Warhammer Apothecary Guide

Containers

A container is required for each Apothecary attempt. Merchants sell basic containers. They can be easily identified since they have "Apothecary - Container" in their tooltips. Better containers usually have some beneficial effect, like adding stability or "power". Containers have four slots.
Containers have Apothecary skill-level requirements. A player will be able to use a container only if his or her Apothecary skill is sufficiently high. Each container's skill-level requirement is shown in its tooltip.

Main Ingredients

These items determine what type of "potion" will be made. They can be easily identified since they have "Apothecary - Main Ingredient" in their tooltips. Each tooltip contains flavor text that gives a basic explanation of what that main ingredient does.
Main Ingredients have skill-level requirements, the higher the skill-level requirement, the more powerful the main ingredient is. A player can only use a main ingredient with a high skill-level requirement if his or her skill is sufficiently high. Main ingredients are very unstable.

Ingredients

These items determine the overall effects of the "potion". They are easily identified since they have "Apothecary - Ingredient" in their tooltips. Each Ingredient's tooltip also contains flavor text that gives a basic explanation of what that ingredient does.
Ingredients can have different properties. Some add stability; some make potions last longer, some increase the product yield. Ingredients have skill-level requirements, the higher the skill-level requirement, the more powerful the ingredient. A player can only use an ingredient with a high skill-level requirement if his or her skill is sufficiently high.

Creating a potion

To begin creating a potion, a player must first drag a container into the Apothecary interface. Then the player must add a Main Ingredient. This determines what kind of potion will be made. Once a Main Ingredient has been added, the Un-Stabilityometer appears. This gauge gives information to the player about whether the current mix of ingredients is stable enough.

Unstability meter

This gauge tells the player how stable the current concoction is. The Un-Stabilityometer has a pointer that points to either the red (fail), green (success) or orange part of the gauge.
If the pointer is in the red area, the potion will definitely fail - it's not stable enough. If the pointer is in the green area, the potion will definitely succeed.

If the pointer is in the orange area, the potion "might" succeed - it's either just stable enough (success), or slightly unstable (fail). It's too close to call. When the pointer is in the orange area, the overall stability of the concoction can't be definitively determined.
If a concoction is in the orange area, it "might succeed". At this point, it's usually a good idea to add an ingredient that will increase stability. However, players can take a chance that the concoction is stable enough and hit "BREW".

Note that if a brew attempt fails when the concoction "might succeed", retrying with the same ingredients will never result in a success. There's no randomness associated with "might succeed".

Adding Ingredients

Once a Main Ingredient has been added, players can add other ingredients to make the concoction stable. Some ingredients can increase the duration of a potion's effect; some can increase how many potions are made; some increase the stability of the concoction. Players can use different combinations of ingredients to create potions with different effects. By experimenting with ingredients, players can "design" potions that suit their play style.

Failure

If a concoction is unstable and the player presses BREW, the attempt will fail. Ingredients are not usually destroyed during a failure. However, some containers and ingredients (normally those bought from a merchant) can be destroyed during a failure.

Stability

The most important aspect of crafting potions is ensuring that the concoction is stable. Players make concoctions stable by adding ingredients that add stability. You can tell if an ingredient is a "stabilizer" by reading its flavor text.

There is a "water" family of "stabilizer" ingredients. Basic waters can be bought from crafting merchants. Better waters can be found from humanoids, either from general loot or by scavenging them. Better waters add more stability to a concoction. If a player is experimenting with new and difficult ingredients, using better stabilizers will make a brew attempt more likely to succeed.

When a player starts out in Apothecary, a good way to skill up is to make simple potions using one main ingredient, two cloudy waters, and one other ingredient. You can get all these items from crafting merchants.

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