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The arcana skill says:
"If you’re trained in Arcana, regardless of whether or not
you’re an alchemist or a spellcaster, you’re versed in how
to identify alchemical and magic items, even those you
normally would not be able to use."
Except all Arcana has is the "Identify Magic Items" activity, and alchemy isn't magic anymore. The activity never actually mentions alchemy. Also, it says you can't try again for one day on a failure.
And under trained craft uses, we have "Identify Alchemy."
Requirements You must use alchemist’s tools (see
page 184).
You can identify the nature of an alchemical item with 10 minutes
of testing using alchemist’s tools (see page 184 in Chapter 6:
Equipment). The DC of the check is 10 plus the level of the item. If
your attempt is interrupted in any way, you must start over.
Success You identify the item and the means of activating it.
Failure You fail to identify the item but can try again.
Critical Failure You misidentify the item as another item of
the GM’s choice.
I'll note it doesn't say you can "try again in 1 day." It says you can just try again.
Finally, we have the alchemist feat:
ALCHEMICAL SAVANT FEAT 1
You can identify alchemical items quickly. When trained in the Arcana skill and attempting to use its Identify Magic action (see page 145) on an alchemical item you hold, you can do so as a single action with the concentrate and manipulate traits instead of
taking an hour. If you have the formula for the item you are attempting to identify, you gain a +2 circumstance bonus to your check and treat any critical failures as failures instead.
I suspect this is one of those cases where multiple drafts didn't get gelled correctly. If so, errata will be necessary.
But if it isn't, then questions:
1) Can you use Arcana to identify alchemical items?
2) Can you use Crafting to identify alchemical items?
3) Does using Crafting to do so require the Alchemist tools
4) Does the Alchemical Savant feat ineract with questions 2 and 3?
5) If using Crafting, can you just spend another 10 minutes to try again or do you have to wait a day?
6) If the answer to 1 and 2 is yes, and the answer to 5 is no, does that mean the only real use of the alchemist tools in this scenario is to lower the identify time from 1 hour to 10 minutes?
7) If the answer to 6 is yes, does even that become redundant with Alchemical Savant?
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Bumping this. Seems rather important.
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Because it wouldn't let me edit my previous response:
1) Can you use Arcana to identify alchemical items?
No. As I stated previously, I think that is a typo and should have said Crafting. All the other feats around Alchemy seem to refer to Crafting leading me to that conclusion.
2) Can you use Crafting to identify alchemical items?
Yes, the crafting ability specifically has the Identify Alchemy.
3) Does using Crafting to do so require the Alchemist tools
Identify Alchemy specifically requires the tools, and I rather imagine them like a geologist's field kit in this regard. It has the items needed to make that quick identification.
4) Does the Alchemical Savant feat ineract with questions 2 and 3?
I would say that was the intent. I suspect we will see that in an errata.
5) If using Crafting, can you just spend another 10 minutes to try again or do you have to wait a day?
I would say yes, but only to INT mod number of attempts/day. After that you would have to wait 24 hours.
6) If the answer to 1 and 2 is yes, and the answer to 5 is no, does that mean the only real use of the alchemist tools in this scenario is to lower the identify time from 1 hour to 10 minutes?
In this scenario, yes, that is what it is doing. Otherwise the person identifying the item is really just guessing at what it might be.
7) If the answer to 6 is yes, does even that become redundant with Alchemical Savant?
No, Alchemical Savant reduces it to a single action to make the Identification, but it requires the Alchemist Tools to do so. I imagine it is more like the alchemist is making and educated guess and reaches for the items that will allow the quickest identification. Also, remember that Alchemical Savant adds a +2 to the identification attempt if you have the item formula in your formula book, so you may need to show the GM what formulas you have.
It doesn't help that if it is a typo, it is one that is made multiple times through out the book. Hence why I think it was probably originally one way and then changed, but a couple of references got missed.
I'd like to give this a bump and raise another similar question. Arcana, Nature, Occultism, and Religion all have the Identify Magic action, with nearly identical text. Before I had the rulebook, I was figuring you'd use each one to identify magic specific to your magical tradition. The problem: most items don't seem to have traditions associated with them. So which skill can you use to Identify just any old item? As written, I can't see what's stopping you from doing all your ID'ing with Nature or Religion if it suits your fancy. Is this intentional?