Alchemy optional ingredient

[Browser_ice]

I had not started doing alchemy in a long time in fear of running out of ingreadients on wasted trials. But now since I have plenty of them, I started discovering potions but wondering what is the optional ingreadients. I am guessing it is a kind of way to increate efficiency or power of the potion.

Is this optional ingredient something that is used only for that purpose ?
Can it be used a normal potion ingredient ?
How do I know visually from my inventory those that are for optional ingredient only ?

[Anarchisteve]

The optional ingredient can add extra effects to your potions. For example:

INGREDIENT 1: Healing, fortify conjuration
INGREDIENT 2: Healing, fortify barter

These ingredients will create a healing potion. But if you add

INGREDIENT 3: Fortify conjuration, fortify barter

It will now be a healing/fortify conjuration/fortify barter potion.

[FurryGuyJeans]

Eat each ingredient before you start crafting potions/poisons. Eating will reveal one of the properties, and as you progress up the Alchemy Skill Tree you can unlock revealing more properties.

Buy and read recipe scrolls. Each one lists two ingredients needed to create the potion/poison.

Or just cheat and look at the list of ingredients and their properties here[www.uesp.net]. Only covers ingredients Bethesda put in the game, ingredients added by mods you have to discover the properties on your own.

[FurryGuyJeans]

The optional ingredient is used to reliably add more than one effect to the potion/poison. With the proper three ingredients anything created at an alchemy station can have two, three or up to four effects.

[Anarchisteve]

With 3 ingredients, each with 4 effects, wouldn't it be theoretically possible to make a potion with 6 effects?

[Shelt]

The optional ingredient links together extra effects with the first two. You can make a poison of slow with two ingredients, but if one of those ingredients also contains the ability of poison, you can use an extra poison ingredient and make a poison of slow + poison. If all three of your ingredients have more common traits, you will wind up with multiple effects on the same poition.

Alchemy is very synergistic, meaning that it pays to know what ingredients have in common with each other to make potions with multiple effects and thus higher value for sale as well. Alchemy can be just as lucrative a business enterprise as enchanting if you know what poitions to mix and resale.

The more effects a poition has when you create it, the more XP you get for leveling up. Same goes for value. A multiple effect poiton with a high value will skyrocket your xp bar. So a poiton with five effects on it will make your xp bar zoom up, while a simple restore health poition with only one effect will barely budge the xp bar.

Some ingredients have a higher base value for crafting as well. Meaning that a potion made using a rare ingredient with a higher base value to start with will always be more potent than one made with common ingredients.

steam://openurl/http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/38634/?tab=1&navtag=%2Fajax%2Fmoddescription%2F%3Fid%3D38634%26preview%3D&pUp=1

This is a mod I came across at Nexus. It tells you what the more valuable potion you can make is depending on what's in your inventory at the time. Be warned though, this mod requires SKSE.

[Shelt]

Originally posted by Anarchisteve:

With 3 ingredients, each with 4 effects, wouldn't it be theoretically possible to make a potion with 6 effects?

There are a couple of six effect potion combos, yes.

[FurryGuyJeans]

Originally posted by Anarchisteve:

With 3 ingredients, each with 4 effects, wouldn't it be theoretically possible to make a potion with 6 effects?

Each ingredient has only four effects, so by the programmed game logic only four effects are possible to combine, all four effects have to match up to combine.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if some mod gets created to overcome the four effect limitation.

[FurryGuyJeans]

Originally posted by Shelt:

Originally posted by Anarchisteve:

With 3 ingredients, each with 4 effects, wouldn't it be theoretically possible to make a potion with 6 effects?

There are a couple of six effect potion combos, yes.

If there are I haven't crafted them. I am not someone that concentrates on alchemy.

[Shelt]

Dwarven Oil and Taproot have the exact same effects: Weakness to Magic, Fortify Illusion, Regenerate Magic, and Restore Magicka.

That's 4 effects with just two ingredients right there.

[FurryGuyJeans]

Originally posted by Shelt:

This is a mod I came across at Nexus. It tells you what the more valuable potion you can make is depending on what's in your inventory at the time. Be warned though, this mod requires SKSE.

If that mod works by comparing all effects, known and unknown, then that is IMO one very big cheat. If it only compares known effects then it would be a mod I'd want to try.

The description doesn't mention anything about known/unknown effects.

[Shelt]

It finds the most valuable potion combination based on the ingredients you have, known or otherwise. So yes technically it's cheating.

However, to me, tabing out and using a calculator or even writing down known effects or using a spreadsheet to keep track of the hundreds of ingredients x 4 of what everything does is cheating too. Even carrying over game knowledge from one playthrough to the next would technically be cheating.

Use it if you want, don't use it if you don't want to. Personally, I got sick of using calculators and other stuff to keep track of it all.

[grumpyoldwizard]

Some mod suggestions for an alchemy focused character:

Prosperous Alchemist
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/38634/?

Learn Alchemy from recipes
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/34795/?

Combine potions
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/15005/?

Field Alchemy
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/27153/?

Throwing Weapons Redux
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/36147/?

Farm Everywhere
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/25655/?

Big Book of Alchemy V2
http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/29840/?