While Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 trends towards realism, some video games tropes still manage to sneak into the game, just to keep things interesting. One of these excesses is the Alchemy skill, and while you won’t be using the Philosopher’s Stone to create gold, you can turn humble weed into groschen with a little time, patience, and practice. This page will discuss how to level the Alchemy skill and which Alchemy perks to select in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2!

Page Breakdown¶

Alchemy Uses and Effects¶

Alchemy is a skillset that governs your ability to brew various perfumes, potions, decoctions and other substances at an Alchemy Bench. The higher your Alchemy skill, the easier it will be to successfully brew alchemical substances, and if you’re especially adept at it, you may brew more powerful substances whenever you create something at an Alchemy Bench.

Perfumes can increase your Charisma, potions can heal you, remove debuffs like food poisoning and drunkenness, or even save your game, improve your stats, increase Stamina regeneration, and more. Even creating soap to wash your clothes is a feature of alchemy! You can buy most of these alchemical substances from alchemists, but it’s much cheaper to create them yourself… even better, if you boost your Alchemy skill you’ll be able to create so many of these substances with such ease that you can turn a significant profit selling them!

In short, if you want to boost numerous stats, skills and derived variables, save your game, wash your clothes and potentially generate a steady income in the process, Alchemy might just be for you!

Leveling Alchemy¶

Unlike some stats and skills that can level up as you do other things (leveling Vitality as you fight, run, jump and carry heavy loads), Alchemy is a fairly focused endeavor - create things at an Alchemy Bench and you’ll level up Alchemy. The more [competently you follow the recipe], the better the result, the more Alchemy XP you’ll gain in the process. That said, crafting potions and whatnot is generally a low-risk endeavor. Most of the time you can ruin what you’re working on, you only need to be wary when you’re boiling something, or tossing some ingredient in the pot - once it’s been added to the pot, mixed, mashed or boiled, you stand to lose a few ingredients if you abandon the attempt or botch the recipe. In most cases this will set you back the equivalent of 3-6 groschen.

Fortunately, however, most alchemical ingredients are free - growing almost everywhere, in fact! Picking these plants is the purview of the Survival skill, making these skills very closely linked, but when you can find fields of herbs numbering in the hundreds - if not thousands - just outside of most towns, the price of leveling your Alchemy skill is negligible (so long as you don’t mind what potions you’re actually creating). Alchemy levels fairly quickly, too, even though it can take some time to brew each potion, an overall monotonous minigame, when done in bulk, but the gains far outweigh a bit of tedium.

You will have access to an Alchemy Bench in the prologue, but the number of herbs that grow around the hut you find yourself at are finite. More than enough to level up Alchemy a few times, if you care to, but for a higher skill ceiling you’ll need to progress until the quest [Wedding Crashers] starts, at which point you’ll be free to roam the wilderness of Troskowitz. Find the alchemist on the western edge of town and you’ll also discover his Alchemy Bench in a shed outside, which you can freely use any time you please. Scour the fields nearby and you’ll find more than enough Chamomile and Sage to create Chamomile Decoctions, but if you want to expand your recipes, you can buy them from said Alchemist. Making Marigold Decoctions, Buck’s Blood Potions and Saviour Schnapps will all expand your arsenal and make your life easier, but it doesn’t matter what you concoct as far as leveling goes - brew anything and you’ll earn Alchemy XP.

Best Alchemy Perks¶

As you brew potions and other substances, your Alchemy skill will raise, earning you perk points to spend. Many of these can be banked for perks found in other stats and skills, but if you want to be more efficient with your alchemy (read: get more stuff every time you brew and make more money), you should consider the following perks:

Potion Seller¶

Kind of a no-brainer, really - it’ll increase the amount of groschen you earn from selling potions by 30%. If you want to make selling potions a primary means of making money, even in the short term, this will expedite matters considerably.

Secret of Matter¶

There are two ranks of this perk and it’s exclusive with the Secret of Equilibrium perks. Normally you brew three potions when you successfully create such a substance at an Alchemy Bench, and the first rank of this perk will increase this by +1 potion, while the second increases it by +2. If you get both perks, they’ll combine, netting you +3 potions every time you brew, for a total of six potions a pop. Needless to say, this halves the amount of brewing you have to do for the same gains, and being able to just brew up half a dozen potions which can each be sold for 10+ groschen, or creating six Saviour Schnapps at a time… that’s game-changing stuff right there.

Secret of Secrets¶

This perk allows you to create a high tier of potion, above even the “strong” grade. These potions - named “Henry’s” something or other (Henry’s Saviour Schnapps, for example) have significantly boosted properties and sell for even more, and cannot be bought in stores. Granted, the gains aren’t game-changing (+60 Health regen on Henry’s Marigold Decoction vs +40 Health regen on a Strong Marigold Decoction is a good example of what you’re looking at) but if you’re already adept at brewing potions, this effectively nets you a stronger product and more money every time you brew.

Enthusiast¶

The least important of these recommended perks, this is more of an honorable mention than a full-throated endorsement. If you plan to spend a lot of time at the Alchemy Bench, this perk will increase your Energy and halt your Nourishment loss. Granted, both of these problems can be solved by a trip to the local inn, but not having to worry about your condition while spending a long day brewing isn’t a terrible boon.

If you fancy investing some serious time into Alchemy, grab the recommended perks above. A full list of the Alchemy perks you can unlock can be found below:

List of Alchemy Perks¶

For more information on leveling the sister skill to Alchemy, Survival, check out the Survival Leveling and Perks page. If you need help brewing higher-quality potions, check out the [Brewing Perfect Potions] page.