Realm of Runes includes a plethora of interesting and useful alchemical items, such as bombs and elixirs. Any character can freely make and use these items, but few will be as effective at it as the alchemists that make these items their primary focus. Masters of science and pseudo-science alike, alchemists use their detailed knowledge of the natural and unnatural world to produce amazing alchemical items incredibly quickly. Alchemists have a daily resource pool called Alchemy Points. They use these points to power their class features, and spend them instead of money or material resources when making items with their unique Advance Alchemy and Quick Alchemy class features.
ALCHEMICAL DISCIPLINES
Alchemists in Realm of Runes choose a discipline to which they dedicate their study of alchemy. These disciplines include Chirurgeons, Grenadiers, Mixologists and Toxicologists. Each discipline provides several class features related to its theme, and many of the alchemist's class feats have extra benefits for alchemists of a particular discipline. Aside from each discipline's signature feat, an alchemist of any discipline can select any class feat, so you're always able to utilize the abilities and tactics of another discipline if you want, even if you might not be quite as effective with it as one that has devoted their study to it.
Chirurgeons are dedicated to healing, and a focused chirurgeon are some of the most potent and prolific healers in Realm of Runes. Their class features can add some healing to every elixir they make, and make them incredibly capable surgeons when using the Medicine skill. Their signature feat, First Do No Harm, allows chirurgeons to always deal subdual damage if they want, allowing them to be excellent at incapacitating foes without killing them, and is a great combo with a feat that lets the alchemist use their knowledge of anatomy to make sneak attacks, which the chirurgeon can trigger whenever they attack non-lethally.
Grenadiers are dedicated to the art of the bomb, and are an incredibly potent force of area-of-effect damage. Their class features make their bombs especially dangerous, and every grenadier knows know to exclude their friends from their splash damage. Want to toss bombs left and right without worrying if your friends are up close and personal with the enemies? The grenadier may be right for you. Their signature feat, Bouncing Bomb, allows grenadiers to bounce their bombs off surfaces to target enemies behind obstacles and around corners. A grenadier can stand toe-to-toe with the best damage-dealers in the game, but still has access to all of the utility of the alchemist class to stay well-rounded.
Mixologists are dedicated to the art of experimentation and combination. Their class features give them early access to cocktails, custom concoctions that combine multiple elixirs together into one brew that provides all effects at once. This allows mixologists to quickly disseminate many different effects without taking up a lot of action economy to do so. Their signature feat, Empowered Cocktail, makes any cocktail they create more than just the sum of its components, providing additional effects for longer than either elixir could have provided alone. Traveling with a barbarian that likes to burn through its rage at incredible speeds while soaking up all the enemy attacks? A cocktail of activated caffeine and an elixir of life can both heal and overcome the tiredness that comes from dropping out of rage all at once. Other interesting and powerful combinations are ripe for exploitation for the mixologist to mix, match and discover.
Toxicologists are dedicated to the study and use of poison. Their class features allow them to study and replicate poisons they encounter in the field, and even use poison against things that are typically incapable of being poisoned, such as constructs, oozes and undead. This allows toxicologists to develop an incredible diversity in tools, and ensures that they aren't helpless if encountering enemies that would otherwise render their signature tactic useless. Their signature feat, No Relief, makes any poison they create have an unlimited duration. Where most poisons in Realm of Runes will wear off if suffered for long enough, a toxicologist's poison will keep plaguing the target until it succumbs.
VERSATILITY VS LONGEVITY
The core conflict within the alchemist class as a whole is between versatility and longevity. Thanks to their Advance Alchemy and Quick Alchemy class features, alchemists can produce temporary alchemical items on the fly. This allows them to produce specific items much more quickly than could be achieved through the Crafting skill, but these items become inert after a while if not used, so they can't be easily stockpiled like those created the more traditional way.
Advance Alchemy allows an alchemist to produce large quantities of alchemical items that persist until the next day, but has to be done when the character prepares in the morning. You have to try to predict which items you think will be useful throughout the upcoming day, which can be difficult. Quick Alchemy produces a single item at any time, making it useful for overcoming a surprise or making sure you have just the right tool, even in a combat situation, but these items don't last as long before becoming inert. Both Advance Alchemy and Quick Alchemy have the same cost in terms of daily class resources, so striking a balance between versatility and longevity is an informed, if tricky, conundrum.
CANTRIP ALCHEMY
As an class focused on consumable items, the alchemist shares an issue with many spellcasters: their primary class abilities are based around a limited resource that can run out before the party might be ready to stop. Casters get around this problem through cantrips, special spells that are never expended but are overall weaker. Alchemists can improve their longevity with a trio of Cantrip Alchemy feats: Cantrip Bomb, Cantrip Elixir and Cantrip Poison. These cost twice as many resources to prepare as it takes to create a batch of items through Advance Alchemy, but once prepared they allow the alchemist to use Quick Alchemy to create the prepared item for free, all day. Each one of these abilities can be used to prepare twice as many items for an alchemist whose discipline includes that focus, so a grenadier can prepare two different bombs for Cantrip Bomb, a toxicologist can prepare two different poisons for Cantrip Poison, and chirurgeons and mixologists can prepare two different elixirs with Cantrip Elixir, and a mixologist can even combine those two into a cocktail when using this ability. If you're the sort of player that jealously hoards resources in case they might be important later, these feats can help alleviate that mindset and make using your cool items an easy choice.
ALCHEMIST CLASS FEATS
Alchemist class feats are heavily focused on adding new tricks with which to approach the core conflict between versatility and longevity, and with finding new ways to use alchemy that stretch its "intended" use or simply could not be used before. While a great number of these feats are designed to empower Advance Alchemy and Quick Alchemy directly, some also improve the traditional methods of Crafting items, keeping alchemists securely in the position of being the kings of creating and stockpiling useful and permanent items for use in emergencies, or if they run out of their daily ability to produce items on the fly. With so many interesting and useful feats to choose, and the ability to freely dabble in the arenas of others, even alchemists that share a discipline may be very different from each other.
With over a hundred different alchemical items available, alchemists can serve many useful roles within a party, including healers, buffers and debuffers, and primary damage-dealers. Since the feats designed for class disciplines are able to be taken by those of other disciplines, alchemists have a lot of flexibility in how many of these roles they want to fill, and how much they want to focus on them, which can even change on a day-to-day basis. Next time we're going to continue our dive into proficiency by looking at skills, starting with the physical skills!
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