Now that I´ve seen more snippets of that hot mess that is Alchemy in 6th Edition:
Command: The individual who made the preparation can trigger it by an act of will [...] A command trigger adds 2 drain to the preparation and
is the only trigger health spells can use.
They really just don´t want potions to be a thing, don´t they? Yet whenever there´s an alchemist depicted in the art, they are usually fumbling around with beakers and flasks and such. Whoever did the new Alchemy section really couldn´t be bothered at all to have a look in the forums and do some research on the most common grievances with Alchemy in the previous Edition. Just do the ol´copy and paste, change a bit about the resisted test to determine the potency (no real change here, the preparation just "defends" with drain now, while the expected outcome is still just a shittier version of spell cast in the normal way), increase prep time by
a factor of 60 and call it a day. Even the added Reagent use is capped at 2.
"BuT nO oNE iS fORciNg yOu To pLaY An aLcHEmIsT"
Yeah, no shit. But guess what? A lot of players want to. They like the idea of playing a kind of gimmicky "mastermind" Magician that needs more prep time, but is rewarded by interesting tactical options. And this players will rightfully feel mechanically punished for all that prep time and planning once they realize that they spend half a day crafting 2-3 spells that every "real" spellcaster could spam out at will and with a higher dice pool.
This whole section should go right in the bin and get an updated version, at least with the next Magic supplement. Here´s what Alchemy really needs IMO (instead of gloves, fridges and other gimmicky shit) to be interesting and worthwhile:
- More Triggers: Most importantly, an "Ingestion" trigger for actual Potions, but there´s so much more that one could think of if you´re actually willing to do some creative work at all (Combustion, Contact with Blood, Contact with a certain individual...). Triggers are supposed to give Alchemical spells more "angles of attack" than conventional spells if your planning is right, but right now, they often add more hoops to jump through to get your spell working where and when you want it.
- More uses for Reagents: Increasing the Potency or the Magic rating, increasing the durability, Increasing the sustenation time after the spell goes off, adding Amps. Once the Spell Kit is released, you could even add options to modify certain aspects about your learned alchemical spells on the spot.
- Better Results: As an Alchemist, you invest a lot of time (and possibly, other ressources) into making prepartions. At the very least, the results should not be significantly worse than those of of a conventional spell.
With all that, even the increased time might have been justified. But right now, that time increase is more like giving the mercy shot to a horse with 4 broken legs.
Side note: I just happen to do some academic research about historical western alchemy. There´s a lot of fancy, pseudo-sciency terminology out there that one could use as keywords for such modications ("Fixation", "Sublimation", "Transmutation", etc. ...)