I've noticed many players are hesitant to try alchemy, and for good reason. For those who aren't experts in this crafting skill, it can seem daunting to get into. Here are some resources I use that take a ton of the guesswork out of alchemy.
Skyrim Alchemy Lab
This site is an invaluable resource for those who want to know exactly how strong their concoctions will be. The menu on the right side lets you determine the exact magnitude of your concoctions based on your alchemy level, enchantments, and perks selected. Noticeably missing is 'Seeker of Shadows' which magnifies the effectiveness of thief skills, including alchemy level, by 10%.
Darliandor's Alchemy Lab
This resource is very useful for theory crafting potion and poison combinations. Every possible combination of poison and potion effect is available in the 4 separate effect drop down menus.
Simply pick your effects and see which ones match up. Once you've found the combination of effects you're satisfied with you can view below and see all the possible combinations of ingredients that will create your desired combination of effects. You can select different combinations of ingredients to see how/if they alter the effects in anyway. Very useful for alchemists looking to find the easiest combination of ingredients to gather.
Please, everyone, feel free to add to this. I'm sure there are many other online resources I missed that could prove just as useful.
Replies
This will definitely prove valuable in my next alchemy playthrough! Thanks, Curse.
You're welcome man. Hopefully this will inspire people on the fence to give alchemy a chance.
These are great. It took me a good while to come around to alchemy mostly because I thought of it as a more grindy skill than the others but boy was I wrong. It is probably my favorite crafting skill because it is the "active" crafting skill. Smithing and enchanting - once you get final gear you don't need those perks. Of course you could legendary the skill but that mashes up RP for me.
Alchemy is the ongoing skill you need to upkeep with resources and with an RP heavy character that is fun. These sites I personally haven't used because I try to go off of recipes or memory for certain potions and poisons.
Yeah I agree with you that alchemy definitely does seem like the most roleplay friendly and active among the crafting skills.
With some of my heavy alchemy builds such as the Berne clan I use a mod called "dragonborn takes notes", a cool little mod bat actually lets you whip open a book and type in it. All my recipients go into it.
I typically hate hate hate alchemy. But this just might change my tune.
Because of the active nature alchemy was the hardest for me to get in to. But with hearthfire it gets so easy to plant your garden, check your fishery, mix potions all in one place. It requires a lot more effort but it can do SO MUCH. Makes any archetype or character viable. I'm fighting to not include it in every character now.
I personally rarely if ever invest in a hearthfire home, granted part of that is because there are modded player homes galore. The main reason is there aren't a whole lot of my characters I can envision as home makers and owners.
I also use an app on my phone named Alchemy Guide Free for Skyrim. It looks similar to the Darliandor's Alchemy Lab.
You can look at ingredients to see what potions they can make, weight, value and details about the ingredient.
There is also an option to look up effects to see what ingredients can produce that effect.
Finally it has a "lab" where you can mix ingredients and it will tell you the potions the combination of ingredients will make and their value as well.