I'm thinking of giving my barbarian a level in alchemist. The alchemist's mutagen gives a +4 alchemical bonus to strength for ten minutes, so that stacks with rage! Not to mention the natural armor bonus. That is tempting, but is it worth it overall? I have 11 intelligence, so I should also be able to benefit from extracts.
Right now I'm a level 1 dwarf barbarian with 14 strength, 20 constitution using a dwarven war axe. I definitely have a ton of health, but my attack and damage don't seem that great.
The campaign I'm playing in has a serious tone, moves at a relatively slow pace (few encounters/day), and occurs in a dark setting. As far as narrative, my character would take on alchemy as a quick route to more brute strength (kind of like steroids).
My party is a druid, bard, rogue, and myself. I want my role to primarily be as a bruiser that gets in the thick of enemies so the rogue can sneak attack, and the casters can stay safely at range. This is why I took higher con than strength, but again, my damage is not what it could be.
Best Answer
Pros:
You get +4 str and +2 nat armor but at the cost of -2 Int. On the surface this looks good, but that -2 int makes it so you will lose your ability to cast extracts while using the mutagen. The natural armor is good, but will not scale as you level and I'll admit I have not researched it much, but at higher levels there are probably better ways to get more than +2 natural armor bonus.
Extracts are a positive for you. You only have 11 int, but that's all you need to use level 1 extracts. Useful level 1 extracts for a barb include enlarge person & true strike. Casting one of these will need to be done while not raging or under the mutagen effects and will be at the expense of you making an attack.
Taking a level in alchemist should also give you a small boost to your reflex save.
Increase range attack ability with bombs and Throw anything bonus feat. Not bad, but probably not that great for you either. (If you select the vivisectionist alchemist archetype instead of the base alchemist, this would be replaced with sneak attack. Definitely worth considering)
Cons:
No favored class bonus for that level.
No BAB increase that level.
d8 hit die for that level. Instead of your normal d12
You also slow down your barb class feature progression(cant say much more about this because it is going to be very dependent on which level you decide to cross class at and what your build is like)
In the end only you can decide the pros outweigh the cons, as is depends on your play style and the play style of your group.