Critical Success potions

[hcobb]

One out of every fifty potion batches is a critical success of double or more and one out of every 216 is a triple success. (The odds are generally higher than this because every alchemist uses a +2 charm, but they pocket the excess profits.) This is determined on the very last roll for multi-week potions.

Double and triple effect potions either provide more benefit or harm or last longer, depending on the type, with no additional side effects.

Due to their rarity these potions cost five times more than normal potions of the type for double effect or twenty times more than normal for triple effect potions, if identified.

If the players are just buying random potions off the shelf then the GM should just roll three dice against the assumed DX of 15 and the players get what they get.

[Skarg]

Why assume DX 15 in a world where average DX is 10?

Why does the DX even matter - if an alchemist knows they have a crit potion or not, surely they know when they fail a batch?

Why do typical alchemists have access to a +2 Charm?

[hcobb]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Why assume DX 15 in a world where average DX is 10?

It is built into the potion price tables.

Why does the DX even matter - if an alchemist knows they have a crit potion or not, surely they know when they fail a batch?

It can't be the maker himself because of this on page 145.

"A Chemist or Alchemist can detect a faulty potion of their type on a 4-die roll against IQ – but only one roll per potion can be made, and the maker himself cannot detect anything wrong."

So it's a second opinion on each batch.

Why do typical alchemists have access to a +2 Charm?

The charm makes potion production so much more profitable (at least for the multi-week potions) that it's generally paid for by the very first batch.

This assumes that the note from page 150 applies also to potions: "The weekly roll is made against the wizard’s basic DX. Potions, Aid spells, magic items, etc. cannot help. One exception: A Charm can help him on this roll."

Note that a +5 DX ring is of no use for an Alchemist because of the adjDX 14 limit for such items.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by hcobb

It is built into the potion price tables.

No it is not.

You and I may both know that many potions are not profitable if sold at the list price unless the alchemist makes many rolls, but even I often don't follow what you're trying to say.

And the fact that the list prices are low for people who ruin batches does not mean that all alchemists are DX 15 and/or have magic items and charms to help them out. It just means that it's hard to make much money selling some potions without a high DX, unless you charge more than list price.

To me, this much more strongly implies that:

1) Magic potions are not generally available in great supply.

2) Magic potions, like magic items, due to their rarity, what they do, and the challenge and cost of making them, probably are usually sold for rather more than list price, especially to random folk of no particular status.

3) A chemist or alchemist who does have high DX is an unusual person who may be well off and in great demand.

Originally Posted by hcobb

It can't be the maker himself because of this on page 145.

"A Chemist or Alchemist can detect a faulty potion of their type on a 4-die roll against IQ – but only one roll per potion can be made, and the maker himself cannot detect anything wrong."

So it's a second opinion on each batch.

At least one of us is confused.

It seems to me that DX applies to the roll to make a batch, and the possible results are either a normal batch, or a batch that was ruined or explodes (which is obvious and never makes it to the shelf), and only on a natural 16 is there a fishy batch that someone might want to have another (al)chemist check out.

Therefore, all of the batches a player might buy from an honest (al)chemist would be either good (made rolls) or fishy (16's). The DX of the maker is irrelevant to the buyer, because the maker won't ever try to sell bad potions except 16's, which happens at the same 2.78% rate regardless of the maker's DX.

Some sellers might regularly have a colleague examine their batches to try to catch fishy ones, but that would not be my usual expectation, and will only somewhat reduce the rate fishy potions get out unless they have a whole team of consultants and/or know very high IQ colleagues (which starts to preclude them also being very high DX too).

What is required to detect one of your crit success potions however is an interesting option that could be handled in various ways. So could whether you get more than one crit potion per batch or not.

Originally Posted by hcobb

The charm makes potion production so much more profitable (at least for the multi-week potions) that it's generally paid for by the very first batch.

It is?

As we discussed before, magic items are also given lowball list prices, especially for powerful items like Charms that kings and guildmasters might want to hoard to themselves.

A +2 Charm has a list price of $100,000. What are we making for our first batch that's going to earn that much?

For a Chemist, the most expensive seem like Increase DX or Increase IQ, a batch of which lists at $6000, takes $2300 to $2850 in ingredients, and 5-6 weeks (and made die rolls) to make.

Alchemists have some spells that could make $100,000 in one batch... except that they require a bunch more expensive potions as ingredients... and we've established that list price on those is probably too low.

I'd tend to think that all the potions used as ingredients need to all be non-fishy, too. Each Revival potion requires 25 other potions as ingredients... and the 20 gargoyle gallbladders and the human brain... (and the dead ingredient hunters... so far, playing your Dragon Safari scenario, we've lost a naturalist and three mercenaries and yielded exactly one ingredient: an orc liver).

All of which I tend to rather like, because it creates a situation where there's some challenge to creating powerful magics, and people would tend to make potions sparingly for the potion, because they want the potion effect and not because their accountant likes the return on investment.

Originally Posted by hcobb

This assumes that the note from page 150 applies also to potions: "The weekly roll is made against the wizard’s basic DX. Potions, Aid spells, magic items, etc. cannot help. One exception: A Charm can help him on this roll."

Yeah, and I'd tend not to want to allow Charms to apply, or at least require that the Charm be in use for the entire time, and of course consider the situation, which leads me to think that very few alchemists would have Charms (because Charms themselves would be rare and in great demand by powerful people for other things, unless perhaps they were the ones commissioning the potions...).

Originally Posted by hcobb

Note that a +5 DX ring is of no use for an Alchemist because of the adjDX 14 limit for such items.

Again your wording leaves me having to guess what you mean. Are you thinking that the minimum job requirement for an alchemist is adjDX 15? In any case, I would tend to apply the part of that rule above that says magic items don't help on weekly rolls. (And in our house rules for magic item breakdowns, it certainly wouldn't, because no attribute booster item could be kept on for days.)

[hcobb]

Originally Posted by Skarg

Therefore, all of the batches a player might buy from an honest (al)chemist would be either good (made rolls) or fishy (16's). The DX of the maker is irrelevant to the buyer, because the maker won't ever try to sell bad potions except 16's, which happens at the same 2.78% rate regardless of the maker's DX.

2.78% per week. So a 25 week potion batch had to either somehow avoid rolling a 16 roll 25 times in a row or have some sort of charmed existence.

Originally Posted by Skarg

I'd tend to think that all the potions used as ingredients need to all be non-fishy, too. Each Revival potion requires 25 other potions as ingredients... and the 20 gargoyle gallbladders and the human brain... (and the dead ingredient hunters... so far, playing your Dragon Safari scenario, we've lost a naturalist and three mercenaries and yielded exactly one ingredient: an orc liver).

Only the risk, not the ingredients are multiplied by the duration:

Page 145: "The quantity of ingredients listed for each potion will make one dose. Note that this is a total quantity . . . the amount needed for the whole process, not the amount per week."

But you are clearly playing Dragon Safari correctly if you have huge doubts about the costs of ingredients. Four Dragon hearts? Sure, be back in a week. Anything else you need?

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by hcobb

2.78% per week. So a 25 week potion batch had to either somehow avoid rolling a 16 roll 25 times in a row or have some sort of charmed existence.

Yes, 2.78% per week. Most potions are not so many weeks, even one week. Many-week potions are clearly intentionally supposed to be challenging to get right. Deciding every competent alchemist has DX 15 and a +2 Charm greatly undermines that.

Which, if you want a chock-full-of-powerful-magic campaign, more power to you (literally), but back to my original point, I wouldn't tend to characterize the rules as implying the difficulties of making powerful magic are all routinely overcome by flocks of high-attribute NPCs with expensive magic items readily available for the purpose of abundantly stocking the shelves of magic convenience shops.

Even for a 25-week potion, the odds of not rolling a 16 in 25 rolls is 49.4%.

But wait . . . there are no 25-week potions. The longest are Revival and Youth, both 20 weeks. That's a 56.9% of not being fishy.

Lab explosions are of course also a big problem, which in theory a +2 Charm would eliminate. Without that, 20 weeks of alchemy has a 37.3% chance of blowing up at some point.

Personally, though that does seem like a high chance (and I dislike that the chance of ordinary failure vanishes entirely at DX 15), and I could see tweaking the rules a bit, in general I like that it is very risky in terms of wasting time/money/hard-to-get-ingredients and dangerous to try to create Youth or Revival potions, or to crank out batches of practically any of the other potions. I don't want Revival or Youth potions (or large quantities of other potions) to be a regularly available item for consumers or even kings.

There is of course the issue that given the risks and requirements, the actual costs would probably usually be rather higher and/or potions would be quite rare, but that's ok with me too - I just wonder what more appropriate costs should be, and wish I had more time to work them out.


To correct myself on my previous post, though, I realized that actually DX does affect the chance of a fishy potion, because the fishy chance is actually the ratio of fishy batches to successful batches, and the fishy chance is constant per week but not per successful potion, so the lower-DX crafter will have a higher fishy rate.

Originally Posted by hcobb

Only the risk, not the ingredients are multiplied by the duration:

Page 145: "The quantity of ingredients listed for each potion will make one dose. Note that this is a total quantity . . . the amount needed for the whole process, not the amount per week."

Yes, I wasn't saying ingredients were multiplied by cooking duration. It's just that ONE dose of Revival potion requires 25 doses of other potions as ingredients! (And all of those have their own ingredients and rolls not to be fishy, and/or to notice whether they are fishy or not...)

Originally Posted by hcobb

But you are clearly playing Dragon Safari correctly if you have huge doubts about the costs of ingredients. Four Dragon hearts? Sure, be back in a week. Anything else you need?

Yeah, I think your prediction that Youth potion means dragons would be extinct is actually the reverse: people who go out ingredient hunting have a very low life expectancy, at least if they go out in non-expert 4-man parties to dangerous wilderness.