Geez. Why didn't I think of this before?

[Yamo]

I don't really like any of the ways Fantasy HERO listed for handling potions and such.

 

So it just occiured to me: Why not just have the alchemist buy KS/PS Alchemy Skills and use them?

 

If a player wants to make a particular potion, the GM just decides:

 

a) Whether it's possible.

 

How long it takes.

 

c) What components are necessary and how difficult they are to obtain (which would likely require a KS: Alchemy Roll).

 

d) What bonuses or penalties (if any) are applied to the final PS: Alchemy Roll.

 

So the player doesn't actually have to buy any of the Powers the potions represent, but the GM can easily balance this by making trickier potions more difficult to brew (forcing the player to invest a ton of points into Alchemy Skills) or by making them take longer or require more rare and expensive components.

 

Also: I think this skill would be perfect for poison-making if the skills were changed to Toxicology.

 

Thoughts?

[Talon]

I think it's a great way to do it. You do want to make sure that the difficulty is high enough that the "free spells" don't unbalance the game, but that's easy enough to do.

[austenandrews]

I think it's a fine way to go. It's analogous to a character with Weaponsmith creating weapons. You've got more of an ongoing challenge as a GM, of course, making sure the potions don't become unbalancing. I'd suggest coming up with some general guidelines for figuring out the difficulty of creating a potion, such as:

 

- Divide the Active Points by 10 (or whatever) and count up the Time Chart, starting with 1 Hour, to see how long it takes to make.

 

- Multiply the Real Points by 100gp (or whatever) to get a rough idea of cost.

 

Judge each case separately, but use such guidelines to make your job easier and to keep player expectations in line.

 

Also, make sure that you as GM have a mechnism to stop the character from making a potion, if you don't want him to for some plot reason. I've done well restricting the raw materials. ("I know you normally make a new healing potion every day, but that unseasonal frost last week killed all the kingsfoil buds in the area. So I'm afraid you won't be able to heal the dying prince and mess up my assassination plotline.")

 

-AA

 

Edit: Just as an aside, I've had some problems using skill rolls as a primary limiting factor. If the task doesn't take long, the player can just keep rolling until he makes it (usually within 3 or 4 levels up the Time Chart, btw, no matter how low their roll is). If the task takes a long time, players inevitably come up with ways to improve their roll. I'm not saying don't use it, but don't rely on it as your primary means of preventing a flood of potions into your world.

[Yamo]

Edit: Just as an aside, I've had some problems using skill rolls as a primary limiting factor. If the task doesn't take long, the player can just keep rolling until he makes it (usually within 3 or 4 levels up the Time Chart, btw, no matter how low their roll is). If the task takes a long time, players inevitably come up with ways to improve their roll. I'm not saying don't use it, but don't rely on it as your primary means of preventing a flood of potions into your world.

 

I wouldn't say it's the primary factor. The primary limiting factors would probably be:

 

a) GM veto. It might just not be possible to make a game-unbalanced type of potion in the first place. "Elixer of Omnipotence? Nice try, pal."

 

Ingredient availability. The sort of rare and esoteric ingredients that potions require sell for princely sums where they can be found on the open market at all. More often, the alchemist or his agents must gather them themselves, often in remote locales and under dangerous circumstances. Even then, you'll virtually never locate a huge stockpile of these rare components in one place. Finally, even failed attempts at potion brewing will consume a batch of precious ingredients.

 

c) Time and equipment access. A PC who wants to brew a ton of potions on a regular basis is going to have to spend a whole lot of time in a lab, which really cramps the adventuring lifestyle. Also, alchemy is slow work. The dragon might decide to attack the city NOW, not in another week or so when this month's batch of healing potions are done.

 

So there are a lot of obstacles to PC alchemists, but a high character/experience point cost is not one of them. This leaves the door open for "adventurer" character s to dabble in alchemy without weakening their core character concepts or threatening the NPC alchemist's role in the long run or unbalancing the game. I really do like it.

[Herolover]

This is actually how I am handling alchemy in the Fantasy campaign I am currently working on and trying to get ready.

 

Potions, dust, and elixers etc are the realm of the alchemist and his strange ingrediants. These items from "wizards" do exist, although they are extrememly rare.

 

I am handling all alchemical formulas as individual skills. (Science skills to be exact.) So that an alchemist needs

PS Alchemy

KS Alchemy

PS: Brew Alchemical Formula

SS: (One for each formula the alchemist knows how to brew.

 

When the alchemist wants to "brew" a potion he tells me what he wants to make and I decide how long it will take to make a single dose of that potion. I tell the alchemist how long it will take and then he decides if he is going to take his time or "rush" it.

 

The Alchemist makes a PS: Brew Alchemical Formula skill roll with SS: Actual Alchemical Formula as a complimentary roll. This is modifed by difficulty of potion, the amount and quality of equipment, and how much faster or slower the alchemist is brewing the potion.

[mattingly]

Something I sometimes do, depending on the kind of campaign I'm running, is to charge a 3-point Talent for each additional "spell target." A spell target can be a person (the default category), a potion, a scroll, or a wand/staff. (Weapons, armors, and other "permanent" items are handled differently than one-shot items.)

 

The limiting factor is depends on the type of item.

* Wands can only recieve one charge per day, so it would take over a month to fully energize a 50-charge wand.

* Potions are limited by containers. The container must be glass or iron, making the potions either fragile or heavy. Sure, you can have a couple of hundred potions in your cabinet, but how many can you take with you on a journey? in a dungeon?

* Scrolls are limited by proximity. If more than one magic scroll is kept in the same scrollcase, or on the same desk or shelf, the spells have a chance of malfunctioning, blending together, shorting each other out, etc. So, your typical scroll can be compacted to about the size of six arrows in a quiver, meaning that the average character could carry a maximum of 6 to 10 most of the time.

[Lisa Nadazdy]

I created a relatively simple system for a "School of Alchemy.

 

An Alchemist needs the perk: Arcane Magic (10 pnts.). This allows him to use magic, just as it would most mage types.

 

Second, they'd have to buy the skill "Chemistry", whic allows for the development of magical and non magical formulas.

 

Third, "Alchemy" has but one spell:

 

Transform (Major): Create Alchemical mixture, with "Improved Target Group: any alchemical mixture that the character has knowledge of, +1/4", with the limitations "Limited Target: Alchemical ingrediants -1/2". Extra Time, OAF (ingrediants), Gestures, Incantations are all appropriate..

 

Here's wher it gets a bit tricky: Potions are created as per normal...

 

Example:

Healing Potion- Simplified Healing 4d6, can heal limbs (active cost: 45) OAF- potion (-1), I charge, non-recoverable (-4)

Real cost: 7.

 

Divide the Real Cost by 5 (in this case, it's 1). This is the cost of the knowledge "perk", and the penalty to the Chemistry roll to create the potion. The "Body" to overcome is the Active cost of the potion.

 

This system allows for PCs to create potions without costing Character Points, and allows them to create potions they have knowledge of, providing they have the time and ingrediants to do so.

 

Feel free to make suggestions, or fixes if I've missed anything important.

[Old Man]

Originally posted by mattingly

Wands can only recieve one charge per day, so it would take over a month to fully energize a 50-charge wand.

 

Why do wands have charges? Is that a D&D thing or is it like that in some of the literature? Just out of curiosity.

 

Potions are limited by containers. The container must be glass or iron, making the potions either fragile or heavy. Sure, you can have a couple of hundred potions in your cabinet, but how many can you take with you on a journey? in a dungeon?

 

Potions could also be limited by scarcity of materials. That could even be a campaign hook--the alchemist needs the still-beating heart of a dragon to make his Philosopher's Stone.

 

Scrolls are limited by proximity. If more than one magic scroll is kept in the same scrollcase, or on the same desk or shelf, the spells have a chance of malfunctioning, blending together, shorting each other out, etc.

 

I always liked the Zummi Gummi limitation, which is that the more scrolls you carry the longer it will take you to find the right one...

[GreyGuardian]

I really like the idea of using limited resources for independent items rather than character points. Ars magica does this very well with the concept that magical beasts have magic in them that can be concentrated then used after the critter is dead.... or certain places (like a ring of standing stones ) have magic that can be harvested but it takes months to get a useable amount concentrated enough to use.

 

Another thought I just had was for more powerful items people have to bind a spirit, elemental, demon etc in the item and the critter bound is very dangerous since it doesn't want to go there. you might add malevolent influence from the item or not depending on it's strength.

 

another possible way to do scrolls is to tie up endurance in the scroll. If you scribe a spell that costs 5 endurance to cast then you will be 5 endurance below your maximum until that scroll is used. So selling scrolls might be feasible but they would probably have expiration dates so a spell caster's end is not permanently tied up if the scroll is never used.

 

I've tried none of these things in practice.