[PF] Gearing out an Oozemorph Shifter + Toxicant/Vivisectionist Alchemist

[faeryn]

In one of the campaigns I'm in I'm playing a Gnome Shifter(Oozemorph)//Alchemist(Toxicant/Vivisectionist) and well... I'm trying to figure out some useful magic items to pick up along the way as I level... It is worth noting, that we have houseruled the Oozemorph's Fluidic Body ability to allow me to maintain my original race's humanoid form effortlessly outside of extreme conditions (receiving Massive Damage in Combat, Drunkenness, Mind Control, etc...) and antimagic fields (as per the abilities original wording).

I have put a heavy focus on crafting Alchemical items and launching them at enemies from a Stonebow via use of Alchemical Sling Bullets, and have recently acquired a few more potent Alchemist's Bullets. When it comes to melee her Morphic Weaponry ability is her go-to choice, alongside her Toxic Secretion from Toxicant (which I'm curious as to if it follows the same rules as normal poisons when applied to ammunition, i.e. 1 does applies to 10 pieces of ammunition)...

As far as attributes are concerned... Dex, Con, & Int are the only attributes of real importance too her. (Currently Lv 2 with 6 Str, 20 Dex, 20 Con, 18 Int, 12 Wis, 10 Cha)

So anyways... The types of items I'm most interested in:

Anything that can improve my Shifter abilities (which I am aware might be nothing due to the Oozemorph archetype replacing 90% of the class features)
Anything that improves Craft(Alchemy) - No competence bonus items (Alchemist class grants Competence bonus = to Level)
Anything that improves Poisons
Anything that improves Sneak Attack, melee or ranged (already plan to get Greater Sniper Goggles when I can)


Figured I'd ask on here to see if any of the min-max guru's might have some ideas on useful magic items for the character, especially ones that fall into the above listed categories of interest.

[zook1shoe]

in addition to these, check out the handbook list doing 'find' ssearch can get you to the poison handbook too

(click to show/hide)

Amulet of Mighty Fists
Bodywrap of Mighty Strikes is meh
Boots of the Mastodon gives trample 2d8+18 (DC 29 half)
Greathelm of the Mammoth Lords
Helm of the Mammoth Lords
Rhino Hide for pouncing

Formula Alembic
Hybridization Funnel
Shifting Jerkin
Vial of Efficacious Medicine

i made a poisoner for PFS and here's the good magic stuff i found.
the poisons get much more complicated, but the best is combining Deathapple and the Blight Kickers... total OP in the poison world when you get it out of just ingested via discoveries and rogue talents. (DC 23 vs. sleeping beauty unconsciousness)

Sanpkhang (non-magical weapon that grants poison DC increase, works with Weapon Shift to give this to your natural attacks)
Band of Efficacious Death (has no maximum expiration on the effect)
Blight Kickers (has no maximum expiration on the effect)
Injecting weapon
Toxic weapon
Virulent weapon

[faeryn]

I really like the idea of utilizing that Sanpkhang weapon's properties with my natural attacks via Weapon Shift... but unfortunately the Oozemorph archetype trades off Wildshape... which makes me ineligible for Weapon Shift... I most certainly be picking up Virulent and Toxic enchantments on my Stonebow for that extra +7 on my Poison DC

[zook1shoe]

why oozemorph in particular? there is a general consensus that that archetype is TERRIBLE. you lose soooo much, and gain so little.

using fluidic form, you can only use magic items that become attuned to you in your base form. this limits your item access to a vast majority of items, including all the ones i mentioned. to use the other items, you must be in a Humanoid form (which excludes all of beast shape), which makes you lose the few benefits that the base form has.

in the base form, you can secrete the poisons onto your natural attacks, but not onto weapons.

in base and animal form, you can access none of your alchemy abilities, since it requires you to hold and drink while also not being fused into your body (any form from beast shape), not to mention use of any item that must be held and use activated. so no wands, potions, scrolls, rods, staves, and at least half of all other magic items.

[faeryn]

It was a fun concept that gave me some great RP story opportunities... but beyond that the challenge of making something so terrible into something that could be good...

As the archetype is written, it is unplayable at low levels... so we did put in place some houserules on it to make it actually functional from level 1... (yeah, I’m aware that it should have been a giant red flag when houserules are required to make the class functional)... the main one being the effortless transformation to my original form. As long as I am not in a situation that would disrupt my ability to maintain the form, I don’t need to make a save for every extra hour. The second is access to a rudimentary humanoid form while in my base ooze form, this form allows me access to magic items and simple actions (such as holding items and drinking a potion) but am otherwise still unable to speak, attack with manufactured weapons, or perform dexterous skill checks with fine precision (such as disable device), maintaining this form however does require the normal fort save for every extra hour, just as if I were to assume the form of another humanoid creature, but is usable in anti magic fields unlike all other forms if I succeed a fort save.

And with us playing a variant of gestalt (we can train into our gestalt class levels when we have 7+ days of downtime, currently we’re at 2//1 under this variant, we have a few other limits on this gestalt variant too...) it gives some opportunity to shore up a few of the archetypes weaknesses...

Edit:
With how things have been going so far in the campaign her natural shape shifting has lead her to be one of the most stealthy members of the party (not that stealth means much when the barbarian in the party announces his and everyone else’s presence within 5 seconds of entering anywhere...)

[Power]

the challenge of making something so terrible into something that could be good...

I enjoy those sorts of challenges too. But then houseruling the character tends to defeat the purpose of the challenge if you're going to fudge the class. Oozemorph Shifter is pretty terrible though. I wrote a guide to the shifter class and none of it applies to Oozemorph Shifters.

Taking advantage of Oozemorph Shifter is pretty simple though. Get Power Attack. Get Two-Weapon Fighting. Get Lunge. Get Improved Unarmed Strike. Get Improved Two-Weapon Fighting. Use Amulet of Mighty Fists, Armor with Brawling property, and Poisoner's Gloves or maybe Deliquescent Gloves (free Corrosive on unarmed strikes). Make sure to have sky-high strength and dexterity (feel free to completely dump all your mental stats - 20pb should be 20 str - 16 dex - 14 con - 7 int - 7 wis - 7 cha). Your trick is just to add natural attacks to your unarmed attacks so that you can do a really large amount of attacks in one turn.

Feat progression:
1 Power Attack, Two-Weapon Fighting
3 Improved Unarmed Strike
5 Deific Obedience
7 Lunge
9 Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
11 Multiattack
13 Greater Two-Weapon Fighting

Early on you should just use some kind of weapon instead of unarmed strikes. Not sure if Obedience is the best way to go but you can get Divine Favor 3x a day with that. Add in a Fate's Favored faith trait and if Chaldira is your deity you get +4 attack and damage at level 12 and another +1 at level 16. Your other trait should probably be Quain Martial Artist region trait (+1 trait damage to unarmed strikes). Try to get Enlarge Person from an ally so you get bigger dice, more strength, and (most importantly) more reach. This build probably works better if you can save your 5th level feat until 6th level or retrain it. Then you can get lunge at 6, Improved TWF at 7, Multiattack at 9, and Deific Obedience at 11.

Maybe you can make the class more useful by merging it with Evangelist prestige class, but that hurts your BAB.