I don't understand why people are so upset about which category alchemy is in.
It's called Stealth as a convenience, nothing more, sounds better than stealth and interaction, stealth and general.... you get the picture. They bundled all the skills that aren't combat/weaponry related, or that don't involve manipulating magical energies, and stuck them together.
Mercantile and speechcraft don't belong under a strict category of stealth, but these skills belong in a general category of stealth and communication and general, which has skills useful for thieves, hunters, assassins and bards, which just so happens to be called stealth.

They should just rename stealth as 'cunning'. Speech, barter, sneak and security all fit nicely under this heading, although personally I couldn't care less.
The only reason alchemy is being put in stealth is so that each archetype has a crafting skill and c'mon, alchemy makes poisons that are generally used by stealth type characters. Isn't that a good enough reason to put alchemy under stealth?

Maybe cause using the poisons and potions you make allows you to go invisible/chameleon and make one hit kills. In Oblivion, using poison and a sneak attack generally meant whatever I shot was dead. It really didn't matter that my character was standing in plain sight in her house while making the stuff.

Wait, when did they say alchemy was done only at benches?

It makes sense because magic already has restoration for its means of healing, now stealth has one, i guess combat has nothing.

Alchemy as a stealth skill makes total sense. If your a mage, you don't have to make potions. You can do anything potions can do only with less hassle. Alchemy also makes poison. That is completely inside the realm of stealth.

I wonder how they will handle the actual potion creation. I wasn't too happy with oblivion's system. It felt like the only potion I could make was the restore stamina potion. They can take a more classical approach and give each potion a recipe?

Combat has high health and heavy armor. Just tank it trough.

Cunning sounds very nice :toughninja: :cookie:

Otherwise the category fits more into Stealth than anywhere else.

All in all Alchemy is like a good convenience skill to use when your class is not pure magic or stealth.
It has nothing to do with combat, and magic neither since its a totally chemical process and does not require energy/mana to be produced in any way.
This is actually a change that makes sense when you look at it closely, though a fourth category for those loose skills might be appropriate, but certainly not necessary.



Where did you find this information? Just curious. Might be more there to get?

I think i will try to wake up someone responsible and see if i can coax out any more useful information regarding Alchemy. It worked for Morrowind and Oblivion a bit :icecream: Let's see how far i get for Skyrim :turtle:

While I really couldn't care less which class they put it in, I am bummed that you won't be able to make potions in the wild. No matter what char type I ever created, Alchemy was always a large part of it. Making potions in the wild not only helped with giving me what I needed (not to mention quick cash in cities), it also helped me come under my weight limit while looting. Guess I'll need to focus more on ease burden potions this time around.

You aren't zapping the potions into existence with spells either. Heck it is more fitting for stealth since it is a precision based physical skill kind of like security. The end effects might be magical, but the methods of creation go towards someone who has a steady and agile hand. On the balance side, 6 skills per group, 1 creation skill per group, wide range of special effects that are more limited than magic for people who aren't mages.

i′m certain you can just buy one of those worktables for your house, just like in fallout 3...

I went further and setup 5 arch backgrounds:
Combat & Arms - Strength (Hit Points / Encumbrance) <- 1H, 2H, block, shield goes here.
Nature & Body - Endurance (Stamina / Resistance) <- Archery, body skills, nomadic, stalk (animal), and medical goes here.
Stealth & Thievery - Agility (Speed / Dexterity) <- Throw, sneak (NPC), lockpicking, barter, and evasion goes here.
Social & Lore - Personality (Appearance / Charisma) <- Alchemy, evaluation, recognition, cooking goes here.
Magic & Spells - Intelligence (Magicka / Willpower) <- 6 Schools of magic, and enchanting goes here.
With 5 arch backgrounds and 7 skills, you end up with 35 skills, all of which could be very useful, depending on your approach to problem solving rather than being locked in a mindset of fighting, magic, and stealth.

The colored fields define where you assign 2 points to per level up, and get 1 point per level up to the non colored derived attribute regardless. A good thief build don't pick only from Stealth & Thievery, but may sacrifice some of these for i.e. Nature & Body or Social & Lore depending on what kind of thief he wishes to become (hustler = social for social engineering, and burglar = nature & body for climbing, assasin with all three for evasion and poison usage). Playing through the main quest at maximum difficulty (where possible) without killing anyone, got me thinking: Why is the use of an overpowered spell like invisibility the only means of having a non violent approach to most quests? I was overjoyed in FONV when I convinced the end villain to just leave, and I just went like "Wait a minute, did that really just happen? Holy smokes, bloody awesome".

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Regarding alchemy, I'm still hoping for mortar & pestle for basic field work, and then improve your workbench at home with found apparatuses. Similar as I'm hoping crafting will allow basic maintenance and maybe creating simple arrows (wood and stone), but use a full smith with smelter to create weapons and armor. Or enchanting where you get field work for recharging and visit shop/house for creation. Mortar & pestle seems "managable", whereas a calcinator is not (heavy, it's a small furnice) and the glassware too fragile.

First, Darliandor, I would like to thank you for creating the Darliandor's Alchemy Lab site. My characters refered to it often. I am sure a similar site for will be appreciated by my Skyrim characters.

The v?lva I have planned will use alchemy to a great extent. I recall the joy, when in the game, Oblivion, my main character discovered the mortar and pestle in the starter dungeon. She took it, or one like it, with her most of the time, even when adventuring.

I and my Skyrim characters look forward to the results of your new project for that game.

Edit: fix typos

It makes no sense at all. Combat is about to endure damage. Magic to restore damage, and Stealth to evade damage.

You need to deal damage too. And some of the alchemy potions allowed you to do that.

In Morrowind, damage by the carloads, especially if you were playing with uber alchemy. I still make one save for messing around with that....

Of course they allow to do that. They also allow Warriors to do more damage and being more effective in combat. Should we then put Alchemy into the Combat category?

BTW, last time I messed up with uber-alchemy, I had to manually remove its effects via console commands.... Good times...

How about bring Mortal and Paste with you when on the run and don't bring the three other stuff with you.
Depends on what skill you have you still make good potions and poison out of that.
If you want to make better versions of them go to a chemist or somewhere you can go to for everybody to use no for only the few.

Can I get a link to alchemy only being at fixed benches?

I don't recall any mention of an alchemy workbench, except as a point of discussion on this forum. In the first GI video, you can see a whiteboard behind Todd, with a simple concept sketch of a crafting bench, so this is probably where the idea came from.

I'd imagine you will be able to purchase an Alchemy table for you dwelling dude.

Hey Darliandor. :wave: Good to see you. Your site for Achemy in Oblivion was awesome.

There is garlic hanging in the saloon screenshot and I believe columbine flowersgrowing in another screenshot. I'm not positive it is columbine flowers but they could be iris.

As I remember it was in the podcast, and yes it's quite possible it's included in house upgrades, would almost expect it in one of the more fancy houses.
Also posible they went back to the Mortal and Paste for alchemy as we are used to it.

Those of you who are complaining about Alchemy being in stealth seem to be forgetting that this game is a totally open-world game. Anyone who wants to do something in this game can do it, whether it's in Stealth or not. So if you're going to play a mage, go and do Alchemy too if you like. Nothing is stopping you. The fact that it's in the Stealth area is just so that each so-called class can have a crafting field per se. There's nothing stopping a Stealth player from learning Enchanting either, although that's a Mage's forte.

If any of you had read Robin Hobb's book called "Royal Assassin" , you would see quite clearly how all of the Alchemy in that book was dedicated to Assassins. Every potion, every kind of root or plant, all had some kind of reason to exist based on an Assassin's needs for each different kind of quest. The author put the protagonist into a variety of situations that then required some alchemical process to solve, and every kind of potion was useful during the completion of each assassination. So Alchemy was, very much, all about Stealth. That series is living proof, and if you haven't read it, by all that's sacred, go and read those books! They're just beyond awesome.

I just want Alchemy to be more visually interesting. I think Bethesda should design a series of animated overlays that flash (semi-transparently) over your 1st person camera (if you're in 3rd person, you can't see them) ... that look like those flashes from the Lawnmower Man when Job's brain was being "updated" with those drug-VR combo patches. Tons of diagrams and strange symbols should flash over your eyes, showing you the potion is having some effect on your character. I hate that you drink potions and nothing seems to happen to you. What's the fun of that? Drinking a potion should SHOW you something visual, like a firework in your head, or alterered vision temporarily, or screen-shaking, or do something to impress upon you how dangerous and/or mind-altering these "DRUGS" are ... which is what potions are essentially. Magically-cooked up drug cocktails full of cool enhancements. Shouldn't you experience them in more detail?

Just to clarify something: Alchemy is a stealth skill whether you like it or not. It won't change the usability on it, it was strictly done so each of the main three combat types had their own "Creation" skill. Mages got Enchanting back, Stealth users have Alchemy, and Warriors have Smithing. You can make a mage that uses Smithing, a thief that enchants, or a warrior toting ingredients and potions. Or you could make a character who only trains in Alchemy, Enchanting, Mercantile, Security, Smithing, and Athletics (assuming the skills listed are all in the game). You could do it in Oblivion or Morrowind too.

So summary so far:

Alchemy

• Skill category: Stealth
  
• Creation possibly only on workbenches. Locations and workings unknown
  
• Ingredients spotted so far:
  
  • Columbine Flower/Iris
    
  • Garlic
    
  • Nirnroot

Bit sparse yet, but i expect the list will be growing.
I could not really find any ingredients/plants in those high mountain, snow screenshots.
Maybe snow/ice counts as ingredient? They said it will fall accordingly. Maybe you can pick it up too?

Thanks all! I enjoyed providing information about for Morrowind and Oblivion.
The Alchemy wizard, who cube3 hosts on the site, really made the whole effort shine alot brighter and that page remains about the most used.



Hi summer :wave:
Yes, i have been spotting some possible ingredient sources and ingredients too, thanks



I have not listened to that yet. Looking forward to those.




Yes, Badprenup. I think the discussion is more of a principal one. Like in Morrowind and Oblivion there is all the freedom we want.
I wonder why they emphasize this so much for Skyrim?