The Aspiring Inspired Alchemist

[Railstar]

Greetings! I have a series of questions about Alchemy (mainly Metallic), charm-making, and ways to make it workable with somewhat limited resources – for someone whose skill is 11-14 and no more than a professional grade lab for a +1 bonus. The main obstacle I see is every charm takes months to make, and the penalties mean success is not particularly reliable.

1. What are some ways to improve effective Alchemy skill without unlimited resources? I don’t mind if it involves resources that require working towards, but let’s assume the character doesn’t have $20 000 lying around for top-of-the-range resources – I don’t have a hard limit in mind for what is beyond a character’s reach, but ways to save on costs would be appreciated.

2. Any Perks you would recommend? Equipment Bond with the laboratory seems the most obvious, but it sounds like upgrading the laboratory would lose that bonus. Any recommended low-cost advantages? How often would Versatile apply?

3. At first glance, Inspired Creation almost seems like the perfect answer; increase effective skill by 5 and an automatic critical. However, with the difficulty finding other solutions or ways to improve effective skill with Alchemy (since Single-Minded doesn’t work), am I missing something important?

Essentially I’m looking for ways to work with making charms when Alchemy is not the primary focus or specialisation for the character. I love the items produced using this rather than Enchant, so I'm eager to figure out ways of using them.

I've found ways around the time problem (Efficient, Magical Alchemy with discounts, lower-powered charms), which makes the time-frame manageable, I'm mainly looking for ways to make the rolls more reliable.

Thanks in advance!

[A Ladder]

For using Alchemy in a DF setting (IE: very cinematic) I use PK's rules for making potions on the fly found here. This ruleset assumes you've priced out a bunch of potions for reference on how much they cost.

The breakdown is: get Quick Gadgeteer (Alchemy only). This reduces your need for fancy labs and expensive materials and makes all the brewing you do go very very fast (minutes and hours vs months).

Gizmo (potion) along with the above Quick Gadgeteer would allow alchemy making instantly. So that's pretty cool.

I would suggest looking at the invention rules in the Basic Set for Quick Gadgeteers and see if you like those. Read "invention" as "potions" and it fits really seamlessly.

[AlexanderHowl]

In general, I really do not think that it is worthwhile for anyone to be an alchemist because of the economic return on character point investment. If you take a look at Healing, one of the easiest potions to make, an alchemist earns $10 per day of work, meaning that an alchemist would have to possess a skill 25, a profession level lab (+1 skill), and an Equipment Bond with their lab (+1 skill), to earn $3600 per month. By comparison, an Artisan only needs Chemistry, Engineer, or Mechanic 14+ to earn $3500 while a Court Bard only needs Musical Instrument 12+, Literature 13+, and Singing 14+ to earn $6,750 per month. Of course, that is a problem with the majority of the magical professions.

[Railstar]

Just to clarify, I'm aiming to make charms & talismans, not potions.

Originally Posted by A Ladder

For using Alchemy in a DF setting (IE: very cinematic) I use PK's rules for making potions on the fly found here. This ruleset assumes you've priced out a bunch of potions for reference on how much they cost.

Thanks for the link but I'm not looking for anything along those lines. The setting is a centuries-spanning Cabal campaign, and the character is meant to be someone who has a secondary activity of crafting permanent reusable talismans. I was going to use Metallic Alchemy rather than the normal potion Alchemy, and limit any potion-making to the Rote Alchemy perk.

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In general, I really do not think that it is worthwhile for anyone to be an alchemist because of the economic return on character point investment. If you take a look at Healing, one of the easiest potions to make, an alchemist earns $10 per day of work, meaning that an alchemist would have to possess a skill 25, a profession level lab (+1 skill), and an Equipment Bond with their lab (+1 skill), to earn $3600 per month. By comparison, an Artisan only needs Chemistry, Engineer, or Mechanic 14+ to earn $3500 while a Court Bard only needs Musical Instrument 12+, Literature 13+, and Singing 14+ to earn $6,750 per month. Of course, that is a problem with the majority of the magical professions.

I don't disagree with any of that, but the character doesn't plan on being an alchemist to make money. I'm far more worried about spending 10+ weeks working on a talisman only to fail the skill roll at the end and having all that time go to waste. I don't have much in the way of plans to mass-produce anything, but I just want to be confident that when months are set aside to work on a talisman that there'll be a talisman complete at the end of it.

That said, if there's a way to avoid having to put everything else on hold while working on talismans that would be a tremendous help - I doubt a wagon pulled by zombie-horses would be a stable enough environment for an alchemist lab, but if there is a way for the wizard to take the work on the road rather than have to return to the same place every day that could also solve the problem (because then finding 21 weeks to make a Ring of Invulnerability wouldn't be so difficult).

[AlexanderHowl]

Alchemy is rather unforgiving in that regard. An alchemist must spend 8 hours a day, every day, attending to the elixir, meaning that there is precious little time for adventuring while working (especially since you probably have to take a part-time job so you can pay your bills while doing alchemy). I would honestly just buy the charms from the idiot who is willing to only let a Healing Charm go for $1200 rather than spend 10 weeks making the charm myself (three points of Signature Gear will do it). And a Ring of Invulnerability would take 60 weeks to make and would work once every six days.

[Railstar]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Alchemy is rather unforgiving in that regard. An alchemist must spend 8 hours a day, every day, attending to the elixir, meaning that there is precious little time for adventuring while working (especially since you probably have to take a part-time job so you can pay your bills while doing alchemy). I would honestly just buy the charms from the idiot who is willing to only let a Healing Charm go for $1200 rather than spend 10 weeks making the charm myself (three points of Signature Gear will do it). And a Ring of Invulnerability would take 60 weeks to make and would work once every six days.

Metallic Alchemy is a little friendlier there - I mentioned it in my starter post but probably shouldn't have assumed everyone knew what I was referring to. Using Metallic Alchemy (Pyramid 3/68), an Invulnerability Talisman has a base time of 30 weeks and would work every 5 days. I've also been allowed a 30% discount with the right spells through Magical Alchemy (Pyramid 3/28). That's how I was able to get the time down to 21 weeks.

So I've managed to cut some corners, but it's still unforgiving.

Fortunately being a baron's pet wizard (or "court wizard" if you want to be more respectful) means a part-time job isn't necessary, and there's a lot of leeway in pursuing magical research or enchantments, because there's not that many pet wizards going around and that makes my character valuable.

However, it means the answer to buying the charms as Signature Gear is "Go ask the baron's pet wizard." I'll still need to be able to solve one of these issues before charms are legal purchases, since there's not anybody else in the area making talismans.

[Alden Loveshade]

There's a thread about creating an Alchemist Talent; I created it and PK and others improved it.

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=72936