So, I played an alchemist last year. An extremely fighty alchemist with chainmail and a big stick, because I wanted to see how useful it was in combat rather than in doing dodgy sneaky stuff or selling Elixirs. The answer to that question is "it's variable". Mostly I used the 1-ingredient stuff as a response to things as that was all I could cast up quickly enough, and was actually buying 2-ingredient potions rather than trying to use them in a hurry. You might be able to spare 5 seconds when mooks are charging you, but not 10. The noncombat stuff was of course hilarious.
Alchemists Must Have Precognition
Alchemy is a system that provides a lot of counters, RESISTS and pre-emptive buffs. However, the cast times range from 5 to 20 seconds, so you really need to know exactly what you're facing before each fight in order to deal with the situation. In some ways it's similar to Valour and Blessing buffs, in that both use a non-renewable resource in order to throw up a defence. However unlike either, the duration is a mere 5 minutes rather than INFLICT. Its very rare to be able to respond to a fight breaking out with anything except 2 Floating Armor, a RESIST or a VENOM.
Reagent Burnout
This, to me is the major reason alchemists are not a popular linearing class. Mages can regen mana every encounter, and get it back with 1 night of sleep. Priests get Spirit back every day, and can mooch it off other priests using Spirit Meld.
As a back-of the fag-packet example. Spirit and Alchemy cost roughly the same for minor healing. Let's make the assumption that Spirit Points and reagents are roughly similar. They're not, 1 Spirit is better than 1 reagent. This only serves to reinforce the point though.
- Spirit, you get 7 per level if you take both skills. You regain Spirit at midday or midnight, so 7 per day.
- Alchemy you get 18 per level if you take both skills. Regens once a week, so a little over 2 reagents a day.
You might get more reagents per interactive as your PC has been hoarding them all week, but per week, you actually have
fewer resources available as an Alchemist than anyone else. What this means is that if you take your next week's reagents linearing, you're likely burned out at the next Interactive and relying on your PC's other skills. Similarly, there's a good reason to not use stuff in Downtime as it comes out of that week's supply.
Fixes
- I'd fix reagent burnout by reducing the amount of time it takes to prepare reagents. As it has absolutely no effect in uptime, I would suggest saying alchemists prepare reagents either twice a week or every day. The restriction would be that you can only make 2 Elixirs per week as usual, and that the cost of elixirs is that you can prepare X less ingredients per day. This way, Alchemists can go and actually do things in Downtime, or go on an Linear without running out of ability to do Alchemy. Elixirs would still lower their available resources for the week.
- A 30 min or INFLICT duration on some of the alchemy would be a much better idea, even if it was only for self-targeted alchemy because "you know your own doses". That way, you can throw something up in the expectation of violence in the near future and have it pay off, rather than spend the first minute of a combat running around rubbing salves on stuff. Obligatory Hurr. It also leads to fun things like concealed holdout daggers with VENOM on them. INFLICT Freeze Immunity for example would be overpowered. INFLICT Floating Armour, Momentum or VENOM less so. I know the obvious counter-argument to this is "make elixirs" but you can make a grand total of 2 per week and again it relies on you guessing what you need elixirs *for*.
- Specifically:
- Momentum: rubbed into normal weapons, will add one degree of damage to the weapon, up to a maximum natural call of SINGLE - in addition, makes the weapon immune to the effects of DISARM. This is the alchemical equivalent of Empower X Weapon and would work better as an Inflict so you can use it for an entire TT session, or a separate Bond Alchemical Sidearm skill. If it was an INFLICT, it could be nerfed a bit as it is possible to hand these weapons out for DISARM immunity.
- Venom: Spending 10-15 seconds to venom up a blade is arguably less efficient than spending 10-15 seconds shivving something with it, as it's limited both in time and number of strikes. If it was 30 min or INFLICT then the limiting factor would be the number of hits you get to make with it. As opposed to the best trick being using a single dose of Venom and getting a Backstab in, then re-applying while you wait to be able to Backstab again.
- Floating Armour, Reinforced Cloth etc. They are both unrepairable ablative armour. You transform a non-renewable resource into a non-renewable defence, and you need it up in advance. 30 min or INFLICT feels sensible to both. Unlike "real" armour points, you have to dose up with these again.