IMHO I believe that the skill for the most part is a time sink that takes away time from just about anything else an adept could be doing. Circling, raising an attribute, talents, research for thread items and so on. However, as I told my players, what I think is irrelevant.
Setting aside that its a skill that takes a long time to raise, cost SP and LP, and that they had to buy/learn the patterns to created the items, here are the points that I need the community to help me understand and change my mind to love the alchemy skill . . .
1: I could have swore that somewhere I read that you can only create booster/heal potions in the lab, not with the kit. Did I just image that?
2: If you can use the portable kit to make these things, with a -3, is really the only point of owning the alchemist shop which costs 2k to not have the -3?
3: As we read the rules, for the most part, traveling for adepts is 8 hours on the road, 8 hours of sleep and 8 hours of rest. In these last 8 hours the adepts can raise talents or other downtime stuff. However, when Alchemy says a day, is that 8 hours or longer? And is using the kit in the wild reflected in the -3?
4: I know you need the alchemy skill to create common magic items, consumables and blood charms
5: P135 has a run on description to the next page about making things and I'm not sure it it means that you lose the materials in the standard attempt or only when you try for multiple creations at the same time.
P135 These items are created with Alchemy. The enchanting character may attempt to make more than one item at once, with no additional materials required. Only identical items may be made in this way, with each additional item adding +3 to the Enchanting Difficulty.
poisonsP136 Creating consumables takes one day. Each additional success on the test produces an additional dose, with no added material cost. If the test fails, all materials are lost (except for the base alchemy kit or shop).
So the other reason the players take the alchemy skill is to make and use poisons, where do we stand on that?
1: Is using poison looked down on, like "bad adepts" or just another weapon to be used in the world? I know the description in the skill says that those who make poisons keep it under wraps,, doesn't say anything about those that use it.
2: In other games (not going to say it) people untrained in the handling of poisons run the risk of poisoning themselves. We don't have that problem in ED?
3: Then we get into the whole discussion of how long does it take to apply say to a weapon, how long does it last, does it degrade over time?
thoughts?