Alchemists

[rmeakins]

Are there any plans to introduce the Alchemist class into Tome4? I used to love playing them in v2.3.5

I'm almost willing to learn LUA just to code them back into the game. Almost

[madmonk]

We did discuss the idea, and currently there are no plans to do this.

[darkgod]

There are no plans currently but I keep them at the back of my mind.
However if you want to give it a try be my guest.
Obviously it would have to be within the same logic as the current other classes

[rmeakins]

It would probably make more sense to wait until a couple more betas - looks like there are going to be a fair amount of character changes in the next couple of betas.

Starting to think seriously about it now though... planning out the skill trees already

[darkgod]

Well describe your ideas here so we can comment

[rmeakins]

I really liked a lot of things about the way that the old alchemists worked. Some things I didn't like about them (which doesn't necessarily mean they were bad) were:

• Essences take a lot of inventory space with a lot of boring information. Essence information should be put elsewhere or at least summarised better
• It was really hard to make an alchemist that used magic

Ideas:

1. At the moment there is no alternative storage (like the house from Tome2). I propose having something like "Essence crystals", which have a weight but instead of each item leech providing another essence it would instead "charge" the crystal. Maybe these could even be drained by some monsters...
2. Maybe rather than make an alchemist class, have an alchemy skill set that can be unlocked and used by any class that meets a set of requirements
3. Enchantment Power talent (max 10 points) - Ability to create low level items at low levels, scaling up in higher levels
4. Enchantment Persistence talent (max 10 points) - Basically this adds a timer to any enchantment you add to an item. At level zero, enchantments last for, say, 20 turns. This will double for each point in the talent until the final point when they become permanent

The expensive talents would limit the usefulness of alchemy to the more pure classes and also prevent level 2 alchemists from creating items of megadeath and invulnerability while still allowing them to be useful skills for any adventurer.

[darkgod]

I like the temporary enchant idea.
I too was thinking of it not being a class, but then I had an idea:)

Let's say I remove most (a lot at least) gold drops an replace them with gems/rare herbs/... worth the same.
It would not change anything to anybody, getting the same gold in the end but it would allow for crafting.

Now the alchemist class would be a mage subclass, infusing gems with their mana and herbs to make potions ands scrolls.
They could create fire bombs, acidic gaz and so on and then throw those at their targets.
To do so they would need some dexterity and magic stats, maybe even have some talents with a sling making them magical slingers ?
That plus the temp buff it could work.

Obviously I have yet no idea of exact talents but it sounds fun

[Yottle]

It was really hard to make an alchemist that used magic in 2.x? All I needed to do was to enchant a mage staff up to +100 and one-shot Morgy with Magic Missile.

The problem with alchemists in 2.x was that they could create armor and weapons that were completely unbalanced. If you restrict them to messing around with potions, scrolls, and so on they should be fine. Even making ego equipment wouldn't be too bad if they couldn't do the artifact stuff.

[Jaorin]

Alchemists in 2.x would have been much less powerful than a swordmaster or sorceror if they couldn't make artifacts. Well, I suppose they could make *genocide* scrolls, but they would still have problems with the later bosses.