This post is NOT for gathering recipes, it's to discuss a play style. Please don't share recipes!

I've always enjoyed playing alchemists, especially once the Hearthfire plug-in provided cultivatable gardens and greenhouses (as opposed to the static and glacially-slow-to-regenerate gardens of Honeyside and the Dawnstar Sanctuary). Part of the fun was researching all the effects and combinations, searching for specific ingredients, grinding through to 100 etc.

However, I took a break from Skyrim for about 8 months but am now playing again which gives me a unique opportunity. I've forgotten pretty much all the recipes (I still remember three or four, including water breathing which is a whopper) so I'm trying to play without outside knowledge. I want my PC to learn alchemy through Skyrim mechanisms such as the Experimenter perks (only have the first one right now), buying recipes from alchemists, or eating ingredients (falmer ear, giant's toe, large antlers? ewwwww!).

I'm not using my notes, I'm not checking the web etc. I'm tracking valid recipes through the in-game mechanism (known recipes which show up based on the ingredients in your inventory when you use an alchemy station). I'm still not writing anything down though there's no real reason why an alchemist wouldn't keep notes.

Anybody tried this approach to alchemy? Any suggestions, anecdotes, or thought? My plan is to reference my notes once Alchemy hits 90 and I unlock the last Experimenter perk.

Thanks!

Yes, I sometimes play a complete beginner alchemist with no player knowledge or other-character knowledge allowed. I kept a set of notes in pencil for one character even though the game keeps track of what you’ve tried, because as you said an alchemist of all people would keep detailed notes. For a while I used her notes as a coaster, and they got all wrinkled and marked up with coffee rings. It was fun.

My suggestion is stay strong when you ‘waste’ a rare ingredient. Particularly one that the character has refused to eat (hello there, Giant’s Toe) and so doesn’t even know the first effect. Instead of a recipe and a potion you just gained knowledge!

Haven't tried that. I think it has a lot offer though. It's by far the most complex part of the game.

This is the way I always try and play my characters

Only use knowledge the character has, not that I have

Its quite viable too although you might want to hold off experimenting with Daedra Hearts until you have 3 or 4 levels in Experimenter

I try it, but it's hard to avoid combinations you know will work. "Hmm...what if I mix deathbell and river betty for no good reason. Oh look. It made a thing. Yay."

It's actually pretty fun though. I like to keep personalized journals for each character. One is covered in scribbled illustrations, another's is barely legible and a bit dirty, and another is obnoxiously detailed.

I usually dabble in Alchemy on every other character and I've yet to write down (or look up online) a single ingredient or recipe. I just pluck every ingredient I can find and hunch over the Alchemy table and try nearly everything together. I have a hard time parting ways with the various Atronach salts and Daedra hearts, but nearly everything else is fair game as I learn the various properties of the ingredients.

Yes, this is how I do it. If I don't know the ingredient, I eat it. That tells me the first the effect. All I have to do is match those first effects and I get a potion. But I frequently get the 2nd and 3rd effects this way too, so that gives me more information.

Alchemy is quite easy to learn from the game if you remember eat everything at least once. It's actually easier for me than looking up the recipes.

I strive to use only character knowledge when I roleplay. This applies to everything, not just to Alchemy. Part of a character's "story arc" for me involves learning about the world around them.

If I find myself using player knowledge too often I take it as a sign that I need to take a break from roleplaying for a while. I'm not in the proper frame of mind to roleplay when I do this.

Exactly! This is why my recent hiatus from the game uniquely positioned me for this play-through. I forgot almost all the recipes! I'm not even pretending I don't already know a few recipes. Brewing these let my PC level more quickly than normal but I can live with that. If the skill takes too long to become useful, the character will finish without really using alchemy.

I wish the migrating salmon in the rapids would respond more quickly. I think it takes a month of in-game time...

Does matching just the first effect really reveal other effects? I've been matching first-to-first or first-to-second and I don't remember seeing lots of new effects. Most of my ingredients only list the first two effects due to the Experimenter 1 perk. Before that perk, it was just the first effect. I'll have to experiment some more but I had given up on really unlocking the effects before finishing this character.

The location of the effect doesn't matter when making a potion. It could be the first or the forth effect. If the two ingredients share an effect you get a potion and learn the respective effect within within the ingredients used. There is a wiki article you don't want to read that gives you every effect in every ingredient in, I think, 59 potions.

Oh! I didn't realize that's how it works - I guess I never really thought about it. So if an ingredient has an effect that I want (for example, fortify sneak) and I have lots of that ingredient, I can just keep mixing it with others until I find some other ingredient that has the same effect. Neat, that sounds pretty fun. My PC isn't perking enchanting so a fortify enchanting potion would be great. I'll probably try to find that first.

So what happens when ingredients share two effects? Is that how multi-effect potions are created?

Thanks!