Goblin Squad Member
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I should imagine that as an aspiring herbalist or alchemist my training would inform me what ingredients and components I need for a potion, salve, or balm. But how am I to identify those ingredients in the wild? Sirely I will not be limited to only whatever may drop as loot for a goblin or ettin I brain(s). Surely I will be able to find nettles, arrowroot, and lavender in the wild.
But perhaps not. Perhaps I should have to discover their properties another way, possibly by ingestion?
Will those plants and herbs I could harvest display a glowy outline? Will they have a label? Descriptive text that is more revelatory the higher my skill? Will honeycombs stand out from the tree hollow or will I follow the bee home?
How will I determine grade 100 Lavender from grade 300 lavender?
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Goblin Squad Member
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There isn't much information out there about identification, harvesting, refining/processing and crafting. There part of a few blogs and some general discussion, but no real details. I hope there are thousands of different raw materials, all interdependent, so crafters of every sort must rely on each other to have the parts they need to create the things that will make life livable in PFO.
I would hope all spell casters need some sort of material components to cast their spells, and the more powerful the spell the more exotic, rare or expensive the component (or reagent). I want to see specializations so there are shops for only alchemy and alchemical components, weapon shops, armor shops, bows crossbows and arrows, engineering shops, cobbler shops, haberdashers, animal feed, bulk materials....all sorts of stuff!
Elder Scrolls: Oblivion has almost 100 different alchemical ingredients to make potions, and that does not include materials for scrolls, enchantments, wands and staves, magical crystals, powders, or any other magical items. There is clearly an almost limitless list of things to make other magical stuff with.
Many fairly normal items may be gathered from resource nodes in large quantities, but I hope many of the more rare items may only be gathered from individual nodes that come and go. The really rare ones may only be found during a full moon, at night (as you mention above), on a shady hillock, in the depths of a deep cavern, under water.
Still more items can be made by processing the same plant, animal part or raw material in a different way. Plants will have a stem, leaf, stamen, pistil, root, flower or bud, seed or seed pod. Animals will have blood, brain, skin or hide, eyes, nose, ears, feet, hooves or claws, feather, tail, bones, quills or spines, tentacles or suckers. All these things could be ground, boiled, baked, charred, sautéed, sliced, pickled or any other means of preparation.
Just using these items listed, that allows thousands of combinations. And if they are this ambitious in PFO, I hope they don't tell us what does what....that should be a learning process so we need testing labs for wizards to learn potions, assassins to learn poisons, sorcerers to make whatever it is sorcerers will make, clerics to prepare and perfect holy water, and elaborate kitchens for the common cook or chef to make wondrous foods.
That's what I want to see.
I hope they don't tell us what does what....that should be a learning process so we need testing labs for wizards to learn potions, assassins to learn poisons, sorcerers to make whatever it is sorcerers will make, clerics to prepare and perfect holy water, and elaborate kitchens for the common cook or chef to make wondrous foods.
Agreed!
I know there will be guides out eventually, but I hope there's not ever an official guide.I'm also perfectly fine w/recipes being ludicrously complex and hard to put together. I want to be able to experiment, and have that experimentation mean something.
I know it's a lot to hope for, but, eh, might as well!
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree to a point. Mixing various ingredients in various proportions in blind hope of stumbling across a combination that actually does something would get tiresome quickly. I believe there must be some way to tell what does what. I suspect the training in alchemy or herbalism will provide recipes, but I fear the developer might find that too obvious and gin it up a bit and possibly in ways that impede.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree to a point. Mixing various ingredients in various proportions in blind hope of stumbling across a combination that actually does something would get tiresome quickly. I believe there must be some way to tell what does what. I suspect the training in alchemy or herbalism will provide recipes, but I fear the developer might find that too obvious and gin it up a bit and possibly in ways that impede.
The best and most powerful recipes should be discoveries...I am fine with trainers providing some recipes as you level your skill. That makes sense. Think Harry Potter Alchemy class with that awful Snape! ("That's Professor Snape, Harry.") Some easy combinations you pick up early on, a few more you are taught but the ingredients are not available in "class" so you have to go find them yourself. Then you can go to a Magical Laboratory or an Alchemical Lab to test your skill.
By the way, while you were out you found a few dozen other possible ingredients you can test out. You heard someone had some luck with some Arrowroot and Yew bark, and some sort of flying creature blood. Maybe that'll work?
That should get you started. Hints are fine. I hope they don't give up the whole cookbook!
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Being
Perhaps I should have to discover their properties another way, possibly by ingestion?
Being the budding assassin who plans on using poisons, I think I will let you do the research <wink>.
But I am waiting on more info also. I plan on my alt being able to do alchemy etc. I like Skyrim's system of learning the qualities, then mixing to get the effects you want.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree with most common recipes being "known" as you level up in alchemy or herbalist, but the more powerful or rare should be discovered, and then perhoas only by trial and error.
Once discovered then the character can choose to, keep it a secret, or trade it for other discoveries, or even sell it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree with most common recipes being "known" as you level up in alchemy or herbalist, but the more powerful or rare should be discovered, and then perhoas only by trial and error.
Once discovered then the character can choose to, keep it a secret, or trade it for other discoveries, or even sell it.
Absolutely! Discoveries of new recipies could yield a small fortune for truly rare and powerful formulas. There could be an entire economy for recipies and discoveries alone. That would be something to look forward to! Espionage, intrigue, cookbooks!
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Goblin Squad Member
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+1 to the 'Rare and Exotic' potion/poison recipes being discovered through trial and error.
Basic, mundane, necessary potions are learned rather mundanely, through leveling your badges, casting the right spells and suchlike.
Poisons that might deliver a rather weird effect, such as simultaneously frenzying the target (attacks anything within range for 1-3 'rounds) and causes it to gain a strength bonus might sound strange, but for a stealthy archer who enjoys sowing chaos in the ranks with a few well-aimed shots might well have a standing order for such poisons at the local apothacary, who may be the only one in several hexes who knows combining Goblin bile, Three-Cap Mushroom spores and a vial of Ox-Blood and cooking the resulting mess for three days produces the 'Berserker' poison.
Potions that might have strange or lopsided effects might also come about, such as a Healing Potion that will heal you over the course of 4-5 'rounds', but also gives you a crippling weakness to lightning-element attacks during that time might be sought out by adventurers regardless of the weakness, because of it's healing properties outweigh the risk of getting one-shotted by some uppity Sorcerer with a wand of Lightning Bolts.
'Unique' or 'Signature' recipes found or created by our Alchemists and Wizards and Clerics shouldn't be 'throw three things into the alembic, turn it on high and come back in 24 hours to see what's happened'. Rather, the process of creating 'Signature' potions should be the capstone awarded at the completion of a Alchemy 'Badge', where the game tallies what you know about the craft and gives you several options based upon what you know. This encourages players to not share all of their secrets, but also gives a great deal of value to trustworthy Alchemists who do sell their secrets discreetly to others of their ilk.
Random ingredients recovered from the Wilderness, from the Herb-Gardens on Farms, an aspiring Alchemist should be able to buy basic 'primers' which give them the basic uses of the majority of these base-line ingredients, and through making these, they start to notice quirks in how some components react.
From there, the game keeps a tally of what ingredient does what, such as the pollen Husky Lavender blossoms from Nine-Frogs Lake seems to share milk hallucenogenic properties with the seeds recovered from a patch of wild ground-cherries from a tributary river that feeds into the Lake.
Mixing the two together, the Alchemist creates a dust that, when used as a grenade-like weapon, causes the targets to become dazed and pacified for some time, or when applies to bait in traps, caused the baited target to fall into a deep, pleasant sleep, allowing for ease of transport.
Seeing a connection, the Alchemist organises a discreet travelling party to accompany him up the tributary river and uncovers an old shrine to an old Pagan God of Merry-Making and Healing. The lingering magic in the shrine is the cause of the at-times bizarre reactions that the local Herbs, Animals and Monsters that are found around the Nine-Frogs Lake, tainting the water with minute amounts of the now-absent 'God's' divine portfolio.
Now they've got a problem on their hands. Loot the shrine and risk offending this God, leave it be and hope that the magic keeps on flowing, warn others to leave the Shrine alone and hope no selfish git comes along and loots it anyways now that it's public knowledge ...