Alchemist's and Herbalist's Ingredients Catalogs

[Lulzebub]

A simple item, perhaps a book with limited charges, that tells you whether or not another item can be used for an alchemy or herbalism recipe. It would give no clues about what recipes the item can be used for, it would merely check the item against the list of current recipes, and if it's on there, the catalog gives a positive result.

Basically, it's Conjurative Sand for crafting.

[Egon the Monkey]

Brilliant idea. The problem with alchemy is you have no way to figure out if an idea partially correct or whether you're barking up the wrong tree. I remember spending a lot of time in the Underdark trying to make alchemist's fire by trying all sorts of combinations with the wrong second reagent.

Crafting tends to be based on the luck of finding a rare recipe drop or the application of rather dull brute-force searching of combinations more than PC ability. Or alternatively on roleplaying out the "discovery" of OOC knowledge from previous chars who dabbled in crafting.

As a side idea, would it be possible for some of the easier to mid level recipes to have "ruined" versions craftable as hints? For example, say a potion of Cure Light Wounds needs 2 bubbleberries, a bonga frond and an ale (Not a spoiler, unless this recipe DOES happen to do something). You put in a bubbleberry, ale and something else, or 2 ales and a bubbleberry and you get a "ruined Curative Potion" that just acts like Spirits or something. Stuff like this would give players a nudge towards the right track.

[EfUA_undercover]

I somehow agree that it can be hard to find the right reagents or even know which are reagents, but I am not sure if an item to test them would make much sense; especially when comparing it to conjuring sand as those reagents are used in magic, which could likely be easily tested.

Seeing it realistic would mean that anything and everything could be a reagent... you just don't know for what until you try, that's a part of the research... of course you got some more knowledge and rules to base your experiments on irl.

Anyway, I agree that it can be quite boring and frustrating to try out a bunch of reagents without getting a single hint of what you are doing wrong and I think Egons suggestion is a good way to show that you are on the right path. Not sure if it's worth implementing though, since it's likely a lot of work and in some cases you might lose rare reagents due to it (which would make sense, but it's kinda annoying as we are all just playing a game).

On the other side, you can always ask other players to help you out with the recipies.

Just my two cents.

[Lulzebub]

Seeing it realistic would mean that anything and everything could be a reagent... you just don't know for what until you try, that's a part of the research... of course you got some more knowledge and rules to base your experiments on irl.

Professional alchemists and herbalists know which ingredients are useful, which ones are rare, and which ones are common and ordinary. It would stand to reason that these would be cataloged in a book, and that apprentice alchemists would want to get a copy of said book for their own studies.

[Egon the Monkey]

Some of these are in IC books yes, but players are generally discouraged from writing much in the way of specifics in order to avoid spoilers. TBH the suggestion doesn't NEED to be an item, if the DMs allow listing of reagents, if not recipes.

[Drakill Tannan]

Some of these are in IC books yes, but players are generally discouraged from writing much in the way of specifics in order to avoid spoilers. TBH the suggestion doesn't NEED to be an item, if the DMs allow listing of reagents, if not recipes.

I had thought it was allowed, but only in IG written books and restricted parts of the forums? (like the shrouded isle syndicate library)

I remember Dram wrote a few. Not sure if Mummed kept his journals after he killed him.

[derfo]

Sounds cool to me. I don't think non alchemists/herbalists would invest and carry the book if it were a hundred gold or so and this would help those who don't know everything OOCly a lot.

[Meldread]

I'm in support of both Egon and Lulzebub's idea.  

It is insanely boring to be reduced to brute force methods in an attempt to discover a useful regent / ingredient / whatever.

It can easily be RPed as a testing tool which allows you to do various "experiments" upon the item in question.  Maybe those "experiments" could give some minor hints toward what the regent could be useful for, and enhance players ability to use that item in RP.

I know this type of stuff is boring to (most) DM's though. :/

[Relinquish]

I think most reagents have at least 1 recipe for either skill.

[Lulzebub]

Then you make one catalog for herbalists and another for alchemists.

[Garem]

This wouldn't be a recipe at all, from my understanding of the DM's intentions with the current crafting system you would be perfectly fine making an "ingredients" book if it were only a listing of known alchemical ingredients and a small description of each (but not specific uses).

TBH, throw this to the DM Question Thread if you're interested in it.

[Decimate_The_Weak]

Instead of an item... why doesn't someone just initiate the task of writing a book IG? It'd give you recognition.

[Snoteye]

Instead of an item... why doesn't someone just initiate the task of writing a book IG? It'd give you recognition.

I'm willing to say we're mostly open to allowing this, excepting extremely rare recipes. I'm not really going to be satisfied with an in-game solution that isn't better integrated than any of the suggestions here and I don't have the inclination to further refine my own idea, let alone implement it. As soon as you know OOC you're not going to spend hours in the future pretending anyway.

[Lulzebub]

I'm willing to say we're mostly open to allowing this, excepting extremely rare recipes.

Just to be clear, are we talking about full-blown recipes here? Because I understood DecimatetheWeak to be talking about a catalog listing only, i.e. "This is mandrake. It has many uses, including blah blah..."

[Snoteye]

Essentially, but points for flavour.