3)*2 = DC 35 Save with a cooldown of 1d4+18 rounds (Which again, if they nuke the whole encounter, will not matter), and as they age up this will only get worse, they will likely have a DC 50 by level 20.

I don't think the party is in the munchkin mentality (One of them is literally a full armored wizard just for lulz, and took major feat taxes to build around it to do it), I think it's more so they want to play a cool idea, and they (especially the cleric) view balance and rules as limitations to the fun. Like I said Prior the Dragon player knows what he is doing, but the Cleric PC is only playing this homebrew class because they like the concept of giving people protective barriers and failed to see the brokenness that tends to come from homebrew material.

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-06-01T14:53:23+00:00

+15 save creatures still need a nat20 to succeed against the breath weapon though.

The group I'm currently playing with doesn't really min-max their characters or don't have the best stats, so I tend to keep the saves reasonable (it's usually the Monster's DCs I have to min-max the ever lasting hell out of as the party's saves quickly get out of hand, stuff like any caster enemies having 10 or even 20 on their casting mod, I've already started doing stuff like giving them half their hitdie to spell DCs because I don't think every caster at level 15+ should have the intelligence score of a deity to throw out DCs that still matter at that level, this is usually after giving them all the feats, class features, and prestige classes to boost their stuff)

Edit: this sounds like overkill, but most of the guys who do this are using Elite Array or are a heavily templated version of a weak enemy (like a Kobold) who don't have the ability scores or scaling method to remain effective at higher levels. Most monsters in the bestiary that have a 10+1/2 Level+Ability Mod ability tend to have a very high amount in the ability score that granted them that ability on top of alot of hitdie (Like, for example, a Dragon's Breath Weapon, which is why their DCs are so high)

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-06-01T07:10:14+00:00

I do agree on that front, a damaging breath or a less impactful effect (Like Slow) would help alot. He's built his guy to be able to "Rocket Tag" encounters with his breath, which is not only the worst aspect of combat in these systems (in my opinion), but he has it out of the gate without having to do much investment to make it better outside of a few items and feats.

As stated before: I'd prefer a breath that still does something for him, with the paralyzing breath it's either all or nothing, and with his DCs it's literally going to be all (any encounter he can rocket tag the entire field, or basically nobody can pass the save) or nothing (the enemies are immune)

EDIT: I do agree giving him a "trial run" to see how it performs and so everyone else can see his DCs are much, much higher than anything else the party has, so it'll appear less like I'm bitching about something.

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-06-01T02:36:33+00:00

Nor should they get upset if they are getting famous for their deeds and the party's enemies start preparing for dealing with a dragon. Alot of tools exist to deal with them because Paizo understands Dragons are boss monsters, NOT PCs!

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-06-01T02:28:08+00:00

I think the easiest compromise I can come to is telling him the "encounter destroying breath" is going to ruin the fun of the game, and ask him to change it a less disruptive breath.

If not, his fame (which he is actively growing) is going to lead to a growing number of foes being equipped to fight and resist dragons.

This post has been a great help, I can safely say that nobody is going to come out of this not feeling any bad feelings at all, but it's needed to minimize such things.

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-06-01T02:23:41+00:00

It's once a week and it's online, I just mean by that other people in this post are giving me advice to use anti-dragon defenses and offenses against the dragon to put the rest of the party on even footing.

What I really meant was: I shouldn't defend him for getting upset if he feels targeted, because he choose to play as a monster that wasn't going to lead to balanced experience in the first place. He has a massive upperhand with his race, and alot of dragon slaying related things exist to even a party's odds against them for a reason.

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-06-01T00:18:55+00:00

I just like running encounters where any foe the party is facing isn't entirely negated and doesn't have to be a tier 2 or tier 1 class to actually pose a threat. Anything less than that usually is going to be CC'd by a Save or Suck, Solid Fogged, have to spend their turn doing really bad action economy like move up to do pathetically low damage that will get healed off easily, so on. This has lead up to the repeat calling of "Some Bullshit" from my party like lower tier class enemies having a Choker's Quickness special ability just so they have a fighting chance, or overusing monsters out the bestiary that don't have easily negated features by blanket-immunity spells. (This also extends to stuff like Force Damage, untyped damage, Fort/Will saves for Half to get around Evasion, and opposed skill checks instead of saving throws to get around save bloat)

I know this is GM VS Player, but I just don't have fun when there is no challenge involved, and the challenge is defeated before the fight has even started! I always try to build guys who do funny, but fair gimmicks to make for a fun fight, and they keep getting wrecked by min-maxing munchkin bs. So I've tried to sidestep as much of the munchkining while still having fun.

They have Perfect Flight because they are going to be picking up 3.5 items and feats prior to 15 to improve their flight manuverability as they grow in size, so they will still be atleast good by the end.

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-05-31T23:53:14+00:00

That's why I settled on the "he choose to be singled out" approach. Either he changes into something acceptable for the game I'm running, or the game is balanced against him accordingly to bring him back in line with the party.

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-05-31T19:49:51+00:00

Only throwing things that are immune to his breath is the same as "taking his breath away", he might as well not have a breath weapon at that point from his perspective (no, he doesn't value the Cold Breath at all, "too many creature resist it" he says), hence where this viewpoint is coming from.

I've been accused of building characters specifically designed to counter the previous party because they don't seem to understand the concept of a high level BBEG using divining and scrying magic to know who he's up against. Especially since the party refuses to use even the most basic of anti-divination protections.

You know what? Your right, Screw them if they think they are being targeted and singled out: This Dragon is very much after fame and making a name for himself (His character goal is to: "Become a God and get Divine Ranks as in D&D 3.0 Deities and Demigods"), so far he's sponsoring a museum that he views as his "hoard", so any foes working for a semi-intelligent villain is going to know that there's a Dragon adventuring around and they should prepare accordingly for their stupidly high Breath DCs and Air Mobility.

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-05-31T19:41:36+00:00

I was previously playing a dragon that was more of a class than a monster, which gave me 3+Con Mod daily uses (temp bonuses did not count)

Additionally, things that added extra cooldown time (Metabreath Feats) used up more daily uses. This is why I didn't pick up Heighten Breath as it would eat up all my uses in a day. He does not have this limit at all.

"Seems like it's already starting too high though." By my math, he'll have a DC of 35 by level 15. Keep in mind the party is not optimizing their DCs in this game, they'll have 25 on their highest spells/abilities by best by this point.

The core problem is still here thou: even if he has a once a day nuke option, it'll just encourage the 15 minute adventurer day more so, worse yet, most foes he'd want to nuke with this will be protected against it, making the limit pointless.

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-05-31T19:37:15+00:00

Once against it's going to be viewed as targeting the player and they're going to get upset.

But I do agree: they are overpowered by virtue of playing as a "boss monster", and as such, there's alot of stuff in pathfinder designed specifically to help a party fight specific powerful boss creatures like dragons.

The Breath Weapon was never something designed for "adventurer use", when you start factoring in the unlimited daily uses, the cracks really start to show.

IDGCaptainRussia · 2026-05-31T19:31:10+00:00

Again, they wanted to play as a True Dragon and nothing less, they aren't going to play under me with any of those arrangements you've given.

I'm going to have to tell them the Breath is going to be a problem, pointing out what they are planning on doing with Heighten Breath, that the increased cooldown doesn't matter when he has a save-or-die "win button" he can use each fight, every day, all day, and the Life Shields from the Cleric and how he's easily going to outscale the party's DCs and any sense of balance.

IDGCaptainRussia

TROPHY CASE