Alchemist's and Herbalist's Ingredients Catalogs

[Cruzel]

I have never understood why people have such difficulty with these systems. With an exception to some of the earlier/first surface recipes, and a couple of the newer Mort additions,  There has generally been a pattern to the recipes, sort of leading them as a sort of gateway experience. Learning one recipe would help you learn two more, and so on, and so on.

Generally speaking, there was never really much guesswork in my experience. The descriptions/names of items, or just their simply obvious use, being combined with something else just made sense, so mixing them in the kit would usually yield something.


Something that Snot said above rings true though; once you learn them once you're not going to spend hours randomly mixing the same things again. IMO the coolness value of these systems just tend to go down, the more PCs you play who use them. The fun in using them is going on a roll and discovering half a dozen or so recipes in a row. Once you know them all, these systems just aren't fun anymore.

Anything that makes it easier to work out these systems, is a bad idea imo. (Because really, most ingredients are pretty obvious they are used as a reagent in some way or another for one of these systems!)

[Lulzebub]

Some of the items are duplicated in the toolset, and not all items of the same type work with recipes. Others are ambiguous. There are about 3 dozen different types of poison, and five different kinds of ale. You could spend hours screwing around with the wrong resref for alchemist's fire, for example.

It was the result of dealing with these problems, which have more to do with the way the server's items are tagged than with anyone's individual ingenuity, that the idea behind the suggestion was born. I want to know if the version of whatever item I am working with is actually the one that will produce a result, as opposed to the other identical item with the same name and same description that will not produce a result.

The coolness factor of these systems depends on how they are used in game. There is nothing fun or cool about spamming buttons in the console. Discovery is wonderful, but that can be accomplished in many other ways, and ultimately, application really is the point of all of this. If what you say is true Cruzel, then the whole system will become entirely pointless once the majority of the crafting recipes have been discovered. I think the opposite is true: the system will provide the most fun once all players are more familiar with how useful it is.

Also, it sounds like you've discovered some of the easy ones, and assume that they are all made the same way. Without going into spoilers, let me assure you that is not the case. There are literally millions of combinations that would "make sense" which do not "yield something." I'd just like a method to rule out some of the ingredients which will never yield anything only because they are identical toolset duplicates of other, actual reagents.

[Cruzel]

Some of the items are duplicated in the toolset, and not all items of the same type work with recipes. Others are ambiguous. There are about 3 dozen different types of poison, and five different kinds of ale. You could spend hours screwing around with the wrong resref for alchemist's fire, for example.

Assuming you know the recipe(s) for alchemist's fire, I wonder how you can even state the above. The items in question have no duplicates or any items close to resembling them.

 Did it ever occur to you that those 13 different types of poison might each have a different use for some or all of them within the system?

I can think of a couple recipes offhand that can cause some confusion as to precisely which item is needed, but among a pool of 4 or so possible choices in recipes with hints readily available, there is really not that much room for error, hardly causing one to take hours to try.

I want to know if the version of whatever item I am working with is actually the one that will produce a result, as opposed to the other identical item with the same name and same description that will not produce a result.

To my knowledge, this should never happen. Any multiples of an item in the toolset are usually cleaned up, unless they have a reason for having multiple resrefs. Out of all of the items that do have multiple instances for mechanical reasons, there are none that spring to mind immediately that have anything to do whatsoever with the alchemy system.

If what you say is true Cruzel, then the whole system will become entirely pointless once the majority of the crafting recipes have been discovered. I think the opposite is true: the system will provide the most fun once all players are more familiar with how useful it is.

This comes from personal experience. I have played a Successful alchemist, and since the death of the first one I have not touched the systems again, short of characters where I applied to already know the recipes I OOCly knew, so I could nudge people along. That too, got boring rather fast.

Also, it sounds like you've discovered some of the easy ones, and assume that they are all made the same way. Without going into spoilers, let me assure you that is not the case. There are literally millions of combinations that would "make sense" which do not "yield something." I'd just like a method to rule out some of the ingredients which will never yield anything only because they are identical toolset duplicates of other, actual reagents.

At this, I can assure you that  what you assume of what I know is not the case.  I can say with a high degree of certainty I know more recipes than any other player, unless someone has made spectacular progress in the time I haven't been paying attention. (Which I doubt, given the difficulty most people seem to have with these systems. But since I am not omniscient[...Yet] A DM is free to back or debunk that claim if they choose.)






Slightly more on topic :

There are hints in more places than the IC scattered notes/books. They make a suggestion like this largely unneccessary, tbh. On the forums, in item descriptions, maybe an NPC conversation or two, if they're still in the mod... There are at least a half dozen in this thread alone, You just gotta look, Man.