Alchemy for Beginners

[Brimstone Sermon]

Seeing how many people reckon the actual way to perform alchemy's hard to get the hang of, I've put together a short primer from the forums and Crafting Menu.

Starting Out
Should you want to start crafting on EFU, you'll probably want to make  sure your character has the appropriate Skills and EFUSS skills to do so.

Alchemy score:
EFUSS Alchemy + (Lore/2) + (Spellcraft/2) + Wizard Levels + Sorcerer Levels

Herbalism Score
EFUSS Herbalism + (Lore/2) + (Heal/2) + Druid levels + Ranger levels

Cooking Score
EFUSS Cooking + (0.5 x Concentration) + Cooking + DEX modifier + INT modifier (I think, Johannes will have to confirm)

The L8 Rogue Perk, 'Apothecary' will raise your Herbalism and Alchemy EFUSS scores by 15 points each, permanently.


How To Craft
In order to craft, you will need several EFUSS points in the skill or you cannot use the player tool. Select  the Crafting menu on your PC (the anvil icon). You'll see a custom EFU menu that  includes the option Assign Player Tools. Click on one of these slots and  assign it to whatever craft skill you want. The Player Tool will then  be available as a class ability like Barbarian Rage and Bard Song. Click  on your own PC in order to access a menu that will let you see more  information, and buy hints.

Hints
Each hint is a tip on a specific topic. The more research points you  have, and the more hints you have unlocked, the better then hints you  can find. Each reset or 24 hrs you will gain 1 research point, and a  choice of up to 3 random hints.

Crafting table
Click an empty space to start crafting. This creates a placeable. To  craft, add items to the placeable. If they can be used in crafting, they  will be destroyed and you will see an effect. Pay attention, because  the effects are clues as to what the reagent may do and what you may  produce. Once you've put in the last reagent, wait and see what happens. If you have discovered a recipe, you will make a check of 1d20 + your appropriate crafting score. Should you pass the check, the product will appear in the crafting placeable. If you fail to discover anything, the failure messages may hint at how far off you were from creating something workable.

The Crafting Table may be buffed with defensive spells to resist damage. It is possible at certain points to cast spells on the table as an "ingredient", but offensive ones will damage it and may destroy it.

Dangers of Crafting
Cooking is relatively safe, and should not harm the PC much.
Alchemy and herbalism come with risks that range from summoning monsters that will attack your PC to magical disasters. It is possible for your PC to be permanently killed or suffer a non-respawnable death by the more dangerous lines of crafting. It is not possible to craft in the immediate vicinity of NPCs.

 Metagaming Warning
This is important. Really, really important. The DMs will punish anyone caught using information gained on one PC on a future PC.  When you end a crafting PC, it's good practice to delete any alchemy notes you have in order to reduce temptation to use them. Similarly, it's a bad idea to play more than one character who uses the same crafting system.

[Lenthis]

^This needs to be stickied^

[Nihm]

The Crafting Table may be buffed with defensive spells to resist damage. It is possible at certain points to cast spells on the table as an "ingredient", but offensive ones will damage it and may destroy it.

Last I checked this, it doesn't work. You can give the table elemental resistance, but it does not actually absorb damage. The table still takes only 20 hp worth of damage.
 
This doesn't really matter as you can just set it up again though.
 
Research points are there to give a possibility of hints.  They don't always give a choice between three.  Anywhere from zero to three I think.  How much crafting you've done doesn't affect them either.
 
A useful post though, and I had no idea Rogues could up their crafting skills at level eight.  Very neat.

[Porkolt]

Useful guide.

But certainly not the point I was trying to make when complaining about how Alchemy is hard to get started in!