Hey all,

I have a player who wants to make a very interesting character, but I am not sure if crafting rules exist to do everything he wants to do. So I thought I would reach out and see if anyone knew of rules in books I don't own, or if you had suggestions for how to homebrew something.

The basic premise is he wants to make a Pathfinder/Alchemist that wields a bow for stealthy combat and ranged healing (i.e., shooting teammates with injection arrows filled with stimpacks, medicines, or potions). He wants to be able to craft his own arrows and potions/medicines/poisons, ideally using natural substances harvested from his animal companion(s) and other flora and fauna he comes across on his travels. And eventually, he wants to use the Identify Ingredients and Blooded talents to deliberately expose himself to natural substances to identify the components and try to create new medicines and poisons inspired by nature throughout the Galaxy!

I love the concept and definitely want to encourage it, but I can't seem to find rules for crafting medicines or individual arrows. Closest I can find is the Simple Projectile Weapon (which sounds more like the bow than the arrow) from Special Modifications, and Alchemy crafting from Unlimited Power, which is more about weird witchcraft type potions than actual medicine. Does anyone know if better rules exist for making individual arrows or medicines? If not, I have ideas for both that I can write-up later to get feedback on balance.

Thanks!

I'd suggest simply making it a Medicine check to create a batch of the medicine, increasing the number of doses provided by the batch by 1 per additional success (example: batch of 10 doses, 4 Success. Uses the 3 additional success to bring it up to 13 doses total).

I'd make the materials for the ammo a really low cost and rarity (like 1 credit/rarity 0 if I even bother), and ignore a check. The only reason for the check would be because of the injection mechanism, and I don't think it's really necessary. Just let them spend some time to build it (particularly because if you have them make a check, you have to spend Advantage etc.).

Crafting a simple projectile weapon makes the most sense as a delivery mechanism, but I would suggest you treat it as a blowgun or dart launcher rather than bow and arrow. A bow and arrow imparts much more kinetic force and does much more damage.

As for the profile of the projectile weapon, leave the damage the same but stipulate that Success doesn't increase damage. Instead, you can spend Threat to increase damage and a Despair to cause a crit.

As for crafting potions and stuff, Unlimited Power has rules for potions.

Thanks for the input, @P-47 Thunderbolt !

I was thinking something similar for creating the doses, but was trying to figure out how to set difficulty. One thing is was thinking was that if the player wants to use toxins from animals, he must first pass an Average Survival check, upgraded twice. If the animal is domesticated or incapacitated, downgrade the difficulty once. If the animal is the Pathfinder's bonded animal, or he uses Influence to subdue it, downgrade the difficulty twice. Then, with the harvested toxins, he must pass a Medicine check of some difficulty to turn it into a standard drug (e.g., stimpacks, neuroparalytic poison, neurotoxin, etc.). I am debating if that check should vary depending on what he is trying to make, or if it should just be a straight Hard check (the idea behind that being that it takes some knowledge of biochemistry to turn the harvested toxins into a drug with proper dosage). For example, the Vornskr from Force and Destiny has a mild sedative in its tail, giving it the Stun 4 quality. It would take some pretty good medical knowledge, in my opinion, to figure out how to concentrate that toxin to make an anesthetic or neuroparalytic. Does that make sense?

As for the arrows, I completely agree if he is just making Broadhead arrows, but I think the idea is that the character would be Green Arrow-esque, custom making a bunch of trick arrows using substances harvested in the wild. The arrows would be used either with a off-the-shelf bow like the FS19, or a crafted one, if the PC so desires. Because there are so many possible arrow designs, I was thinking the skill requirement and difficulty would vary, depending on the type of arrow he is trying to make. For example, a simple Broadhead arrow could be average Mechanics or Survival, and Advantage could be spent to give it bonus qualities, like extra Pierce if narratively the arrowhead was well-honed to a sharper than normal edge, or Vicious if narratively he got creative and added a spring-loaded barb, or Accurate if say the fletchings were perfectly aligned or the arrow perfectly balanced for better flight dynamics. Similarly, Threat could be spent to make the arrows Inaccurate, reduce Pierce or damage, make them whistle louder as they fly, etc. A good PC would probably have no problem crafting these simple arrows, but what about an Explosive arrow that I argue should require a Hard Mechanics check to properly design the explosive tip? Or a Stun or Net arrow, both of which should also be Hard Mechanics checks, in my opinion. I think it could get interesting.

And for the arrows delivering poisons to enemies or medicines to allies, I was imagining arrows with injectors, again from the Green Arrow show. Perhaps not realistic because of the energy involved, but I wonder if there would be a way to design an arrow with an injector on an otherwise blunt tip that would hurt no more than getting hit by a paintball at close range? Anyway, I figured those arrows would require a Hard Medicine check to redesign the hypodermic needle to survive the impact of the arrow and disseminate the drug effectively. Poison could also just as easily be laced on Broadhead arrows but I would argue this grants the bow the Unwieldy 3 quality (to reflect the need of the user to be coordinated so they don't stab themselves with the laced arrowhead), and I would definitely spend Despairs per Savage Spirits to have the PC cut themselves and get a partial dose of the toxin.

I'd love to hear any thoughts on these ideas!

FaD Unlimited power for Force Alchemy, EotE Special Modifications for weapon and gear crafting.
I am rusty in my bows and poisons but I think you can just apply is to a bow as a maneuver, no check needed.
Bows might have been in EotE Sons of Fortune.
Best I got off the top of my head, hope it helps.

8 hours ago, AeroEng42 said:

I was thinking something similar for creating the doses, but was trying to figure out how to set difficulty. One thing is was thinking was that if the player wants to use toxins from animals, he must first pass an Average Survival check, upgraded twice. If the animal is domesticated or incapacitated, downgrade the difficulty once. If the animal is the Pathfinder's bonded animal, or he uses Influence to subdue it, downgrade the difficulty twice. Then, with the harvested toxins, he must pass a Medicine check of some difficulty to turn it into a standard drug (e.g., stimpacks, neuroparalytic poison, neurotoxin, etc.). I am debating if that check should vary depending on what he is trying to make, or if it should just be a straight Hard check (the idea behind that being that it takes some knowledge of biochemistry to turn the harvested toxins into a drug with proper dosage). For example, the Vornskr from Force and Destiny has a mild sedative in its tail, giving it the Stun 4 quality. It would take some pretty good medical knowledge, in my opinion, to figure out how to concentrate that toxin to make an anesthetic or neuroparalytic. Does that make sense?

I'd say for harvesting the ingredients, that makes sense. It should be more difficult (and more dangerous) if you are trying to extract from a living, naturally hostile, creature. If he's trying to get some bearsloth venom, it'll be much more difficult than from a domesticated animal that uses a mild venom for defense. Remember that you could also get ingredients from plants. The difficulty would vary here, but it would likely not be upgraded unless he's dealing with a venomous plant.

I'd suggest building an opposing pool combining Brawn and Willpower, upgraded once. If you have the animal sufficiently restrained, then it's just Willpower upgraded once. If you have the animal restrained and sedated, then it's just an Easy check.

As for taking venoms from creatures that have particular effects, I'd say take those stats as the basis for the ingredient mixing. Like a normal "Template." Then let them increase/add/change the effect with Advantage on the Medicine check. Depending on the nature of the toxin, the difficulty should probably vary between Easy and Hard, upgraded if the toxin is particularly dangerous (with Despair possibly resulting in wounds or a crit).

8 hours ago, AeroEng42 said:

As for the arrows, I completely agree if he is just making Broadhead arrows, but I think the idea is that the character would be Green Arrow-esque, custom making a bunch of trick arrows using substances harvested in the wild. The arrows would be used either with a off-the-shelf bow like the FS19, or a crafted one, if the PC so desires. Because there are so many possible arrow designs, I was thinking the skill requirement and difficulty would vary, depending on the type of arrow he is trying to make. For example, a simple Broadhead arrow could be average Mechanics or Survival, and Advantage could be spent to give it bonus qualities, like extra Pierce if narratively the arrowhead was well-honed to a sharper than normal edge, or Vicious if narratively he got creative and added a spring-loaded barb, or Accurate if say the fletchings were perfectly aligned or the arrow perfectly balanced for better flight dynamics. Similarly, Threat could be spent to make the arrows Inaccurate, reduce Pierce or damage, make them whistle louder as they fly, etc. A good PC would probably have no problem crafting these simple arrows, but what about an Explosive arrow that I argue should require a Hard Mechanics check to properly design the explosive tip? Or a Stun or Net arrow, both of which should also be Hard Mechanics checks, in my opinion. I think it could get interesting.

I'm not really familiar with Green Arrow (know who he is, what he does, haven't watched the show), so I can't speak to that comparison.

I'd still suggest waiving the check. You don't want to have to keep track of spending Advantage on each arrow or on batches of arrows, especially as you end up struggling to come up with options that are simultaneously useful but not overpowered. If you must have a check, just make it pass-fail. Difficulty shouldn't be more than Easy for most, Average for the more complicated ones. Just add different templates he can choose from: One that adds Vicious, one that adds Accurate, one that adds Pierce. As for explosive arrows, use the template for micro rockets. (Actually, I made that one custom. Template is here )
Stun arrow could be micro rocket with the Advantage for changing it to Stun damage.
Net arrow seems like a bad idea. In order to get enough net into it to actually do anything, you'll have the make the arrow really front heavy. To counter for that, you'll have to make it really back heavy, which just makes it really heavy in general. Best not to bother, in my opinion. Unless it's an energy net like the Trandoshan stun-net rifles, in which case it would be a micro rocket with the Stun/Stun Damage and Ensnare qualities.

You should make these as a batch to minimize accounting. The micro rockets versions would be used more sparingly and are more expensive, so I would suggest not batching them.

8 hours ago, AeroEng42 said:

And for the arrows delivering poisons to enemies or medicines to allies, I was imagining arrows with injectors, again from the Green Arrow show. Perhaps not realistic because of the energy involved, but I wonder if there would be a way to design an arrow with an injector on an otherwise blunt tip that would hurt no more than getting hit by a paintball at close range? Anyway, I figured those arrows would require a Hard Medicine check to redesign the hypodermic needle to survive the impact of the arrow and disseminate the drug effectively. Poison could also just as easily be laced on Broadhead arrows but I would argue this grants the bow the Unwieldy 3 quality (to reflect the need of the user to be coordinated so they don't stab themselves with the laced arrowhead), and I would definitely spend Despairs per Savage Spirits to have the PC cut themselves and get a partial dose of the toxin.

The problem is that you'd have to hit somewhere where you can penetrate the skin. If you give a double dose of that wonderful medicine to their padded armor, it ain't gonna do 'em much good. I find the concept pretty impractical and think it would make more sense to simply use them as medical treatments as per usual.

I think this is also a generally impractical method of delivery, and I would specify what sort of armor prevents it from use. Anything full-body with more than 2 Soak is a no-go. Not full-body with 2+ Soak requires a Called Shot Aim Maneuver.

I think there is something somewhere for a toxin that specifies "if the target suffers any wounds from the attack..." but I'd suggest dropping that as all it needs to do is inject the stuff.

If you are applying poison to a broadhead arrow, I don't think you should make it Unwieldy. The poison tip doesn't really change anything, and neither will Unwieldy as you'd have to have a minimum Agility of 3 to reliably use a bow anyway. Unless you are really careless (Despair), normal handling should be sufficient to not get poisoned.

19 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

As for the profile of the projectile weapon, leave the damage the same but stipulate that Success doesn't increase damage. Instead, you can spend Threat to increase damage and a Despair to cause a crit.

I suggest going with the above for the injector. I don't like the idea of shooting your allies, but if you're going to do that I think this is a good way to go about it.