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View Full Version : Alchemy/Brew Potion/Elixirs; why not combine them?



Seharvepernfan
2015-01-10, 10:11 PM
Most people don't bother with alchemy, because it just doesn't do much. Most people don't bother with brew potion, because wands are more efficient. Most people don't buy or make one-use wondrous items too often either.

So, what if we combined the three? What if you made potions/oils/eliixers with the alchemy skill (and therefor did not need to meet the casting prerequisites of the spells you're brewing and did not expend exp)?

Personally, I'm in favor of getting rid of the requirement that you must be an arcane caster to make alchemical items. I would also add poisons into the list of things you could make with alchemy.

Thoughts?

Almarck
2015-01-10, 10:32 PM
Pathfinder makes alchemy more useful. It does not require being an arcane caster, there is an entire class devoted to alchemy and potions, but then again said class has "Free" ranks in alchemy.

Brew potion and other consumable use things did always seem to be rather limited when compared to wand crafting.

Mostly it came down to 2 things. Wands pack more bang for their buck and did so while being very light weight.

About the only advantage potions had was that you didn't need the spell to drink it. While this is all well and good for many cases, the fact that potions are capped at Level 3 spells makes them impractical given their weight. And really, there's so many ways to get access to the spells on the wand you need, or have lots of UMD that it didn't matter if you weren't a caster or not.

With all that said, I do think I approve of a way to make methods of being able to make potions via alchemy. Especially since it means being able to consider lots of potions to be a viable option for non... well, alchemists.

Hm, would making a complex alchemy subsystem be worth feats? Psuedomagical alchemical effects that do things.