Alchemist uses psychic magic?

[Avonthalonus]

It was never clear to me what kind of magic the alchemist used from the Advanced Player's Guide. While it classifies alchemist magic as arcane, it says that the alchemist gets his magic "from his own aura" and "his own magical potential" and infuses it into his extracts. Now that psychic magic has been introduced and defined as magic arising from each individual's own spiritual power, rather than that of a deity or an outside force, doesn't it seem appropriate to say that the alchemist is using psychic magic to infuse his extracts and bombs with? Just a thought.

[EltonJ]

In my games, Alchemists are non-magical in reality, but we still use the game mechanics that says that they are.

It's all relative. :) It depends on how you interpret it. I take a hard science approach to Alchemy rather than a soft science or fantastical approach -- that's my interpretation. Take that as you will.

[LazarX]

Avonthalonus wrote:

It was never clear to me what kind of magic the alchemist used from the Advanced Player's Guide. While it classifies alchemist magic as arcane, it says that the alchemist gets his magic "from his own aura" and "his own magical potential" and infuses it into his extracts. Now that psychic magic has been introduced and defined as magic arising from each individual's own spiritual power, rather than that of a deity or an outside force, doesn't it seem appropriate to say that the alchemist is using psychic magic to infuse his extracts and bombs with? Just a thought.

No... there is absolutely nothing spiritual about alchemy. An alchemist's "aura" is more like that of a Warhammer Orc's.

[Heretical Zed]

Alchemy is SCIENCE! I suppose you could consider them "supernatural" but they're not magical at all in the sense of arcane, divine, or psychic.

[Rhatahema]

Psychic magic seems like a poor fit for the alchemist because of the Thought/Emotion components. An alchemist may not employ Verbal/Somatic components, but there's a strong focus on the material component (thematically). Spiritualism may still play a role, but the process of writing formulas and brewing extracts feels closest to the arcane to me.

[MRomanova]

The way I understood the alchemists 'magic' is that instead of casting magic that is learned (wizard), from a bloodline (exterior source technically, IE, sorcerer) or granted by a deity (divine), they create substances that otherwise would be semi mundane, but with innate magical ability, they infuse these semi-mundane substances with real magic power. More of a difference of delivery system. Does that make it psychic? I don't really think so...

Flavor wise, I completely understand wanting to interpret the alchemist as science based, but at the same time, in a fantasy packed game, why couldn't alchemy be pseudo-magic? in the end, isn't magic a technology of its own arguably?

[AlanDG2]

Since Alchemists can learn formulae from Arcane spell books, I think they are best defined as an Arcane class.

[Dracala]

That's just because only Arcane users actually use a Spellbook. In Actuality Alchemy is a magical science of a sort and quite seperate from the science of studying the Arcane that a Wizard would go through. More a Study that was the birth of Chemistry in the Real World, so quite based around studying the natural power of chemical reactions, aka, well Chemistry.

P.S. I like lumping the Alchemist (& the Investigator), with LPJ's Machinesmith/Fleshwraith into a Class of Magic called Scientific... They each imbue a part of their own magical aura aka their Biomagnetic Fields into Scientifically created Gadgets and Extracts in order to power them with "magical" potential.