CLSWiki: Chevron/MoreAlchemy

One thing players have been asking about, and I think is potentially cool, is having some combat alchemy that you literally use to do stuff in its own right in a fight, as opposed to applying to weapons to augment them f/ex. Examples include:

Smoke Bombs (mass/wide blind X and/or short duration invisibility for ninjas)
Molotovs (mass RED DOUBLE f/ex - would be lovely if it could be "thrown" but that seems like it would require its own set of complex rules. I guess the alchemist could either also take damage or be "bracing themselves" though the latter is less convincing IMO.)
Weird stuff like exploding concoctions of slippery/sticky goop which cause mass strikedown X or mass halt X.

Are there any huge reasons not to include these, appropriately balanced? Does anyone else have interesting ideas for what this kind of thing could do?

--Chevron

I'd go look at the SystemReset discussions from when we put the current alchemy system in, as iirc it covers why it doesn't exist. My gut says that alchemy already gets some stuff amazingly cheap, and so making outright combat stuff available means it's either too expensvie to be useful or so cheap it's broken. --Tea

: Mhm. Mass calls would work only as 3 and 4 ingredient effects if they were in any way balanced with Magic. I'd assume they'd be "apply potion, create item with a 5 minute lifespan that makes this call" as trying to time a 15 second application to cause a MASS call when you want it is much more difficult than a 13 word vocal. --Jim

From a system design pov, the way to make molotovs work is a call like BLAST from Memento Mundi. You call "Target, BLAST SINGLE", say, and they take SINGLE STRIKEDOWN and call MASS SINGLE STRIKEDOWN. --Tea

Any system which forces potential targets to learn the rules for weapons which might attack them has a fundamental flaw IMO --TimB

I'm not sure "learn BLAST" is really any worse than "Learn HALT" - everybody needs to know the standard calls for a game, in case they get targeted by them. --Tea

I'm not a massive fan of this, as lack of coneableness of TT mass calls means that they are much more of a risky proposition than they were at Mael, which I think is both a nice balance factor and utterly hilarious at times. If someone can start their mass call targeted on someone else this removes this tradeoff. Also given that they do this at DuD for grenades and NOBODY takes the hits (because it's just too confusing to work out/remember how far away from everyone you are in a melee) I don't think it would actually get taken whereas a mage/whatever making a huge show of things and having an explosion centred on them is far easier to notice. In addition, if this becomes a call then there is no reason why mages shouldn't have access to a fireball that they can throw and then explodes or whatever. --Andy

: It's working out fairly well for Memento Mundi. DuD falls apart because there's too much shouting. And yes, with a Blast call it would be sensible to introduce ranged exploding effects into magic etc. In short, I'm not saying we shoudl do this, I'm jsut saying it's the best way to make grenades work that I've heard of --Tea

To my mind, combat alchemy should be about letting a pure alchemist linear in the same way that a pure mage or Priest can with Empowered Weapon, rather than kicking in 2 ingredients a fight for Momentum/Venom?. As an example, something like the philosophy (or maybe Blessings?) people have used at ODC to put Philosophers into the Arena, or Strom Strength Potions. A lot of alchemy like Momentum seems deliberately weak because it's all transferable and better used as a force multiplier on someone else.

Example: Strength Enhancement 10 XP, requires Alch Skill 4

You have mixed a compound specific to your own physiology that increases your strength. During Downtime you dose yourself with alchemical enhancers and gain INFLICT 7: You may call SINGLE with any weapon. THis INFLICT is permanent for as long as you have access to your lab to create your strength potion. If you have this effect purged, it will take another week's worth of doses to regain the effect (Inflict 7 because Cleansing is Purge 6)

As a general principle, high level inflicts on low level skills is something to think carefully about. I personally feel that it should definitely be purgable with Cleansing - Cleansing is a level 4 miracle cast by Lay on Hands, and hardly ever useful. --Tea

High level inflict is there because there is no obvious way to destroy a Spirit or Magic Empowered Weapon. Can't DISARM and nick it, have to down the owner. Whereas this would seem to be an INFLICT as it is an effect on the PC. A weaker effect as no snacky damage type, but broader-based. It would be possible for a mid/higher-level PC to walk up and go "The Children of the Light do not approve of what you have done to yourself, be PURIFIED! PURGE 6." Being able to blow up someone else's skill for a week should require mad power or an unresisting target. The problem isn't so much cleansing being used to "curse" a combat alchemist but "if you take this skill, then the only means to cure disease will also blast off your equivalent of Empowered Weapon". -Jim

*Inflict 9 = Gods only

*Inflict 8 = Things of near godlike power

*Inflict 7 = the most powerful things available to pcs with the potential only exception of level 8 miricles.

*Level 4 alchemy is inflict 2.

*Anyone can run off with a spirit or empowered magical weapon if their owner puts it down or is beat up by monsters. This happens semi freqeuntly

*This proposed skill is basically warrior one and two + melee one and two for 32 less xp. Any weapon is a lot different to 'one weapon that can be stolen'

*Blessings and curses are both removed by the same means. I don't see stuff falling off to low level purges as a bug but a feature.

--Malselene

"Any weapon" makes more sense if it is a personal buff. It could just as easily be restricted to any one handed. Alchemy's the only class that is missing a way to call SINGLE, and it would seem preferable to not introduce more DISARM immunity. I know you can steal empowered weapons, I mentioned it above. You can even do INFLICT 3: Give me that Spirit Weapon", if you don't mind your arm being slowly melted. However, they can be nicked back.

The way I was seeing this was not "Inflict 7 because overwhelming power" but "Inflict 7 because this is a complicated thing tied to one person". It's not a case of "Oh this is bought at L4 it should be Inflict 2", It's a class feature that won't get any better with more Alchemy levels, so it should have a high starting level or the INFLICT scale to Alchemical Skill level. Blessings being removed is a feature, they are transferable, re-applicable power. Skills being disabled, less so. PURGE on someone downed is a nice deniable attack you can claim is helping them. I probably overestimated how much Purge gets used and would catch a skill in the crossfire. -Jim

: A couple of weeks ago Andy and I couldn't find a source of Purge 3. My inclination would be to put it at 3 or 4, fwiw, as that's in the realms of purgable but not trivially catchable in wide purge 1 or 2. If one does go this way, keeping it below the miracle which is explicitly "remove all alchemical effects" is absolutely required. --Tea

Example: Transmuted weapon 10 XP, requires Alch Skill 4

: You have transmuted a single weapon to be preternaturally sharp or swift. So long as you carefully oil and store it, you may call SINGLE with this weapon, and it resists DISARM. The effect on the weapon will fade if it spends more than an hour outside your possession, as your carefully applies oils and lacquers degrade.

--Jim

Have you considered just how amazing this is stacked onto a alchemist build with a two-level warrior splash? Shield, sword, and free disarm immunity? :D :D --Tea

Yes, I was going to call it the "Alchadin" or something. If it's too powerful, then so are priests, who get the same skill along with more immediately combat smashy powers and SPIRIT damage on the weapon. Or buff mages with 2 Warrior. The "Strength potion" one would be my preferred method. The DISARM immunity looks to be there in EMW skills as you are utterly reliant on one weapon, but I would argue that it would work without it fine, and make PCs worried about losing their special weapon.--Jim

However, no-one else gets durational immunity to lots of status effects. That's the main weakness of warriors, far more than "can I do some direct damage". --Tea

: Yeah true. Perhaps 10 XP, call VENOM SINGLE, no DISARM immunity? Or a simple 5 XP skill of "one weapon, any size, it can totally be disarmed but hey you can get immunities". There's no reason it has to be a carbon copy of Empower in any way other than "you have a sidearm for calling SINGLE with". -Jim

: In general point, at Cutt, most classes seem to be defined as much by what stuff they don't easily get access to as to what they do have access to. Magic doesn't do healing, Spirit no longer does status effect immunities and alchemy doesn't do mass calls. Giving alchemy status effects/ranged damage calls turns alchemy into 'does absolutely everything but for a limited number of times a day' which along side the fact that most alchemists will have access to every possible combination of ingredients for their level would make the class tend towards feeling like a temporary shoe in for absolutely every other skill. --Malselene

: True, but in this form I think it could be said that alchemy doesn't do combat (unlike mage/priest) - while you can buff a warrior for a short while, if you wanted to linear in this way you would be better just statting a warrior in the first place, and this is a bit of s shoe-in anyway! I might experiment with some kind of alchemy skills which require eg. both hands plus five seconds per ingredient to do various effects at considerable cost (so ideally you make it up before the fight if you get the chance and chuck it around.) I can always justchange it if it doesn't work!:D I'm also planning not to have different ingredients to keep things simpler on the ref side. --Chevron

: I still don't quite get why you aren't just writing your own system, with the amount you seem to be hacking up. E.g., the different ingredient stuff is how the alchemy system works -- if you're taking them away, how are you controlling how things work? --Tea

Considering how, as Rowena says, most alchemists will have access to all the relevant ingredients for their level, there is one kind of alchemical ingredient (cf. mana and spirit points, yes,) plus base. You can learn how to make specific potions "treewise" at levels (1) 3, 5 and 7 costing (1) 2, 3 and 4 doses per shot. XP cost and the amount of resources received with the skill TBD, but likely to be less than CUTT considering it is more generally applicable. --Chevron

So are you having to spend xp on each potion? I'm not quite understanding how your system actually works, and fundamentally it seems that you're changing enough you should perhaps just write a new one from scratch, or use the TT one untouched. Do not meddle with a system you do not fully understand, and all that. --Tea

The idea is that there will be some xp cost per potion (perhaps 1,2,3,4 for the different levels) yes. --Chevron

Oh gods above that's a terrible idea. Just throw away the whole system if you're going to fuck it up like that. --Tea

Thank-you for your constructive input. --Chevron

You're welcome. In more detail: The biggest advantage of the ingredient system in CUTT alchemy is that it means buying access to the main useful potions also opens up access to the odd and situational stuff. Is "glue" really worth 2xp? Fuckno. But it *is* worth making occasionally, and any level 3 alchemist will have already bought B for armour and G for curing. Similarly, recreational and medical alchemy, and lots of odd stuff like the inflict effect venoms. What charging directly for potions will do is make alchemy into a class where everyone just buys the main useful potions, and all of the interesting and wierd bits get completely ignored because they're basically never going to make the xp buyin worth it. --Tea

That is a good point, but I'm not sure the current CUTT system is the simplest solution to the issue. One other possible solution is to incorporate potions that are not attractive enough to warrant an individual XP spend into the class skills (considering again the fact that ingredient colours seldom present a limitation), such that level 1 or 2 alchemists can make glue, hair die etc., level 3 or 4 can do emotional inflicts and drugs without a specific spend. But that is off the top of my head, it is worth more consideration. --Chevron.

: As Inquisitor puts it, the fact that there are loads of potion options opened up by limited choice of ingredients + the alchemist's level is a feature, not a bug. And ingredient access is often a limiting factor for multiclass alchemists. In general, buying potions promotes poping up specific potions and ignoring flexibility, buying ingredients promotes flexibility and use of the odd ones. Is it ever worth spending XP on reinforce cloth? --Tea

: Also, don't we still have some status effect immunity in blessing? --Chevron

: Blessing 4 has negate any two status effect calls but there are no blanket immunities left in blessing as comparable to the potions that make people immune to freeze and halt or strikedown and repel.--Malselene

: I'm actually still more leery of the all-day negate-two-status-effects than the five-minute negate-a-specific-status-or-two. --Chevron

: In defensive PVP inflict negate any two status effects is possibly one of the best things out there. However if you wish to commit offensive pvp against people with status effects then give me the 5 minute immunities any day. They are one of the things that makes rolling the bar not look that difficult to pull off at all. --Malselene

: I like people planning something and getting it done in a five minute interval, rather than just walking round with immunities 24/7, which is the source of my leeriness. However you are right on the offensive PvP? front and I might actually roll down that immunity to 2 resists as I've been scaling back resists even further overall anyway. --Chevron.

Fundamentally, with status effects and DD, alchemy just becomes the outright best pvp class, paired with being a poor pvm class due to ingredient restrictions. This seems like a terrible idea for how to balance a linear system. --Tea

: +1 --TimB

Of course there is also the weird and wondrous world of possibilities that is exotic alchemy and I will admit to occasionally wondering why invisibility potions don't feature in cutt. But I'd look to exotic alchemy for adding unusual/new stuff rather than to the everyday alchemy section. --Malselene

I assume you could create an invisibility potion with white magiced base and sufficient other ingredients for the length of your invisibility. Just that no-one has tried this.--Taxellor

: Well, that does require a white mage to trust someone not to be a dodgy bastard with the transferable power they are handing out --Andy
: Not sure why you would over just buying a scroll :D --Tea

: As a completely different idea, how about doing away with alchemists as a class altogether? The existence of potions in the system can be handled differently (preferably in a way that the refs can control it as they see fit)- personally I'd just have it as something which happens abstractly off-screen. Then if you particularly want to have wacky potions turn up they can, as one-offs provided by plot. If you find them workable and balanced they might then become more commonly available. My starting question would be whether having alchemists as a class makes your system better to trade off for the work they create- partcularly with the transferrable power bugbear which plagues them (and the allocation of wealth in the system that can go with it). --TimB

: It was something I strongly considered but players were extremely keen on it already. I am hoping to generate plot which personally hooks alchemists and requires their presence (in the way that ritual mages / death priests occasionally are absolutely required for linears, or are otherwise highly motivated to go.)I intend to harshly cut back on the ability to produce "elixirs" to something like "level/2" per week. Wacky potions may come through exotic alchemy, which in principal should always be introduced in a controllable way. --Chevron

Given that the cap on producing elixirs is already 2 per week... --Tea

Where is that given? I think that something like that would be good but don't see it listed on the alchemy rules or alchemical skills page. --Chevron

: It fell off the skill description in the website change. --Tea

Thank-you all. I have received valuable input into the matters relating to the original posting, which has shaped the kind of things I want to try out. I do still plan to introduce a few of these preparations into alchemy to see, experimentally, what they do. They alchemy system will be subject to change (as all other aspects of the system) but will be telegraphed as being in beta and much more likely to see significant changes than other parts of the system. --Chevron

: I would very strongly recommend that you try the unmodified alchemy system for at least your first term, and let a bunch of players attempt to abuse it so you get a feel for the interesting subtleties it has. --Tea