Because I just found this game in the past couple of days I'm going to add this one here.

Olde Swords Reign.  It's a old school revival (OSR), but based on both old D&D with current 5th edition bits added in.

https://osreign.com/

Downloads are in the menu.  It takes you to this google drive to download the PDF.   

https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/folders/1OyDASjG8Xf_PCJUjXHdDtIO1sWveZaKx?usp=sharing

It comes with a similar "Background" skill system like Basic Fantasy.  You get a bonus to create a potion if you have the Alchemist background.

The game is free, so just download it and check it out for yourself.

Worlds Without Number makes this easy, with both a generic craft skill to invest skill points in, and alchemist rules (including a Mundane Alchemist focus, and a focused alchemy skill just for those things).

But you probably aren't playing that, or any of the other OSR things with well defined pieces for that.  One of the problems you face when trying to let a character brew potions or engage in other alchemical things is, these things may be rare in your game, and a PC having that skill makes it not rare.  In that case, the PC should either be forbidden from doing so, or it should cost the PC something he would normally get as part of progression in his class.  If your game has weapon and non-weapon proficiencies, he could pay one or two of those.  He could perhaps give up an entire level of progression, gaining instead a single alchemist hit die and unlocking alchemy.

From a game balance perspective, alchemy means that you are you giving your PC access to a portable potion-and-other-minor-stuff shop, and he'll be paying about one third the price that buying such items would normally take.  If that's unreasonable to you, ban it.  Otherwise, lean into it- any good system has a bunch of things that an alchemist could make, and many of them have uses at all levels, but of course, they generally require the destruction of treasure to make.

In my current campaign, the party stumbled on the laboratory of the NPC spellcaster, and found potions brewing and had to decide what to do. One way to limit the impact of a player wanting his character to start brewing potions and making powders is just to arbitrarily jack up the prep time, forcing them to make hard choices for their character. The badass potion my party found was in week two of a three-week brewing cycle. You make your player spend a month to brew an invisibility potion, and see how well he can work that into adventuring with his fellow party members.

Quote from: solomani on October 21, 2023, 01:30:25 PM
Thanks all. One of the reasons I asked is because I have migrated my group from 5e to OSE Advanced and kind of wanted advice as I didn't want to get caught hurting the game by just making a ruling on the spot. What I listed in my original post is the approach I used for 5e. But I also recall AD&D had skills in Oriental (setting specific) and wasn't there some kind of skill system in UE (though I may be misremembering).

This particular player has always wanted to do things like learning new skills or languages during downtime (last campaign she started as a baker and eventually made magical cookies).

I'll review the basic rules. I do like the idea that this is really a MU type skill and you may need to switch classes.

He could possibly make a deal for arcane knowledge?

In my Back to the Dungeon RPG house rules, what I decided to do is have an XP cost with some in-between RP to train for "other" skills. Not that I actually have a "skill list" just backgrounds for skills. For instance if you were raised in a rural area and on a farm, you would have the skills that a country Farmer Boy would have. If you were raised in the city, you would have the skills of a city dweller depending on the size of the city. No point to have a giant skill list as it just slows things down!

I think one of the problems is that in OSR games, there's not much laid out for "how to learn things" that aren't strictly tied to your class.  Weapon Proficiencies are the only piece present in AD&D 1e, and prior to that there wasn't anything at all.  Second edition added the hilariously named "Non-Weapon Proficiency" and strangely rogues had like the worst progression there.

I've brought up Worlds Without Number because it has skill points, but that's because it's kind of hybridized with other classic games like Traveler- but characters in that game normally need to level up combat skills a bit too, such that a warrior would spend skill points on Stab or whatever.  He wouldn't just have them as non-combat options as per 3.X or 2e.

Basically, do players have level-gated ways to learn things, or is it merely gated by time and gold?  If your player wants to learn masonry, alchemy, and blacksmithing, is that something that can happen in your game, and how long does it take, and how much does it cost?  In 3.X, he'd gain levels until he has the skill points and buy the skills.  In 2e, he'd have to level a ton of times to earn the non-weapon proficiencies.  In 5e, there's optional downtime rules to accomplish it.  In most of OSR, he'd have had to have declared it in his background- or the DM could simply assign it to him for an arbitrary cost in time and gold.  I think it's better to have that selected ahead of time so the players can go for it, or not, depending on what it takes and what they want.

I have an Alchemist feat in Old School Feats, but doesn't deal with creating potions - which is a whole subsystem IMO.

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Alchemy. You can identify potions with an Intelligence check. A failure means you cannot try again without drinking it. You also start each adventure with a random potion, already identified (permanent effects are not allowed). If you do not use it, there are 2-in-6 chances that the potion can be preserved for the next adventure.

Notes: Alchemy (M). Starting with random potions is fun! Adding crafting rules would be a whole different book, but you can allow alchemists to buy/create potions at half price if you already have a list.
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OSRIC has prices on potions, which is a start.

How long does it take? That's another can of worms - you have to decide about wages in your setting... alchemists should earn more than peasants but less than adventurers risking their lives...

B/X suggests 1000 gp per month, so they should provide at least that much value each month.

From OSE:

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Alchemist
Recreating potions: Based on a sample or recipe, an alchemist can produce a potion at twice the normal speed and for half the normal cost (see Magical Research).

Researching potions: An alchemist may also research new potions, but this takes twice as long and costs twice as much as normal.
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Assuming the PC has a sample/recipe*, you could just say he creates 2000 gp worth of potions per month, and it costs 1000 gp to do so.

* This is fun because encourages questing for new potions/recipes.

THanks all.  I went with the "it's going to cost time and gold" to do this.  Which is the option to spend XP to speed things along.  When I played 5e if someone wanted something that sounded like a feat, I would just use the same rules - sacrifice an ability score improvement for it in addition to time/money but it would be faster spending an ability score improvement.