Old World» Alchemical crafting

To craft alchemical items, the Alchemy skill (called “Craft (alchemy)” in some systems) is required.

Time & equipment

The time required to craft alchemical items is one day (i.e., 8 hours or two watches of work) per 1,000 gp of the items’ total market price.

Crafting any alchemical item requires an alchemist’s lab.

Requirements

An alchemist may craft any item:

• which he knows how to craft (see Recipe knowledge, below);
• for which he has any requisite special ingredients;
• which has an item level no greater than his ranks in the Alchemy skill; and…
• which has a crafting DC no greater than 10 + his total Alchemy skill bonus (including all modifiers from equipment, aid, etc.).

(See Alchemical Items for item levels and crafting DCs of many common alchemical items. For spell potions, the item level is equal to the potion’s caster level, and the crafting DC is equal to 15 + the potion’s caster level.)

Recipe knowledge

All alchemists know how to craft items of common rarity. (Knowledge of recipes for items of higher rarity is determined by the DM.)

Alchemists with spellcasting ability also know how to craft spell potions for spells which they can cast.

Common materials

The crafting of alchemical items requires various common ingredients and reagents, which may be purchased at a cost equal to one-third of the item’s market price. (In other words, this constitutes the standard crafting cost of the item.) These common materials are assumed to be available for purchase in any settlement of small town size or larger, unless specified otherwise.

If any special ingredients are listed in the item’s description, and a price is given for those special ingredients, then only half the usual value (i.e., one-sixth of the item’s market price) of common ingredients and reagents are needed (in addition to the listed special ingredients) to craft the item. (This only applies for special ingredients with a listed price; it does not apply if the special ingredients listed for the item have no price given, or if special conditions needed for the crafting, etc.)

Identifying alchemical items

Identifying alchemical items—such as potions, poisons, or other substances—is one of the uses of the Alchemy skill.

Check

A DC 25 Alchemy check is required to identify an unknown substance with the aid of alchemical equipment. (For particularly exotic or unusual substances, the DC may be even higher.)

It is possible to identify a potion, poison, or other substance without use of alchemical equipment (by appearance, smell, etc.), but this is much more difficult; the Alchemy check DC is increased by +10. On the other hand, if you are attempting to identify a potion which you have drunk before (or a poison or other substance with which you have a similar degree of experience), the Alchemy check DC for identifying the substance without the use of equipment is instead reduced by −10.

Success

If you succeed on an Alchemy check to identify a potion, you learn which spell the potion contains, and the approximate caster level (if it is a spell-like potion); for potions that do not replicate or closely match the effects of any spell, you learn the nature of the potion’s effect (e.g., “it improves jumping skill”).

If you succeed on an Alchemy check to identify a poison, you learn the poison’s effect; you also learn the specific sort of poison it is (greenblood oil, small centipede venom, etc.), for common poisons.

If you succeed on an Alchemy check to identify an unknown substance, you learn something of the substance’s nature; you also learn the specific substance it is, for substances used in alchemy or that would otherwise be familiar to an alchemist. For unusual, exotic, or supernatural poisons, or obscure substances, a Knowledge check in the appropriate field may be required to get full information about the poison or substance.

Failure

If you fail an Alchemy check to identify a potion, poison, or other substance, you must make a Wisdom check (DC 5); failing this check means that you come to a false conclusion about the item (but still think that you have successfully identified it), while succeeding on the Wisdom check means that the results of your identification attempt are inconclusive, and you get no information.

The DM should make the Alchemy check for identification, and the Wisdom check (if necessary), in secret, as the character has no way to know if the conclusion they have reached is false. (Of course, a cautious character may choose to make multiple identification attempts, to reduce the chance of a false conclusion.)

Action

It takes 10 minutes to identify an unknown potion, poison, or other substance using alchemical equipment. Attempting to identify a substance without equipment (by appearance, smell, etc.) is a full-round action.

Taking 10 & 20

You can take 10 on Alchemy checks made to identify a substance, but you cannot take 20.

Special

The detect poison spell allows you to identify poisons with a DC 20 Alchemy check.