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[Rowanas]

I know Toady (armok be with him) has plans for extracts, but I would like to extracts with more use. This came up when I mentioned drinking troll blood and the idea struck me, should drinking troll blood give the imbiber the regenerative abilities of a troll? Not forever, or even for very long, just long enough that a single unit of troll blood could, properly prepared (to give dwarves something to do) grant the drinker a 10 or 20 frame regenerative power, healing damage across the body by a fair amount, continued consumption of extracts might cause ever lengthening durations, until the extract has gained a permanent foothold in the dwarf, similar to a disease (and in some cases, actually a disease).

Below lies a bit of a tightening of the idea.

Rawify it . Give extract tags for common possible effects and have duration tags, potency tags (does it take 1 or 5 doses to actually take it's first effect?) that sort of thing.

Each creature would have an "alchemical use" possibly this could be done by extracts, or maybe the nature of the thing itself, so creatures might have a tag indicating the requirements for taking the "alchemical parts". Trolls, for example, might have [ALC: BLOOD] indicating that any further alchemical tags are to be associated with the blood. Eating a kosher troll would do nothing, no blood.

Gargoyles: [ALC:MEAT] [ALC_DUR:100][ALC_POT:1][ALC_EFF:ARMOUR_10][FORM:DRINK]

In the gargoyle example ALC stands for Alchemy, DUR is duration, POT is potency, EFF is effect, FORM:DRINK is fairly self explanatory and ARMOUR_(insert number here)] essentially means that the imbiber receives 10 points of armour all over. To sum it all up, eating the flesh of a gargoyle grants 10 points of "global" (all over) armour for 100 frames.

Alchemical skill on the part of your dwarves might increase the duration or effect of the new alchemical substance, so alchemy might actually be useful...

Tags for FORM: would include the basics, like food, drink, smearing (for weapons, yay) or thrown, stuff like that.

Ok, rip it to shreds.

[G-Flex]

That doesn't really sound like alchemy to me, that sounds like plain old extracts with effects. Alchemy is about mixing things to produce things unlike the unoriginal things.

[Rowanas]

Ok, what term would you prefer?

[G-Flex]

Beats me! Sounds an awful lot like plain old herbal medicine, though, except with more striking effects. I was just being a tad pedantic, though, although I'm not sure why alchemy skill matters here since you seem to just be taking extracts out of things and drinking them or whatever.


Personally, I'm not sure I like it because it seems way too videogamey to be making magic armor potions out of horse blood or whatever all the time. I feel like it should be more difficult than that, or unpredictable, or rare, or something. I'm not sure though, so I'd like to hear what other people might have to say.

[Rowanas]

I had thought about the "gameyness" of the suggestion, but I thought it worthwhile because it would add interest to an aspect of the game that sees little use.

[G-Flex]

I know dwarven alchemy is supposed to follow more the medieval Muslim model (which has an ironic twist to it in that those guys were already refuting the entire concept at the time), hence the soap and such. So you might want to look into the sort of stuff they did for more real-world style uses of it.

As far as actual magic goes, I have no clue how Toady would treat that or what his plans are. It would make a good question for him, though.

[Geb]

One of the ideas that has been proposed before that I really liked was randomised alchemy.

The idea is that the principles of chemistry shouldn't be known, there may be a few reactions that people have experimentally found but there's no predictive power. With that in mind, you start out with a list of materials suitable for use in alchemy, a second list of possible useful products, and during worldgen a set of reactions are created to connect the two.

[G-Flex]

If those reactions are repeatable, then it just becomes consistent science and loses the magical feel.

If the reactions AREN'T predictable in any way, then it just becomes a random mishmash of stuff that doesn't even make sense and isn't consistent.

And that's the problem, really. You need magic to be consistent enough that people can actually use it to serve a purpose, but inconsistent enough where it doesn't just become a fully practical technology.

[Amalgam]

I think it could be neat if we were able to define "aspects" in the RAWs for alchemical ingredients, which would basically be abstract attributes used to define the magical properties of different items. For example, plump helmets might have a "darkness" attribute, an "earth" attribute, and a "sustenance" attribute. There doesn't have to be any concrete rationale behind this (though you could certainly give them physical aspects, such as "flammable" to mix in a little science), it just has to make some sort of sense - in this case it would be fitting because plump helmets grow in "darkness" deep under the "earth," and because of their high crop yield are affiliated with "sustenance." It's essentially a form of symbolism - I suppose you could also compare them to spheres.

Using aspects you could create alchemical [REACTION]s that are based purely on the symbolism of the object. You could use any arrangement you please to create an effect, and could create reactions that use any aspect under a certain parent aspect (which would probably be closer to spheres...) to create some simple default effects for reactions, to help get things going. Any other reactions could be completely arbitrary to mix things up a bit.

I think such a thing would make for a pretty flexible system for modding in alchemical reactions, the rest is an issue of design. Which items should possess magical aspects? Rare items, or mundane items as well? Could mundane items be given aspects with reactions that are weaker to balance things? Should ingredients be processed somehow before being used for alchemy?

...Of course, it doesn't have to be like this at all. A mix 'n match system could work, but it could also be like the other workshops and have very specific requirements for a certain range of concoctions. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best, and DF (paradoxically) seems to follow this rule a lot.

[Rowanas]

Amalgam (heh, the first time I typed that I slipped on the s and got amalgasm ) how would single ingredient alchemical reaction work? Would it work at all? I like your idea, having read it through and had some sleep, because it could accomplish what I was thinking of without being as gamey and restrictive. My original idea was flawed, long live the new idea!

[Grendus]

One thing I would like to see is actual reasons to trade with the different races. Right now, for example, the human caravans are the same as the dwarf caravans just with no steel or dwarf sized armor. The elves are actually interesting in that they bring something unique, though the awesomeness of grizzly bears is covered by the metric tons of useless cloth they bring if you actually give them real value (which makes even the most hardcore grizzly lover hate them with a passion).

Personally, I think Humans should be the race with access to most of the alchemy recipes. If you want some of the better medicines in DF, you'll need to stay on good terms with the humans. This way each race will have something unique - dwarves bring you dwarf sized armor and dwarf weapons and steel, elves bring you exotic animals, and humans bring exotic medicines.

[eerr]

What if the process of extracting herbal "magic" no matter how strong or weak it is, requires finding out the process. Every game, you must figure out seperately how to boil/chop/pick kobold bulb during full moon for the method that makes anti-kobold spray.

Certain methods will give a lesser effect, but you can almost never be certain what is best. In fact, some of the fun will be that you can't predict exactly how powerful said alchemy is. Only guess at what makes it stronger.

[sweitx]

One of the ideas that has been proposed before that I really liked was randomised alchemy.

The idea is that the principles of chemistry shouldn't be known, there may be a few reactions that people have experimentally found but there's no predictive power. With that in mind, you start out with a list of materials suitable for use in alchemy, a second list of possible useful products, and during worldgen a set of reactions are created to connect the two.

If those reactions are repeatable, then it just becomes consistent science and loses the magical feel.

If the reactions AREN'T predictable in any way, then it just becomes a random mishmash of stuff that doesn't even make sense and isn't consistent.

And that's the problem, really. You need magic to be consistent enough that people can actually use it to serve a purpose, but inconsistent enough where it doesn't just become a fully practical technology.

Or a new thought.
Use Geb's idea of random recombination.  But in addition uses a consistent background ratio.  So for example, mixing plumb helmet and fire snake juice gets you either an hallucinogenic shroom that gives trippy fiery hallucination, or set your dwarf on fire.

[Silverionmox]

If those reactions are repeatable, then it just becomes consistent science and loses the magical feel.

If the reactions AREN'T predictable in any way, then it just becomes a random mishmash of stuff that doesn't even make sense and isn't consistent.

And that's the problem, really. You need magic to be consistent enough that people can actually use it to serve a purpose, but inconsistent enough where it doesn't just become a fully practical technology.

Historically, things such as the behaviour/character of the alchemist were deemed important. To make pure metals, you were supposed to live a pure lifestyle. Which is why we talk about laboratories: laborare (working, practicing) + orare (praying, meditating).

Requiring personal skill, effort, attendance etc. of the producer will prevent mass production. It's also possible to postulate that all potions etc. must be tailor-made: their effects will vary with the person that drinks it. That can easily be done numerically, linked to the hidden unique ID of the creature, or some combination of some characteristics. Non-appropriate potions will mostly just taste weird, with occasionally a weak similar effect or a random one.
That will make sure that players aren't obligated to work to supply their whole army with potions of bull's strength: too much work for too little payoff. The champion, nobility and a few key commanders will have them, but typically no one else. As a result, the potions won't need to be nerfed.

[Rowanas]

Hmm. I wouldn't like to have to work out a new potion for every dwarf, that would irritate me and many others. Having the potency be influenced by the drinking dwarf would be a better idea in my opinion (I'm reminded of Asterix and Obelix) because then potions would still be a limited resource in terms of actual usefulness, but any dwarf could, in theory, try a potion. Getting each and every dwarf (and only one dwarf at a time) to drink one potion for every possible combination of alchemical ingredients would be plain boring.

Also, the idea was meant to incorporate some sense of the thing from which it was taken, which is why I like Amalgam's idea so much. We're straying into A+B = C, rather than A+B = mix of A+B.