I am starting in a new home campaign with an Alchemist and trying to figure out how quickly I can make alchemical items at a (relatively) lower level.
In my example, let’s say I’m a 6th level Alchemist with the Master Alchemist feat and Swift Alchemy.
I decide I want to make Alchemist Fires to try to restock as much as I can, as I went through 8 of them in our last adventure. However, it needs to be fast as we only have a day of downtime. My bonuses are: +5(INT)+12 skill (including the Alchemist ability of +1 a level)+3 class skill+2 Alchemist’s Lab = 22 total.
As it’s only a day I have, I divide the result by 7. And again, since it needs to be quick, I add +10 to the DC, which would make it 30. To keep this simple, I take 10, so my final result is 32. 32x30=960. I divide by 7, which comes out to 137 GP (rounding down). Due to the fact I have Master Alchemist, I do not need to turn the gold into silver, so since an Alchemist Fire is only 20 GP, I rolled high enough to make 5 of them.
Now my question is, where does Swift Alchemy come into play? It says it takes half the time to make items, so does that mean I was able to make 10 of them for that day?
The numbers I have given here, are they correct? If not, how should it be figured out?
And the big question is, are you able to craft more than one item in a day without Instant Alchemy? I would like to think you can, since you can divide the result into daily (instead of a week).
Basically, you can approach this two ways. Either you double the final gold amount (274gp or so) OR each roll only takes 4 hours, so you get two batches in one day. If you're just taking 10 each time and making all the same stuff, the difference is minimal in amount completed, but if you roll then it can be better (or worse, of course), but if you want to make two batches of different things, then it can be good.
Alternatively, you only use half the day to do the 5 fires and instead can do something else with the rest of your day.
Your math feels right, but I've not delved into that particular mess in quite some time. Seems accurate.
You should be able to do more than one item a day, especially with Swift Alchemy, but again I'm not too familiar with any odd nuances or combinations of restrictions.
You're forgetting the +2 bonus from Master Alchemist, so your check is actually +24. Other than that, you're good.
Oddly enough, there aren't any specific rules for how long you can spend each day making progress with the Craft skill. The magic item creation rules cap progress each day at 8 hours. These same rules also impose the 'craft one item/day' limit. Since the value arrived at via your Craft checks is too high to accommodate just one item, it makes sense that you could simply take half the amount of time to make those 5 fires, or make 10 fires in the same time-frame. However long that time-frame is, that's up to your GM.
Your 'progress value' divides the item value to see how long it takes you to craft it in that period of time.
If Cerberus is right, then your total is actually 145 vs 20, which means you craft it in one seventh the normal time. Swift alchemy means you complete it in half of that time. If you have the materials, you can create 14 items in your 'crafting downtime day' regardless of how long you're actually allowed to craft during that day by the rules. (Disruptions/etc might remove the downtime though).
Right, 145 due to the additional +2 I had forgotten. I agree, it would work out to 14 Alchemist Fires, if I did use the second half for crafting as well. MurphysParadox brings up a good point I could use the second half for something else. But yes, I see where you are coming from.
Instant Alchemy pretty much throws your downtime needs out of the window. Even assuming you can only craft for an eight hour period, there are 4800 rounds in that period. If you have both the materials -and- the need for 4800 of those things, you're nuts. XD (I'm also pretty sure you can't divide a full-round action, so I think your productivity is limited to 10 items a minute. But imagine how flexible it makes you! Crafting whenever you're not distracted is now easy!)
See, I wonder if I really should take Master Alchemist as Instant Alchemy negates it eventually. Granted, it is 18th level, but the feat literally becomes useless. Well, I shouldn't say useless, it does give a +2 to the check, but even still.
I will need to check with my GM and see if he is going to use the retraining rules in Ultimate Campaign. I think Master Alchemist would be a good candidate for that once I get Instant Alchemy.