Do spells that use splash weapon mechanics benefit from feats or features that affect splash weapons specifically?

Question

Talking about some wizard spells in Pathfinder such as Brimstone and Amber Globes that are considered splash weapons according to their descriptions. Then, I'm wondering if they also benefit from various improvements from class features and feats such as :

• Underground Chemist : a Rogue archetype with alternate class features related to alchemical weaponry, one of them allows to draw splash weapons as quickly as standard weapons instead of a full-round action and adds your character's Intelligence modifier to all damage dealt by splash weapons, and another allows to deal sneak attack damage with splash weapons on a direct hit and if used for the first attack of the round ;

• Throw Anything : removes the attack roll penalty from throwing improvised weapons and gives a +1 bonus on attack rolls with splash weapons ;

• Concentrated Splash : splash weapons can deal more damage on a direct hit if the player forgoes splash damage ;

• Splash Weapon Mastery : reduced range penalties on attacks rolls with splash weapons, the player can add an extra square adjacent to the splash area to deal splash damage and slightly redirect a missed throw ;

• Slipslinger Grenadier : splash weapons can be fired with a sling.

There are a lot of other feats affecting splash weapons, there I selected some with very specific effects. So, do splash weapons created by spells benefit from any of this ?

Answer 1

Yes, at least in these cases.

Note what their effects are stated to be:

• amber globes:

  Effect one globe of electricity energy/2 levels

• brimstone:

  Effect one smoking stone in your palm

Both spells have the effect of producing a particular object. The description of the spell indicates what these objects are and how they are used: they are thrown splash weapons.

Thus, you have an actual thrown splash weapon, that you are actually throwing and that is actually splashing. Anything that applies to thrown splash weapons applies to these as well: the effect of the spell is to create these weapons.

Things would be different if the spell were directly attacking, and simply used the thrown splash weapon rules for adjudicating how they work. Then it would depend on the precise wording, but most likely they would not count for those features and feats, since they are not actually creating a thrown splash weapon, they are just a spell effect that behaves somewhat like those kinds of weapons. But again, the specific wording of both the feature or feat in question and the text of the spell would need to be analyzed to say for sure.