About this mod
Script-based overhaul of Alchemy mechanics and skill perks.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
Often overlooked by aspiring mages, Alchemy is a time-honored, rewarding discipline that can change the lives of those who master it. It is difficult, and often dangerous, to advance one's knowledge of the materials used in alchemical formulas, but continued study and hard work will, in the end, reward the alchemist greatly.
Alyandon Mathierry, "Fundaments of Alchemy"
Alyandon Mathierry, "Fundaments of Alchemy"
Introduction
A standalone Alchemy overhaul, partially based on Alchemy modifications from older versions of Av Latta Magicka, but it was expanded upon and some features were re-written. It is kept as a separate mod, because Alchemy doesn't feel quite the same as other "magic" skills - and in fact it is considered a "stealth" skill in Skyrim.
Mod adds new effects to Alchemy skill and changes the way custom potion effects are calculated.
Brewing & Preparation
Harvesting
- Your Alchemy skill now gradually affects the chance to successfully harvest an ingredient, up to +33% chance at level 100. Calculations also take Luck into account.
- With Alchemy skill of 50+ (Journeyman) you can gather an additional alchemical ingredient when harvesting
Skill Restrictions & Bonuses
- You no longer can use 4 ingredients in potions from the start. Novice alchemist can only brew potions from two ingredients. With Alchemy skill of 25+ (Apprentice), you can use three ingredients, and with 50+ (Journeyman) - all four.
- With Alchemy skill of 75+ (Expert) all negative effects are removed from created potions.
- A Master Alchemist can create twice as many potions from the same ingredients.
Potion Strength Calculations
- Vanilla formulas for effect strength on a potion are broken in multiple ways - Calcinators use wrong game settings, Alembics change poison formula for no reason, and Dispel effect gets weaker if you use Calcinator+Retort than either of the two.
- No more. All effects on created potions are re-calculated using correct settings and streamlined formulas - no weird interactions, effects of all Alchemy apparatus are additive.
- Actual functions of apparatus are also changed: Mortar & Pestle is basically the same, but it's quality affects potion strength to a lesser degree
- Using more than 2 ingredients with the same effect now has a benefit - effect will become 25% and 50% stronger with 3 and 4 ingredients respectively.
- Durations greater than 30 seconds are rounded to the nearest magnitude of 5.
Calcinator increases Magnitude of all effects, but not Duration
Retort increases Duration of positive effects in a potion, but not Magnitude
Alembic affects only Duration of negative effects - it increases duration for poisons and decreases duration for negative effects in a potion
Custom Potions Value and Weight
- Vanilla Oblivion has a weird way of calculation custom potions value, where it is based only on player skill and quality of mortar and pestle - the actual effects of a potion have no relation to it's prize.
- With this mod your potions value is calculated by the same formula as other magic items, with custom multiplier - in order to not make them too expensive. Note, that presence of negative effects in a potion will decrease it's value instead.
- Weight of all player-created potions is set to 0.5 (same as pre-made ones), so you don't have to worry about the weight of ingredients.
Potion Distillation
A new Alchemy station can be found in Arcane University Lustratorium, which allows you to combine 3 pre-made potions into a stronger version.
- 3 Weak potions -> 1 Normal
- 3 Normal potions -> 1 Strong
Drinking & Application
Potion Limit
- Maximum number of potions that player can drink at once is now calculated by the following formula: (Endurance + Alchemy)/25, rounded down (but no less than 1).
- Items marked as "food" will not contribute to potion limit. Enemy poisons will also not count towards potion limit.
- The number of currently active and maximum potions is displayed in a new inventory widget, located between armor rating and total gold.
Multi-Hit Poisons
- All poisons last for one additional hit at Alchemy skill levels of 25 and 75 (for a total of 3 hits potentially).
- For melee weapons only hits connecting to a target will decrease poison usage, however for bows simply firing a poisoned arrow is enough.
- You can poison multiple different weapons and use counter will be remembered, however if you apply poisons to several copies of the same base weapon (like, two Steel Swords) they will get mixed up - this is an unfortunate script limitation.
- This feature is designed to work for both player and NPCs, so beware enemy poisons.
Miscellaneous
- Restored diverse potion bottle models, based on effect school. This will affect all vanilla and mod-added potions that use default potion bottle model.
- Cure Poison magic effect can now remove effects of vanilla Poisoned Apple, as well as Chokeberry from Vile Lair DLC.