A simple item, perhaps a book with limited charges, that tells you whether or not another item can be used for an alchemy or herbalism recipe. It would give no clues about what recipes the item can be used for, it would merely check the item against the list of current recipes, and if it's on there, the catalog gives a positive result.
Basically, it's Conjurative Sand for crafting.
Brilliant idea. The problem with alchemy is you have no way to figure out if an idea partially correct or whether you're barking up the wrong tree. I remember spending a lot of time in the Underdark trying to make alchemist's fire by trying all sorts of combinations with the wrong second reagent.
Crafting tends to be based on the luck of finding a rare recipe drop or the application of rather dull brute-force searching of combinations more than PC ability. Or alternatively on roleplaying out the "discovery" of OOC knowledge from previous chars who dabbled in crafting.
As a side idea, would it be possible for some of the easier to mid level recipes to have "ruined" versions craftable as hints? For example, say a potion of Cure Light Wounds needs 2 bubbleberries, a bonga frond and an ale (Not a spoiler, unless this recipe DOES happen to do something). You put in a bubbleberry, ale and something else, or 2 ales and a bubbleberry and you get a "ruined Curative Potion" that just acts like Spirits or something. Stuff like this would give players a nudge towards the right track.
I somehow agree that it can be hard to find the right reagents or even know which are reagents, but I am not sure if an item to test them would make much sense; especially when comparing it to conjuring sand as those reagents are used in magic, which could likely be easily tested.
Seeing it realistic would mean that anything and everything could be a reagent... you just don't know for what until you try, that's a part of the research... of course you got some more knowledge and rules to base your experiments on irl.
Anyway, I agree that it can be quite boring and frustrating to try out a bunch of reagents without getting a single hint of what you are doing wrong and I think Egons suggestion is a good way to show that you are on the right path. Not sure if it's worth implementing though, since it's likely a lot of work and in some cases you might lose rare reagents due to it (which would make sense, but it's kinda annoying as we are all just playing a game).
On the other side, you can always ask other players to help you out with the recipies.
Just my two cents.
Quote from: EfUA_undercover;179026Seeing it realistic would mean that anything and everything could be a reagent... you just don't know for what until you try, that's a part of the research... of course you got some more knowledge and rules to base your experiments on irl.
Professional alchemists and herbalists know which ingredients are useful, which ones are rare, and which ones are common and ordinary. It would stand to reason that these would be cataloged in a book, and that apprentice alchemists would want to get a copy of said book for their own studies.
Some of these are in IC books yes, but players are generally discouraged from writing much in the way of specifics in order to avoid spoilers. TBH the suggestion doesn't NEED to be an item, if the DMs allow listing of reagents, if not recipes.
Quote from: Egon the Monkey;179030Some of these are in IC books yes, but players are generally discouraged from writing much in the way of specifics in order to avoid spoilers. TBH the suggestion doesn't NEED to be an item, if the DMs allow listing of reagents, if not recipes.
I had thought it was allowed, but only in IG written books and restricted parts of the forums? (like the shrouded isle syndicate library)
I remember Dram wrote a few. Not sure if Mummed kept his journals after he killed him.
Sounds cool to me. I don't think non alchemists/herbalists would invest and carry the book if it were a hundred gold or so and this would help those who don't know everything OOCly a lot.
I'm in support of both Egon and Lulzebub's idea.
It is insanely boring to be reduced to brute force methods in an attempt to discover a useful regent / ingredient / whatever.
It can easily be RPed as a testing tool which allows you to do various "experiments" upon the item in question. Maybe those "experiments" could give some minor hints toward what the regent could be useful for, and enhance players ability to use that item in RP.
I know this type of stuff is boring to (most) DM's though. :/
I think most reagents have at least 1 recipe for either skill.
Then you make one catalog for herbalists and another for alchemists.
This wouldn't be a recipe at all, from my understanding of the DM's intentions with the current crafting system you would be perfectly fine making an "ingredients" book if it were only a listing of known alchemical ingredients and a small description of each (but not specific uses).
TBH, throw this to the DM Question Thread if you're interested in it.
Instead of an item... why doesn't someone just initiate the task of writing a book IG? It'd give you recognition.
Quote from: Decimate_The_Weak;179152Instead of an item... why doesn't someone just initiate the task of writing a book IG? It'd give you recognition.
I'm willing to say we're mostly open to allowing this, excepting extremely rare recipes. I'm not really going to be satisfied with an in-game solution that isn't better integrated than any of the suggestions here and I don't have the inclination to further refine my own idea, let alone implement it. As soon as you know OOC you're not going to spend hours in the future pretending anyway.
Quote from: Snoteye;179232I'm willing to say we're mostly open to allowing this, excepting extremely rare recipes.
Just to be clear, are we talking about full-blown recipes here? Because I understood DecimatetheWeak to be talking about a catalog listing only, i.e. "This is mandrake. It has many uses, including blah blah..."
Essentially, but points for flavour.
I have never understood why people have such difficulty with these systems. With an exception to some of the earlier/first surface recipes, and a couple of the newer Mort additions, There has generally been a pattern to the recipes, sort of leading them as a sort of gateway experience. Learning one recipe would help you learn two more, and so on, and so on.
Generally speaking, there was never really much guesswork in my experience. The descriptions/names of items, or just their simply obvious use, being combined with something else just made sense, so mixing them in the kit would usually yield something.
Something that Snot said above rings true though; once you learn them once you're not going to spend hours randomly mixing the same things again. IMO the coolness value of these systems just tend to go down, the more PCs you play who use them. The fun in using them is going on a roll and discovering half a dozen or so recipes in a row. Once you know them all, these systems just aren't fun anymore.
Anything that makes it easier to work out these systems, is a bad idea imo. (Because really, most ingredients are pretty obvious they are used as a reagent in some way or another for one of these systems!)
Some of the items are duplicated in the toolset, and not all items of the same type work with recipes. Others are ambiguous. There are about 3 dozen different types of poison, and five different kinds of ale. You could spend hours screwing around with the wrong resref for alchemist's fire, for example.
It was the result of dealing with these problems, which have more to do with the way the server's items are tagged than with anyone's individual ingenuity, that the idea behind the suggestion was born. I want to know if the version of whatever item I am working with is actually the one that will produce a result, as opposed to the other identical item with the same name and same description that will not produce a result.
The coolness factor of these systems depends on how they are used in game. There is nothing fun or cool about spamming buttons in the console. Discovery is wonderful, but that can be accomplished in many other ways, and ultimately, application really is the point of all of this. If what you say is true Cruzel, then the whole system will become entirely pointless once the majority of the crafting recipes have been discovered. I think the opposite is true: the system will provide the most fun once all players are more familiar with how useful it is.
Also, it sounds like you've discovered some of the easy ones, and assume that they are all made the same way. Without going into spoilers, let me assure you that is not the case. There are literally millions of combinations that would "make sense" which do not "yield something." I'd just like a method to rule out some of the ingredients which will never yield anything only because they are identical toolset duplicates of other, actual reagents.
Quote from: Lulzebub;180040Some of the items are duplicated in the toolset, and not all items of the same type work with recipes. Others are ambiguous. There are about 3 dozen different types of poison, and five different kinds of ale. You could spend hours screwing around with the wrong resref for alchemist's fire, for example.
Assuming you know the recipe(s) for alchemist's fire, I wonder how you can even state the above. The items in question have no duplicates or any items close to resembling them.
Did it ever occur to you that those 13 different types of poison might each have a different use for some or all of them within the system?
I can think of a couple recipes offhand that can cause some confusion as to precisely which item is needed, but among a pool of 4 or so possible choices in recipes with hints readily available, there is really not that much room for error, hardly causing one to take hours to try.
QuoteI want to know if the version of whatever item I am working with is actually the one that will produce a result, as opposed to the other identical item with the same name and same description that will not produce a result.
To my knowledge, this should never happen. Any multiples of an item in the toolset are usually cleaned up, unless they have a reason for having multiple resrefs. Out of all of the items that do have multiple instances for mechanical reasons, there are none that spring to mind immediately that have anything to do whatsoever with the alchemy system.
QuoteIf what you say is true Cruzel, then the whole system will become entirely pointless once the majority of the crafting recipes have been discovered. I think the opposite is true: the system will provide the most fun once all players are more familiar with how useful it is.
This comes from personal experience. I have played a Successful alchemist, and since the death of the first one I have not touched the systems again, short of characters where I applied to already know the recipes I OOCly knew, so I could nudge people along. That too, got boring rather fast.
QuoteAlso, it sounds like you've discovered some of the easy ones, and assume that they are all made the same way. Without going into spoilers, let me assure you that is not the case. There are literally millions of combinations that would "make sense" which do not "yield something." I'd just like a method to rule out some of the ingredients which will never yield anything only because they are identical toolset duplicates of other, actual reagents.
At this, I can assure you that what you assume of what I know is not the case. I can say with a high degree of certainty I know more recipes than any other player, unless someone has made spectacular progress in the time I haven't been paying attention. (Which I doubt, given the difficulty most people seem to have with these systems. But since I am not omniscient[...Yet] A DM is free to back or debunk that claim if they choose.)
Slightly more on topic :
There are hints in more places than the IC scattered notes/books. They make a suggestion like this largely unneccessary, tbh. On the forums, in item descriptions, maybe an NPC conversation or two, if they're still in the mod... There are at least a half dozen in this thread alone, You just gotta look, Man.