Not an Alchemist? Uses for Essences

[Fubar Obfusco]

There aren't too many items in the game which are completely and categorically useless for the vast majority of characters. (Spellbooks from the wrong schools? Well, maybe, but the better ones can be worth selling.) And then there are essences. Unless you're playing an Alchemist, essences are pretty darned worthless -- they have next to no cash value, and you can't use them for anything.

Thus, with no further ado, 101 Uses for a Dead Essence of Explosion. Ahem -- rather, here's an idea for a possible use for otherwise useless essences: throw or shoot them, for various weak but possibly useful effects.

* Essence of Acid, Cold, Fire, or Lightning -- throw to do 1d4 damage of the respective element.
* Essence of Light or Darkness -- throw to lighten or darken a small area (radius 1)
* Essence of Poison or Confusion -- throw to lightly poison or confuse one monster.
* Essence of Life or Extra Life -- throw to heal one monster by a little bit (1d4 or 3d3 points).
* Essence of Knowledge -- throw to increase monster memory of a monster.
* Essence of Mana or Magic -- throw to do mana (irresistible) damage to one monster (1d4 or 3d3 points).
* Essence of Teleport -- throw to phase-door one monster a very short distance (2d2 spaces)
* Essence of Force -- throw to push a monster back one space.
* Essence of Time -- throw to alter a monster's speed by +1 or -1 randomly.
* Essence of Explosion -- throw to cause a very weak (2d2 damage) radius-1 ball explosion.
* Essence of Chaos -- throw to cause a random effect.

[Magua]

Essences have to be the most useless -- at least the rest of the items can be sold for some cash value. =P

But, instead of giving the essences small (and, IMNSHO, useless) powers (do 1d4 damage? Who cares?), why not just change the item generation code so that if someone has an alchemy skill of 0, essences are never generated? Ditto for runecraft and runes.

I'd leave spellbooks, et al, alone. They're pretty rare, compared to essences and runes, which seem to have been left by an overzealous Essence Bunny or something.

[Blackdog]

Don't forget that Melkor worshippers can sacrifice books at his altars.

[Professor_Scissors]

What about acorns?

[Grendel]

Just to be honest, do random essences make a difference even if you ARE playing an alchemist? Considering the vast number and variety of essences you get from items and such like, even my alchemist finds no use for the odd single essence laying around in the dungeon. Ideally, essences could be considered like any other form of energy, IE they dissipate if they are not contained in something. Thus we could eliminate all the random solitary essences floating around by themselves. Potentially this could lead to (as suggested in another thread, I think) something like an alchemy bag for alchemists, allowing them to contain the energy of raw essences and carry them with them. Possibly a slight modification to the code for the old portable hole for the ex merchant class? Anyway, just a thought...

[Arturus Magi]

Ideally, essences could be considered like any other form of energy, IE they dissipate if they are not contained in something.

If I recall the general description of an essence correctly, they are already contained in (or crystalized into) gems. That's why they have weight in the first place.

[Grendel]

In which case, gems (much less magically enances essence gems) should be worth a lot more in stores. After all, look how much diamonds and other gem types tend to be worth when found as cash...

[BoringBot]

why not make em (E)dible. or maybe give some armors and such slots, like the phantasy star system. or maybe you could have (E)aten essences go to one of yer equipment slots, like how symbiotes have a slot. essences could have a slot of their own. it seems like everyone wood like to see essences become more compatible with other classes, especially since you can't gain alchemy skill unless yer an alchemist. personallly i think the extra equipment slot would be the best.

[Guest]

I'm with Grendel; remove random essences and then only alchemists will have to worry about them.

[Zombie Yeek]

Of course, one could argue that's what the atomatizer is for.