Difference between revisions of "Brewing"

Revision as of 11:52, 29 August 2018

Brewing
300px Skill in creating alcoholic beverages of all sorts.
Skill Type:	Trade Skill
Max Level:	70
Requirements:	Gardening at 35
Skill Trainers:	Brianna Willer, Dhakmar

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Leave a quote about the skill here. This can be the in-game description, but that info must be placed below as well. Adds a bit of flavor to the article as well.

Brewing Overview

Brewing is a crafting skill that involves the production of Alcoholic Beverages. The consumption of these beverages will raise your Alcohol Tolerance skill.

In-Game Description

Skill in creating alcoholic beverages of all sorts.

Training Brewing

• Brianna Willer teaches Brewing after you have been introduced to her by Therese and your Gardening is at least 35.
• Malvol is willing to teach Whisky recipes to Like Family.
• Gretchen Salas can be persuaded to teach a recipe for Potato Vodka.
• Hiral can teach Pale Rum recipes to his Close Friends.
• Dhakmar can raise the Brewing level cap to both Level 60 and Level 70.

Connected Skills

Sub-Skills:

• None

Secondary Skills:

• Alcohol Tolerance - This skill represents your ability to ward off the adverse effects of alcohol. The consumption of brewed beverages will raise this skill.

Related Skills:

• Carpentry - Carpentry is handy for making the kegs and barrels required for many recipes.
• Gardening - Barley is a common crop grown for use in beer. To learn Brewing, you will also need Level 35 Gardening.
• Foraging - Many ingredients used in Brewing are found through Foraging.

Recipe Lists

Brewing Complete Recipe List

Click "Expand" on the box below to view a complete list of Recipes for the Brewing skill.

Lvl	Name	First-Time XP	XP	Ingredients	Results	Description	Source
1	Basic Lager (One Glass)	40	10	Barley x1 Hops x1 Basic Lager Yeast x1 Fruit: Red Apple, Grapes, Orange, or Strawberry x1	Basic Lager x1	A simple, watery, slightly insipid beer.	Leveling
1	Potato Vodka (Drinkable Cask)	40	10	Aged Potato Vodka x1 Fruit: Red Apple, Grapes, or Orange x1 Mushroom Flakes: Parasol, Mycena, Boletus, or Field x1 Boar Tusk, Cat Eyeball, Snail Sinews, Rat Tail, or Basic Fish Scales x1 Oregano, Mandrake Root, Peppercorns or Grass x1	Potato Vodka x1	A very rough alcoholic beverage. Some say you grow to like the taste, but others say that's just your tastebuds dying from the pain.	Hang Out: Gretchen Salas
1	Potato Vodka (Un-Aged)	40	10	Barrel x1 Potato x8 Basic Lager Yeast x1	Un-Aged Potato Vodka x1	Prepares a cask of vodka for aging. The cask must then be stored in a cave until it is mature.	Hang Out: Gretchen Salas
1	Reuse Beer Keg	40	10	Beer Keg x1	Firkin x1 (!)	Dump out a beer keg and clean the container so it can be used again. There's a small chance that the container will be too damaged to be reused.	Training: Brianna Willer
1	Reuse Liquor Barrel	40	10	Hard Liquor Barrel x1	Barrel x1 (!)	Dump out a cask of hard liquor and clean the container so it can be used again. There's a small chance the barrel will be too damaged to be reused.	Training: Brianna Willer
3	Basic Lager Keg	48	12	Firkin x1 Barley x5 Hops x1 Basic Lager Yeast x1 Fruit: Red Apple, Grapes, Orange, or Strawberry x1	Basic Lager Keg x1	A simple, watery, slightly insipid beer.	Leveling
10	Applejack (Drinkable Cask)	160	40	Aged Applejack x1 Fruit: Red Apple, Grapes, or Orange x1 Beet, Squash, Broccoli, or Carrot x1 Boar Tusk, Cat Eyeball, Snail Sinews, Rat Tail, or Basic Fish Scales x1 Oregano, Mandrake Root, Peppercorns or Grass x1	Applejack x1	Apple brandy, with a distinctive apple taste and a strong kick. A longtime favorite of rural humans.	Hang Out: Therese
10	Applejack (Un-Aged)	160	40	Barrel x1 Red Apple x8 Pale Ale Yeast x1	Un-Aged Applejack x1	Prepares a cask of applejack brandy for aging. The cask must then be stored in a cave until it is mature.	Hang Out: Therese
10	Pale Ale (One Glass)	160	40	Barley x1 Hops x1 Pale Ale Yeast x1 Fruit: Red Apple, Grapes, Orange, or Strawberry x1 Mushroom Flakes: Parasol, Mycena, Boletus, or Field x1	Pale Ale x1	A surprisingly complex beer, but... complexity doesn't always taste good.	Training: Brianna Willer
12	Tap Alcohol Keg	192	48	Keg Tap x1 Beer Keg or Hard Liquor Barrel x1	Tap Alcohol Keg	Attach a tap to a barrel of beer or hard liquor and deploy it. The barrel will IMMEDIATELY APPEAR near you, and any players can drink from it. The barrel will persist until all alcohol is consumed (or very slowly evaporates). The barrel cannot be reused. If the barrel is inscribed prior to being tapped, the inscription will be shown to all who drink from it.	Leveling Training: Brianna Willer
13	Pale Ale Keg	208	52	Firkin x1 Barley x7 Hops x1 Pale Ale Yeast x1 Fruit: Red Apple, Grapes, Orange, or Strawberry x1 Mushroom Flakes: Parasol, Mycena, Boletus, or Field x1	Pale Ale Keg x1	A surprisingly complex beer, but... complexity doesn't always taste good.	Training: Brianna Willer
20	Beet Vodka (Drinkable Cask)	320	80	Aged Beet Vodka x1 Fruit: Guava, Banana, or Lemon x1 Mushroom Flakes: Parasol, Mycena, Boletus, or Field x1 Boar Tusk, Cat Eyeball, Snail Sinews, Rat Tail, or Basic Fish Scales x1 Oregano, Mandrake Root, Peppercorns or Grass x1	Beet Vodka x1	A sweet, relatively palatable variety of vodka. Although it's a traditional dwarven drink, it long ago fell out of favor, and these days dwarves only use it for cooking.	Training: Brianna Willer
20	Beet Vodka (Un-Aged)	320	80	Barrel x1 Beet x8 Marzen Yeast x1	Un-Aged Beet Vodka x1	Prepares a cask of vodka for aging. The cask must then be stored in a cave until it is mature.	Training: Brianna Willer
20	Marzen (One Glass)	320	80	Barley x2 Hops x1 Marzen Yeast x1 Fruit: Red Apple, Grapes, Orange, or Strawberry x1 Mushroom Flakes: Parasol, Mycena, Boletus, or Field x1 Oregano or Mandrake Root x1	Marzen x1	A medium-body beer with a malty flavor.	Training: Brianna Willer
23	Marzen Keg	368	92	Firkin x1 Barley x9 Hops x1 Marzen Yeast x1 Fruit: Red Apple, Grapes, Orange, or Strawberry x1 Mushroom Flakes: Parasol, Mycena, Boletus, or Field x1 Oregano or Mandrake Root x1	Marzen Keg x1	A medium-body beer with a malty flavor.	Training: Brianna Willer
30	Goblin Ale (One Glass)	480	120	Barley x2 Hops x1 Goblin Ale Yeast x1 Fruit: Red Apple, Grapes, or Orange x1 Fruit: Guava, Banana, or Lemon x1 Mushroom Flakes: Parasol, Mycena, Boletus, or Field x1 Oregano, Mandrake Root, or Peppercorns x1	Goblin Ale x1	A hoppy beer with hints of spice.	Training: Brianna Willer
30	Pale Rum (Drinkable Cask)	480	120	Aged Pale Rum x1 Fruit: Guava, Banana, or Lemon x1 Mushroom Flakes/Powders: Field, Blusher, Milk Cap, Blood x1 Boar Tusk, Cat Eyeball, Snail Sinews, Rat Tail, or Basic Fish Scales x1 Oregano, Mandrake Root, Peppercorns or Grass x1	Pale Rum x1	Sweet and strong, with the distinctive odor of molasses. In far-off lands, ranalon produce and drink rum in tremendous quantities, but it's less common -- and less delicious -- in Alharth.	Training: Hiral
30	Pale Rum (Un-Aged)	480	120	Barrel x1 Molasses x8 Goblin Ale Yeast x1	Un-Aged Pale Rum x1	Prepares a cask of rum for aging. The cask must then be stored in a cave until it is mature.	Training: Hiral
33	Goblin Ale Keg	528	132	Firkin x1 Barley x10 Hops x2 Goblin Ale Yeast x1 Fruit: Red Apple, Grapes, or Orange x1 Fruit: Guava, Banana, or Lemon x1 Mushroom Flakes: Parasol, Mycena, Boletus, or Field x1 Oregano, Mandrake Root, or Peppercorns x1	Goblin Ale Keg x1	A hoppy beer with hints of spice.	Training: Brianna Willer
40	Orcish Bock (One Glass)	640	160	Barley x3 Hops x1 Orcish Bock Yeast x1 Beet, Squash, Broccoli, or Carrot x1 Fruit: Guava, Banana, or Lemon x1 Mushroom Flakes/Powders: Field, Blusher, Milk Cap, Blood x1 Oregano, Mandrake Root, or Peppercorns x1	Orcish Bock x1	A clean, dry beer that goes down easy.	Training: Brianna Willer
40	Whisky (Drinkable Cask)	640	160	Aged Whisky x1 Fruit: Guava, Banana, or Lemon x1 Mushroom Flakes/Powders: Field, Blusher, Milk Cap, Blood x1 Wolf Teeth, Panther Tail, Deinonychus Claw, Rabbit's Foot, or Bear Gallbladder x1 Oregano, Mandrake Root, Peppercorns or Grass x1	Whisky x1	A simple variety of whisky made from barley. It's drinkable and has a tolerable flavor.	Training: Malvol
40	Whisky (Un-Aged)	640	160	Barrel x1 Barley x14 Orcish Bock Yeast x1	Un-Aged Whisky x1	Prepares a cask of whisky for aging. The cask must then be stored in a cave until it is mature.	Training: Malvol
43	Orcish Bock Keg	688	172	Firkin x1 Barley x12 Hops x3 Orcish Bock Yeast x1 Beet, Squash, Broccoli, or Carrot x1 Fruit: Guava, Banana, or Lemon x1 Mushroom Flakes/Powders: Field, Blusher, Milk Cap, Blood x1 Oregano, Mandrake Root, or Peppercorns x1	Orcish Bock Keg x1	A clean, dry beer that goes down easy.	Training: Brianna Willer
50	Brown Ale (One Glass)	800	200	Barley x3 Hops x1 Brown Ale Yeast x1 Green Pepper, Red Pepper, Molasses, or Corn x1 Fruit: Guava, Banana, or Lemon x1 Mushroom Flakes/Powders: Field, Blusher, Milk Cap, Blood x1 Cinnamon, Muntok Peppercorns, or Seaweed x1	Brown Ale x1	A sweet beer with hints of chocolate.	Training: Brianna Willer
50	Tequila (Drinkable Cask)	800	200	Aged Tequila x1 Fruit: Guava, Banana, or Lemon x1 Mushroom Flakes/Powders: Field, Blusher, Milk Cap, Blood x1 Wolf Teeth, Panther Tail, Deinonychus Claw, Rabbit's Foot, or Bear Gallbladder x1 Cinnamon, Muntok Peppercorns, Seaweed, or Myconian Jelly x1	Tequila x1	Fermented cactus juice with a complex taste. This variety has been aged to make it more drinkable. (It's "more" drinkable, but still not "very" drinkable -- it's an acquired taste.) The stereotypical drink of rakshasa desert bandits.	Training: Dhakmar
50	Tequila (Un-Aged)	800	200	Barrel x1 Cactus Juice x8 Desert Rose x2 Brown Ale Yeast x1	Un-Aged Tequila x1 Empty Bottle x8	Prepares a cask of tequila for aging. The cask must then be stored in a cave until it is mature.	Training: Dhakmar
53	Brown Ale Keg	848	212	Firkin x1 Barley x15 Hops x3 Brown Ale Yeast x1 Green Pepper, Red Pepper, Molasses, or Corn x1 Fruit: Guava, Banana, or Lemon x1 Mushroom Flakes/Powders: Field, Blusher, Milk Cap, Blood x1 Cinnamon, Muntok Peppercorns, or Seaweed x1	Brown Ale Keg x1	A sweet beer with hints of chocolate.	Training: Brianna Willer
60	Dry Gin (Drinkable Cask)	960	240	Aged Dry Gin x1 Fruit: Pear, Peach, or Green Apple x1 Mushroom Flakes/Powders: Coral, Groxmax, Porcini, Black Foot Morel x1 Wolf Teeth, Panther Tail, Deinonychus Claw, Rabbit's Foot, or Bear Gallbladder x1 Cinnamon, Muntok Peppercorns, Seaweed, or Myconian Jelly x1	Dry Gin x1	Pleasant, slightly citrusy, but with a distinctive bitterness too. It's said to be the favorite hard liquor of elves, but since elves mostly drink wine, that's not much praise.	Training: Dhakmar
60	Dry Gin (Un-Aged)	960	240	Barrel x1 Barley x8 Juniper Berries x5 Hegemony Lager Yeast x1	Un-Aged Dry Gin x1	Prepares a cask of gin for aging. The cask must then be stored in a cave until it is mature.	Training: Dhakmar
60	Hegemony Lager (One Glass)	960	240	Barley x3 Hops x2 Hegemony Lager Yeast x1 Green Pepper, Red Pepper, Molasses, or Corn x1 Fruit: Pear, Peach, or Green Apple x1 Mushroom Flakes/Powders: Field, Blusher, Milk Cap, Blood x1 Cinnamon, Muntok Peppercorns, or Seaweed x1	Hegemony Lager x1	A clean beer with hints of oak and licorice. The preferred drink of humans in the Crone Hegemony.	Training: Dhakmar
63	Hegemony Lager Keg	1008	252	Firkin x1 Barley x17 Hops x4 Hegemony Lager Yeast x1 Green Pepper, Red Pepper, Molasses, or Corn x1 Fruit: Pear, Peach, or Green Apple x1 Mushroom Flakes/Powders: Field, Blusher, Milk Cap, Blood x1 Cinnamon, Muntok Peppercorns, or Seaweed x1	Hegemony Lager Keg x1	A clean beer with hints of oak and licorice. The preferred drink of humans in the Crone Hegemony.	Training: Dhakmar
70	Bourbon (Drinkable Cask)	1120	280	Aged Bourbon x1 Fruit: Pear, Peach, or Green Apple x1 Mushroom Flakes/Powders: Coral, Groxmax, Porcini, Black Foot Morel x1 Cockatrice Beak, Worm Tooth, Ectoplasm, Powdered Mammal, or Barghest Flesh x1 Mint, Honey, Juniper Berries, or Almonds x1	Bourbon x1	Made from fermented corn mash, this is very mellow and drinkable. This is the favored drink of Councilwoman Sereel "The Steel" Avenbule. She holds a bourbon competition each year in Vidaria.	Training: Dhakmar
70	Bourbon (Un-Aged)	1120	280	Barrel x1 Corn x10 Molasses x1 Pilsner Yeast x1	Un-Aged Bourbon x1	Prepares a cask of bourbon for aging. The cask must then be stored in a cave until it is mature.	Training: Dhakmar
70	Dwarven Stout (One Glass)	1120	280	Barley x3 Hops x2 Dwarven Stout Yeast x1 Green Pepper, Red Pepper, Molasses, or Corn x1 Fruit: Pear, Peach, or Green Apple x1 Mushroom Flakes/Powders: Coral, Groxmax, Porcini, Black Foot Morel x1 Mint, Honey, or Juniper Berries x1	Dwarven Stout x1	A strong dark beer that packs a punch. The preferred socialization drink of dwarves.	Training: Dhakmar
73	Dwarven Stout Keg	1168	292	Firkin x1 Barley x20 Hops x4 Dwarven Stout Yeast x1 Green Pepper, Red Pepper, Molasses, or Corn x1 Fruit: Pear, Peach, or Green Apple x1 Mushroom Flakes/Powders: Coral, Groxmax, Porcini, Black Foot Morel x1 Cinnamon, Muntok Peppercorns, or Seaweed x1	Dwarven Stout Keg x1	A strong dark beer that packs a punch. The preferred socialization drink of dwarves.	Training: Dhakmar

Known Effects

Percentages and numbers increase with higher level alcohol

(List is not yet complete, other effects may be added as discovered)

• +(%) to Taunt
• -(X) to Sprint, +(%) to Taunt
• -(%) to Taunt
• +(X) Melee accuracy boost, chance to avoid melee attacks
• Power Cost decreases for Unarmed/Shield/Sword
• Power Cost decreases for Necro/Ice Magic/Fire Magic
• Power Cost decreases for Bard/Battle Chemistry/Archery
• Power Cost decreases for Crossbow/Psychology/Mentalism
• Power Cost decreases for Pig/Deer/Cow
• Power Cost decreases for Knife/Staff/Hammer
• Power Cost decreases for First Aid/Spider/Bat
• Power Cost decreases for Armor Patching/Druid/Lycanthropy
• +(X) Damage to Canines
• +(X) Damage to Fish
• +(X) Damage to Corporeal Undead
• +(X) Damage to Goblins
• +(X) Damage to Elementals
• +(X) Damage to Rodents
• +(X) Mitigation from Direct Nature/Electric/Crushing Damage
• +(X) Mitigation from Direct Sonic/Poison/Piercing Damage
• +(X) Max Health, +(X) Mitigation from Direct Sonic/Trauma/Crushing Damage
• +(X) Max Health, +(X) Mitigation from Direct Acid/Fire/Slashing Damage
• +(X) Mitigation from Direct Divine/Poison/Crushing Damage
• +(X) Mitigation from Direct Nature/Electric/Crushing Damage
• +(X) Slash Damage
• +(X) Pierce Damage
• +(X) Sonic Damage
• +(X) Crushing Damage
• +(X) Psychic Damage
• +(X) Poison Damage
• +(X) Burst Damage against Elites
• +(X) Max Health
• +(X) Max Armor
• +(X) to Peaceableness, Cleanliness, and Community
• +(%) Chance to gather seeds and mushrooms
• +(%) Chance to chop extra and perfect wood
• +(%) Chance to catch extra fish, +% Chance for extra fish scale
• +(%) to Ignore Knockbacks, +(X) Jump
• +(X) Jump
• +(X) Power restored by using Dig Deep
• +(X) Max Health (Humans only)
• +(X) Body Heat (Elves only)
• +(X) Underwater Breath
• +(%) for YOUR attacks to miss, +(%) Chance to avoid bursts, Sprint boost out of combat +(X)
• +(%) Dance Appreciation Extra Effect Chance Boost, +(X) Dance Appreciation Boost
• +(X) Dance Appreciation Boost

Brewing Mechanics

Brewing Advice from Brianna Willer

“

Brewing advice? Let' see. First, start by making beer. You can brew tiny batches of beer to see how each recipe tastes. When you're happy with the recipe, you can brew up a big keg of it.

Every Brewing recipe has some standard ingredients, like barley and hops, but there's also room for personalization. The personalized ingredients determine the precise flavor and effect of your beer. And everybody's different. Even if I followed your exact recipe, I might get a completely different effect. That's why there's no substitute for experimentation.

Hard liquor is more potent than beer, but you can drink a lot more beer than you can hard liquor! Of course, the fastest way to get blitzed is to mix beer and the hard stuff at once.

Sadly, the recipes for beer, wine, and liquor don't have a lot of carryover. You'll need to do separate experiments for beer, wine, and hard liquor recipes.

Each ingredient can have a different effect in different recipes. I mean, you can put strawberries in Basic Lager, Pale Ale, and Marzen, but the strawberry's effect will be different for each recipe.

When you get more advanced, there's an important trick. If two beer recipes take the exact same NUMBER of ingredients IN EACH SLOT, then there's a way to map the ingredients effects to other recipes with the same setup.

This is tricky to explain to a new brewer. Here's an example: Orcish Bock, a very fancy brew, takes four special ingredients: one of four possible vegetables, one of three kinds of fruit, one of four mushrooms, and one of three garnish items. That means it's 4-3-4-3. Brown Ale's ingredients are different, but they work out to the same number: 4-3-4-3. You can predict how your ingredients are going to work between these two recipes, because their ingredient combinations are the same.

Look, don't worry about all this at the beginning. Just remember to write down your research notes, especially when you start brewing fancier beers like Orcish Bock. You'll thank me later!

And that special trick I just mentioned is even more important for hard liquor, because every kind of hard liquor has the exact same number of ingredients for each slot. That means that if you find an ingredient combo that makes Muscle Vodka, you can translate that recipe into other hard liquors -- Muscle Gin or whatever. So always write down notes on what you try!

Course, hard liquor is a huge pain to brew. It needs a ton of ingredients, plus you've gotta let it age, plus you've gotta age the stuff in big barrels in a cave somewhere. Brewing beer is a lot easier! But once you find a few hard liquor recipes you like, you don't have to make it too often... a full barrel of the hard stuff will last you a while! ... Unless you're selling it to a bar, and you promised not to do that!

Don't throw away your barrels when they run dry! Those suckers are expensive! I can show you how to clean 'em up so they can be reused. They'll still break every once in a while, but they usually last a long time.

— Brianna Willer

Information from Citan's blog post, April 20, 2017

The basic ideas of brewing are the same as I described last week, but the details have changed many times. In fact, I think this is the most times I've ever iterated on a craft skill before it went live! The first few versions were prototypes, trying to figure out what the system's goals were and how it would achieve them. I blogged about the system last week based on a fairly fun prototype version. But then I needed to future-proof the system, which turned out to require a full rewrite.

I don't usually bother trying to future-proof crafting skills, because rewriting it later doesn't usually cause alpha-testers too much pain. When I rewrite a craft skill, you keep your old level and recipes, but the contents of those recipes change. No big deal. But brewing is different: brewing recipes have randomized results which will require a lot of player experimentation, so I want to protect that time investment. For instance, if I later decide that apples aren't a low-level fruit anymore, and replace them with, I dunno, kiwifruit, what happens to brewing recipes that can take apples? Obviously, kiwi should be a drop-in replacement in those brewing recipes, doing the same things as apples used to do, so that you don't have to re-try every brewing ingredient combination. But that's not an automatic feature -- it had to be coded that way. I brainstormed other ways that the skill might change in the future, and I tried to make sure those changes wouldn’t mess brewers up too badly. I can't guarantee that everything will work out right -- who knows, a bug might screw everything up. But I've given it my best shot.

After that, I realized the skill was way TOO random: every time you learned a new recipe, you had to start your experimentation all over again. That's fine at low level when there's not too many ingredient combinations, but by level 50 there's over a hundred brewing outcomes! If levels 50, 60, 70, 80, etc. each had 100% different random outcomes, it wouldn't make economic sense to experiment at lower levels. Instead, players would just grind as fast as they could to the highest level and experiment with only the high-level recipes. That's a boring design! I needed a system that lets you "carry over" some of your brewing-experiment knowledge from mid-levels to higher levels. I've got a system that does that now -- although it might carry over a bit too much info... I'm still fiddling with things here.

And in between all these revisions, I've been trying out tons of different possible buffs that could come from drinking booze. I had to answer some tricky questions, like: how many drink-effects can you have at once? If you can "stack" too many booze buffs then each individual drink would have to be weak and uninteresting. But if they don't stack at all, there's no chance to mix-and-match drink effects. After some experiments, I've decided that you can have three beers (or glasses of wine) at once, plus one drink of hard liquor, for a total of four stacking alcohol buffs. That's a lot of buffs! I'm trying to make the drink effects somewhat useful by themselves, but also make them more impressive when stacked together. It's a delicate balance. However, the specific buff effects can be changed later as balance demands, so I'm not TOO worried about this part.

I've also made sure there's room for various systemic interactions later on. For instance, I was thinking it might be fun if beer brewed during the full moon is more random, with a chance to have higher or lower stats than normal. But what would it mean for a beer to be "extra effective" or "less effective" than normal? I had to work all that out too.

In other words, there's lots and lots of design questions! Nothing earth-shatteringly hard, but it's been keeping me busy.

Information from Citan's blog post, April 9, 2017

Brewing

Let's talk about brewing! It's probably the most complex crafting skill so far, because it builds on the tech from other skills. (For instance, Cheesemaking gave us cask "technology", which brewing needs; Augmentation gave us recipes that can infuse items with effects, etc.)

Brewing is the first skill that uses random per-player seeding. Basically, you can add certain items to your brew recipe and you'll get a specific result that's random for that character. Other characters who try the same recipe may get different results. I think this adds some fun to the crafting process, as you get to experiment on your own -- and there's no temptation to wiki the "right" brew recipes, since the recipes are unique to you!

But it's not quite as trivial as "put an ingredient in a box and get a random result". It needs to be a little more fair than that: it shouldn't be the case that some players can use dirt-cheap items to get amazing brew, where others have to use extremely expensive items for the same results. I've ended up using fairly constrained recipes to avoid those cases.

Here's an example: a certain testing beer requires two special items (along with the usual beer ingredients like hops and barley). In the first box, players can drop "an apple, grapes, or an orange", and in the other box, they can drop "a guava, lemon, or banana". The results of that combination are random for each player; there are 9 possible results from just those ingredients.

In that example, I broke the possibilities into "low-value fruit" and "high-value fruit" to avoid some of the extremes of randomness. Nobody will get the most-amazing brew with just a couple of dirt-cheap apples, because everybody has to use one low-value and one high-value fruit. Some people will still get better random luck than others -- the availability of individual fruit fluctuates, but generally apples are easier to find than oranges, for instance, and they're both in the "low-value fruit" category -- but there's enough different random recipe sets that it evens out pretty well in the end.

(And of course, not all brewing recipes use fruit! Or have such a limited number of possible ingredients...)

Drinking Brewing covers all kinds of alcoholic beverages. They're broken up into beers, wines, and hard liquors. Different kinds of brew have different effects, and they're quite broad-ranging. So you might find yourself carrying a small keg of combat-boosting beer into battle, or you might set up a tap of dance-boosting beer at a party.

There's down sides to drinking too much alcohol, such as hangovers, slurred speech, or just passing out drunk. A new skill, Alcohol Tolerance, helps offset some of that. If you plan to drink in combat, perhaps as a drunken kung-fu master or a beer-rowdy tank, you'll definitely need some alcohol tolerance. Of course, no amount of alcohol tolerance prevents you from becoming an alcoholic! It just lets you be a "functional alcoholic." Just like the real-life drunken masters of yore. I assume.

There's more complexity to the systems than I'll bother trying to explain here -- it's a complicated skill with lots of nooks and crannies. But I think it's turning out really well, and I'm looking forward to getting it in front of players!

I mentioned above that this skill is the first that uses player-specific randomness -- and it might be the only one. The tech is being written with the idea that it might be reused for a few other craft skills, either old ones or new ones. But first I'll see how you like the system! Then we'll play it by ear with regard to future skills.

Brewing/Stat Bonuses

Brewing Level Up Rewards

Brewing Experience Table

Trivia

The Brewing skill is the first skill where two players can craft the same recipe with the same ingredients, and get different results!