Skill: Alchemy

The official rules for the Alchemy Skill will be published in the Earthdawn Companion, and will override the ones posted here. Until then, we will be using the rules as previewed with minor modifications to cover aspects not mentioned.

Learning the pattern

Before you can make any magical item (potions and such included), you must first learn the item’s enchanting pattern – basically the recipe for the item. Enchanting patterns can be found, purchased, or researched, with the latter the most common method. To research an item's pattern, the alchemist must get hold of one and take it apart. (This requires purchasing the item if one is not already in the alchemist's possession.) The alchemist makes an Alchemy test against a Difficulty Number of the item's rank + 5. The alchemist's rank in the Alchemy skill must be equal to or higher than the item's rank. Each attempt takes one day of downtime.

All alchemists start knowing the enchanting pattern for the standard booster potion; it’s learned as part of their training.

Ingredients

Most items require a certain amount of alchemical materials. These are ingredients that are generally available from any suitably equipped merchant that deals in alchemical supplies, and are measured by value. The more powerful the item being created, the more money must be spent to acquire the necessary ingredients. The base cost for alchemical items is the item’s rank times 25 silver.

Expensive, rare, exotic or specific materials may only be obtained as rewards on adventures (usually as Magical Treasure), and make excellent hooks. Expensive ingredients are worth 50 silver for items Rank 1-4, or 100 silver for items rank 5+.

If the alchemist wishes to gather their own alchemical materials, they just need to make an Alchemy test against the Wilderness Survival Difficulty of the area (Player’s Guide, page 179). Each success gathers material value equal to the base difficulty of the test. For example, in basic woodlands (DN 5), a result of 12 would score 2 successes and result in 10 silver in materials. Anyone who has Alchemy as a Knowledge Skill may also gather ingredients.

Making the items

Crafting alchemical materials requires either an Alchemist's kit (which enables tests with a -3 penalty) or an Alchemist's shop. The alchemist makes an Alchemy test against a DN based on the item. The alchemist can attempt to make more than one dose of the item with no additional cost in time or materials by adding +3 to the base DN for each extra dose. The process takes one day, and each extra success on the test produces an additional dose. If the test fails, the materials are lost.

Potions:

Poisons:

So, for example, to create a dose of shadowmant venom as a poison, it requires 150 silver of alchemical materials (which may either be purchased or harvested while on adventure), and the poison gland of a shadowmant, a piece of Magical Treasure worth 100 silver, which can only be acquired as an mission reward. From there, the alchemist must spend one day of downtime and make a successful Alchemy (15) test, resulting in a single dose of shadowmant venom.

Selling Items

Alchemists may sell the items they make to other characters at cost (i.e., at half the price listed in the Player's Guide.)