Questions on Alchemy

[Videopete]

So Im looking at the rule book and it seems there are huge differences between alchemy of Classic vs RQG. In the old one you had to purchase each recipe indicidually and in the new one its less clear. The main difference is thing i get is in RQG its a percentile and then nothing as far as how it works and examples. It feels weird that the 78 version of yhe game fleshed out its alchemy more. Sp any one. Got more clarification?

[jps]

Alchemy isn't really detailed in the core book, maybe later on in some supplement. I'm inclined to think that learning recipes will be the way they'll go but who knows ?

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, jps said:

Alchemy isn't really detailed in the core book, maybe later on in some supplement. I'm inclined to think that learning recipes will be the way they'll go but who knows ?

Alchemy is now a skill as noted on p.175.  For a given potion you need sufficient raw materials.  Then you need a successful skill roll (and allowing for whatever you/GM think is sufficient time for execution of that skill).  If you want to go to the level of identifying the raw materials and 'recipe' to produce substance X, you can do so, but it's no more needed than identifying the raw materials and steps required to sculpt a new statue of Orlanth.

[soltakss]

There were detailed Alchemy Rules in RQ2/RQ Classic, but they disappeared from RQ3.

As they were a distinct set of subrules, they didn't fit in to the "Roll beneath your skill to get an effect" RQ Rule.

My thought would be to keep the types of Alchemical Potion as things an Alchemist can make, but not have the Alchemical Potion Levels, by which I mean that a PC wouldn't learn Spider Venom Antidote 15 as a skill, but would have Alchemy as a skill and would be able to make Spider Venom Antidote using that skill.

[Joerg]

49 minutes ago, soltakss said:

There were detailed Alchemy Rules in RQ2/RQ Classic, but they disappeared from RQ3.

I would not have called those rules detailed... but then I never had anything like blade venom in my games.

 

49 minutes ago, soltakss said:

My thought would be to keep the types of Alchemical Potion as things an Alchemist can make, but not have the Alchemical Potion Levels, by which I mean that a PC wouldn't learn Spider Venom Antidote 15 as a skill, but would have Alchemy as a skill and would be able to make Spider Venom Antidote using that skill.

How would you determine whether the alchemist knows how to extract and modify this specific spider venom? Availability of the recipe in writing?

As someone working in a lab, preparing a couple of routine "recipes" from memory is feasible, more so in the less literate era of the setting. Anything else would have to be stored in songs, maps or similar mnenonics if you have an illiterate and shamanic culture, although there I would suggest using the same memory space as spirit spells or sorcerous manipulation.

[soltakss]

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

How would you determine whether the alchemist knows how to extract and modify this specific spider venom? Availability of the recipe in writing?

Revolution d100 has the idea of Stunts that belong to Traits that belong to Skills, so a Skill might be Knowledge and have an Alchemy Trait, but Alchemy might have Healing Potion, Poison Antidote and Acid as Stunts, acting as recipes for Alchemy. RQG could do something similar, but it isn;t obvious how it would work from a rules poijt of view. maybe recipes are treated as spells, so you have room for a certain number of recipes.

 

1 hour ago, Joerg said:

As someone working in a lab, preparing a couple of routine "recipes" from memory is feasible, more so in the less literate era of the setting. Anything else would have to be stored in songs, maps or similar mnenonics if you have an illiterate and shamanic culture, although there I would suggest using the same memory space as spirit spells or sorcerous manipulation.

I would guess that Alchemists would write their recipes down using some kind of Alchemy language that is encoded so that non-Alcehcmists can't use it. Non-literate cultures would learn the methods, or have them encoded in songs, poems, stories or dances. 

[jajagappa]

3 hours ago, soltakss said:

Revolution d100 has the idea of Stunts that belong to Traits that belong to Skills, so a Skill might be Knowledge and have an Alchemy Trait, but Alchemy might have Healing Potion, Poison Antidote and Acid as Stunts, acting as recipes for Alchemy. RQG could do something similar, but it isn;t obvious how it would work from a rules poijt of view. maybe recipes are treated as spells, so you have room for a certain number of recipes.

I would guess that Alchemists would write their recipes down using some kind of Alchemy language that is encoded so that non-Alcehcmists can't use it. Non-literate cultures would learn the methods, or have them encoded in songs, poems, stories or dances. 

I'd probably treat similar to sorcerous spells.  You have the Alchemy skill, and then you have Alchemical tomes (or songs, etc.) that provide a specific "technique" or perhaps "recipe" is better in this case.  That could simply be handled at the level that poisons are presented:  scorpion venom, wyvern venom, spider venom, herbal poison, mineral poison.  I would add in other potions though that affect/create passions or similar effects:  love potions, madness potions, fear potions, etc.  Whether you need a book or not depends on how detailed you want to make it.

[jeffjerwin]

3 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I'd probably treat similar to sorcerous spells.  You have the Alchemy skill, and then you have Alchemical tomes (or songs, etc.) that provide a specific "technique" or perhaps "recipe" is better in this case.  That could simply be handled at the level that poisons are presented:  scorpion venom, wyvern venom, spider venom, herbal poison, mineral poison.  I would add in other potions though that affect/create passions or similar effects:  love potions, madness potions, fear potions, etc.  Whether you need a book or not depends on how detailed you want to make it.

Recipe is in fact the word used historically in the place of 'spell' for magical rituals in medieval/early modern Europe...

[soltakss]

17 hours ago, jajagappa said:

I'd probably treat similar to sorcerous spells.  You have the Alchemy skill, and then you have Alchemical tomes (or songs, etc.) that provide a specific "technique" or perhaps "recipe" is better in this case.  That could simply be handled at the level that poisons are presented:  scorpion venom, wyvern venom, spider venom, herbal poison, mineral poison.  I would add in other potions though that affect/create passions or similar effects:  love potions, madness potions, fear potions, etc.  Whether you need a book or not depends on how detailed you want to make it.

Yes, you could have each class of item to be made as a separate skill, capped by Alchemy. Makes Alchemists learn a lot of skills though.

That would work for Revolution as well, so you could have a Trait of Alchemy or Herbalism and a Trait for Antidotes and Stunts for Antidotes of Spider Venom, Scorpion Venom and so on [Alchemy (Healing Potion, Acid)], [Antidotes (Spider Venom , Scoprion Venom)].

[jajagappa]

2 hours ago, soltakss said:

Yes, you could have each class of item to be made as a separate skill, capped by Alchemy. Makes Alchemists learn a lot of skills though.

An alternative is that you simply belong to a guild/clan/cult that has a particular specialty (if you want to go that far).  Or you could just use the Alchemy skill and augment by a relevant lore skill (Mineral Lore, Plant Lore, Animal Lore, Scorpionman Lore, or whatever).