I have a Bard(Negotiator) 2 / Swashbuckler (Inspired Blade) 5
In order to be able to take Craft Wondrous Item, I went with Master Craftsman and ranks in Craft: Alchemy
I've been looking over Alchemy rules and it's mostly straight forward (craft DC, then spend 1/3rd the cost to craft instead of buy). A couple of questions though:
1. I can still only make one item a day, correct?
2. I admit to being confused by the crafting rules in the Alchemy Manual. I'm probably reading over the rules too haphazardly, but it's losing me a bit.
Things like this:
Recipe (20 magnesium + 30 myrrh + 5 saltpeter)/congelation;
Do I just spend the gold, or should I be acquiring and tracking all of these ingredients?
3. Are poisons worth it (i.e. if I retrained 1 level of Bard to Investigator (Toxin Codexer)), or are we already past the point that the save DCs are generally not worth it?
4. Aside from the obvious ones (like anti-venom, anti-plague, etc), are there more "go to" alchemical items I should just be crafting while on the road? (I have the portable alchemy lab)
5. Why does the PFSRD list some obviously crafted items with no Craft DC (like Insomnia Powder)?
Ok this is all off the top of my head, so it couod be 100% wrong. With that disclaimer out of the way:
1. I think the 1/day rule is for magic items, so for Potions it's 1/day (unless they're under 200gp I think), but for other alchemical items I don't think that limit is there.
2. This depends a bit on your GM, but usually just gold is enough. If your GM is a stickler they might want you to track this while not in town (in town you can just assume you have access to it).
3. Usually no. There are some good guides for poisons that you can find which will have the better ones. There are ways to combine multiple doses of a poison to increase the DC which will make them better, but it gets more expensive.
4. Tanglefoot bags come to mind?
5. Some items probably don't have craft DCs (if they'e from a module or something), but also the PFSRD isn't an official site. If you look up archivesofnethys.com you might find things there that are missing from the PFSRD.
Tangleburn bags are always good to have on hand
Is Master Alchemist the only way to make alchemy in a reasonable time frame?
Skrayper wrote: 2. I admit to being confused by the crafting rules in the Alchemy Manual. I'm probably reading over the rules too haphazardly, but it's losing me a bit.
Things like this:
Recipe (20 magnesium + 30 myrrh + 5 saltpeter)/congelation;
Do I just spend the gold, or should I be acquiring and tracking all of these ingredients?
Those are referring to the Spontaneous Alchemy system, which is detailed on pages 4-5 of Alchemy Manual. Basically, if you have the materials/equipment, you can use the Recipe.
For example: Antitoxin requires 7 gold, 17 myrrh and 23 urea and requires the alchemical process Ceration. It also requires a crucible for tools and takes 10 minutes with a craft DC of 25. You do not create it faster if you beat the DC. If you fail by 5 or more you can Mishap. There is a feat "Instant Alchemy" which reduce thes amount of time to make the item to something approximating 'in combat'.
If you created the Antitoxin normally, you first find the item's market price in Silver Pieces (500 for Antitoxin) and the DC (25). Pay 1/3rd of the item's cost and make a single craft check for a week of work (or divide by 7 if you need it per day). If you succeed on the DC to make the item, multiply your check result by the DC for how much progress you have made. If you meet DC 25 exactly, you would make 625 sp of progress for the week. Meaning you completed the Antitoxin about halfway through day 5. You can choose to increase the DC by 10 to complete the item faster, as your check result and the base DC should be higher. Ie DC 35 exactly would be 1225sp of progress for the week (2.85 days for 1).
The Spontaneous Alchemy reagents end up costing 27 gold(and 20 gp for the crucible), and only takes 10 minutes. The normal craft process costs 16.6 gold and takes at most 5.6 days assuming you meet the DC exactly. If you have downtime normal crafting is sufficient. If you don't, and don't want to buy the items at full price, and don't know what you need every given adventure, then Spontaneous Alchemy might be for you.
Also - in case it wasn't clear - Spontaneous Alchemy is an optional alternate rule to the regular alchemy rules, so most games probably won't use them.
Reading up on Instant Alchemy, but I don't know if it is feasible - how often is there something you can craft in 10 minutes? Maybe Alchemists can do that?
I'm considering, slightly, retraining a level of Bard to Investigator. Bard to keep my masterpieces, Investigator for the alchemy - or maybe just see if I can redo the Craft: Alchemy to something else.
I do have these:
Amazing Tools of Manufacture, but that was because I have Master Craftsman and Craft Wondrous Item. Using it for 50gp alchemical items seems like overkill.
It really does seem like Master Alchemist is the only way to make those things in a reasonable time frame. I don't think we're using Spontaneous Alchemy.
Skrayper wrote: Reading up on Instant Alchemy, but I don't know if it is feasible - how often is there something you can craft in 10 minutes? Maybe Alchemists can do that? No, the 10 minute crafting time is specifically things related to Spontaneous Alchemy. If you look at the back of the Alchemy Manual book, maybe 50% are 10 minutes, 25% 1 hour, 20% 1 day, 5% 1 week.
Firebug wrote: Skrayper wrote: Reading up on Instant Alchemy, but I don't know if it is feasible - how often is there something you can craft in 10 minutes? Maybe Alchemists can do that? No, the 10 minute crafting time is specifically things related to Spontaneous Alchemy. If you look at the back of the Alchemy Manual book, maybe 50% are 10 minutes, 25% 1 hour, 20% 1 day, 5% 1 week. Ah, okay - I'm seeing it now. That's very different from the core crafting rules. Looks like you need a good bit of pre-investment, but that's not that big of a deal considering the extra dimensional space we have at our level. If the GM allows it, guess I'm going to need to build out a spreadsheet for this.
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