Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Rules and such => Topic started by: Chalkarts on <09-17-18/1708:36>
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I’m intrigued by alchemy.
I’ve got someone brewing in the in my back brain but was wondering about alchemy, preparations, artificing and such.
Do any of you play heavily with alchemy?
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It took three books to make Alchemy somewhat viable.
The biggest drawback is that you need about a three times as large dp as a spell slinger for the same result.
But since Forbidden Arcana made longterm storage of preparations possible, at least now you can use downtime to prepare
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The biggest drawback is that you need about a three times as large dp as a spell slinger for the same result.
Without Practiced Alchemist, that's basically true. But with it, a fairly high initiate grade will be enough to bring your final pool up to par.
(6Mag+6Alchemy= 4 average; 6Force= 2 average resist → 4-2 = 2 Potency
↳ 6Force+2Potency+1 Practiced Alchemist+3 initiate grade = final pool of 12)
Add Firebringer mentor spirit and a spec in the appropriate trigger, and you get those 12 dice at initiate grade 2 instead (grade 1 for manipulation spells). Which is good, because there aren't all that many metamagics that a dedicated alchemist would want.
As you probably know, alchemy has two main benefits over sorcery to compensate for the lack of flexibility and raw power: Deal with all of your drain before the run, and Sustain spells for a few minutes without penalty.
These two points together mean that the best use of alchemy is to amass a bunch of buffs (for yourself and the rest of your team) like Deflection. Also, to avoid resisted rolls wherever possible (cuz lower spell dicepools→ fewer hits→ no effect at all).
There are some specifics that will be GM-dependent, like whether you can decide anything about the spell after the prep is created. For example, could you make a pair of gloves be the lynchpin of a Magic Fingers prep, and set the prep so that the conjured hands mimic the movements of those gloves?
- The books don't say, so that kind of thing will be up to the GM.
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Can reagents be used to buff a preparation?
The seeming weakness of alchemy is kind of what draws me to it. I like challenges.
I’m now trying to decide if an aspected mage artificer could really make an impact.
Id have to check with the dm about 1 idea, a type of timed trigger set to a hi-bounce ball so that after 3 bounces the spell pops.
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Step 5 of creating the preparation:
You can use reagents in the crafting of a preparation.
They are expended in crafting (as inks, attached tchotchkes,
etc.), and the number of drams of reagents used then
becomes the limit instead of Force (see Reagents, p. 316).
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I’ve got some interesting ideas involving coins as touch triggers but I still don’t understand how exactly alchemy is functional vs spellcasting or summoning. I found an old thread but didn’t want to necro it. They didn’t have many good uses because of the time limit. Can’t keep a shelf of potions or drawer of enchanted headbands, they die in a few hours.
Has anything changed in recent supplements?
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Vault of Ages from Forbidden Arcana fixed that.
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What does that do? My library is just the core book right now.
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Holds preparations equal to twice its rating with no degradation.
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Is it a location or can it be a bag or bottle?
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You can put Rating x 2 preps in a Vault, each with a Force of up to Rating x 2.
It costs Rating x 2,000¥, the highest possible Rating is 5, and the availability is Rating+4R.
- Forbidden Arcana, top of pg 194
The book doesn't say anything about the size, weight, or whether it needs electricity, etc. In lieu of actual rules, it's relatively popular to treat its size like that of various rating medkits. That would make the max size be roughly that of an "oversized duffel bag," though I'd probably say it's too heavy to just carry around. (Bullets & Bandages, pg 17)
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I was thinking of 2, a closet in your home and then a travel size so you could make and store buff potions at home, then throwing a few in a bag for the run.
Are potions possible?
I was also thinking of command word buffs, throw some enhanced reflexes on a slap patch give one to everyone on the team and then activate them at the first sign of trouble.
Having a way to store them and keep a supply on hand makes alchemy infinitely more useful.
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Alchemical preparations let you prep some weak spells in advance, that don't require you to actively sustain them. Takes a few hours in advance to create them and then recover from the drain, then you can use them and they sustain themselves for a few minutes, without anyone facing sustaining penalties. If you for example create a bunch of Combat Sense and Deflection preparations, that gunfight is going to become much easier. Or Heal, so you just command it then don't have to spend several combat turns sustaining it as it slowly becomes permanent. It's a specific playstyle that should combine with the table and the types of run to employ properly.
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I was thinking of 2, a closet in your home and then a travel size so you could make and store buff potions at home, then throwing a few in a bag for the run.
Are potions possible?
I was also thinking of command word buffs, throw some enhanced reflexes on a slap patch give one to everyone on the team and then activate them at the first sign of trouble.
Having a way to store them and keep a supply on hand makes alchemy infinitely more useful.
Yes potions are possible. The draw back is that they last for (F)minutes. Which is usually enough time for a single encounter to be sure, but means you will be "popping potions" just before a fight every time... IF you have advance warning of a fight.
Caught "flat footed" and by the time you've gargled your 2 or 3 potions, the fight is over - one way or the other. (Good for 'high risk, high reward' players who don't mind getting smacked by teammates when they cause a TPK)
Great for after the fight, or to avoid a fight to be sure.
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Our vault of ages is the size of a minifridge and has to stay in the van. Still frickin' worth it though.
Does alchemy suck, even with the supplements? Eh, kinda, but it should. You can (with VERY severe limitations) turn your street samurai into a mystic adept, it SHOULD have a lot of limitations. But the biggest difficulty seems to me to be that you have to *reeeeeeally* know what you're doing.
That said there's some crazy-go-nuts good plays, and it's interesting. I had a heckuva good time building an NPC alchemist contact with street scum rules. He's got a host of curatives and potions that his shop will basically never stop selling, and for his gang-member friends he has arguably the most amazing party drug in the universe (Opium Den) and a trump card for any sort of rumble with a rival gang (Growth) and they're touch-activated, so he doesn't even have to be there for the show. It was interesting (at least to me) to think about what spells a non-shadowrunner would be most interested in making.
Anyways, I think my favorite spells for alchemical preparation aren't the boom spells, but the toolkit spells. Buffs and barriers and the like are rough in Shadowrun because of how sustaining spells works. But if I have a coin I can slap down that makes a wall in front of the charging Dingo-bat, or a bridge to run from one building to another, (depends on the angle I place the coin at) or give every party member radiation protection without taking -8 (or worse) to all actions for the rest of the fight. Not to mention as I start laying down spells as a NORMAL spellcaster my casting gets worse and worse with each sustained spell. Alchemy just sustains itself, at least long enough to finish the fight.
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I really like the idea of handing out 3 necklaces to everyone before going into the warehouse.
“OK guys, put these on, when If I say “dammit” you get fast, “shit” you get strong, “Fuck” you go invisible. If I shout all 3 the run went sideways, scatter and kill the first thing you see. Let’s do this shit.....aw dammit.....FUCK! -.- We have 3 minutes to do this. Go!”
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Enchanting gloves let you handle a contact trigger without triggering it. You can put a contact prep inside a glove, keep it closed with a draw-string or something, and then pass them around to your team so that they can just touch the thing that was inside to activate it when the time comes.
There's also a biofiber pocket that prevents astral perception of anything inside by hiding the contents behind the living biofiber's aura. Since it has its own aura, popular belief is that contact with this pocket triggers a contact prep.
- However, the Advanced Alchemy metamagic lets you set a prep to only trigger on contact with a particular aura, so long as you have a material link to that person when you make it (Advanced Contact (Target-Specific)). Plus, this still only adds 1 drain.
So that for sure lets you, or your street sam, carry a contact prep in a biofiber pocket, and activate it by simply dipping a hand inside for a moment.
Main downside? You have to have Fixation first, which was pretty bad to begin with, and downright stupid with the introduction of Vaults.
As for potions, the 15 karma mastery quality (which doesn't double the cost post-gen), Potion Maker, says that potions "must either be consumed or poured over the target before the preparation can be triggered in any way other than with a timer trigger."
This implies that the default for all potions, including health-category potions, is time trigger.
It also means that you can carry around 5 different potions in capsules or what have you, then slap them all against your chest to break them open and effectively "pour" the contents over yourself, and activate those contact triggers in one simple movement.
That isn't the main benefit of the quality, though. The benefit is that you ignore the extra drain from the basic triggers in core.
- Downside is it requires you to have 4 ranks of chemistry first. Also, the potion ingredients have to include something with a symbolic connection to the spell, like aspirin to heal, or ? ? ? for combat sense.
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It took three books to make Alchemy somewhat viable.
The biggest drawback is that you need about a three times as large dp as a spell slinger for the same result.
But since Forbidden Arcana made longterm storage of preparations possible, at least now you can use downtime to prepare
Only if you try to play an Alchemist like a Spellslinger. But that's like trying to say your Rigger isn't able to hack like a Decker. Yes, they are both matrix-heavy jobs, and involve some of the same things, but they have different playstyles.
From the start, Alchemists have been viable characters, but it depends heavily on your spell selection, and what you do with it. You simply can't play them the same as your 'typical' mage. I discussed some of this back in 2015, here: https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=21631.msg390510#msg390510 (https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=21631.msg390510#msg390510)
Essentially, the best way to play an alchemist is to focus on unopposed rolls or AoEs, and carry a gun which will be your main attack in combat. Spells that give a flat penalty to everyone in the area (like Mass Agony) or are better as 'fire and forget' spells in a chase (like Physical Barrier or using Trid Phantasm to make it look like there's a solid wall where you just went down the hallway) are your bread and butter, as well as passing around Heal charms to the team before they go into the building, which you can activate from across the room, or getting some paper talismans with Fireball on them that can be placed in all kinds of inconspicuous areas either on Command or Timed settings. Things going boom always gets guards to go check things out whatever exploded. And a paper talisman doesn't scream danger to most people like a block of C4 with a detonator does.
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It took three books to make Alchemy somewhat viable.
The biggest drawback is that you need about a three times as large dp as a spell slinger for the same result.
But since Forbidden Arcana made longterm storage of preparations possible, at least now you can use downtime to prepare
Only if you try to play an Alchemist like a Spellslinger. But that's like trying to say your Rigger isn't able to hack like a Decker. Yes, they are both matrix-heavy jobs, and involve some of the same things, but they have different playstyles.
From the start, Alchemists have been viable characters, but it depends heavily on your spell selection, and what you do with it. You simply can't play them the same as your 'typical' mage. I discussed some of this back in 2015, here: https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=21631.msg390510#msg390510[/or getting some paper talismans with Fireball on them that can be placed in all kinds of inconspicuous areas either on Command or Timed settings. Things going boom always gets guards to go check things out whatever exploded. And a paper talisman doesn't scream danger to most people like a block of C4 with a detonator does.
(https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=21631.msg390510#msg390510)
I was thinking coins or small bills. No one leaves a random 5 bucks laying on the ground.
I really like the idea of it. It seems like an interesting challenge to make things instead of blasting things. I’ll have to do a lot of test rolls to understand the mechanics. But I’m intrigued.
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Agony is dependent on net hits, same as chaotic world, opium den, etc.
Perhaps you meant Poltergeist?
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It took three books to make Alchemy somewhat viable.
The biggest drawback is that you need about a three times as large dp as a spell slinger for the same result.
But since Forbidden Arcana made longterm storage of preparations possible, at least now you can use downtime to prepare
Only if you try to play an Alchemist like a Spellslinger. But that's like trying to say your Rigger isn't able to hack like a Decker. Yes, they are both matrix-heavy jobs, and involve some of the same things, but they have different playstyles.
From the start, Alchemists have been viable characters, but it depends heavily on your spell selection, and what you do with it. You simply can't play them the same as your 'typical' mage. I discussed some of this back in 2015, here: https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=21631.msg390510#msg390510[/or getting some paper talismans with Fireball on them that can be placed in all kinds of inconspicuous areas either on Command or Timed settings. Things going boom always gets guards to go check things out whatever exploded. And a paper talisman doesn't scream danger to most people like a block of C4 with a detonator does.
(https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=21631.msg390510#msg390510)
I was thinking coins or small bills. No one leaves a random 5 bucks laying on the ground.
I really like the idea of it. It seems like an interesting challenge to make things instead of blasting things. I’ll have to do a lot of test rolls to understand the mechanics. But I’m intrigued.
Bills?_? What's that? Oh, Corp Scrip?
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You probably really want to get Forbidden Arcana if playing an alchemist, and make sure that your GM is good with the options in there. For example, they lower the priority for playing an aspected enchanter, and have qualities that slow down the aging of your preparations, as well as some gear.
Make sure you have agreement with your GM on what degree of isolation is needed to keep a touch preparation from triggering. The issue is that it is really touch with an aura, not skin, and we know that auras can be seen through clothes (and even armor). So carrying it in a regular pocket: probably not good enough.
But what about inscribing it on the stock of a gun being carried in a regular holster? (or just on the holster itself?) Or in a pouch/satchel/purse/man-bag/backpack that is not so tightly held to your skin?
A couple of ideas for useful alchemist tricks:
- throwing seems useful, to get preparations where you need them (that you can't or don't want to go yourself). Also consider putting a contact preparation on a grenade, and throw it wearing alchemist's gloves. Normally the grenade goes off and your preparation is wasted. But should they try to be a hero and throw it back at you ...
- artisan, with a specialization, and 'profession' knowledge skills can be justification for ability to mark up all sorts of interesting things (possibly combine with glasses with a microscope type function). Get agreement with your GM on how small that would let you go. A tic-tac is probably still too small, but a stick of gum is probably big enough, Chicklets may be grounds for discussion. Perhaps you could put your marks on a leaf? How about a cred-stick? Or a potato chip? Can you bake them into a cookie?
- there are some spells that are useful with very low numbers of hits (although some are more useful with more hits). Mind Link, Gekko Crawl, Cat Fall, Levitate, Enhance Accuracy are a few that come to mind.
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An Idea that bubbled up in my head this morning as an alchemist character was a magical cat Burglar.
The preparations are all buffs, illusions, barriers, and such. He uses those for the physical world stuff, but he's excellent at dispelling, banishing, and countering and since all if his other stuff is in his preparations he can save all of his drain boxes for destroying magical security.
It's making me consider taking Skills as my A priority in creation.
But he'd also need a decent bankroll to be a talismonger with a shoppe, home, and cargo van.
I don't know if it's viable to make him a metahuman.
I could skate by making him a bit of a physical weakling as long as he could take the drain hits.
I'm also not sure if he'd be better as a full mage or if it would be worth making him a mystic adept.
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All the sneaking stuff requires a decent physical limit, so you can't skimp on the otherwise unimportant stats all that much.
Talismongering doesn't work so well for PCs. You'd pretty much need a team to do well. (I've been looking for a post that details how to abuse the rules on this, but it just isn't showing up.)
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Only if you try to play an Alchemist like a Spellslinger. But that's like trying to say your Rigger isn't able to hack like a Decker. Yes, they are both matrix-heavy jobs, and involve some of the same things, but they have different playstyles.
From the start, Alchemists have been viable characters, but it depends heavily on your spell selection, and what you do with it. You simply can't play them the same as your 'typical' mage. I discussed some of this back in 2015, here: https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=21631.msg390510#msg390510 (https://forums.shadowruntabletop.com/index.php?topic=21631.msg390510#msg390510)
A matter of taste for sure, but I think your comparison is pretty weak: Sorcerers and Alchemists have to use the same spells. There is exactly one that is Alchemy exclusive and that's nothing to write home about.
If you use only core, the alchemist will have a very hard time to get the same efficiency out of his preparations then a spell slinger.
His effects are less powerful, less spontaneous, thanks to the limited selection of viable spells less varied, higher drain thanks to triggers and also less reliable thanks to fiddlyness of triggers.
Add to that the vastly different viability of the other skills in the skill groups and you get the reason why people said the Alchemist sucks compared to a Sorcerer. It's immaterial that it was still better than muggle with no augmentation, because nearly everything is.
Only with Hard Targets and Forbidden Arcana Alchemists got enough options to actually use their advantages to their full potential.
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Agony is dependent on net hits, same as chaotic world, opium den, etc.
Perhaps you meant Poltergeist?
Also a good one. But since Mass Agony depends on a Log+Will roll to resist, that isn't nearly as problematic as, say, Body+Armor with combat spells. Even 1 net hit on Agony or Euphoria can have big effects on all their rolls until it ends. And Chaotic World has Int+Log to resist. The Int+Log of a device is probably going to be something like Pilot x2 unless there's a rigger in it. Most drones have a Pilot of 3, so say 6 dice, an average of ~2 hits. Getting 3 hits out of your preparation isn't too hard. Suddenly that Steel Lynx has -1 to everything. Every shot, every attempt at maneuvering, every crash test, every defense test, and so on. And the big, tall Troll with the big gun? Every die you take off his rolls with the Panther XXL is golden. So yeah, opposed rolls there, but they are weaker opposed rolls unless you're dealing with mages and hackers. But against gunbunnies and drones...
As an alchemist, your primary role is not direct offense, but setting off fire and forget spells that annoy and distract the enemy. If you have them prepped, for instance, you can layer Chaotic World, Mass Agony, Opium Den, and Trid Phantasm over the same area, with no sustain penalties. That can fuck up a lot of people in short order.
And for the mages and hackers, that's why you have a gun.
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Something to be aware of, mechanically, is that the expected successes of the preparation (before you've rolled any dice) are (alchemy dice pool)/9 + (preparation force)*2/9.
Which means that you actually get more oomph in your preparations from having a better soak roll than from having a better alchemy pool -- so long as you can get enough successes on your initial roll to defeat the resistance from the force by enough to make the preparation last until you need it.
A Vault of the ages and appropriate talents make the 'last until you need it' part easier, and can let you recover between making one preparation and making the next or doing anything else. Which in a way increases your soak by about nine automatic successes, as you sleep off any stun drain that you take.
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The Int+Log of a device is probably going to be something like Pilot x2 unless there's a rigger in it. Most drones have a Pilot of 3, so say 6 dice, an average of ~2 hits. Getting 3 hits out of your preparation isn't too hard.
Actually, it's just Object Resistance. That's 9 for sensors. (15+ for drones, but it's the drone's sensors we care about in this case, so ? ? ?) Either way, you're not likely to beat a drone's resistance unless you're a Practiced Alchemist.
Idk how to treat the resistance while jumped in... maybe both in the case of illusions?
Btw, Beta means "drain soak." In other words, you'll ultimately be better served by a good centering focus than by a good enchanting focus.
- Of course, this gets fairly expensive as you burn through 5 or 6 drams of reagents with each prep (so your drain doesn't turn physical), so you may want to be rather judicious with your use use of the tactic.
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What sets the duration of a preparation?
If you use one for a sustained spell, how long does the spell stay up?
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What sets the duration of a preparation?
If you use one for a sustained spell, how long does the spell stay up?
The spell lasts for [Potency] minutes. If it is for a Permanent spell, it lasts until permanent. So an Increase Reflexes preparation will last [Potency] minutes. A Heal preparation will sustain the effect until it becomes permanent. Not eating those -2 sustaining penalties is one of the big boons of Alchemy.
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I’ve got another question about preparations.
Can food be a touch prep?
A chef cooks a meal seasoning it with just the right magical herbs and oils, never actually touching the food, transferring it to a plate with tongs, then handing the plate off to the eater.
Probably more NPCish, but I’m thinking a dwarf alchemist that owns a food truck. Cooks buffing meals for well paying customers and puts then in a disposable carry out box.
Is there a “day job” type quality?
Make him an ok driver with a hardened food truck that serves as his lodge and vaults.
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I’ve got another question about preparations.
Can food be a touch prep?
A chef cooks a meal seasoning it with just the right magical herbs and oils, never actually touching the food, transferring it to a plate with tongs, then handing the plate off to the eater.
Probably more NPCish, but I’m thinking a dwarf alchemist that owns a food truck. Cooks buffing meals for well paying customers and puts then in a disposable carry out box.
Is there a “day job” type quality?
Make him an ok driver with a hardened food truck that serves as his lodge and vaults.
Possible, but unlikely.
IF the roasting of the foodstuff didn't destroy the prep (you are inflicting a chemical change when you cook food), it would depend on what the item was, anything that is eaten with utensils would probably be "destroyed" before it reached the mouth (Cut, mashed, chopped, etc).
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I’ve got another question about preparations.
Can food be a touch prep?
A chef cooks a meal seasoning it with just the right magical herbs and oils, never actually touching the food, transferring it to a plate with tongs, then handing the plate off to the eater.
Probably more NPCish, but I’m thinking a dwarf alchemist that owns a food truck. Cooks buffing meals for well paying customers and puts then in a disposable carry out box.
Is there a “day job” type quality?
Make him an ok driver with a hardened food truck that serves as his lodge and vaults.
Possible, but unlikely.
IF the roasting of the foodstuff didn't destroy the prep (you are inflicting a chemical change when you cook food), it would depend on what the item was, anything that is eaten with utensils would probably be "destroyed" before it reached the mouth (Cut, mashed, chopped, etc).
There are definitely ways around that, though. If we consider the "cooking" as part of creating the preparation, then we don't have to worry about that process destroying it. Or if the preparation is actually just on the garnish or what-not. And if it is "street food" style, then it would be something that goes straight into the target's mouth and would immediately trigger.
The list of appropriate spells you could apply this too is really the big limitation. Health spells are required to be Command trigger, so one of the bigger category spells to create with preparations is out. However, if we just tweak the idea slightly, and make the preparation the food wrapper instead. Then you can make that a command trigger. At some point while the customer is holding the food, you trigger the preparation and it goes off on them: "Enjoy your meal" (Trigger) [Customer: "Wow, this food makes me feel great!"]
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Heh. Actually, I think that would be one of the best ways to do combat spell preparations for sneaky chaos. Fancy dinner, switch the target's dish with one that has a contact preparation on it, perhaps in the bread, or something else they need to touch with their hands. Target sits down, starts eating... BOOM! Death Touch at as high a force as you can do it, edge rolled when making it to boost the potency as much as possible. Even if the target lives, people start looking for who just tried to kill someone in the middle of dinner, and egg is on the face of the host. Big embarrassment.
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Now I'm picturing the scene from The Untouchables where Capone has his lieutenants to a meeting and takes a baseball bat to one of them, but instead has their glass prepared with Deathtouch ... or maybe Turn to Goo (I think that is actually more horrifying).
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Now I'm picturing the scene from The Untouchables where Capone has his lieutenants to a meeting and takes a baseball bat to one of them, but instead has their glass prepared with Deathtouch ... or maybe Turn to Goo (I think that is actually more horrifying).
Sadly, Turn to Goo isn't permanent, they'd return to normal. However, if they had any cyberware, and you lifted that cyberware out of the goo, then when they turned back to normal, they'd now be missing all that ware. Which would have lovely effects if any of it was headware.
In 4th, I had a spell that I used for 'discrete eliminations'. It was like the Petrify spell, but turned them to magic ice, and it was permanent. Maybe used it in play a half dozen times at most. No one ever asked how a mage with a spell to manipulate ice got such realistic ice sculptures.
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"One less [Metahuman]" is exactly what you need for that. Add the Alchemical Bomb Maker Mastery for extra damage and make it a sure thing.
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I thought it would be cool if, before the run, the group shared an invisibility schwarma.
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I thought it would be cool if, before the run, the group shared an invisibility schwarma.
6 out of 6 Avengers agree that schwarma is rather underwhelming....
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Pills would work pretty well, actual food is generally too delicate. Food wrapper also tend to be designed to tare, i guess tupper ware could work. But pills most often intended to be swallowed whole, it's not actually hard to write something on them, no one cares if you packing around a dated pill container.
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Does timed have to be actual time?
I thought it would be cool to make a preparation out of a high bounce ball and set it to pop on the 3rd bounce to bounce it around corners and such,
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Does timed have to be actual time?
I thought it would be cool to make a preparation out of a high bounce ball and set it to pop on the 3rd bounce to bounce it around corners and such,
That would best be classified as a homebrewed Advanced Alchemy trigger.
(And again, Advanced Alchemy is a metamagic which requires Fixation metamagic as a prerequisite... for some reason. Maybe you can convince your GM to waive that dumb bit of raw)
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Definitely not able to do "number of bounces" as the trigger, but there are a few advanced triggers that you can use in Street Grimoire. It requires a metamagic to focus to learn them, but it lets you do things like have a delayed timer, or set a contact trigger to be limited by gender or something.
Its on page 219 of Street Grimoire.
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While the math behind alchemy sucks and if you spend enough karma in initiation etc it gets okay it is a really fun concept. I think that is 5e in a nut shell. Cool ideas backed by terrible math and rules.
One idea I’ve been toying with as a GM is a character who writes his preparation on toe tags and then ties them to objects. At the core I think it works. The stretch is getting them tied to the back of a throwing weapon. And then throwing them as an attack and triggering the preparation in the next pass. I don’t know if that would destroy the prep by the rules but I’ve been watching anime with ninjas and it’s a cool visual.
Edit to add the potion master being able to pour liquids over got me to wonder if it would work as a spray for explosive spray paint. A street ganger with magic tags.
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The more I’m looking at the stats I’ll need, I think I can make a buffing monster. I could pre make a bunch of preps and keep them stored in vault of the ages. Before the run I hand out a bunch of leather bracelets and large animal tooth necklaces all of which are command word buffs and heals.
My Dwarf stands in the back strategically activating people’s buffs and using leadership actions while occasionally shooting at someone.
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Combat Sense and Deflection are real nice for combat Buffs, Increase Reflexes downside is it doesn't stack well, Increase Attribute spells require decent Force, Illusions are a bad idea since they're too easily pierced. Ooooh, how does Mindnet (sp?) work if you use a preparation for it?_?
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While the math behind alchemy sucks and if you spend enough karma in initiation etc it gets okay it is a really fun concept. I think that is 5e in a nut shell. Cool ideas backed by terrible math and rules.
One idea I’ve been toying with as a GM is a character who writes his preparation on toe tags and then ties them to objects. At the core I think it works. The stretch is getting them tied to the back of a throwing weapon. And then throwing them as an attack and triggering the preparation in the next pass. I don’t know if that would destroy the prep by the rules but I’ve been watching anime with ninjas and it’s a cool visual.
Edit to add the potion master being able to pour liquids over got me to wonder if it would work as a spray for explosive spray paint. A street ganger with magic tags.
After 4 books it's playable, and it even some advantages over normal magic
It's once we had the vault, the gloves, and the pocket it become viable.
Depending on your GMs opinions on magic bullets it's may even be strong.
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I’m still building my library, I know what the vault does, what are the gloves and pocket?
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While the math behind alchemy sucks and if you spend enough karma in initiation etc it gets okay it is a really fun concept. I think that is 5e in a nut shell. Cool ideas backed by terrible math and rules.
One idea I’ve been toying with as a GM is a character who writes his preparation on toe tags and then ties them to objects. At the core I think it works. The stretch is getting them tied to the back of a throwing weapon. And then throwing them as an attack and triggering the preparation in the next pass. I don’t know if that would destroy the prep by the rules but I’ve been watching anime with ninjas and it’s a cool visual.
Edit to add the potion master being able to pour liquids over got me to wonder if it would work as a spray for explosive spray paint. A street ganger with magic tags.
After 4 books it's playable, and it even some advantages over normal magic
It's once we had the vault, the gloves, and the pocket it become viable.
Depending on your GMs opinions on magic bullets it's may even be strong.
After 4 books with the right choices, some positive qualities and cool items its playable. Still not as good as just taking spellcasting IMO, but playable. Playable is a pretty low bar though unless you are in some serious cut throat min max games. Still for missions play as
Still not sure where to go on some of what to allow as preparations. The toe tag seems pretty straight forward, attached to a thrown weapon it comes down to do I think it would destroy the tag in flight. Not sure about that as the tag is separate from the knife, but once you allow that what else does it open up for the PCs. Using a spray, I'm having a hard time seeing the difference from just a liquid, I guess it gets atomized or something in the process of becoming a spray but I think the point of liquids being able to be drank or poured over a subject is that while preparations are fragile some symbolic level of what its from is determines how it can be used before being considered destroyed. As a example usig the food idea form above sandwich is a whole object, a bite out of it might break it. But a sauce which is a liquid on the sandwich doesn't break in the same way if you only have injected part of it so far, otherwise the whole drinking a liquid prep thing wouldn't work. So a spray form liquid? Or what about DMSO capsules?
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Capsule rounds work, no DMSO required, duration is still an issue.
Empty casing actually work.
Alter Ballistics works.
Arrows, darts, Bolts, Grenades, throwing knives all work
After those those things get a lot less certain.
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I’m still building my library, I know what the vault does, what are the gloves and pocket?
Gloves and Pockets are from Hard Targets
The gloves allow you to touch touch preparation without them going off
and the pocket allows you to store them protected from detection.
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After contemplating the possibilities I think I actually want to put this guy on paper. I’ll need to find out the SRM rules for pre-making and storing preparations.
I’m going to start a creation thread.
I’m very intrigued by Alchemy.
When I get see an underwhelming power or ability in a game I feel the need to figure out how to use it well and make it work. Alchemy feels like a fun challenge.
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Throwing knife with a 'spell tag' on it like something from anime is a nice way to get your command word Fireball preparation somewhere that you can't reach.
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I thought a good way to apply preparations would be to use stickers. Graffiti artists like using postal stickers to draw on and put up. I was thinking something similar except instead of art it’d be the runic script of his preparation. Stick it to armor, walls, tables, anything. Sticking it won’t hurt it.
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I thought a good way to apply preparations would be to use stickers. Graffiti artists like using postal stickers to draw on and put up. I was thinking something similar except instead of art it’d be the runic script of his preparation. Stick it to armor, walls, tables, anything. Sticking it won’t hurt it.
Sure it is. You just have to be able to get to the place you're sticking it, which isn't always convenient if you're trying to get someplace on the other side of a room with angry people who might want to shoot you. Also, a solid 'thunk' of a knife embedding in a wall will draw attention. Maybe even sucker a couple more targets into blast range before boom time.
Also, you I would TOTALLY allow someone to use a tag as a preparation, painting the preparation on the side of the building, just ready to go. That would be cool as hell, and just leaving your signature (both in paint and in magic) around for someone to track would be enough downside to prevent abuse. And once the preparation either went off or 'aged out', the tag would still be there, just nonmagical. Would be a kick-ass way to use timed preparations, actually.
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After contemplating the possibilities I think I actually want to put this guy on paper. I’ll need to find out the SRM rules for pre-making and storing preparations.
I’m going to start a creation thread.
I’m very intrigued by Alchemy.
When I get see an underwhelming power or ability in a game I feel the need to figure out how to use it well and make it work. Alchemy feels like a fun challenge.
I've used it as a supplement to a character never as its main juice. I'm interested in changing that. Your idea of buffs I'm not sure of by the math, not the potential character idea. It sounds like a interesting idea, but the buff will last minutes, odds are you are triggering it your first pass maybe while grabbing cover you trigger your first, you give Street Sam X +4 dice in Y. The next 5 minutes he is getting 1.3 hits more in that action, 3 passes after you activate it the fight is done and while he has the dice he isn't using them. It is like the chaotic world or whatever ideas above if you net 2 hits is -2 dice that potent of an action when it means only 66% of the time it did anything on a action. A fireball that does 3 damage in the end drops them a die and did 3 damage. Is it useful, yup. Is it the best use of your action? I'm not sure.
As a reference what I had done on the character who used alchemy was for a character named invisible Drone, he used focused concentration to maintain a magic fingers spell, when combat started he'd grab cover and trigger a clairvoyance preparation. He'd then control and shoot his AK or pistol with magic fingers/clairvoyance. Occasionally he might pop a improved reaction preparation. My reaction was low enough I didn't have to worry about the preparations force and the +X dice helped doge while the stat increase guaranteed a second pass. Improved reflexes spell might if I got a really good roll make it so I could get 3 passes but it was rare enough that the extra dodge dice was better. If crap was really going south i'd pop a combat sense preparation. My main combat force was my gun skill, most of my utility was either spirits or the spells I cast through spell casting. But alchemy allowed me to up my combat game with my gun quite a bit.
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I’ve been contemplating a battle plan.
I know they only last minutes for the sustained.
If I were obnoxious I would make heal spells in preparations as clown noses and stat boosts in neck ruffles, and improved reflexes in poofy wigs. Just to be clear, I am obnoxious.
But I wouldn’t want to blow them all. I’d try to stay in a place to get maximum LOS of my group. That way, if I’m not shooting with my own buffs helping, I’ll be able to activate their buffs or heals and call out leadership actions as needed. For combat I’ll be shooting(haven’t decided what), counterspelling, and commanding my summons.