Category talk:Chemical Creation
Insofar as these are created with the Alchemy skill, why are they listed under Chemistry? DeepShadow 06:29, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Some brilliant designer in upgrading from 3ed to 3.5ed decided that only spellcasters can be alchemists. Not necessarily a problem in Greyhawk, but we have gunpowder in Ravenloft and suddenly one had to be a spellcaster to make gunpowder. And that is an evident problem in terms of flavour and rules for gunslinger prestige classes that could make gunpowder proficiently but now needed to have a spellcasting background to continue to do so. Moreoever it served to point out a general problem. How many Lamordian chemists consider themselves alchemists and are spellcasters? I would think approximately none. Given the modernity of some of Ravenloft's domains, chemistry in its own right needs to be recognised. Where one draws the line in terms of what can be crafted between the two of them is of course the question. My thought is if it can be done with chemistry in the real world, preferably at the appropriate period in history, and at comparable cost in terms of materials, equipment, gold and time, then it is chemistry and alchemy, if not it is just alchemy.Cure 19:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
I understand that. The problem is, not everyone is going to use the same solution. I'd rather we Aput a note in the Alchemy section about the discrepancy and let people solve it however they wish. If I were looking for alchemical stuff, I'd expect to see these things there. DeepShadow 17:40, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Agreed. I don't think real world alchemists saw themselves as spellcasters either. A simpler solution would be to just declare that in Ravenloft, the no-alchemy-for-non-spellcasters rule is lifted. (In fact, I would only be mildly surprised if such as statement was buried somewhere in the RLPH.) -- Gonzoron 18:11, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
Oh, I would dearly love to imagine that that prerequisite doesn't exist. But if my possibly tenuous grasp on the timing and authorship is correct, all the prestige classes that it messes up where written in 3.0 and our 3.5 RLPH wasn't written by the old guard that might have recognised the problem and fixed it (but instead by the newguard who were busying themselves with offering each class a power check for breathing). And I would be more than happy to take a statement from Mangrum or any of the others on the matter as official errata and make the thing go away.
As for the real-world alchemists and my to cents, there were no spellcasters hurling fireballs about on demand, so they would have had little reason to find a "spell-caster" inspiring. Ravenloft presupposes a quite different, even if low magic, history with the probable exception of Lamordia. Magic is not only believed and feared, it is real, so an alchemey tied to it is far more tenable. Now, the introduction of Lamordia into the mix invites a very modern idea and a very premodern idea of what it is to be mixing stuff up in beakers. All other things being equal, the Lamordian, with his guns, is doing chemistry and most everyone else, save for the gunwielders, is doing alchemey, just as the Lamordian does astronomy, while most of the rest do astrology. We cover in the space of a few score miles at most, a time frame that blithly includes the birth and development of modern science from its manifesto proclaimed by Galileo and Descartes to the beginning of its (seemingly) ultimate triumph with the emergence of technology. Lamordians are going to see obscurantist superstition everywhere, certainly in alchemey, so tying it to spellcasting is just giving them what they want and there is no more appealing place to situate the difference.Cure 23:55, 24 February 2010 (UTC)
