Quick Starting Alchemy as of SS 2.51 - ID: 1362
FORUM: Guides, Spoilers and Walkthroughs
This topic was started by Wascalwywabbit on 13/04/2015, 00:41:40
First off you'll need the expansion and the water top map north of the lost forest open.
It's best to have the small town mapped out before worrying about the ingredients and leveling grind. If you don't want to spend too much real time, and game gold, then choose the one or two characters that you most want to have better combat and heal support. Usually a fighter class or support character like the bard works best imo. It may slow down your options for leveling thief mastery for your rogue so that may not be a good choice, unless you only want to level them with chests for thief mastery, or heal support outside of combat for leveling their alchemy.
First have your chosen character(s) purchase the alchemy skill, make sure you have enough gold (21,000 each or more if you want more than one spell) for all of those you want to level first. Then purchase at least one alchemy spell for each character chosen, preferably all of them if possible. 3 spells are available in town, one outside of town in water top. The initial purchases are the greater expense, (early) leveling is not much by comparison.
Important: do not enter the shop (shows a sword in map view) before saving. Once saved, enter the shop and check if there are alchemy ingredients. If not reload and reenter. Garlic is best imo, but charcoal works as well, these are easiest because you don't need combat to raise them at level 1. If you're lucky you can get more than one ingredient (or something else you may want better than silver...), I prefer garlic -for heals- and sulfur -for combat to start. If you accidentally save over your load before you get a desired item it will take about 3 days game time to get a new chance - you can either continue where you left adventuring or grind and return, or rest near the river just outside to the west.
You need about #200 of level one ingredients for one alchemist to raise their skill 10% so they can learn level two alchemy spells. Cast fireflies (charcoal) and/or Restore body (garlic) until you have used the max ingredients (#99) of both, or one twice over, to total 198. Buy /learn higher level skill where you bought the base skill. Buy some more ingredients before the shop changes items, repeat until 10% or more for all chosen characters.
Make it to savage crossing and other level 2 spell locals and buy spore bomb et al., and enjoy your new found powers and skills ;). Leveling will come much more easily now, and don't forget to return to buy more ingredietns if/when needed.
(Edited for accuracy and clarity.)
Thank you very much :-)
- stickymade*
kind regards
Mario
I don't think I have ever seen any alchemy ingredients for sale, anywhere, ever. What am I missing? I'll never be able to rely on an alchemist if we only have six cloves of garlic.
EDIT: I just found garlic for sale in Watertop! I bought 198 cloves of it for 0 gold! :lol:
I went to the shop in Watertop because last time I was there they had gold runes for sale! This time they did not, alas.
I recently bought 99 mandrake root in Watertop. But the past few visits, they have had nothing useful for sale at all. What's the trick to finding alchemy ingredients for sale? Is Watertop the only place to buy them, or have I just been unlucky?
It seems the store in Watertop always carries four somewhat random items, mostly low level stuff like Cuir Bouilli Armour and Javelins, and their stock changes every four days. I have been using the resting place outside the west entrance to Watertop and choosing Rest Until Morning four times, then entering town and checking the stock to see what new items are in, then leaving town and resting again. I've aged several months doing this, but have finally managed to find adequate supplies of Garlic, Mandrake, Sulphur. and Charcoal. No Ginseng yet, but some of these rather unexpected items, including:
It's a quirky little shop! ;)
Is the limited availability of Alchemy ingredients intended?
Or is it just because I'm still in the base game and once I'm in the expansion the ingredients will be more readily available?
Having them almost completely unavailable except as a random chance item in the stock of a single store seems kind of off.
I don't know if it's intended, but I found Alchemy to be totally useless until I suddenly saw garlic in the shop in Watertop one day and loaded up. You simply can't gain enough experience to advance as an alchemist based on random drops.There is one spot in Miner's Deep where a chest has a bunch of alchemy ingredients, but even that was quite minimal. AFAIK the shop in Watertop is essential as the only semi-reliable source of ingredients.
