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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mfloyd3" data-source="post: 5832627" data-attributes="member: 23867">Hi All --I am playing an Alchemist (and enjoying it) and noticed the Swift Alchemy feat coming up.  I wholeheartedly approve of the ruling that Alchemists must pay full price for their alchemical stuff, just like everybody else, but the ruling does make the ability as it stands pretty useless.  Unless I have misunderstood the crafting rules, even if a character maxes out their Craft (Alchemy) skill and rolls well, it is going to take at least a day to craft an item (1/2 time for Swift Alchemy, max 1/3 time for rolling well =1/6th of a week).The ability would have some value if the crafting time were dramatically reduced, and I thought I would sound people out on an idea before making a proposal.  If alchemists had the ability to make Alchemical items in a matter of hours rather than days, there would be times when it would come in handy.  A lot of alchemical gear -- alchemists fire, tanglefoot bags, the various weapon blanches -- is situationally useful.  If the party has some information and prep time, the Alchemist could cook up some useful gear.The Swift Alchemy ability would go something like this:  The alchemist buys a "Reagent Pool," which is bought like standard equipment in a town.  It has a gold piece value and some affiliated weight per gold piece amount (perhaps 1 lb/15 gp).  The reagent pool is consumed to create an alchemical item, maintaining a consistent gp account.  Using this feat, the base time to create an alchemical item is, say, 3 hours, and the Alchemist rolls against the DC for the item in question.  There can be rules surrounding this, such as an incremental DC increase to make multiple copies of the same item (DC for 1 is 15, for 2 is, say, 17, etc.), a time increment (cut time in half for beating the DC by 5 or more), and failure criteria (fail by 5 or more and the Alchemist does not have a necessary component and cannot make the item until they return to a village).  I would also be inclined to make the system even more forgiving, and let the alchemist see the outcome of the roll before deciding how to break it up (get 1 item quickly, or spend the full time and get multiple copies).This is something that is unlikely to be useful very often, but does make play more interesting.  If the party receives a warning from a cryptic old man that the ridge is populated by harpies with poisoned arrows, that suggests antivenom and tanglefoot bags might be a good idea.  And when the wizard deduces that the malfunctioning golem can only be harmed by adamantium it may be time for an appropriate weapon blanch.  The ability gets less useful as characters level and alchemical gear gets outclassed, but it is an interesting quirk in the 3-8 level range.It does recover a bit of the flavor of the alchemist.  Under the current system, alchemists have no reason to carry a lot of alchemical gear, as they pay the same price for it as everyone else.  This allows them to get the *use* of alchemical gear in special circumstances without having to shell out for and lug around every geegaw and gimmick.Please share your thoughts.  If it seems like there might be consensus for a system like this, I'll draft a proposal and post it as a separate thread.</blockquote>

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