[Solar System]Apothecary...Huh?
agony:
So the Apothecary/Drug rules seem to be exactly what I'm looking for in our upcoming campaign. The problem is that the Apothecary section is rather confusing and I'm hoping someone can shed some light.
So,
-Herb Lore: I understand this, you create an Effect and use the dice, perfect.
-Secret of Apothecary: So if I want to create a drug I roll an Herb Lore check for the Effect and then pick one of the effects from the Apothecary list while the SG picks the other, ok fine.
-Alchemy: Not quite sure here. You make an Herb Lore check and can add the Effect dice to the subsequent Alchemy check (so those Herb Lore Effect dice are then gone correct?). So when I create the initial drug do I follow the steps of the Secret of Apothecary (Pick 1 effect and SG picks another) and THEN distill and pick 2 more effects (which can be anything)? So there are 4 total Apothecary effects in play here?
oliof:
The Apothecary rules are quite the old ammenite alchemy rules, and IIRC, you got it right.
Cheers,
Harald
agony:
That seems a bit awkward that if I want to create a positive Apothecary effect and I roll well on my Herb Lore - the recipient is more likely to be harmed by substance. That would make sense if it was poison but I'm not sure I understand the reason to cause Harm if the person who imbibes the drug fails the roll - furthermore with the check being opposed by the value of the Effect. Seems like it would be only useful to create drugs which cause negative effects in this instance.
Eero Tuovinen:
Those rules should perhaps be understood in the context of old TSoY - I added them in the SS largely because they were one of my original inspirations for adding the Effect rules into the game - I wanted to show the old hands how the verbiage (but not the function) of the rules changes with the Effect rules to account for.
As for what the rules do, they are slightly weird. I actually had to specifically ask Clinton for long explanations of how they work when we worked on the Finnish edition of the game, that's how confusing they are. I might rework this into something slightly simpler now that I'm rewriting TSoY in general. We'll see.
But concretely, notice that natural drugs and distilled drugs work quite differently:
When you take a natural drug, you usually want to win your Endurance check against the drug - you only get the positive effects of the drug and don't suffer Harm from it. So a suitably weak drug is better for you. This is no problem, as Effect levels are easy to lower - you can split the Effect into smaller ones or simply just throw aways some of the dice in it to get the Effect down to a level where you dare to use it. There is little reason to want a natural drug at a Effect level higher than one, in other words.With distilled drugs, on the other hand, you usually want the drug to win the Endurance check - it has to take over your body to do its work. If you fail the check you'll get the full two or more effects from the drug as well as some Harm, while winning the check means that you suffer the full effects (one positive, one negative) of the core natural drug the distillation is based on. This is a difficult balancing proposition in fact, as a high Effect value drug gives out more severe Harm while being more likely to succeed in doing whatever it is that it does.
It's a quirky system, but it has certain nostalgia value in the context of TSoY. We could rework it to fit better with your own game, if you're interested?
agony:
Yeah, I think I may have to re-work it to fit my game. We have a character in question who took Herb Lore, Alchemy, and Secret of the Apothecary. Our first session is tomorrow and I think I'll just wing it and let him create Effects with Alchemy until I have more solid crunch. I'm not really sure what we're looking for at this point though, think I'll have to get some feedback from the player and what he was expecting to be able to do with the ability.
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