Maximize Craft(alchemy)

[Stea1k]

So playground, I have been wondering about something:

What is the largest possible real number of finished alchemical items an ECL 20 character in 3.5 can make in 1 week?

Cheesy methods are always acceptable, but anything based on "how much do you want?" or infinite combos is not helpful. To put it simply, consider a build, and then consider what you as a DM would allow (leadership shenanigans are allowed).

The "make-believe" Item I have been using is an average item (named as mean mix) with a DC of 22 (rounded down from 22.5) and a cost of 15 gp.

Using a standard gnome with 18 starting intelligence (23 by lvl 20) with a craft(alchemy) of +36 and maximum gnome followers +1 cohort (155 successful assists rounded down from 155.8) through leadership (assuming they all have masterwork crafting tools and skill focus(craft(alchemy)) gets an average roll of 346 (rounded down from 346.5).

Using Alchemical Savant's Efficient Alchemy class feature and assuming the character crafts constantly all week (allowing time for living: sleep, food, etc.) I believe this allows the character to craft 516 finished mean mix in 1 week (this is also including a +10 to the DC for quicker crafting).

Bear in mind, I did not use template stacking or magic items/spells, which I am sure would have helped. If someone knows how to make a build that would have a dramatically larger number than mine, I would be very interested in knowing.

[Emperor Tippy]

Pretty close to infinite. An auto-resetting trap of Fabricate can produce one of everything every 6 seconds or 14,400 per day; the downside being that every item is exactly identical.

Get an auto-resetting trap of Mage's Lucubration, stand on it, and you can do the same thing except you need raw materials.

More in line with what you appear to want, Sorcerer 20 with Fabricate as one of your spells known along with Arcane Thesis: Fabricate, Cooperative Metamagic, Sanctum Spell, Easy Metamagic: Twin Spell, and Twin Spell as one of your feats. With 36 Charisma (max LA +0 Cha at level 20) you have 9 5th level slots and 8 each of 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level slots. With the meta magic you can cast Twin Spell Fabricate in a 5th level slot. This effectively gives you 82 castings of Fabricate per day.

At one dose per casting that is 410 in a 5 day week or 574 in a 7 day week. There are ways to trade multiple lower level spell slots for a higher level spell slot so you can push it higher like that.

---
Or you could always just go the Wish approach. Alchemical Items are non magical so you can Wish up 25,000 GP worth of them per Wish or 1,666 per Wish at 15 GP each. Using Archmage's Spell Like Ability five times, each time trading a 9th level and a 5th level spell slot for two uses of a spell per day and doing it with Wish, you can get 12 Wish's per day or 19,992 of the item per day. Naturally you might want to use a Thought Bottle to make it only cost 5,000 XP instead of 60,000 per day. After 7 days that is 139,944 items produced.

As with anything else, casters always do it better.

EDIT: I forgot that you can use the Twin Spell feat chain on Wish as well, so double those numbers.

[Stea1k]

that is certainly a larger number than what i had. I had not even considered the fabricate spell (though that seems like a silly thing to have forgotten).

On a more realistic note, though, only the wish route sounds like a reasonable method (so much waste from the fabricate).

Never the less, you certainly beat out my number.

edit: doesn't fabricate require raw materials to work?

[Emperor Tippy]

edit: doesn't fabricate require raw materials to work?

Yes, just like any other crafting; unless you use a trap where you pay a one time cost of 100 times the raw materials and are fine.

[Vaz]

Archivist 1/Wu Jen 3/Geomancer 10/Incantatrix 3/Sacred Exorcist 1/Prestige Paladin 1/Archmage 1

Extend, Persist, Battle Blessing, Arcane Disciple (Creation/Artifice)/(or Planar Touchstone (Catalogues of Enlightenment) rest of the feats are free to choose (Iron Will through Otyugh Hole, you need to qualify for Prestige Paladin with Mounted Combat which can be got through Battle Bridle (MIC) or just take the feat; you've got enough).

It takes Miracle 2/day as its SLA. This is XP-less Miracle.

While this is essentially an infinate loop; (Miracle'ing Body Outside Body, Incantatrix'ing Persist for 24 hours, each one of them rinse and repeating), you don't have to take it that far.

Each one uses their remaining Miracle SLA to use True Creation. While it's not as instantly quick, in the space of ~15 rounds, I broke Excel's number limit, before it started getting into E' numbers, and it only gets higher. Of course, you can recreate the 25K limit like Wish; for the 1666 per use for even more.

[icefractal]

Pretty sure you can get more than one dose per Fabricate as well. Unlike Minor/Major creation, it doesn't say anything about being a single object, and even then you could make a big vat of it. At 20+ cubic feet per casting, that's a lot of doses.

[Sith_Happens]

As with anything else, casters always do it better.

Especially seeing as you have be a caster to use Craft(Alchemy) in the first place.

[Mithril Leaf]

Pretty close to infinite. An auto-resetting trap of Fabricate can produce one of everything every 6 seconds or 14,400 per day; the downside being that every item is exactly identical.

Get an auto-resetting trap of Mage's Lucubration, stand on it, and you can do the same thing except you need raw materials.

More in line with what you appear to want, Sorcerer 20 with Fabricate as one of your spells known along with Arcane Thesis: Fabricate, Cooperative Metamagic, Sanctum Spell, Easy Metamagic: Twin Spell, and Twin Spell as one of your feats. With 36 Charisma (max LA +0 Cha at level 20) you have 9 5th level slots and 8 each of 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th level slots. With the meta magic you can cast Twin Spell Fabricate in a 5th level slot. This effectively gives you 82 castings of Fabricate per day.

At one dose per casting that is 410 in a 5 day week or 574 in a 7 day week. There are ways to trade multiple lower level spell slots for a higher level spell slot so you can push it higher like that.

---
Or you could always just go the Wish approach. Alchemical Items are non magical so you can Wish up 25,000 GP worth of them per Wish or 1,666 per Wish at 15 GP each. Using Archmage's Spell Like Ability five times, each time trading a 9th level and a 5th level spell slot for two uses of a spell per day and doing it with Wish, you can get 12 Wish's per day or 19,992 of the item per day. Naturally you might want to use a Thought Bottle to make it only cost 5,000 XP instead of 60,000 per day. After 7 days that is 139,944 items produced.

As with anything else, casters always do it better.

EDIT: I forgot that you can use the Twin Spell feat chain on Wish as well, so double those numbers.

If you've already got arcane thesis and sanctum spell, why not just toss a plain old mages lucubration in there and give yourself unlimited fabricates?

[Ashtagon]

With fabricate, the quality of the output is limited by the quality of the raw materials. I'm pretty sure that non-alchemical items are substantially different in quality from alchemical items.

(quite apart from that I don't regard traps as a PC-buildable item; I see the DMG trap prices as an encounter-balancing aid for DMs).

[Sith_Happens]

Also, I'm pretty sure that Fabricate can only work one material at a time:

You convert material of one sort into a product that is of the same material.
...Actually, I'm pretty sure that that rules out using Fabricate with Craft(Alchemy) at all, since alchemy is all about turning one or more materials into different materials.

[TuggyNE]

...Actually, I'm pretty sure that that rules out using Fabricate with Craft(Alchemy) at all, since alchemy is all about turning one or more materials into different materials.

You mistake, good sir, you mistake: lead and gold are totally the same, for reals. They just … look a little different is all.


:smallbiggrin:

[Chronos]

What if you just planeshift somewhere with a different timeflow, and do all your work there?

[Stea1k]

I believe Sith_Happens is correct. All of the examples the spell gives are related to a single item being transformed into another item of identical material. so 1 material to 1 material and not 2+ to 1.

[Piggy Knowles]

One level in Alchemist Savant gives you Efficient Alchemy, which lets you make as much progress in a day as a standard alchemist would in a week. It doesn't have the pizzazz of self-repeating traps of fabricate, but it's an easy enough dip to add in to any casting build.