The one big issue is that they get no free preps, so you have to think really hard about the 3-5 preps that you want to spend chargen karma on. It eases the skill and edge tax on making one, so you can feasibly make an alchemy who is good at other things. The new aspected Enchanter chargen rules also do a lot to help in creating someone who is a pure alchemist. It does help alchemists become far more viable, and there's definitely the potential now for then to approach the overpowered mess which every non-alchemist mage could already become with ease ( cough mysad channeller cough). It seems like people have been complaining about how terrible alchemy is for so long that, when it has finally became somewhat useable it is to hard to handle. An alchemist can throw out more spells, while a spellcaster can throw out stronger ones.Īnd, when using working for the people, those vaults are the equivalent of 5 karma apiece, so it's hardly free just because they weren't made into foci. Even if the alchemist could carry around the vaults, he'd still be better off using spellcasting for most things. It's a tacit admission by the writers that the whole potency clock thing was a bad mechanic that wasn't needed to limit alchemy. I've read your essays on the many ways alchemy sucks, and getting to store preps until the start of your run only eliminates one of them.
Sure, RAW you can have storage for 100 force 10 preps if that's how you want to spend your resources and you can find places to house them, but that certainly doesn't eliminate the other things holding alchemy back.
I think there's also a metamagic that increases the amount of time they stay at peak potency by 50% as well.Īm I interpreting this right? Is this not pretty sweet? Am I the only person who wants to be able to make their own Caster rounds?Įh, it helps push alchemy closer to the level of brokenness that is normal for every other magic user in shadowrun 5e, but the book certainly didn't push them past it. I'm still ENTIRELY against PCs using blood magic, and if you're choosing Path of the Pariah you better be planning on learning the error of your ways and taking a paradigm shift once you learn to accept yourself and the world as it is nowīut I'm really liking how with the addition of two items (and possibly one or two metamagics) Alchemy is actually pretty viable now.īuy an atomizer and some spare cartridges, load them up with your Heal spells and give them to whoever is on First Aid duty (might as well be you right?), or put your Combat/Manipulation preparations into capsule rounds to fire from your revolver (with ammo skip, to circle around to the right round).Ĭraft them early in the week and keep them in the vault of ages until you're ready to go, then make more after you've recovered from the run.