The Alchemist at Hell's Gates

4

"In other words, you don't have to worry; if you want to be Steampunk, there's no rule that says you can't, and if the game is giving you steampunk stuff, I'd say that's as close to permission as you'll get!" Hellen nodded seriously, taking the watch from Kenny and sliding it back over to me.

"The Reminder Function is really useful, though, even if I worry about disrupting the look of the game; it's like a little Notification Center, keeping track of all of my meetings and quest deadlines, and apparently I can make a Compass addition, which will point me towards specific materials? I haven't made that one yet, I apparently need to be Level 5 to get that Blueprint, but it'll be massively useful, considering my entire class revolves around finding rare ingredients." I sighed, replacing the watch in its pocket.

Uric frowned thoughtfully. "And that would piss off every Ranger in the Game... your class seems like an amalgamation of all the others, currently; healing, tracking, enchanting, and you have a sword, so I imagine you can use it?"

"It's enchanted so that I can use it, actually, and I don't get any modifiers or proficiency bonuses; Alchemists are still unable to equip non-enchanted weapons. The daggers, however, are definitely useful. My modifier is 7 x the damage of the Weapon, and the daggers are Lvl 3 Sharp, so that's 3+3, and each does 42 points of damage. For level five monsters, that's pretty low, but it's something, I guess? I'm not totally useless anymore, even though I had to be carried through a dungeon to get here." I shrugged.

He nodded, doing some math quickly, and then looked at Gerson. "She can stand behind you and provide some ranged support and a little bit of healing, so Hellen can focus on Kenny, if you want? Her DPS is only 126, but it's not nothing, right?"

"Correction: I can only throw one dagger per second until my Agility is a bit higher? It's currently a 3, and my speed for Thrown Weapons is half my Agility, rounded down; my range is 30 feet... also I have more than daggers to throw, because I've been busy the past two days!" I set a Thunderstone in front of him gingerly, allowing him to examine it.

"Hmm... so it deals 40 + 5 x your Strength? What's your strength at?" He started writing down numbers, working out my DPS again.

"My Strength plus my Thrown Weapon and Modifiers is 7, so they do 75 points of damage in a 10ft radius; perfect for crowds of low-level monsters like Goblins, yeah?" I retrieved the grenade and placed it back into my belt.

"Why did you put your Strength before your Agility?!? Immediate Damage isn't as important as your DPS!!!" He chided me like an ignorant child, and received a raised eyebrow in response, to his chagrin. "Sorry."

"To answer your question, my Strength is actually 1; my armor's Modifier to Thrown Weapons and Strength is 6." I responded dryly, making him stop writing for a moment.

"Wait... 6?!? That's the same as my armor!!!" Kenny leaned forward, speaking quietly but intensely.

"The Boss Loot, remember? It's an artificer's armor, so it boosts all of my abilities; I wasn't supposed to get a full set, apparently, but my Luck of 10 kinda fixed the game." I grinned at their aghast faces, and explained myself. "See, I knew that mixing Potions had a Success Rate that was based directly off of your Luck Stat, as well as Harvesting and Looting, so I pumped 9 points into Luck straight off, then two into Agility, for hand-eye-coordination, which raises the Success Rate a little as well; then I pumped the rest into Charisma, because everything I need is expensive as balls, and I needed lower prices to manage any sort of profit."

Uric was the first to speak, nodding slowly. "Okay... that actually makes sense... I don't usually like Min-Maxing, but I understand where you're coming from; you didn't think you'd be using combat, so Strength and Constitution were neglected, while Luck and Charisma were maxed, then your leftover from your original 20 points went to Agility, for better Harvesting. In that case, I'd be happy for you to stick around; I don't care about the decrease in XP or Carrying you, you'd increase the value of our Loot Drops like crazy!"