Shipping costs. Honestly once you are shipping it out and about to chelax or where not it cost you more.
At that point, you run into an issue of supply/demand. Yes, the book says the item sells for Xgp but due to the market saturation, it may only sell for a fraction of that.
Also, it really changes the face of a country with mass market alchemy. With just the Core book, Acid and Fire and Tanglefoot Bags can change how hunting is accomplished by the peasantry or how guards apprehend criminals. Antitoxin can make expanding into the wilderness much easier because you don't have to worry as much about your colonists dying of snake bite. Sunrods and tindertwigs make daily life and exploration much easier.
I know this falls into the dread realm of applying reality-based logic to a game world (and this may not even be all that applicable to Kingmaker specifically) but it can lead to fun restructuring of how the societies of your individual game work.
Maybe somekind of limit based on the size of the community the alchemist is based in. After that transport costs/taxes/rival alchemists (or whatever craft) make it unviable.
Cheers
Mark
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I think you're likely to, if you make a sufficient variety of items, including those from the Adventurer's Armory, you will not likely over saturate your market to the point where your items are trash.
However, it is a lot of money. I'd cut that 50k number perhaps in half to account for shipping costs (including associated loss and breakage) and increased supply lowering demand and thus lowering the prices at home. It's still a good bit of money if all your math is right but that's the benefit of a good craft check, huh?
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Let him seed some of his alchemy money into a business. It'll cut down on his income for now, and give him a small but believable stipend when he's off campaigning again. He'll have to buy some kind of store, hire and train employees, and hire someone qualified to manage it while he's gone. That should suck up a lot of income and instead channel it back into the economy, rather than "You now have 50,000gp."
Personally, I love a good build-your-own thing. :D
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Also, it really changes the face of a country with mass market alchemy. With just the Core book, Acid and Fire and Tanglefoot Bags can change how hunting is accomplished by the peasantry or how guards apprehend criminals. Antitoxin can make expanding into the wilderness much easier because you don't have to worry as much about your colonists dying of snake bite. Sunrods and tindertwigs make daily life and exploration much easier.
I know this falls into the dread realm of applying reality-based logic to a game world (and this may not even be all that applicable to Kingmaker specifically) but it can lead to fun restructuring of how the societies of your individual game work.
This is totally a cool tack to take, here. The prevalence of the alchemical supplies in the area would make their use more common, as you suggest, and also explain lower prices, regionally (reducing the amount of gold the PC is racking in).
It's also possible that an alchemist could come up with some of his own recipes, such as non-combat-affecting options, such as fertility drugs, insect repellants (for crop protection, more than personal comfort), etc. If cheap sources of lubricant can be manufactured, heavy stones can be slid into place much easier. If alchemy can provide a means to strengthen wood against decay, sort of a quasi-magical pressure-treatment method, buildings can last longer without maintenance. Different oils could make wood burn longer, or not burn at all, either to protect buildings from fire, or to make firewood last several times as long, could also change things.
There are a ton of options for an alchemist to come up with formula that would have had no effect that adventurers would really care about, but could make life better / easier for the local residents.
Here are a couple of other potential issues to consider:
1) Materials & supplies. Sure, making a tanglefoot bag may require a reasonably small amount of reasonably cheap materials - but when you try to get enough raw materials to make 10,000 of them, you may just get a "sorry, we can't fill that order" from your supplier. Or, worse yet, he may fill your order, only to be out of ingredients when you need them for something serious.
2) Production risks. We're talking alchemy here, right? If you are stocking silos full of raw materials and warehouses full of finished goods, what will be left of your town first time a fire starts?
3) Competition. It doesn't always play nice. Especially if you have silos of flammables sitting by your lab.
4) Supply and demand. Eventually, you'll over-saturate your small country's demand for tanglefoot bags. At that point, you have 2 choices: research new products, which will require substantial investment of time and money, or export - which will involve dealing with logistics, taxes and tarrifs and irate customers when a pride of Fire Drakes eats a shipment of alchemist fire...
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Yes, it is kinda ridiculous becasue you're interpreting the skills incorrectly.
Craft rules are only to deterime the cost and time it takes to make an item.
If you want to make money from that, you should be rolling your profession skill. That takes into account issues like takes, overhead, shipping, demand, etc.
Do that math with profession and you'll see it is much more reasonable.
Now, if you are willing to forgo the "I break the economic model with my class features" option, I think it might be reasonable to use those features to build up a a truly terrifying stock of alchemicals that can later be utilized by your armies.
If I were GMing and you built up a stockpile of Alchemists Fire (or poison for that matter), I'd allow a bonus to the equipped army for a battle or two until it seemed reasonable that the stockpile was used up.
If you stockpile Anti-plague, then you could reasonably ameliorate or even avoid the effects of the Plague event.