Alchemy - The Sims 3 Guide - IGN (2024)

Alchemy Basics

is the science of taking a bunch of stuff, mixing them together, and drinking the resulting concoction for fun and profit! In Supernatural, Alchemy is its own job skill with ten levels and is tracked through the skills panel. Alchemy comes with its own challenges, and you can see all the potions your Sim has learned on the skill screen. Potions can only be created with the Alchemy Work Bench, which is available in Buy Mode in the Entertainment sort and Hobbies & Skills subsort. Note that you can gain the Alchemy skill from 0 to 10 without creating a single potion.

Alchemy is required for some levels of the new Fortune Teller career track, but no others. Alternatively, you can register with city hall to be a self-employed Alchemist. You can visit the consignment store (or place one in the neighborhood if there isn't one already) to "consign" your potions. You'll sell them, but it can usually take a day or two to do so. You stand a chance of selling your potions well above market value, especially if you have the Born Salesman trait.

Generally speaking, ingredients are limited to food,

Getting Started with Alchemy

You can get started with Alchemy in two ways: by reading about the skill, or just researching on your own. To read up on the topic, head to the bookstore, and you can buy Alchemy Vol. 1 for skill levels 1 through 3, Alchemy Vol. 2 for skill levels 4 through 6, and Alchemy Vol. 3 for skill levels 7 through 10.

Reading about alchemy will raise your skill level, and is all that is necessary for the Fortune Teller career track. However, to learn new potions and actually make money directly from the skill, you'll need an Alchemy Work Station. As mentioned above, you can buy one through Buy Mode in the Entertainment sort and Hobbies & Skills subsort for $850.

Once you have your alchemy table set up, you can interact with it to either mix a potion (if you know at least one recipe) or "Research Alchemy." Choosing that command makes your Sim read the giant book on the table for about half of a Sim hour (30 seconds real time on normal speed). If he studies uninterrupted, then when he's done reading, he is guaranteed to learn a new potion recipe if there are any unlearned ones given his level.

Potion Recipes vary by level, and the Sim cannot learn a potion above his personal level. For example, if your alchemist is at Alchemy skill level 4, he can learn all potions at level 4 or below, but no level 5 potions or higher. The way the game is paced however, you can usually just repeatedly select the "Research Alchemy" command and learn a recipe every time it finishes.

If a Sim doesn't learn a recipe, you can double-check that he's learned everything by selecting the "Mix Elixir" command.

Mixing Potions

The "Mix Elixir" command on the alchemy table isn't just for checking your recipe book; it's self-explanatory. This will bring up a table of all the recipes, and you can check a box in the top-left corner to view all recipes whether you've learned them or not.

The table is logically sorted and colored. Recipes you don't know will appear "grayed out." Ingredients are listed to the right of each potion, and ingredients you're carrying will be "lit up," while ingredients you don't have will by darkened. You can mouse over any ingredient to get a tool tip of what the ingredient is exactly, though you can consult the Potion Recipes page of the wiki for a full breakdown.

Using or Selling Potions

Once a potion is mixed, it will appear in your inventory. From there, you can click it to do any action: gift it to an online friend, throw the potion at a Sim, drink it yourself, or mix it in with an actual drink.

Throwing a potion at Sim is an unblockable, indefensible action on the part of the target. You can throw positive or negative potions, but the target (and sometimes any nearby witnesses) will lose some relationship points with you due to your rude behavior. Instead, you can mix the potion into a drink, then serve that drink to your target. That way, no one loses relationship points (except possibly you with the target), and the effect still happens. If you plan on drinking the potion itself, it doesn't matter whether you drink it from a drink or straight from the bottle.

Mixing a potion into a drink doesn't dilute or otherwise lessen its effects. For a full breakdown of potions' effects, check out the Potion Recipes page of the wiki.

If you prefer to sell your potions instead, you'll need to visit the alchemists' consignment store with the potion in your personal inventory. Interact with the cash register (assuming the cashier is behind it), then select "Buy." On the pop-up box, click the "Consign" tab.

All items in your personal inventory that can be sold will appear, including your potions. You'll see an estimated base price, but a lot of the time, your item will sell for more. Simply double-click each item you wish to sell (there is no limit to the number of items in a single transaction), then click the "Consign" button at the bottom.

You'll get mail within the next couple days that will tell you how much you made, and the top-selling items of yours that day. The money is instantly added to your account! If an item didn't sell, it will be returned to you when you check your mail, but that only very rarely happens with potions.

Generally speaking, the higher level potions sell for more, and the potions that require books to learn instead of conventional research sell for even more... but they also tend to require the pickiest ingredients. Either way, if you're a self-employed alchemist, promotions come purely from how much you're making, so just keep selling those potions and promotions will follow.