Alchemy Items, Where to Find?

[Astalanya]

I've been searching high and low for d20 supplements with alchemical items and the processes to make them. So far, the major source has been Bastion Games' "Alchemy & Herbalism" (or Alchemists & Herbalists, I can't remember the name). I've found some smaller notes in FFG's Path of Magic, but these have been pretty limited. There's also the Dragon magazine article. Beyond this, though, I've been pretty much out of luck it seems.

I have a number of players in my present game that are specifically interested in using Craft (Alchemy), but we've had very little luck finding actual alchemical items that a character can make and any sort of system to create them. Are there any good publications out there (or even magazine articles, etc) for 3.x that cover this? Anyone have any house systems?

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

ENWorld Player Journal #1. Check that out, it has Alchemy rules and new alchemy items to boot.

 

[Astalanya]

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll try to see if I can find a copy of it.

Barring that, anything else of recommendation?

 

[maybeso]

go to:
http://www.bastionpress.com/downloads.htm

and get all the stuff for Alchemy & Herbalists, don't miss:
http://www.bastionpress.com/Downloads/AlchemyMJJ.pdf

6 pages of stuff.

also get this:

http://www.crystalkeep.com/d20/rules/DnD3.0Index-Equipment.pdf

and check out page 19 to 26.

 

[Conaill]

I would recommend that you stay away from Bastion Press's "Alchemy & Herbalists". I've gone to the same process as you are trying to do, collecting alchemical preparations from various published sources. I have well over 200 different preparations collected so far, with a bunch more still to be added. I've also checked most of these for balance with similar published items, and IMHO the stuff in A&H isn't balanced whatsoever with anything else!

Your single best source is most likely the CrystalKeep file maybeso posted. They've collected alchemical items from a bunch of WotC products (dunno how they can get away with that, but hey). Another great free source is the (unofficial, unpublished, but very well balanced) Stormkeep website. If you have access to old issues of Dragon, #280 is highly recommended. Other issues with Alchemy include #279, 285, 291, 298, 300, 301, 303 and 304 (most of which are in CrystalKeep). I also have 13 items from the Kalamar PHB, 10 from Plot&Poison, 18 from Quintessential Elf, 16 from Spells&Spellcraft, and a bunch of smaller sources (BoVD, Dungeons, FRCS, QuintWiz, R&R2, Ravenloft, T&B, T&T, etc.)

 

[Conaill]

Here are some suggested house rules to make a PC alchemist work:

- PC crafters are really hosed in D&D. For them to be viable adventuring PCs, crafting progress needs to be sped up significantly. Instead of sp/week, I would recommend sp/day (7 times faster) or gp/week. The amount they can craft (maybe up to 100 gp/day) will still be ridiculously small compared to magic item creation (1000 gp/day) but at least it's something. If you play in a higher powered campaign, letting your PCs craft in gp/day (70x normal) would not be unbalanced!

- Access to specific supplies for crafting may become a problem. I came up with the idea of "generic alchemical supplies". If you want to craft something while on the road, no need to locate an alchemist shop that has the exact supplies you need. Just reach into your bag of generic supplies, and if you're lucky you'll have exactly what you need! The probability that you will *not* have the correct supplies at hand is equal to the price of the needed supplies divided by the price of the generic supplies. Say you bought 100 gp of generic supplies in the last big city you passed through. Now you want to craft a 30 gp thunderstone, for which you need 10 gp in supplies. The chance that you have exactly what you need is 90%.

- If the PCs are constantly on the move, provide them with a mobile base of operations with an alchemist's lab. Our party has its own ship, and I get a lot of crafting done while we're traveling. You could do the same with a mobile lab in a wagon (might take some gnomish craftsmanship to stabilize the thing enough so it can be used while in motion).

 

[Rifter]

It seems that there are snippets in lots of books.

I've been searching high and low for d20 supplements with alchemical items and the processes to make them.

I have found you can find a lot of them scattered around in several books. Arms and Equipment, Races of Faerun, AEG's Dungeon. Each one has a few. I have been working on putting together something more extensive into a PDF. One of these days, I hope to actually get it out the door. I have been playtesting several pieces.