Alchemy

Alchemy is a General Codex entry in Kingdom Come: Deliverance, as well as a tutorial codex entry.

Alchemy is a non-combat skill used to create potions and remedies from herbs and additional ingredients. To create these, players will need to have the correct recipes, ingredients, and access to the alchemist's bench. Leveling this skill makes brewing potions easier to complete. The time and requirements are more relaxed allowing players to attempt to create more complicated concoctions.

You can read the book series The Alchemist's Dream to level up this skill.

Codex entry[]

Alchemy was a discipline combining mysticism, hermeneutics, chemistry, physics and many other spheres of learning. Medieval alchemists worked in laboratories, often situation at nobleman's mansions or in Royal cities. They found application in smelters, mints, mines, glass-works and wherever industrial production needed assistance. The work of alchemists was challenging and costly, and so required the support of patrons. Successful alchemists earned wealth and fame, while the unsuccessful ended up in prison or were sentenced to death. Two fundamental alchemical objectives persisted through the entirety of the Middle Ages: to find the mystical "philosopher's stone" and to transmute base metals into gold.

Tutorial[]

Note: This information is from the in-game tutorial.

In the alchemist 's lab you will find on the right side of the bench the Herbarium, which lists all the properties of herbs and all the recipes you have so far learned. You open the book with and use to toggle between the recipes and the plant descriptions.

It's always best to follow the recipe in the book. By holding on the recipe, you can also set all the necessary ingredients straight down on the alchemy bench.

The degree of difficulty of the brewing itself varies and each recipe requires a variable number of steps. But the first step is always to pour the potion base, which you will find on the shelf on your left, into the cauldron. The next step is to add the ingredients to the cauldron and brew the mixture on the prescribed flame, which is regulated by means of the bellows . You should carefully time how long you brew the potion using the sand-glass . If the recipe demands it, you must take care to grind ingredients using the mortar and pestle. The brewed potion can then be poured directly from the cauldron into the phial, or passed through the distiller.

The recipe steps must be adhered to precisely — if you deviate too much from them, the potion will fail, you'll lose all your ingredients and the whole brewing process will have to be repeated.

Once you've become skilled enough at alchemy, you'll have the option of auto-brewing potions by holding on the Herbarium.

Skill Description[]

The better your mastery of Alchemy, the easier it is to brew potions even if you make minor mistakes. A Master who adheres carefully to the recipe on the other hand can make up to 3 potions from the same ingredients as one.

New perk points unlock at levels: 3, 5, 8, 10, 13, 15, 18, 20.

Trainers[]

Alchemy Perks[]

Alchemy Perks

Perk Name	Min. Lvl (Alchemy)	Description
Salted and Smoked	Lvl 3	Cured or cooked food in your inventory will spoil 20% more slowly.
Water of Life	Lvl 3	Healing potions will heal you 50% more, but will also intoxicate you 50% more.
Witcher	Lvl 3	Potions will fill you up 30% less, which means you can drink more of them and more often.
Trial and Error	Lvl 5	When brewing you can make one extra mistake without affecting the results.
Venomous Blade	Lvl 5	Poison applied to a weapon will remain on the blade longer.
Snake Oil Salesman	Lvl 8	Potions you brew yourself have a 20% higher selling price.
Bundle Alchemist	Lvl 10	When you successfully brew a potion, you get one extra. Doesn't apply to autobrew.
Routine I	Lvl 10	You can now auto-brew potions you have brewed once before, but you can only brew one.
Routine II	Lvl 13	Autobrewing will produce 3 potions for the price of one.

Notes[]

The fastest way to level up Alchemy is as follows:
- You can brew one of those : Bowman's Brew, Digestion potion, Poison, or Marigold decoction, all of them being equally fast to make. You don't need the recipes books.
  1. Bowman's Brew : Add spirits, then add 2 Eyebright and 1 St. John's wort, then finish the potion.
  2. Digestion potion : Add spirits, then add 2 Chamomile and 1 Mint, then finish the potion.
  3. Marigold decoction : Add water, then add 2 Marigold and 1 Nettle, then finish the potion.
  4. Poison : Add oil, then add 2 Herb Paris and 1 Thistle, then finish the potion.
- Because these potions all have simple recipes and the game allows you to make some mistakes without affecting the result, brewing these four is the fastest way to level up alchemy.
- Following a potion's recipe properly does not provide extra experience.
Perfectly brewing any recipe will yield 3 potions for one set of ingredients. The Trial and Error perk will allow an extra mistake in the brew (two total mistakes) while still making 3 potions. Along with the Bundle Alchemist perk, it yields 4 potions.
It is possible to skip some of the steps of any recipe: by default you can make 1 error without affecting the result, then with the Trial and Error perk at skill level 5, you can make another error without consequence. As your alchemy skill progresses, you can make even more errors. Do note that the step of boiling is nearly always optional and can be ignored most of the time.
Without the ability to read, Henry cannot properly read recipes, which makes Alchemy one of the hardest skills to develop in the game. It is, however, possible to brew potions without reading any recipe in-game, as long as you follow the steps. You can also try to decipher the recipes with a Reading skill at level 0, since only the order of the letters within a word gets jumbled (for instance "libo" instead of "boil").