The Agasha Mystic school is described as being very involved into alchemy.

Assuming a PC wants to explore that side, how would you handle it rules-wise?

- What skill should crafting alchemical stuff be? The Agasha family and Mystic school both offer ranks in Medicine and Smithing. Since Chemistry is a subskill of Medicine, I'd say that is the relevant skill.

- What can the alchemist craft? Poison of course comes to mind, or Prepared Invocations per p. 190 as a potion. I would allow various narrative devices like signal rockets. I could imagine allowing primitive black-powder weapons like the chinese firelance, using the stats of the advanced crossbows from the Shadowlands books.

- One option would be to reskin invocations. So if he wants to be able to make smoke bombs, he can buy the Blessed Wind invocation, and casting it for him is throwing down a vial. Same for a bomb through The Cleansing Fire. (I want to avoid giving him effectively free invocations by letting him do the same as an invocation by simply using Medicine.)

Other ideas?

I think using medicine to prepare invocations as potions/smoke bombs/whatever seems like the best balance.

We do the reskin of the invocation and the prepared invocations aswell.

works wonders, especially when he starts to use the school ability to 'ringshift' an invocation, then he starts to mix potions and powders or having mists turn into flames and so on.

I would also say that medicine is the most fitting.

hm. not sure what the writers thought of when they used the term alchemy, but traditional alchemy was about purity. the various Works were intended to purify substances, and to combine substances (impurity) in new ways.

healing potions. glue. solvents. thhings like that.