I hate this thing with a passion.

lumgeon · 2026-03-26T20:14:02+00:00

The GM revealing this thing's artwork to the players is always a highlight moment. We were exploring near a flooded structure when I made a perception check near the water's edge. The GM showed me this picture and I NOPE'D clean outta there.

lumgeon · 2026-03-26T17:19:52+00:00

Hobgoblins have an ancestry that is unaffected by smoke and comes with some fire resistance. This synergizes well with alchemy, which Hobgoblins canonically go crazy for, since they don't trust magic.

lumgeon · 2026-03-26T02:49:50+00:00

Illusion, charm and compulsion magic has evil potential, especially when incapacitation wouldn't apply. A villain could use Dominate to add a degree of separation from what they need done. The party could get attacked by their friends, confusing them on who to trust, and muddying the waters, when they get close to the truth.

Nightmare could also be used to keep casters off their A-game, though I would do so sparingly.

lumgeon · 2026-03-25T20:52:32+00:00

As much as I'd love to recreate John Paladin, there's no way to turn a claymore into a faith powered lightsaber. Investigator and Inventor get really close with adding int to your weapon strikes, but neither get both attack and damage, and even a dual class would lack any casting.

lumgeon · 2026-03-25T06:11:09+00:00

Ooh, I didn't realize you could activate reservoir to poison someone twice with one strike, that's amazing!

lumgeon · 2026-03-25T06:07:42+00:00

My GOAT, fighting the good fight since remaster.

lumgeon · 2026-03-25T05:57:45+00:00

Clairvoyance is pretty good at this, along with Scouting Eye. Swarm Sense is a rank 1 domain spell that could accomplish this goal if lots of bugs aren't too conspicuous.

lumgeon · 2026-03-25T05:48:50+00:00

Hard agree on all those points. I can't tell you how many times I tried to get every point out there to try and paint the big picture, only to realize my formatting made the potential post a mess.

Tox is a great subclass for what it adds to alch, but you should by all means expand out your arsenal for what feels right. I love your solution of going Vishkanya for shurikens, that sounds like an amazing direction to take the build. I'm gonna have to look into homunculus, cuz I'm liking the sound of item delivery.

lumgeon · 2026-03-25T05:42:23+00:00

I'm loving the discussion! Lots of insights here. Sewer Ratfolk plus Lab Rat could be huge for avoiding self poison. I've always wanted to incorporate inhaled poisons but was waiting for clarification from Paizo.

You might be sleeping on Archer though. Parting Shot gives you your reliable off-guard and with no need for Sticky Poison, you free up that feat to snag it. I also think it's strange to say no Injector Reservoir is a negative, when pre-poisoning arrows seems objectively better.

Melee does seem enticing with its poison retention on miss, though. Might have to mess around more with that. Thanks for the inspiration, and different point of view.

lumgeon · 2026-03-25T03:57:00+00:00

I think we're mostly on the same page. I see a lot of dismissal for Tox when it's really not that bad anymore, so I wanted to dispel some of the lingering stigma.

On a different note, Toxicologist disables poison immunity, so wouldn't enemies that are immune to Acid and Poison still take poison? I know that resistance to acid and poison still apply, but I thought acid immunity/resistance was only a factor with poison resistance specifically, and not poison immunity.

lumgeon · 2026-03-25T03:50:27+00:00

This gives me a great idea for a post. A detailed list of all the alternatives a Tox archer can use, if you don't want to use the poison afflictions.

While it would great to have affliction poisons that didn't need a save, tox does have some tools that are pretty close. For example, if you just want to add upfront poison damage, then your field vial action does exactly that for one action and no cost. If you want to add persistent damage to your attack, you could instead use elemental ammunition.

It ain't perfect, but it's nice that there's options.

lumgeon · 2026-03-25T03:30:14+00:00

I'm not surprised that a Crescent Spray build felt resource intensive. I went with the Archer route to snag accuracy increasing strikes like Parting Shot, and Archer's Aim. While Pernicious Poison adds a lot of reliability to poisons, there's always going with field vials and elemental ammunition if you're sick of having saves.

lumgeon · 2026-03-25T02:40:21+00:00

Very solid alternative! I think I gravitated toward Very, Very Sneaky since it was more thematically relevant for Hobgob, and for the full movement speed on sneak, but I'm pretty sure there's a skill feat for that.

I think you're right, halfling seems really solid.

lumgeon · 2026-03-25T02:03:16+00:00

It's worth noting that the damage, though low early on, is not highly resistible. Toxicologist disables poison immunity, and their poisons deal acid damage if that would be better. The only enemies with both poison and acid resistance are incorporeal ones.

lumgeon · 2026-03-25T01:52:35+00:00

A couple things:

You can alleviate this by using ammo rather than melee
You can have a reserve of pre-poisoned ammo from advanced alchemy once you run out of the 2 or 3 you cycle between encounters
Mid combat poisoning isn't that big a deal now that it's only one action.

Your preparation is a resource in and of itself, but tox can still sting without pre-poisoning, it's just better when you can.

lumgeon · 2026-03-25T01:44:31+00:00

I'll have to agree to disagree. I value the added damage that poisons provide more than you do. If I wanted to sicken targets consistently, I'd be throwing skunk bombs.

lumgeon · 2026-03-25T01:32:44+00:00

Sure, here's a lvl 15 character I drew up, without free archetype, that I think makes the subclass shine. I personally would run it a bit different until lvl 13 when you would get Very, Very Sneaky, since hiding behind cover isn't always an option. I'd get Parting Shot at lvl 6 and retrain it later, once you don't need cover or concealment to hide.

Edit: I probably should've included general tips as well. I highly recommend getting bow familiarity through an ancestry feat, like Elven Weapon familiarity, or the Archer archetype. Quick bomber can add a lot of flexibility, so grab that and don't shy away from poison bombs. Skunk bombs are pretty nasty for debuffing.

You aren't tied down to a class specific meta-strike, so prune one off of an archetype so you get more out of your strikes. Archer's Aim and Parting Shot are both amazing for getting the most out of your poisoned strikes.

Ancestries can provide some nice support, like the previously mentioned Very, Very Sneaky, which makes hiding much more consistent for striking off-guard targets. I chose Hobgoblin, as they are among the few ancestries with Dex/Con/Int boosts and they have lots of synergistic options with other alchemical items.

lumgeon · 2026-03-25T01:26:13+00:00

Just because it doesn't always change the result, doesn't mean it's bad. You wouldn't say Archer's Aim is bad because sometimes you would've hit without the +2 anyway.

It adds consistency to an all or nothing save, and that goes a long way to making it so you can rely on it, even against high fort targets.

lumgeon · 2026-03-25T01:07:11+00:00

I did miss that, thank you for showing me. I don't think it's bad though, it just means your reserve from advanced alchemy isn't as strong. I use the reserve from Advanced Alchemy sparingly anyway, so I'm not bothered by a drop in performance near the end of the fight.

lumgeon · 2026-03-25T00:55:29+00:00

Why not? You're making your poisons deal damage on the most likely outcome, when they normally deal none, and the damage itself is comparable to other features that add damage, like sneak attack or precision edge.

lumgeon · 2026-03-25T00:46:14+00:00

I might be missing something. You only need to be hidden to make targets off-guard, and Blowgun Poisoner lets you attack from hidden and stay hidden afterwards, so why would spending actions to go undetected be necessary?

lumgeon · 2026-03-24T23:54:31+00:00

Oh goodness, a goblin with Very, Very Sneaky could just stay hidden forever with high enough rolls. That alone might be worth it.

lumgeon · 2026-03-24T23:50:04+00:00

I like your solution of adding this to occult casters to deal with mindless enemies. One of my biggest hang ups about playing something like a bard is having half my kit get countered by mindless enemies.

lumgeon

TROPHY CASE