Your experience with "The Alchemist" player.

[poolio]

Good morning/afternoon/whenever the heck you ready this, so as the name asks, what has been your experience with alchemy in d&d? As a dm, what would be your rulings for time, cost, types of potions and poisons that could be made, would you just have the player tell you what they wanted to make and just wing it? Or did you have a chart for the pc to work off of?

And for you on the other end of the dm screen, what were you trying to get out of potion crafting? Trying to stockpile healing potions for later? Or just like chucking small bottles of flammable liquid around? Did you have your own ideas that got shot down for some form of "OPness" (that sounds dirtier then i intended) if so, what was the concoction and would your dm not let you make you super powered kool-aid?

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to tell me about your experiences.

[stoutstien]

Compare damage of what they craft to at will ablity like cantrips if you want you could just refluff cantrips into small vials they fling at foes.
Complete rework here https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-LAEn6ZdC6lYUKhQ67Qk
Not mine but plays really well and not over powered at all

[Pex]

Be sure the player is using the correct version. In a past game a player was under the impression he could manufacture any magic item he had a copy of by disassembling it to learn its formula. We weren't certain which website he got that information, whether it was an old version of the Alchemist or a homebrew, but we were able to catch the error before any problems developed. He wasn't trying to get away with something. He really thought that was possible as the rest of the class abilities checked out.

[poolio]

Be sure the player is using the correct version. In a past game a player was under the impression he could manufacture any magic item he had a copy of by disassembling it to learn its formula. We weren't certain which website he got that information, whether it was an old version of the Alchemist or a homebrew, but we were able to catch the error before any problems developed. He wasn't trying to get away with something. He really thought that was possible as the rest of the class abilities checked out.

I think that's a 3.5 thing.

[poolio]

Compare damage of what they craft to at will ablity like cantrips if you want you could just refluff cantrips into small vials they fling at foes.
Complete rework here https://www.gmbinder.com/share/-LAEn6ZdC6lYUKhQ67Qk
Not mine but plays really well and not over powered at all

That's really cool, definitely going to have to give it a more thorough look through later, thanks,

I have a player in one of my games that is a fure breather for his entertainer background, and he wanted to be able to make his own "fuel" which i was cool with, but i could see him wanting to try and make all sorts of things and I'm just trying to get other people's experiences with this sort of thing,

He's a tomelock so i expect most attacks will be of the Eldritch blast verity lol

Right now I'm playing around with the ideas of explosive alchemist fire, and a flash bang type of thing, not sure of a dc or how long to blind people with it, thinking just 1 round would be good, I'm trying to be cautious with what i let him make cause i can see it getting out of hand pretty quick if he can arm all his compatriots with this stuff, or making a small fortune selling this stuff to other npc's.

[MaxWilson]

Good morning/afternoon/whenever the heck you ready this, so as the name asks, what has been your experience with alchemy in d&d? As a dm, what would be your rulings for time, cost, types of potions and poisons that could be made, would you just have the player tell you what they wanted to make and just wing it? Or did you have a chart for the pc to work off of?

Ad hoc recipes, based loosely off the Dresden Files' system for alchemy. The most powerful recipe I ever handed out was a Potion of Destroying the World. Funny story there... due to miscommunication, the player thought he was working on a Potion of Eternal Life at first. I did WONDER why he was so eager to create that particular portion. His reaction to learning the truth about what he was doing was... vehement.

If I were doing it again I'd flip the system around and make players come up with their own recipes, with the difficulty/stability/effectiveness of the resulting potion based off of accumulated Arcana checks against a DC set by my subjective judgment of how appropriate the ingredients are. Try making a Potion of Invincibility For An Hour (per Invulnerability spell but with no concentration) and you'll need seven ingredients (base + sight + hearing + taste + touch + smell + mind) with a total success margin of 55 (for a 9th level spell effect + 2 levels for no concentration, times 5), so you'll need good ingredients and high Arcana skill.

If you pick a lame ingredient like bull's hide for touch, I'd pick a high DC like 20. It's not that invulnerable. Use Tiamat's hide instead and I'd be impressed: DC 0. Roll your Arcana check and record the result, repeat until you've got all seven ingredients. If the net sum exceeds the target, your potion works. If it fails, roll on the Quirks and Curses table with a penalty equal to the margin of failure.

A really good mage can probably make simple healing portions (score: 15) out of household ingredients, but for high-level effects more effort is needed.

Oh, one other thing: a recipe only works once. No one knows why, but attempting a recipe someone has already used (unless it was independently invented, making it a different recipe) always results in a curse. Consequently, wizards never share potion recipes without a compelling reason. Also, I would not have to worry about accidentally setting an overpowered precedent, since even if the DC is too low it cannot be exploited repeatedly--I can just focus on evaluating things as fairly as I can and keep things fun for everyone.

(Oh, and use the recipe author's Arcana skill in the checks. If you buy a recipe from an archmage with +14 to Arcana, make all the checks at +14 instead of whatever your own score is.)

I haven't used this version of the system yet, where players create the recipes instead of me, but it's something I'd like to try next time a player expresses an interest in alchemy.

[Pex]

I think that's a 3.5 thing.

It was a 5E alchemist for a 5E game, but it wasn't the correct 5E alchemist.

[Xihirli]

I am that player in a current campaign.
Proficiency in Alchemist's supplies, Poisoner's Kit, and Herbalism Kit. My DM started me off with about four recipes known and I can learn more over time. These are the rules he used:

so how about this: instead I'll work it more like wizard spell copying of scrolls. For each rarity of a potion, the process takes 2 hours and costs 25 gp (the price is 50% less as potions tend to be less used than spells and im throwing you a bone).

At the end of the time, you make an Intelligence (Alchemist's Supplies) Check, with the DC being 10 plus the rarity of the potion (you would know a common item adds +2 to the DC, uncommon adds +4, rare being +7, and above that the DC begins to vary case-by-case). If you succeed the check, you learn the recipe, but (like scrolls), in either case the potion is used up in the process.
of course, there are also ways to learn potion ingredients other than by experimenting on your own; this is why buying or being taught potion recipes would still be useful, as it wouldnt use up a potion, valuble time, etc.

Because I'm only kinda magic (innate spellcasting from race, Magic Initiate feat) this was a great way to make my out of combat utility go up dramatically. Loads of fun, but be prepared for some power creep down the line this just keeps getting better over time.

[DarkKnightJin]

I am that player in a current campaign.
Proficiency in Alchemist's supplies, Poisoner's Kit, and Herbalism Kit. My DM started me off with about four recipes known and I can learn more over time. These are the rules he used:

so how about this: instead I'll work it more like wizard spell copying of scrolls. For each rarity of a potion, the process takes 2 hours and costs 25 gp (the price is 50% less as potions tend to be less used than spells and im throwing you a bone).

At the end of the time, you make an Intelligence (Alchemist's Supplies) Check, with the DC being 10 plus the rarity of the potion (you would know a common item adds +2 to the DC, uncommon adds +4, rare being +7, and above that the DC begins to vary case-by-case). If you succeed the check, you learn the recipe, but (like scrolls), in either case the potion is used up in the process.
of course, there are also ways to learn potion ingredients other than by experimenting on your own; this is why buying or being taught potion recipes would still be useful, as it wouldnt use up a potion, valuble time, etc.

Because I'm only kinda magic (innate spellcasting from race, Magic Initiate feat) this was a great way to make my out of combat utility go up dramatically. Loads of fun, but be prepared for some power creep down the line this just keeps getting better over time.

I might spend some downtime when I have it with my EK to try and acquire Alchemist Kit Proficiency, on top of the Herbalism, Smith's, and Tinker's Proficiency he already has.
I haven't tried making health potions yet. I should get on that, so the party has less reasons to try and dump my Lawful Evil butt somewhere in a town.

[Kadesh]

It was a 5E alchemist for a 5E game, but it wasn't the correct 5E alchemist.

There is no 5e alchemist, and hasn't ever been, UA or otherwise. I cannot confirm RE DnD Next playtest but I doubt it.

[90sMusic]

There is no 5e alchemist, and hasn't ever been, UA or otherwise. I cannot confirm RE DnD Next playtest but I doubt it.

Maybe he's referring to the artificer class that has an alchemist subclass.

[Kadesh]

Maybe he's referring to the artificer class that has an alchemist subclass.

Oops. I always forget about the Artificer. My bad, dude.