First...I don't know if this is the proper forum or not for this type of thing.
I'm currently running a Rise of the Runelords campaign and I have a couple of players that have taken points in Craft (Alchemy). I spent a few days doing some research and decided on a few things:
1) I don't like the Core rules for crafting so I've decided to houserule it using a variation of Making Craft Work
2) I found a website with a ton of additional alchemy items. It appears to be dated from 3.5 because of the way some of the checks work (Move Silenty as opposed to Stealth, etc). So I modified them for use with Pathfinder.
3) I made a book! (I used a modified version of some directions found on Instructables)
Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3
Picture 4
This is my first attempt at such an undertaking. For those familiar with RotRL I had considered making a copy of the journal that is found during the first part of the AP but figured something like this alchemy book would have more long term use. You can see in one of the pics that I got a bit sloppy with the glue and there are things I would change if I did it again...but I'm happy with how it turned out.
I tried to match up symbols with actual alchemy symbols...and on several things I did ok but in the end quite a few of the ingredients were just symbols that I thought looked decent for the item. I made a chart of the alchemy items and assigned the following to each item:
1) Primary Element
2) Secondary Element
3) Tertiary Element
4) Form
5) Ingredient
Secondary and Tertiary Elements as long as Ingredient was optional...the only thing a formula had to have was a Primary Element and a Form.
Layout of the pages has the item name at the top, the complexity of the formula and the (base) cost immediately after, and then flavor text followed by rules text (standard font). The actual formula is at the bottom of the page. Everything but the rules text is in a special font.
I wish you were in my game that book looks amazing
also thanks for the link
I wish you were in my game that book looks amazing
also thanks for the link
Thanks! And no problem!
Are the ingredients just a flavor thing or what? You invented it all on your own?
Yes they are just a flavor thing. It took me about 30 minutes or so to assign symbols to the various ingredients (one of the pictures has the alchemy smybols list) and then assign formulas to each of the DC10 and DC15 items from the website I linked (I haven't done any of the higher DC ones).
or is it maybe an idea from that crafting book?
The crafting book doesn't have items, it just has alternate rules for the Craft skill which makes it faster and overall more useful (in my opinion) than the core rules for crafting.
Looks cool, but wouldn't want to deal with that fluff if it wasn't just fluff.
Yes the symbols/formulas are flavor only. If you pay the crafting cost of the item you are assumed to have gathered the appropriate materials. No need to actually go out and harvest something that would constitute a "fire element" or "earth element".
I'm not sure what items you do have, but I noticed at least a few alchemical items in 3.5 (depending on the source) are really strong, and kinda OP compared to some PF stuff; I'm not sure if you've examined that (if you haven't, you can check).
The book I made contains all of the DC10 and DC15 items of the website I listed (with some tweaks to wording and rules). I didn't feel any of these were too powerful. Some things like Rust Proof Oil (DC10) overlap with Bladeguard (DC15) from PF...but Rust Proof has more limited uses/duration.