Part 124: Game Mechanics Update #4

Game Mechanics Update 4

Alchemy and Potions

Let's talk potions. They come in three sizes: Small, Normal, and Super.

There are several types of potions in the game. I'm skipping over the unique, one-off potions for now. All potions are instant-effect, unlike Diablo 2, and the effects stack. I didn't bother timing how long the duration on the buff potions lasts, but larger potions probably last longer then smaller ones.

Healing potions restore 40/100/200 Health.
Magic potions restore 40/60/80 Magic.

Most magic skills at Rank 5 cost at LEAST 20 magic to cast, and you're going to need more then one cast most of the time. So basically, a super magic potion gives you 2 to 4 or less castings of a powerful spell.

Since Gold Charms can boost health by 100 each, and your late-game gear can hold a lot of those, that 200 Health per super potion won't do all that much for you. For a mage, forget super potions. With several pieces of good gear, I've got over 1200 Magic already and I only have one +100 Magic Charm.

Mixing a Health (red) and Magic (blue) potion makes a Restoration potion (white) that restores a percentage of both health and magic. This is why the Restoration potions are excellent, they restore 50%/100%/100% Health and Magic. (Don't waste money buying Super Restoration potions).


Mixing a Restoration and Stamina potion (yellow) produces an Elixir (purple) that gives 10%/15%/20% resistance to fire, electricity and poison. This can take you above 100% (making you immune). If you know you're going to be entering an area with lots of magical traps, drinking some elixirs before will dull the pain - which is a good thing because magical traps HURT.


Mixing a Stamina and Magic potion gives a black-coloured Shadow (invisibility) potion. Interacting with anything while invisible dispels the effect. You also become visible when passing through an event trigger, which makes invisibility potions worthless in precisely the kind of situation you would normally use them. They're only handy for avoiding combat when you don't feel like it.

Mixing a Stamina and Health potion gives a Strength (orange} potion which augments your Strength attribute by 10/15/20 per potion. This can let you carry more if you're at a weight limit, or make you more formidable in melee combat (well, only if you're a warrior, really, because of the penalty to weapon damage per strength point for non-warriors).

I pretty much only use Restoration and Stamina potions, there's little need for the others in most cases. But I will make use of them at some point.



Rank 2 of Alchemy lets you make potions from certain plants and a small flask. The plants are colour-coded for convenience. Red/pink plants and mushrooms are health, blue/cyan plants/mushrooms are magic, yellow are stamina. You can also make poison, with a flask and grey mushrooms, rotten food, or barrels of poison (duh). It can be a bit tiring running all looking for plants. It's much faster to simply buy the potions direct, although obviously more expensive then looking for empty flasks.

Ranks 3 and 4 of Alchemy let you make Normal and Super potions with normal and Large flasks.

Rank 5 of Alchemy lets you increase the size of a potion if you combine it with a special purple plant called an Augmentor. This is what it looks like.



That plant is pretty rare in the world compared to the other kinds of plants, and since plants don't grow back once they're used, it's even more difficult to find. It's not worth the use of a skill point to get Rank 5 Alchemy. Personally I just think the developers ran out of ideas and needed to throw something in for the last rank.

Also on a side note, this doesn't require alchemy at all, but it's still useful to know.
Mardaneus has beehives in his yard. You can make honey with that. All you need is an empty jar, a honey rack, and a beehive.



Drag the honey rack into the beehive, and then drag the empty jar to scoop up the honey. Honey boosts all of your primary attributes by 5 for a little while, and in addition, it also heals you and restores magic by 50 points each, filling in the gaps left from your increased stats (the only stat-boosting item which thoughtfully does that). Unfortunately, there are only so many honey racks and empty jars in the game, and once they're gone, that's it.