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"I once came across a herd of wild Megaloceros in a trip to the so called "Stolen Lands". Did you know "Ceros" is actually named after them? Such silly things the uneducated do, taking half of a functional word and calling it another word! Sounds like something they'd do in Andoran. Though it does roll off the tounge, I suppose. Perhaps I'll pay them a visit, and correct them of their mistake." - Relwin Aelannir, Naturalist and Explorer

The alchemist is an interesting class. Let me put on my ear protection. If you were confused about how alchemy works when you first read it, say "AYE."

Research staggers under the sonic boom

That's what I thought.

The main thing to learn about the alchemist is the following:

FACT 1: YOU ARE NOT A CASTER.

Repeat that to yourself 15 times. And again 15 more. Now on to fact 2.

FACT 2: YOU ARE NOT A FIGHTER

Second verse, same action as the first.

FACT 3: YOU ARE A ROGUE WITH SEVERAL GIMMICKS

Now that that's out of the way, we can move on.



The naturalist build requires a great deal of complex thought and a great deal of GM patience. If you or your GM is a mindless hack and slasher, this is not a build you want to play. If you expect to have the "Expend X spells to solve this problem" gameplay of the sorcerer and wizard, look elsewhere. The alchemist is a skill monkey with some fringe tricks, and he must be played that way in a naturalist build. This is only a good society build if you are confident that the GM of your games is capable of comprehending and putting up with what many will consider "Rules lawyering" and "breaking the game". Which is not true, but most people I've met call me a Rules Lawyer.

There are a lot of GMs that freak out when a plan comes together. Builds like Bigg Grimm are around for those GMs. They're so simple your GM has no place to get confused at, and if they deny it they're being a jerk. Then there are classes like the alchemist with builds like the naturalist. The naturalist pulls from several small side peices to form one ridiculous rube goldberg machine of patient, well thought out destruction.

IF you enjoy spending 15 minutes at a table solving encounters before rolling initiative, you will enjoy the naturalist. If you've ever just completely bypassed an encounter because you don't have the tools to take it on, the naturalist is for you. If you are a member of a party that believes in preparation of the field and careful planning and teamwork, the naturalist is something you will enjoy.

Here is the one massive secret to the Alchemist:

Stacking. Static. Modifiers.

Simple as that. You want to stack as many freaking modifiers as you can onto an enemy. You will need to have ample handwave time to craft your own goods. Your Craft (Alchemy) stat is half your character and you should abuse it. Get the elven book and make sure you use the alchemical arrows and even get enchanted versions if appropriate. People speak of the "Fighter's Golf Bag". Your golf bag is far more complex and utility oriented, and half of your gameplay is finding ways to BATMAN yourself out of a situation, because dear god you are not superman (The Magus) and you cannot act like it.

The build:
http://www.dndsheets.net/view.php?id=11984

Race: Elf (Alchemical archery is massive awesome)
Alternate Racial Trait: Woodcraft (APG Elven alternate racial feature)

Traits:
Highlander (Stealth Class Skill)
Devotee of the Green (Knowledge(Geography) as a class skill)

Feats:

1 - Additional traits:
-Rough and Ready (Silly Weapon Proficiency - Tools of trade)
-Accelerated Drinker (I would totally allow this to work in my game, even though SKR said "No." Then again it's very hard to break a game with a decent DM.)

A1 - Throw Anything, Brew Potion

3 - Deadly Aim (I'm an archer!)

5 - Master Alchemist (MOAR POTIONS, FASTER, CHEAPER!)

7 - Splash Weapon Mastery (Because seriously Will, stop complaining about being on fire. Think how much harder it is for ninjas to catch you now.)

Discoveries:

2 - Infusion (Team game, people. Don't be the selfish ass at the table. You know who I'm talking about.)
4 - Concentrate Poison (I love this discovery so much. It fixes poisons.)
6 - Precise Bombs (Will, it's just a little acid. BAH! FINE!)

Ok. The boring part out of the way. More to come soon.

I was about to say this my favorite so far. . . But come to think of it, I'm thinking it's a tie with Big Grimm.


Oh yeah, time for a show down!!!

The character sheet does not have the Trait "Accelerated Drinker" listed. Was this an oversight or was the build changed?

I really like this build. It seems very versatile and full of fun potential. One of your best yet.
Keep up the good work, gentlemen.

Must not have saved my last update. Thanks for catching that. Let me know if it hasn't updated now.

Also, I'm sorry about the post delay. Might not get it up until the weekend. I have an 8-5 now and while I love what I do I am exhausted at the end of the day.

Oddly enough I was worried Bigg Grimm was a bit too mundane. He hit stuff REEL GUD. For some reason people have taken to him though. A great example of flavor overcoming bland character mechanics.

I've been reading the entry for the Alchemist very carefully and it seems pretty clear to me that the extracts should be treated, for all intents and purposes, as potions. The term 'potion-like' is used often as well as the phrase 'An extract is "cast" by drinking it, as if imbibing a potion'

So my question is, has SKR provided any other explanation as to why the "Accelerated Drinker" trait does not allow Alchemists to drink an extract as a Move action other than his "No"?

It seems pretty clear to me that extracts are to be treated as potions. I understand that the 'Accelerated Drinker' trait makes it very powerful, and my guess is that SKR is attempting to curb some power-creep on the part of Alchemist players but I need a much more detailed answer than "No" if there is one.

The more I think about this character, I really like it ... however the name it giving me problems. How did you come to the name "Naturalist"? It doesn't seem to fit, IMO. Bizarre extracts and bombs seem far from natural. However, I can't come up with anything better ... Elixir Mixer? No ... perhaps not.

FYI: One of my PFS Judges (Pirate Robert) pointed out to me last night that all of the alchemical ammunition in the Elves of Golarion
is not Society legal ('cept clustershot, healer’s sorrow, and sparkfly crystal arrow weapon qualities).
Hmmm, we missed this one too R!

Here's the electronic version of Chap. 13:
http://paizo.com/pathfinderSociety/resources

You're not getting an argument here.



A naturalist is someone who studies nature. I was going for a sort of English Empire era feel, where naturalists also tended to be chemists and scholars in general, as there was much less specialization among the fields of learning as recently as 200 years ago, and far less specialization before that.

Oh, I get it. You pictured him more as a scholar. I pictured him as a potion-swilling, arrow-shooting mad-man, of sorts. I blame the picture in the APG, the dude looks certifiably insane. But your interpretation works well too.

So, let me ask you this: Playing this class, I would be prone to gather everything I could find in order to try to create new concoctions. It would be akin to all the resource gathering in MMO's these days. I'd collect phials of monster blood (preferably after they are dead), moss scrapings of the walls of dungeons, mushrooms from the darklands, etc. As a GM, how would this be handled? Inventory management alone could be a headache and what would be a good resource for recipes for material like this? (i.e. what sourcebooks) In other words, what do you do with players who want to become the "Mad Chemist"?

Interesting that it came off differently to you. That's actually good. It's the mark of a flexible build that can be repurposed for several different character concepts.

On the hippie alchemy note:

There are two schools of thought I am familiar with. Both are good. One is insane and requires a lot of GM-Player mutual trust, the other is less insane but more reliable, and the GM and the player do a lot of bookkeeping.

First, the bookkeeping one.

Metamagic components were a good rule in 3.5. Work with your GM on consumable things you collect and if you can use them to empower elixirs and potions or turn them into interesting concoctions or whatnot. You'll need to track them. Bookkeeping.


Second, something I termed "Old magic"

This is one that is incredibly fun but requires a gm who can think on their feet and knows the game well enough to do "Interesting and cool but not overpowered" on the fly. I was a player in a game recently where we played a minicampaign (3-4 sessions long) where the characters all started out as level 0 commoners with 4 base HP modified by constitution. The players had the following stat array. 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8 and you got stat bumps based on decisions you made. You gained class features as you made interesting and key decisions.

Anyway, no one really ever got spellcasting. I developed a style of "Ritual casting" as we went through a "spooky forest" and it started to do magic at me. So I decided to do magic back.

I gathered random components and started throwing down crazy, long winded descriptions of things I would do in combat and then I'd look at my GM and say "What happens?"

And my GM, being awesome (Seriously, big props to Lance for keeping up with me) would make up random spell effects on the fly and I'd record them in a notebook like an actual spellbook. It was easily the most entertaining magic system I'd ever used in D&D, and I was doing stuff on the level of mirage arcana at level 2. We'd roll a UMD check each time I tried and depending on the roll I got the spell would either work or be terrible.

Anyway, those are both some options. Really, I would highly recommend that this be something you and your GM work out as it is exactly what house rules are for. It's an addition to the game that isn't covered in the base rules. It adds to the gameplay and it's completely untested. Just wing it and have fun.

Argh. That's too bad. Maybe we'll get them in an Ultimate Trickery book at some point.

Thanks for the kind words! The naturalist was one of my favorites so far.