What do you guys do with the drugs, essences, oils, poisons and potions on the leech sheet? Can the leech make these things? Only after he takes the alchemist upgrade? Is it a downtime action to make that stuff? If he uses a downtime action to craft it, how many doses does he make (1-3 makes 1 dose, 4-5 makes 2, 6 makes 3?)? Can he fill his bandolier with those things for free? If he makes several doses, how long are they good for? Is the leech player the source for what those chemicals do?
There may be other questions I haven’t thought to ask as well. Tell me everything you’ve got. My leech character just took alchemist and is going to be all over that very soon I think.
sub
.
My leech has suggested that he should be able to make them as a 0 cost flashback, and then make a tinker roll when using them to determine how well he made them. He would need to have a bandolier of alchemy vials to do this, and since each bandolier holds 4 vials he could potentially do that 8 times on a single mission.
Just another idea.
Just to respond to myself, I don’t think I like that idea. I compare the alchemist ability to the artificer ability or the whisper’s tempest ability. I allow the leech to use flashbacks to make crazy gadgets, usually costing an average of 1 stress. The tempest ability generally costs 1 or 2 stress for my whisper. This means those two abilities tend to see about 3-5 uses per mission. Letting the leech get a potential 8 uses of alchemist with no stress cost incurred (other than resisting bad effects of course), seems to be too good.
One possibility would be to suggest he can get 4 points of potency for 1 Coin. Charge 1 potency for the potion, +1 per level of quality it adds.
Let the Leech make potions as a down time action (without specifying what they are as they are made) and instead of filling clocks, every 1 segment that would go towards filling a clock is 1 Coin that may be spent.
PCs “have access to all of the items on [their] character sheet.” (p. 30) That includes the alchemical bandolier and its contents for the Leech. Creating a barrier to accessing the Leech’s equipment would only disadvantage the Leech PC. These are things the Leech has access to, the same way the Lurk has access to silence vials, or the Hound has access to electroplasmic ammunition, etc.
I think the wording of the Alchemist ability means the Leech would need it to create these items. With that ability, I think an Action roll to create something, with Quality dependent on the outcome, would be fine. The Alchemist also wouldn’t be limited to the items listed, and could create other substances, or “strange mixtures” of them.
Jason Eley The leech certainly has access to the bandolier, but I don’t think he can just freely equip those alchemicals. The 30 chemicals listed off to the side of the leech’s sheet is not equivalent to the lurks single use silence vial. It seems we both agree he would need to create them, and then it’s just a matter or deciding how long that takes. Is it an action he could take on a mission, or does it take longer necessitating a downtime action?
Mark Griffin The access to those items is not equivalent to a single Lurk item, but it is equivalent to another playbook’s access to items. The Leech’s access to chemicals makes up most of their playbook items. The only items they have otherwise are fine tools, and a space to mark gadgets. Other playbooks have access to a variety of specialized items; the Leech has access to these items. That’s what the Leech does. I don’t think the intent of the Leech is that they need to take Alchemist in order to equip more than a bandolier of empty vials.
So in that sense I do not agree a Leech PC would need to create the items to have access to them. I think a Leech PC with the Alchemist ability could create these or other alchemical items, or strange concoctions of their own design.
But if they wanted to do that, I think a Leech would only need to use downtime to make an item if it fell under a Long Term Project. Otherwise it could be handled like any other Action or Flashback depending on what exactly they’re attempting to do.
Jason Eley Not sure how you equate the 6 special items other classes have with specific special functions to 30 items on the leech’s sheet that could do practically anything. They are not the same.
I think giving the Leech such easy access to those items, which do basically whatever the leech decides, and also whatever they’d like to make gives them an unfair edge over other characters.
Some problems simply can’t be solved using the cutter or slide’s best attributes (presumably skirmish and sway), but played like you suggest a leech can solve nearly anything only rolling tinker.