Deep Gnome alchemist inquisitor: to PM or not to PM ?

[Syrrah]

Hi everyone

To get an alchemist and deep gnome life out of the way, I'm building an inquisitor. Finally a use for the Storm heavy crossbow I've been saving since forever! In epics I'll either epic-fy Storm or rely on a Thunderforged and later Morninglord's.

I'm stuck with the 1 Iconic wizard level because I'm too cheap to hearth it out for just a past life.

So far I have my mind set up on a 12 alchemist / 2 artificer split:

• Level 12 alchy provides core 3 Vile Chemist for plenty of poison damage, evasion and 1 level 5 spell (greater elemental weapons evidenctly).

• Level 2 arty yields the mucho tasty runewarm use, trapmaking, Rapid Reload for free, 2 Crossbow Training enhancements for extra damage and the Conjury bolts spell. AP is really tight on this build so that saves one AP on conjure bolts in the Inq tree.

• Level 1 wiz leaves me with a free Extent feat, Nightshield spell, Protection From Evil spell and Soundblast spell for breakables.

I'm at a loss about how to split the other 5 levels, in particular whether to level it at 1 wizard level or just go PM. My options are:


Option 1: Alch12 / Art2 / Wiz 6

Level 6 Pale Master mainly serves to give me negative spellpower, which is otherwise pretty difficult to build up in a ranged build. I understand that poison damage scales with negative spellpower.

It also grants Lich (and situationally Wraith) form, negative healing amplification and PRR. And 1 extra feat and some bonus wizard spells. The Inflect critical wounds from alchy can then serve as healing spell.

Note sure if this works: does Unholy Avatar (tier 4) work on "Inflict Weariness" (core 2)? Not terribly important but just a nice bonus.

Inflict Weariness: Your attacks inflict 2-9 (1d8+1) points of Negative Energy damage to a living target. This scales with 100% Spell Power. Your Vorpal Melee Hits cause Energy Drain, inflicting 1 Negative Level on victims.

Unholy Avatar: You are cloaked in the darkness itself, and can reach out with your Negative Energy Spells to taint the Undead with mortality. When you strike an Undead with a damage-dealing Negative Energy Spell, it leaves a lingering weakness to Negative Energy that bypasses an Undead's natural resistance to Negative Energy for 20 seconds. Bug: Negative energy damaging spells that deal damage in this way do not apply on-spell hit effects.

Option 2: Alch 15 / Art 4 / Wiz 1

Level 15 alchy gives 1 other bonus feat and a level 6 spell, for the Heal or Goldskin Potion.
Level 4 arty gives yet another bonus feat and the Lucky Cape spell (saves bonus that is supposed to stack with everything), Infused Weapons (core 2) and 2 more Crossbow Training enhancements.


Option 3: Alch 16 / Art 3 / Wiz 1

Level 16 alchy gives 2 bonus feats and more freedom with my spell selection.
Level 3 arty still gives my Lucky Cape, Infused Weapons and 1 more Crossbow Traning.

Option 3 seems a better option than 2 because the alchy bonus feats are just better than the arty ones. Level 17 alchy gives very little exttra on top of 16 alchy.

What does everyone think: to PM or not to PM? Does negative spellpower really work with poison damage from the VC tree?

[Kodwraith]

The self healing from Alchemist is really good. I found I didn't much need anything else. Wiz3 to turn yourself undead is more or less superfluous. Also you won't have access to Death Aura to make much of a dent. I'd go 1 Wiz/ 17Alch and possibly 2 arti or rogue. 3 bard works too. Obviously not as a deep gnome, but I ran 3 tiefling lives with various remixes of ranger 2 / bard 3 / alch X whatever as an inquisitor. Super crazy easy.

[SocratesBastardSon]

Like a lot of people, I find rune arm with Inq to be very helpful. It adds more slots which I usually filled with rune arms that added to my spell power.

Another option for an Alch/Inq is Paladin (Alch 12/Pal 6/Art 2). Why Paladin? Stacking up light, law and poison damage is great, increased options for special ranged attacks from KotC, survivability, and numerous other enhancements rounds the build out tremendously. I discuss it in more detail in a post I did back when people were kicking around Alch/Inq builds. Having done this build 3 times, I prefer it over 18/2 splits and I may do it again. I say "may" because with the changes introduced in U51 it may behoove you to go for a pure poison specialization using Draconic and Primal. But I haven't studied the problem closely enough to determine if the Light/Law/Poison spread still holds up as well as just Law/Poison.

That said, if I was just doing the heroic/racial TR grind and not bothering with Epic, I would absolutely stick with the Paladin split.

[Syrrah]

Thanks for the replies, but I did meanwhile finished 2 Deep Gnome lives already.

I tried both the Alch 12/wiz 6/arty 2 and the alch 16/wiz 1/arty 3 routes.

Wiz 6 did seem to provide a bit more survivability in Wraith form but the damage increase to poison is marginal. I never missed Death Aura, it wouldn't be necessary even as I relied on the inflict spells from Alchy for healing. Plus the BAB decrease was maddening and pushed back IPS for too long (I like that skill, it's the only group-attack you got basically).

As a matter of fact, the 3rd artificer level alone already yielded more damage than 6 wizard levels. The reason being the enhancements:

Core 2: +1W for your weapon, meaning +1 hit, +1 to damage, +1 to crits. The stable tier of your runearm is increased to 1. Playing with rune-arm on autocharge and the 3 Thaumaturgical Conduits is now highly recommended, because it equals near-permanent +16 USP.

Also, archy 16 is so much better than alchy 12, I'd never go back to alchy 12 anymore. You have an unlimited heal option, the Goldskin potion, more choices in higher level spells and longer buffs (seriously, the short level 12 buffs were annoying me terribly).

I'm very much tempted to try a Alchy/arty/pala split, but like I wrote the whole point of this build was for the Deep Gnome iconomic PL.