Alchemy

Alchemy is a crafting skill that produces two main types of consumable goods, potions and poisons. While these are often found for sale at an Apothecary, that is simply the store front.  Any good Apothecary is either buying potions and poisons from an Alchemist or is themselves one. Alchemy ratings are organized by an increasing scale of rarity, going from Common, to Uncommon, to Rare, to very Rare.

Alchemist Ranks

Alchemy is restricted by the Rank of the Alchemist:

Rank1 – Apprentice Alchemist: Can learn, brew, experiment, and discover common potions and poisons
Rank2 – Journeyman Alchemist: Can learn, brew, experiment, and discover up to uncommon potions and poisons
Rank3 – Artisan Alchemist: Can learn, brew, experiment, and discover up to rare potions and poisons
Rank4 – Master Alchemist: Can learn, brew, experiment, and discover up to very rare potions and poisons

The relative rank effects each of the alchemists skills in different ways.

Alchemist Skills

There are four main skill components available to an Alchemist.

Learning Recipes

Finding or being taught a recipe and either committing it to memory or writing it a scroll or tome. The Rank of an Alchemist has no bearing on what recipes they can learn, commit to memory or transcribe. However, knowing a recipe does not mean that you can craft that potion or poison if your rank is no high enough.

Apothecary Shops have recipes that are readily available for purchase. Over the counter recipes typically cost 25 times the price of that potion or poison. As the rarity increases the likelihood of finding that recipe in a shop decreases, with very rare recipes being a close guarded secret among highly skilled alchemists.

Brewing Potions and Poisons

Making potions or poisons requires using the appropriate components from a known recipe and Alchemy gear matching the rating of the recipe. To be successful, the Alchemist must pass an Intellect or Wisdom test (their choice) as modified by the rarity of the recipe and the Rank of the Alchemist.

Alchemists can attempt to make one batch each day, where the batch size is dependent on the Alchemy gear used and the entire batch must be of the same potion or poison. An attempt requires a period of relatively uninterrupted concentration equal to that of a full rest. Fresh batches must be transferred into empty containers, bottles or vials within 2 minutes or they will spoil.

Experimentation

Experimentation involves the tried and true method of trial and error to learn a recipe for a particular potion or poison without any  prior knowledge of it. the real trick here is that even if randomly stumbling upon the correct combination of components, the only way to know if it actually worked is to test the resulting concoction. Finding a willing test subject can sometimes be challenging, or just plain expensive. Many a crazed Alchemist has tired to save themselves the hassle and simply tests it themselves, only to discover the potion was not what they thought it was. This is a dangerous road to travel, as a failed experiment may make the test subject very ill.

Note: GMs should only allow experimentation if the player agrees to not look up the recipes ahead of time.

Discovering Recipes

Alchemists can attempt to learn the recipe for a particular potion or poison by breaking down the components of a existing viable sample of that potion or poison. This follows the same restrictions as brewing potions or poisons, but has disadvantage applied based on the rarity. Failure  results in the sample being destroyed.

Advanced Potions

Some potions are particularly advanced and require additional rules. The list below are potions that have their own page for rules and descriptions:

• Chimera Potions

Full Alchemy Item List

Recipes for potions and poisons can be found by expanding each item. The components listed are for crafting a single dose. An appropriately sized container is also required.

For components that list a (1/10th) requirement, the leftover fractions can be saved for later use.

Poison glands (or sacks) are naturally occurring and harvested of of poisonous and/or venomous  creatures. These can be used directly as a poison source (i.e. as a coating on a weapon), but as a one time use consumable only. Where as if they are used with the Alchemist skill to brew poisons, 1 gland can create up to 10 doses of that same poison.

The crafting cost listed is the summation of the over the counter cost of all required components plus includes 1 SP for an empty vial. If the Alchemist has some or all of the components available this can be subtracted off the crafting price.