Alchemy



Alchemy is one of the eighteen skills that are available in Skyrim. It is a skill that is used to create poisons and potions from various ingredients, such as food and plants at Alchemy labs, which can be found throughout the world, including Army Camps, Forts and Dungeons.

All ingredients have four effects. You can learn the first effect of any ingredient by selecting it in your inventory and eating it. To learn other effects, experiment with it.

At an Alchemy Lab, you can combine any two or three ingredients and attempt to make a potion with them. If the ingredients share at least one effect, you succeed: you get the resulting potion or poison and learn all of the effects that matched. If none of their effects match, crafting fails and you lose the ingredients.

The resulting item is a potion if its strongest effect is beneficial, and a poison if its strongest effect is harmful. Potions may have weaker harmful effects, and poisons may have weaker beneficial effects - it all depends on the effects of the ingredients you used.

To use a poison, activate it in your inventory and apply it to your equipped weapon.

To use a potion, activate it in your inventory to drink it. If you drink two potions with the same effect, on the most powerful is applied, so wait for one potion to wear off before drinking the next.

As you discover ingredients with matching effects, the Alchemy Lab menu will remember the matches for future use. Continue to experiment to learn new effects and find better combinations.

Your alchemy skill will increase as you make potions and eat ingredients. For a modest price, you can also purchase an Alchemy Lab for any of your houses, with the cost varying by location.

Third party alchemy helper apps

 * Skyrim: Alchemy Recipe Helper – This web application is able to find all the recipe combinations for a given ingredient. By default it will show the recipes which discover the effects of the ingredient, for example, given 'Glow Dust' it will find the three unique recipes which will discover all 4 of the Glow Dust ingredient's effects. You can also select the optional 'Display all recipes' flag to show all the recipes, some ingredients can create some awesome potions with 6 effects. Play around with it and see what you find!


 * Darren Maurer's Skyrim Alchemy Mentor – This web application allows the user to enter the amount of each ingredient they have, and automatically shows how many of each potion can be made for maximum profit. This method is found on the 'advanced' tab. The site is fast as it uses no javascript or plugins and can even be used on cellphones. It was created by a random gamer, who is also a web developer, and posted on his company's web page for all to use.

Levelling up Alchemy
Alchemy increases proportionally to the cost of the potion being brewed. Cost of the potion depends on its effect types and strength. Potions with multiple effects cost more (effect costs are additive, even if the effects themselves do not mix well, such as "Damage Health" and "Restore Health"), and different effects have different costs (for example, "Slow" effect costs a lot, while "Damage Health" is very cheap). Effect strength increases with skill level, perks, and certain apparel enchants.

The most expensive single effects are invisibility, paralyze, slow and the regeneration types (health, stamina, magicka). These are two to three times more effective than other potions when giving skill points. Since the effect costs are additive, a potion with more effects may have higher cost than a potion with one of these high value effects. Hanging Moss + Bear Claws and Vampire Dust + Luna Moth Wing are the best cost/reagent combinations.

It is also best to make big batches of potions at one time. First visit the Thief Stone and if eligible get the Well Rested benefit. With these two bonuses and mixing high value potions this can greatly reduce the time it takes to level up alchemy.

Enchanting apparel is an excellent way to create more potent and valuable potions. Bracers, Headgear (helm, circlet), ring, and amulet can all be enchanted with Fortify Alchemy , and the effects stack additively to create an alchemists wardrobe to wear while mixing potions. Creating/collecting an "alchemy suit" of four +25% (or higher) items can more than double the cost of the potion (and thus the skill increase.)

Trainers

 * Lami - Morthal
 * Arcadia - Whiterun
 * Babette - Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary / Dawnstar Sanctuary

Skillbooks

 * De Rerum Dirennis
 * A Game at Dinner
 * Herbalist's Guide to Skyrim
 * Mannimarco, King of Worms
 * Song of the Alchemists

Achievements

 * Artificer - Make a smithed item, an enchanted item, and a potion.

Recipes
Alchemie