Alchemy
Common skills: alchemy
Alchemy is a simple extended task. Using LOGIC and various skills, characters can accomplish a variety of things. Any character can attempt to use alchemy in order to solve a problem or achieve a goal. Alchemy often involves at least a touch of magic. As an extended skill task, alchemy is used for more mundane chemical purposes. Examples of mundane uses of alchemy include:
Removing a permanent condition.
Melting a lock with acid.
Treating a disease.
Create a strong glue.
Creating a poison or an antidote (for poisons, an opposed task is needed vs. the target’s Defense, assuming the poison can be delivered in food or drink; it does 2d6 poison damage plus 1d6 for each complexity level used, which means that the longer you spend making a poison, the more deadly it is).
Burn or combust materials like metal and stone.
Like herbs, alchemical concoctions can also be used to inflict conditions, thus creating a love potion or a sleep draught. The concoction must be delivered (imbibed by the target, or similar). A concoction which is eaten or drunk is an hourly task, a poultice, salve, or ointment is a daily task, and a gas, incense, or smoke is a weekly task.
The traditional, legendary uses of alchemy (transforming lead into gold, or creating an elixir of immortality) are covered in the magic rules.
If the concoction needs a duration (such as an antidote that will protect the imbiber from a certain poison), the duration equals one time increment of the extended task. Characters can choose to increase the tasks’s complexity (say, from hourly to daily) in order to gain a longer duration.
The check is a simple opposed one vs. the target’s Defense or Mental Defense, and success inflicts a condition, with a critical success inflicting a severe condition.
The players start by declaring their intentions. This goal may be anything they wish, although they may find some goals too hard to accomplish. It might be to devise an acid to melt the lock on a cell door, save an ally who has been turned to stone by a gorgon, or build an explosive. The GM sets the difficulty as normal, and characters may attempt LOGIC checks until they have reached the target number of successes (typically three successes). The complexity and duration of the task are established as normal. Alchemy is a classic example of a very simple use of the extended task mechanism.
Alchemy is an acceptable way to accomplish many tasks, even if other methods are available. A locked door can be picked or hacked by a burglar, or an alchemist might attempt to open it by melting the lock with alchemical acid. The difficulty of the task does not change—if it’s a Difficult [16] task to pick the lock, then it’s a Difficult [16] alchemical task also.
Poison Crafting
Time Poison
1 minute 2d6
1 hour 3d6
1 day 4d6
1 week 5d6
1 month 6d6