The state of Alchemy

[Aethereal]

The last few posts here have indicated a difficulty in understanding the alchemy system, that as if the player tools menu does not provide any hints at all. This is completely untrue. Try using the alchemy player tool on yourself, and reading through every option. Trust me, everything you need to start and eventually be successful in the skill is right there.

At the end of the day, learning it by yourself and moreover being successful with the system requires a heavy time investment. Even for those of us who seem experienced when we start a new PC and are forced to go through the alternate combinations all over again.

I will however give an example (for the non believers) of where a player (myself) has taken the alchemy system and created a player faction based heavily around it without killing off player interactions in the process. I basically taught people the system completely ICly and our faction was involved in plenty of intrigue and a secret mafia styled operation.

[INDENT]It is the story of the Apothecary Society, which was working under the ostensible goals of finding a cure to the Withering. It started out innocuous enough, my character just wanted apprentices to do his bidding and I had the upper hand of holding knowledge that was at the time, very rare; the ultimate bargaining chip.

As the membership grew and other players with their own agenda joined, part of our unstated goals had become to monopolise the arcane trades of potions / wand artifice and all alchemical and herbal products. This fueled plenty of conflict with other crafters and as our rules were a join for life policy, we held all the knowledge!

Supported entirely upon our profits, we were able to rent out the upper bookshop of Curios and Epistles that basically hasn't even seen use since our tenure and turned it into a safe laboratory for all of our members.

We became a renown organisation for any budding alchemists concepts to join and certainly welcomed players who were having difficulty with the system OOCly and helped them out, soley through IC lessons. I must say, it was awesome.

And that was only the beginning, before we entered the narcotics business and our best alchemists became targets from the competition. (This did involve some DM influence though!)

I cannot do the experience justice with my words now though, we had inter factional conflict as separate members driven by greed started trading with multiple drug dealers, getting tied in with the wrong associations, the possibility of losing our reputation or even our lives and when the new laws came in, possibly being exiled or worse.[/INDENT]

All I can say is that the system is not the problem. It can be used for good or evil, creative purposes contributing to an awesome storytelling outcome or the simple flooding of useful consumables. (shouldn't be an issue with the limits on the really really potent stuff.) It is up to us players to not abuse it! And then we have the DMs, for when we can't seem to regulate ourselves.

[Brimstone Sermon]

Aethereal, I've had enough conversations with Alchemy, Herbalism and Crafting rookies to know that a significant number of players don't even know how to use the playertool on themself to get that menu up, or what skills go into Alchemy or Herbalism. A Mistlocke Manual or Forum article people could see easily is better than expecting them to poke around in old threads. The more people who understand how to start doing alchemy, the more chances for concepts like that Guild. There's absolutely no reason not to make the basic OOC info as accessible as possible. To do otherwise is analogous to trying to learn to PVP in EFU without having access to the Neverwinter Nights manual.

I do believe that the acquisition of the ingredients and resources  necessary to be a successful alchemist should be more difficult than,  "let's go see what kind of berries the kid in the Market Hall has  today".

It's more complicated than that. 1-5gp items are a great way of learning the system, but to make the really amazing stuff tends to require 'theme' reagents that are harder to acquire, or some serious time investment or luck. Having cheap items that you can make basic things from means that players experiment logically and try and work out how to build up slowly more powerful reagents. They also mean your discoveries are repeatable without having to restrict yourself to common monster drops which can be hellishly annoying if you don't have collectors in the level range to acquire them. That's far more interesting that needing to gamble with expensive stuff from the start. It costs a lot even using berries, because you try so many possible recipes.

[Nihm]

I think the initial impoverished stages of the Alchemist, where they're spending all their gp on random items to toss in in order to slowly learn their foundations, are a rather endearing aspect of the system - sort of like a test of commitment to your new spouse, Alchemy. Will you be faithful in riches and poverty till (perma)death do you part? You may now kiss the bride/groom/Abyssal Slaag.

[el groso]

Alchemy was an awesome system implemented that got out of hand by being so awesome and becoming so popular. An alchemist can make things that makes him or whoever he wishes much more powerful than most characters, in terms of spells, and all classes can use. Whatever is said about how complex and difficult it is to get these things, it has become so popular and mundane that whoever does not have access to it is in disadvantage. So, now it has become a reality. Want to get strong, powerful, specially in PvP? Be an alchemist or make an alchemist friend. Or make loads of money and buy alchemy products. You don't have to be a spellcasting class OR UMD class to get it.

[Nights Bane]

Aethereal is right.

The most useful creations in alchemy have a limit to how many times you can create them.  I would say, it is equivalent to a piece of useful dm loot.  When you draw this comparison, it becomes apparent that only those that have become too frustrated with their own attempts to alchemise are the ones that are griping.  The system works.