I received a request for a sneak peek of one of the 30 feats from Advanced Feats: Secrets of the Alchemist, and I’m more than happy to oblige with Sundering Bomb.
Sundering Bomb
You can use bombs to destroy your opponent’s equipment.
Prerequisite: Bomb class feature, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot.
Benefit: You can use one of your bombs to make a ranged sunder attempt. Your opponent takes only the splash damage from the bomb.
Normal: Sunder can only be performed with a melee attack.
Commentary—The inspiration for this feat was simply the notion that bombs could be used to blow up things as well as foes, and the game rules don’t really support that unless the item is unattended. It’s great for softening up opponents before they hunt you down or for disabling rival ranged weapon users. If you are using mutagens for close combat, this could be a means of weakening up your target’s offense or defense before charging in for the kill. It is probably best taken at mid level when your bombs have enough oomph to be a real threat to typical equipment.
Advanced Feats: Secrets of the Alchemist contains a mix of feats specific to the alchemist’s abilities, like this one, as well as feats that, while useful for alchemist builds, are applicable to a wide range of characters. Feats like Chug Potion or Fast Item Creation await your mad experimentations in character building.
I picked this up the other day since my GF is playing an alchemist in my new kingmaker campaign. I read through it and I liked a lot of what I saw, though there are a couple places where I don’t think that the rules back up the writer’s thoughts such as his idea of fighting in a poison cloud. The alchemist’s abilities merely prevent the alchemist from accidently poisoning themselves and gives them a save bonus vs other poisons. Dropping a cloud of poison about oneself to fight could hardly be counted as an accident. As for the builds…some interesting ideas there. Though for the Carpet Bomber build, it’s not clear that the fast bombs ability would allow extra bombs because of two weapon fighting (and I would suggest that as a DM, I think allowing it to work that way might be a bit broken.) Craft Wondrous Creature was a great idea. I can’t wait to play with it. All in all I’m glad I picked it up and will allow most of the feats from it. So when are you going to put out books for the other 5 new classes?