Alchemist impressions, feedback, and suggestions.

[edge2054]

Maybe the golem could drop it's equipped armor and weapon when it dies?

This would make corpse retrieval necessary if you want to save the gear, would severely weaken the golem after it's been resummoned, and increase the cost in gems and time to get your golem back to where you want.

I agree with what you've said on the class not having enough options too Madmonk. I think the Golem is an interesting place to start but honestly once I managed to unlock everything else I found it all pretty meh.

The bombs are pretty boring and the staff channeling is just a rehashed version of the shoot ability. The class needs real combat options and techniques and honestly I think it needs more trees.

Something a long the lines of Full Metal Alchemist would add a lot to the class and for those not familiar with that think of something along the lines of what the Geomancer could do in Tome 2. Basically practical combat alchemy that would let you turn stone into metal, or spikes, or whatever you needed (even a giant fist coming out of the ground to crush your foes).

The trees could even be rebuilt along more elemental lines.

Convert Metal for instance may have the Golem as it's crowning ability and it may require a suit of plate mail to summon.

Convert Flesh may allow the Alchemist to turn his foes to jelly or cover his own form in a hardened carapace.

[SerPounce]

Maybe the golem could drop it's equipped armor and weapon when it dies?

This would make corpse retrieval necessary if you want to save the gear, would severely weaken the golem after it's been resummoned, and increase the cost in gems and time to get your golem back to where you want.

Ah, I like that! Good idea.

I agree with what you've said on the class not having enough options too Madmonk. I think the Golem is an interesting place to start but honestly once I managed to unlock everything else I found it all pretty meh.


The bombs are pretty boring and the staff channeling is just a rehashed version of the shoot ability. The class needs real combat options and techniques and honestly I think it needs more trees.

Well the staffs do elemental damage so there's that choice, and there's some melee vs. ranged options if you use the stunning ability (my alchemist never got that), but I agree that just choosing an element for staff and bombs isn't the most inspired options array in ToME 4.

Something a long the lines of Full Metal Alchemist would add a lot to the class and for those not familiar with that think of something along the lines of what the Geomancer could do in Tome 2. Basically practical combat alchemy that would let you turn stone into metal, or spikes, or whatever you needed (even a giant fist coming out of the ground to crush your foes).

The trees could even be rebuilt along more elemental lines.

Convert Metal for instance may have the Golem as it's crowning ability and it may require a suit of plate mail to summon.

Convert Flesh may allow the Alchemist to turn his foes to jelly or cover his own form in a hardened carapace.

I haven't seen Full Metal Alchemist (recommended?), so I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about, but it sounds interesting.

[edge2054]

If you like Anime FMA has it's moments. It deals with a lot of adult themes but on the other hand comes off like a kids cartoon at other points. The concept is really cool though and the setting is well put together along with the overall story arch.

But yeah, the basic idea is really similar to the geomancy abilities in Tome 2, just without being confined to the four core elements. The story follows two brothers that lose their mother and father and attempt to use Alchemy to bring the mother back to life, basically by building a golem for her out of flesh and binding her spirit to it. The attempt almost costs both the brothers their lives, one ending up in a suit of armor (literally he's an animated suit of armor because his body was destroyed and the other brother acted quickly enough that his spirit didn't pass on) and the other losing an arm and a leg (that are replaced with a sort of bionic/magical prosthetic).

I guess the cartoon is all based off a Manga series but I haven't checked that out.

Anyway, the premise is that alchemists are can transmute just about anything into anything, which would be a pretty great class concept and opens up a lot of possible tree ideas and various ways to structure them. Assuming of course DG takes another look at the Alchemist class and agrees with our opinions that it's current form isn't as fun as it could be.

[Gwai]

I will have to join those who say that they'd like to see the alchemist class be less about the golem. It's not that the golem stuff isn't quite neat, it's that it feels too much like a somewhat cheesy summoning class right now.

[darkgod]

I hear ya
Go on spit out the talent ideas

[Gwai]

My apologies if any of these are somewhere in the alchemist class and I missed them, but here are my thoughts:
One thing alchemists are famous for, as we all know, is their ability to change metals. So, I propose a school Metallurgy.
-Transmute
Improves the metal of a weapon. Some gems in some amount could be used to turn an iron sword into a steel one. That wouldn't have to be too hard, but turning steel into dwarven-steel should be harder, etc. Perhaps as the skill level was increased, the odds of successfully upgrading a metal would increase.
-This might also be a good place to put the gemology talent of improving body armor, though if so, something else would have to replace it.
-Destroy Opponent Armor
Lowers defense of opponent as their armor starts to melt around them. Perhaps at higher levels does damage to target also or has chance of stunning
-Convert into gold.
Should convert a metal item into gold, but never more than its selling price if it were iron. At the beginning this should be barely worth doing. Skill points improve the timeout and the amount of gold, but still maxing out at the price of iron so as not to ruin the economy

I have other ideas for a solution set of talents/skills too, but I don't know if these are worth writing down and have to stop reading this forum for now anyway.

[edge2054]

Fire Alchemy(Class Talent)
- Fire Bomb: Transmutes an alchemist gem into an explosive fire bomb that is immediately thrown. Upon impact creatures in the area suffer X fire damage for X turns. Range increases with Dex and damage increases with Magic..
- Smoke Bomb: Transmutes an alchemist gem into a smoke bomb that is immediately thrown. Upon impact the gem fills the effected area with a thick cloud of smoke, obscuring vision and choking creatures in the area for X turns. (Vision obscurement should block los basically so the ai will move out of the cloud).
- Heat Metal: Heats Metal objects in a radius around the caster, lowering their AP or Defense by X for X turns. Creatures wearing effected equipment take X fire damage per turn for the duration of the effect.
- Magma Pool: Transmutes a cone of ground in front of you into magma for X turns. Creatures caught in the area suffer X damage per turn and move at half speed.

[edge2054]

Stone Alchemy (Generic Talent)
- Extract Gems: Suggest combining Extract Gems with Create Alchemist Gems. Different effects based on what you target. This would allow non-alchemists to dabble in generic alchemy talents such as this suggested tree
- Flash Bang: Transmutes an alchemist gem into a flash bang grenade that must be thrown immediately. Upon impact creatures in the area of effect are blinded and stunned for X turns.
- Gem Portal
- Stone Touch

[darkgod]

I am making a cross between your ideas and CheapiePie ones, alchemists will get:
* Fire Alchemy (new talents: Heat, Smoke Bomb, Body of Fire, Magma Pool)
* Stone Alchemy (renamed/changed Gemology)
* Explosive Admixtures
* Infusions
* Golem
* Advanced Golem
* Staff Combat

I'd like an other Foo Alchemsy line, maybe Water Alchemy ?

[madmonk]

Vapours!

Fog... (Lvl 1 = 1 Square, Lvl 5 has a radius) - LOS Blocker
Boil... Bolt causes damage
Pyroclastic Flow... LOS Blocker + damage - treat it as a beam perhaps.
Corrosive Vapour (as mage spell)

[Taxorgian]

Water Alchemy?

- Steam Mirage -- Increases physical and ranged defense by making your position difficult to find by sight. Monsters which do not see or which use scent rather than sight are unaffected

- Viscous Pool -- Reduces speed by making the ground sticky in a region

- Water Hammer -- Does impact damage on a corporeal target with knockback chance at high levels

- Pylgon's Portable Whirlpool -- Causes the ground at the feet of an enemy to transmute into a local whirlpool causing the enemy to be pinned for X turns

When worn, the Ring of Ulmo gives a +2 level bonus to each of these (?)

[madmonk]

When worn, the Ring of Ulmo gives a +2 level bonus to each of these (?)

Don't do that one, it makes the Ring a must have Alchemists. Given its costs and the fact that it is an artifact I reckon it would not be fair.

[Taxorgian]

Don't do that one, it makes the Ring a must have Alchemists. Given its costs and the fact that it is an artifact I reckon it would not be fair.

This is totally unlike Elemental Fury for an alchemist as it stands now? The Water school may be too powerful as I wrote it, or the bonus too high, but I think it's a feature that getting a thematic artifact might change your allocations of talent points. It makes a lot of sense to me that you design your play around what you find (or perhaps, at late stages, buy, but if alchemists remain unable to reach Angolwen, they generally will never see it in a shop) as opposed to playing the same way every time.

(The exception that proves the rule is a fighter which specializes in long swords since it's always possible to get the unique long sword.)

[edge2054]

Here's some water/acid/cold ideas in no particular order.

- Chains of Ice: Frost Chain Lightning basically. Line of effect originates at the caster (well at an alchemist stone which is consumed by the process). Freezes those it hits.
- Corrosive Wave: The alchemist transmutes the ground at his feet into a corrosive wave that moves in a single direction. The wave is X squares long and 1 square wide and moves at a rate of 1 square per turn away from it's point of origin for up to X turns. Any creature that comes into contact with the wave suffers X acid damage and an additional X acid damage for 1 turn.
- Tidal Wave: It fits with minor adjustments but see below for a more unique idea.
- Water Bomb: A Tidal Wave you can target away from you would be cool even if it was instant. Maybe a double knockback effect? Use the bomb effect as I outlined in Smoke Bomb.
- Watery Grave: Touch attack that transmutes the air in the targets lungs into a corrosive liquid suffocating it for X rounds and stunning it for X/2 rounds. In addition the target suffers X damage every round. Targets that are immune to suffocation are unaffected by the stunning effect of this spell but still take half damage.

On a separate note, I thought of a spell idea that would fit better with your Cryomancer DG. An AoE spell that only effects frozen targets, does lots of damage or insta-kills, but removes the frozen effect. Frost Shatter.

[CheapyPipe]

I get the feeling from a lot of these ideas that they'd work better thematically for an Elementalist class.

Perhaps the other Foo Alchemy can be Material Alchemy, with talents that apply to items.