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~~~~~01|Alchemist
~~~~~02|Classes|Alchemist
#####R=== Alchemists ===

#####GDescription
Alchemists are the only class that can harness the abilities of the 
essences found in the dungeon. They can add these essences to staves, 
rings, wands, rods, and sometimes weapons and armour to create new items
or recharge old ones. They can also extract essences from magical items
they find. Using these abilities, Alchemists can get very good items at
low levels. The trouble is getting them to survive later on.

Alchemists are extremely proficient with all kinds of magical devices,
and have made a fine art of extracting, storing, and using these 
objects' magical energies.  Because they neither fight well nor cast 
powerful spells, Alchemists rely on their craftsmanship to cope with 
the dangers of the dungeons.  They will quickly learn to create damage-
dealing wands, rods, and staffs, forge powerful weapons and armour, 
make highly useful objects of other kinds, and eventually, at great cost 
to other knowledge, they can learn the perilous art of artifact creation 
itself.

#####GStarting Stat Modifiers
Strength         -5
Intelligence     +3
Wisdom           +0
Dexterity        +1
Constitution     -2
Charisma         +1
Bonus Blows       0
Hit Die          +d0
Exp Penalty      30%

#####GStarting Skills:
#####BSkill                   Start Level     Skill Point Gains
Combat                  1.000           [0.700]
  Weaponmastery         0.700           [0.700]
Sneakiness              1.000           [0.900]
  Stealth               0.000           [0.400]
Magic                   3.000           [0.900]
  Magic-Device          1.000           [1.250]
  Geomancy
    Fire                0.000           [0.100]
    Water               0.000           [0.100]
    Air                 0.000           [0.100]
    Earth               0.000           [0.100]
  Meta                  0.000           [0.500]
  Conveyance            0.000           [0.100]
  Divination            0.000           [0.500]
  Temporal              0.000           [0.100]
  Mind                  0.000           [0.100]
  Nature                0.000           [0.100]
  Necromancy            0.000           [0.100]
  Runecraft             0.000           [0.700]
  Thaumaturgy           0.000           [0.100]
  Alchemy               1.000           [0.800]
Spirituality            1.000           [0.800]
  Prayer                0.000           [0.500]
Monster-lore            0.000           [0.500]

*An Alchemist cannot learn the Geomancy skill, but it is shown in his skill 
screen because the elemental schools are sub-skills of it.

#####GInnate Abilities:
#####BAbility              Character level
Perfect casting             1

#####GStarting Equipment
An Alchemist begins the game with:
    a Dagger
    six Essences of Explosion
    an Empty Bottle
    a Set of Leather Gloves
~~~~~03|Alchemist|Alchemy powers explained
~~~~~05|Skills|Alchemy - Alchemy powers
#####GAlchemy
[[[[[BThe alchemical techniques are accessed using the 'm' key.]  
Alchemists may then 'E'xtract essences or add 'P'owers. The Alchemist [[[[[vmust]
be wearing GLOVES to use their alchemy powers.

An Alchemists is also capable of [[[[[Bcreating their own artifacts], but
this is a time-consuming, and costly, activity. To do so, he must first 
learn the ability *****ability.txt*09[Artifact Creation], which costs a whopping 70 skill points
to learn, and requires some high pre-requisites. Once he has done so, 
he needs to imbue an ego item with a number of essences of magic (equal
to their skill level) and then wield the item. While using the item, 
it will gain experience (which reduces the amount of exp the wearer 
gains during this time). When the Alchemist feels that the item is 
powerful enough, he can finalise the artifact by "buying" powers using
the experience the artifact has collected. He will also require exotic
ingredients to add the abilities.

Most (but not all) potions, scrolls, wands, staffs, rods, rings, and 
amulets contain usable magical energies.  An Alchemist taps that 
energy, using the technique "'E'xtract essences" to create one or more
essences of a type appropriate to the original object.

The drained object itself is now called "of nothing".  Unlike any
other kind of object, it can have new magics added to it.

An Alchemist can add power to such items by using essences he made or
found.  He does this with the technique "'P'ower".  He can then select
the object he wishes to enchant, and the kind of object he wishes to
create. Only object types for which he knows the recipe will be displayed,
and ones for which essences are lacking will be displayed in red. Objects
whose level exceeds his own are sometimes difficult to create, though
he can always add gold to improve the chances of his success.

[[[[[BA few pointers:]
     -Recipes are (usually) logical. Acid essences don't make Dragon 
      Weapons. And you can always look at the recipes you know with
      the "recipe 'B'ook" command.
     -Not all objects or ego-item types can be made using alchemy.
     -Alchemy is mostly reversible.  Most items that you can 
      'E'xtract from, you can later re-create, if you learn about
      them when extracting from them. You won't always get enough
      essences from destroying an item to recreate it, though the 
      chance of doing so will get higher as you increase in skill.
     -*Identifying* an object that you can destroy will always teach
      you how to create it (if creating it is possible).
     -Since you can't create abilities in artifacts that you aren't
      aware of, make sure to *identify* all the artifacts you can.
     -You can't *identify* things you buy in shops, so you'll have
      to extract from them and take your chances.

[[[[[BSome Recipes:]
Any Alchemist worth his salt knows lots of recipes.  By extracting from
items in the dungeon, he learns to create more and more items. You can
see the recipes you know using the "recipe 'B'ook" command. The Alchemist
starts off knowing some basic recipes, and gains more recipes as time 
goes on.

More details can be found in the *****essences.txt*0[Essences SPOILER]).

