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Does alchemy suck?

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Chalkarts

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« Reply #30 on: <09-21-18/0007:09> »
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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Reaver

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« Reply #31 on: <09-21-18/0113:34> »
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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Kiirnodel

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« Reply #32 on: <09-21-18/0408:41> »
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!"]

Mirikon

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« Reply #33 on: <09-21-18/1034:41> »
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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« Reply #34 on: <09-21-18/1102:24> »
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).

Mirikon

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« Reply #35 on: <09-21-18/1503:40> »
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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Jack_Spade

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« Reply #36 on: <09-21-18/1519:36> »
"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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Chalkarts

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« Reply #37 on: <09-21-18/1536:40> »
I thought it would be cool if, before the run, the group shared an invisibility schwarma.
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« Reply #38 on: <09-21-18/1836:05> »
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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« Reply #39 on: <09-21-18/2356:32> »
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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Chalkarts

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« Reply #40 on: <09-22-18/0027:09> »
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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HP15BS

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« Reply #41 on: <09-22-18/0111:32> »
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)
« Last Edit: <09-22-18/0114:18> by HP15BS »
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Kiirnodel

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« Reply #42 on: <09-22-18/0115:52> »
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.

Shinobi Killfist

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« Reply #43 on: <09-22-18/1208:44> »
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.
« Last Edit: <09-22-18/1215:29> by Shinobi Killfist »

Chalkarts

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« Reply #44 on: <09-22-18/1619:43> »
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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