Post by CJ on Nov 18, 2009 6:15:48 GMT -5
Compounding is simple to do, though it's a good bit of work to figure out what the end result of your efforts is going to be (for the GM as well as those of you who actually plan things out). I encourage you not to lose heart though. The things made with Compounding are staples of adventurers! After all, you can't just depend on the party's priest all the time.
For Extract, you need but choose either an item or the effect of an Ingredient and swing away to get those lovely Chemicals hidden inside.
For Concentrate, simply choose any amount of the same chemical. If you are successful, the final product will be 1 Unit of the same chemical, though with much higher level than any amount that helped create it.
For Research, pick an item, ask a question about that item, and roll. On a success, the question will be answered. Simple! On higher level successes, you may get more information than you asked for.
For Medicine and Poison making, you must select up to 4 Plants/Chemicals, a form for the final medicine to take (Injection, Syrup, Pill, or Salve), and if applicable, which Effect of each ingredient you want to push into the final product.
Extract - Extracts helpful compounds from various things. You won't really know til you try! This is primarily for use on Cooking ingredients or Compounding plants, but in all cases it lowers the Level of whatever you're working with on a success. An item that hits level 0 is destroyed. This can also be used to try to extract -harmful- compounds... You can 'extract' any Effect that a plant or fungus possesses, or try to get clever with various other items. You never know what might work. Requires a Mortar and Pestle in most cases, and may require more advanced tools in others (such as something too hard to grind up)
IE; Extracting Lycopene from tomatoes.
Concentrate - Reduces the amount of any Chemical while increasing the level. Be mindful this can only be done once per sample.
Research - Allows you to research any item for pharmaceutical benefits it might provide, which can then be Extracted for use. This can also tell you other things, such as Ingest/Salve/Inject effects
Compounding - The process for which the art is name, Compounding creates, you guessed it, compounds out of various helpful chemicals. The final result can take one of four forms. You can use any plant in Compounding, even those that would normally be considered food.
-Pills: Requires pill caps and takes a little more time than other things. Pills last longer, but also take time to get started. They also have the advantage of being the easiest to stomache having in your mouth. Pills can -only- be made with extracted Chemicals.
-Syrup: Requires an empty bottle or vial. Syrup form medicine is the worst to take, but goes to work instantly.
-Salve: Requires some cloth. Salves are applied topically rather than being ingested. Some medicines even work better applied this way, though some have utterly different effects and some won't do anything at all. Being applied topically also means it can be applied to those that are incapable of taking a pill or syrup.
-Injection: Requires small empty bottles or vials. Injections are very potent, but must be loaded into a medical needle to be used, otherwise they just stay sealed in their little bottles. Medical needles require an exotic proficiency to use correctly, and various forms of defense may make injecting difficult, such as Natural Armor and barriers.
Items in Compounding -
Plants - Can be used themselves or simply have their chemicals extracted. If a plant is a food type plant, its stats here will mirror its stats as an ingredient unless otherwise noted.
Level: Dictates the quality of the plant and, usually, its effect.
Duration: How long the compounded plant remains in your system. For effects like stat boosts, this is a good thing. For effects like one-shot healing, it's really sort of a bad thing.
Nastiness: This occurs only in non-edibal plants. Simply how gross the taste of said plant is. This only matters when making Syrup type medicines.
Effect A: The primary effect the plant will have once compounded. This is also the effect it will have if used unprocessed. In an edible plant, this will be the same as its 'Food' effect when eaten.
Effect B: A different effect that the plant can have. This must be researched to use as a Compounding effect.
Effect C: A third effect that the plant can have. This must be researched to use as a Compounding effect.
Inject/Salve/Ingest Effect: Not every plant will have this, and when they do occur they may replace A B or C. This is an effect that will -only- and will -always- manifest if it is used in the named way.
Chemicals - Can be extracted from various things or used in medicine, making it both a product and an ingredient. Chemicals have the following stats.
Level, Duration, Nastiness same as a Plant. Chemicals may -gain- a Nastiness rating even if their source didn't have one.
Effect: The effect the chemical will have. Unlike plants, Chemicals -must- be Compounded for this to work.
Inject/Salve/Ingest Effect: Only certain chemicals will have these, otherwise identical to the Plant version.
Medicines - The final product of Compounding, achieved with either Plants, Chemicals, or both.
Duration same as Plants and Chemicals. Effect same as Chemicals.
Level: This determines the potency of the medicine. Unlike food, cannot go into the negatives and thus rock bottom is 0, which does nothing.
Type: Pill, Syrup, Injection, or Salve. This decides how the medicine must be taken/used.
Nastiness: Except in extreme cases, this will only occur in Syrup medicines. If this is higher than the taker's SDefense, they will be Stunned simply by drinking it. If it is up to 10 points higher, they must succeed an SDefense Check against it to avoid vomitting. If it is double, the vomitting happens regardless.
Coating: Found only in Pill forms of medicines, this is the number of turns required before the pill starts to work. Duration isn't counted until Coating has hit 0.
Poisons - A more sinister use of Compounding, achieved with the same materials. A compound becomes a poison when more than half of its effects are negative in nature. Though why one would create a Medicine with -any- negative effects is beyond me.
Duration, Type, and Effect same as medicine.
Level: Unlike medicines, poisons -can- dip to negative levels, though they raise to 0 afterward. Why bother then? Because for every level below 0, the effects of the poison will immedietely strike you instead. Potency of the rest will be lost almost immediately. Even once the deed is done, treat poisons carefully; They don't know the difference between friend or foe.
Nastiness: Nastiness is especially important when attempting to poison someone orally. It must be kept as low as possible, or the rotton flavor will be picked out. This is decided by an SDefense check versus the poison's Nastiness.
Coating: Likewise, coating is important when attempting to poison someone with a pill. If the target realizes something is amiss before the pill dissolves, they can... Evacuate it to prevent harm to themselves.
Other Rules of Compounded Item Use;
Mixing Medicine and Food: At any given time, one Medicine, one Dish, and any number of Poisons can coexist in your system. If the remaining Duration of a food is longer than the Duration of a medicine, or the Coating of a pill, the Duration/Coating (but only one) will be set equal to the Duration of the food. This can be good or bad so plan accordingly.
Any 'Injection' type poison can be smeared on a proficient Cutting or Piercing weapon. The next (Duration) attacks made with that weapon will possibly give that poison to the target, with the first success wiping away the remaining 'charges'. A success only happens if the targets Physical Armor is bypassed somehow, or if the un-modified weapon damage is at least twice their armor score.
For Extract, you need but choose either an item or the effect of an Ingredient and swing away to get those lovely Chemicals hidden inside.
For Concentrate, simply choose any amount of the same chemical. If you are successful, the final product will be 1 Unit of the same chemical, though with much higher level than any amount that helped create it.
For Research, pick an item, ask a question about that item, and roll. On a success, the question will be answered. Simple! On higher level successes, you may get more information than you asked for.
For Medicine and Poison making, you must select up to 4 Plants/Chemicals, a form for the final medicine to take (Injection, Syrup, Pill, or Salve), and if applicable, which Effect of each ingredient you want to push into the final product.
Extract - Extracts helpful compounds from various things. You won't really know til you try! This is primarily for use on Cooking ingredients or Compounding plants, but in all cases it lowers the Level of whatever you're working with on a success. An item that hits level 0 is destroyed. This can also be used to try to extract -harmful- compounds... You can 'extract' any Effect that a plant or fungus possesses, or try to get clever with various other items. You never know what might work. Requires a Mortar and Pestle in most cases, and may require more advanced tools in others (such as something too hard to grind up)
IE; Extracting Lycopene from tomatoes.
Concentrate - Reduces the amount of any Chemical while increasing the level. Be mindful this can only be done once per sample.
Research - Allows you to research any item for pharmaceutical benefits it might provide, which can then be Extracted for use. This can also tell you other things, such as Ingest/Salve/Inject effects
Compounding - The process for which the art is name, Compounding creates, you guessed it, compounds out of various helpful chemicals. The final result can take one of four forms. You can use any plant in Compounding, even those that would normally be considered food.
-Pills: Requires pill caps and takes a little more time than other things. Pills last longer, but also take time to get started. They also have the advantage of being the easiest to stomache having in your mouth. Pills can -only- be made with extracted Chemicals.
-Syrup: Requires an empty bottle or vial. Syrup form medicine is the worst to take, but goes to work instantly.
-Salve: Requires some cloth. Salves are applied topically rather than being ingested. Some medicines even work better applied this way, though some have utterly different effects and some won't do anything at all. Being applied topically also means it can be applied to those that are incapable of taking a pill or syrup.
-Injection: Requires small empty bottles or vials. Injections are very potent, but must be loaded into a medical needle to be used, otherwise they just stay sealed in their little bottles. Medical needles require an exotic proficiency to use correctly, and various forms of defense may make injecting difficult, such as Natural Armor and barriers.
Items in Compounding -
Plants - Can be used themselves or simply have their chemicals extracted. If a plant is a food type plant, its stats here will mirror its stats as an ingredient unless otherwise noted.
Level: Dictates the quality of the plant and, usually, its effect.
Duration: How long the compounded plant remains in your system. For effects like stat boosts, this is a good thing. For effects like one-shot healing, it's really sort of a bad thing.
Nastiness: This occurs only in non-edibal plants. Simply how gross the taste of said plant is. This only matters when making Syrup type medicines.
Effect A: The primary effect the plant will have once compounded. This is also the effect it will have if used unprocessed. In an edible plant, this will be the same as its 'Food' effect when eaten.
Effect B: A different effect that the plant can have. This must be researched to use as a Compounding effect.
Effect C: A third effect that the plant can have. This must be researched to use as a Compounding effect.
Inject/Salve/Ingest Effect: Not every plant will have this, and when they do occur they may replace A B or C. This is an effect that will -only- and will -always- manifest if it is used in the named way.
Chemicals - Can be extracted from various things or used in medicine, making it both a product and an ingredient. Chemicals have the following stats.
Level, Duration, Nastiness same as a Plant. Chemicals may -gain- a Nastiness rating even if their source didn't have one.
Effect: The effect the chemical will have. Unlike plants, Chemicals -must- be Compounded for this to work.
Inject/Salve/Ingest Effect: Only certain chemicals will have these, otherwise identical to the Plant version.
Medicines - The final product of Compounding, achieved with either Plants, Chemicals, or both.
Duration same as Plants and Chemicals. Effect same as Chemicals.
Level: This determines the potency of the medicine. Unlike food, cannot go into the negatives and thus rock bottom is 0, which does nothing.
Type: Pill, Syrup, Injection, or Salve. This decides how the medicine must be taken/used.
Nastiness: Except in extreme cases, this will only occur in Syrup medicines. If this is higher than the taker's SDefense, they will be Stunned simply by drinking it. If it is up to 10 points higher, they must succeed an SDefense Check against it to avoid vomitting. If it is double, the vomitting happens regardless.
Coating: Found only in Pill forms of medicines, this is the number of turns required before the pill starts to work. Duration isn't counted until Coating has hit 0.
Poisons - A more sinister use of Compounding, achieved with the same materials. A compound becomes a poison when more than half of its effects are negative in nature. Though why one would create a Medicine with -any- negative effects is beyond me.
Duration, Type, and Effect same as medicine.
Level: Unlike medicines, poisons -can- dip to negative levels, though they raise to 0 afterward. Why bother then? Because for every level below 0, the effects of the poison will immedietely strike you instead. Potency of the rest will be lost almost immediately. Even once the deed is done, treat poisons carefully; They don't know the difference between friend or foe.
Nastiness: Nastiness is especially important when attempting to poison someone orally. It must be kept as low as possible, or the rotton flavor will be picked out. This is decided by an SDefense check versus the poison's Nastiness.
Coating: Likewise, coating is important when attempting to poison someone with a pill. If the target realizes something is amiss before the pill dissolves, they can... Evacuate it to prevent harm to themselves.
Other Rules of Compounded Item Use;
Mixing Medicine and Food: At any given time, one Medicine, one Dish, and any number of Poisons can coexist in your system. If the remaining Duration of a food is longer than the Duration of a medicine, or the Coating of a pill, the Duration/Coating (but only one) will be set equal to the Duration of the food. This can be good or bad so plan accordingly.
Any 'Injection' type poison can be smeared on a proficient Cutting or Piercing weapon. The next (Duration) attacks made with that weapon will possibly give that poison to the target, with the first success wiping away the remaining 'charges'. A success only happens if the targets Physical Armor is bypassed somehow, or if the un-modified weapon damage is at least twice their armor score.