There's incendiary oil. That stuff sure keeps the players happy.

Personally, I would be opposed to doing very much of this because IMO it allows other classes to impinge too much on what should be the province of the magician classes.  If you can buy "web in a can" or "hold person in a can" or "darkness in a can", then why bother with the low hit point spell-casters at all?  This kind of thing was part and parcel of the later D&D editions that blurred the distinctions between the classes until everyone was a combat monster and everyone had either spells or spell-like powers.  To me, this is antithetical to the Old School model of well-defined classes cooperating to achieve success.  At least IMO, those kind of alchemical preparations should either be only usable by magician classes, or should be grossly dangerous with a fair chance of backfiring and exploding in the user's face (which has the added benefit of being good for a laugh every time).  Let's give the magician classes a fair chance to shine in their chosen field.

Yora wrote:

A bit of smoke to cover your dash down the corridor from ranged attack for a round or two, stuff like that.

Light a dude on fire!

From how the sorcerer classes are set up, I infer that alchemists don't really do much on their own in Hyperborea. To really get into the thick of things they need a sorcerer. I guess they've spent all their time learning how to mix things and have never been brave or strong or foolish enough to really mess with magic. So they could just make Greek fire (which, if most adventurers are like my players, could make for a nice career), or, if they really want to get into the meat of things, they need to hook up with sorcerers, who can unlock the real potential in these reagents. Science without magic is blind, and magic without science can't make a gaseous form. Abraham Lincoln said that.

This is tricky, as I totally agree that alchemical items would dwarf the need for low level sorcerors, yet I can't help but feel like magic esque one shot items would almost be the more common type of "sorcery" people witness in the world of assh.  I would say, in association with a higher and higher cost, all alchemical items have a good chance of not working or backfiring, and only the truly priceless ones are even considered reliable.  This should give them a worthwile pressence, and represent the nasty price of not haveing a capable sorceror, both in gold and risk.

RedJowel wrote:

This is tricky, as I totally agree that alchemical items would dwarf the need for low level sorcerors, yet I can't help but feel like magic esque one shot items would almost be the more common type of "sorcery" people witness in the world of assh.  I would say, in association with a higher and higher cost, all alchemical items have a good chance of not working or backfiring, and only the truly priceless ones are even considered reliable.  This should give them a worthwile pressence, and represent the nasty price of not haveing a capable sorceror, both in gold and risk.

Abso-fricking-lutely. Whenever I let "consumables" fall into the hands of the characters I make it pretty explicit that it's the real world equivalent of making home-made fireworks and if somebody rolls a fumble there are going to be some pretty disastrous consequences.

To my mind, alchemy in play isn't "science" so much as it's the byproducts of curious, but ignorant dabblers messing around with forces and substances and quality is never assured.

Last edited by NAJones (5/09/2014 7:31 pm)