Apothecary Inventory Rebuild
Increases the number and variety of ingredients for sale by Apothecaries. DLC support optional.
Apothecary Inventory Rebuild
Description:
Increases the number and variety of ingredients for sale by Apothecaries.
Note: All DLC is REQUIRED as of Version 1.1!
Reason for mod:
I love alchemy in Skyrim. The experimentation it allows is one of my favorite ‘mini games’ to spend time on and it can be a great money maker. On top of that, having the right potion/poison in your inventory can turn the tide of a fight in your favor when it is going tough and you realize it has been 30 minutes since you last saved. Finally, of the three crafting skills I find it the most versatile, as it can provide such a huge array of effects, both positive for my character and negative for my enemies. So when trying to limit myself to concentrating on a single crafting skill, I choose alchemy 9 times out of 10.
One thing I hate, however, is the fact that what is stocked by Apothecaries as common, uncommon, and rare didn’t make too much sense a lot of the time. Why are Deathbell and Nightshade considered rare when I can take a carriage to where they grow natively (Morthal/Solitude) straight from Whiterun an hour into the game and pick bunches of them? I thought it would make more sense to have the items available be determined more by how dangerous/difficult they would be to procure. It is certainly more dangerous for the average adventurer to gather Troll Fat or a Bear Claw than to pick some Grass Pods or Blue Butterfly Wings, but those 4 items are all lumped together in the uncommon category when randomly generating Apothecary inventory.
Another thing was the randomness of what you could find. I would invariably have plenty of gold and the desire for one ingredient I wanted to get my hands on for a specific potion when I walked into an Apothecary. But I would be disappointed when there were none available to buy when their inventory was revealed.
Details:
My solution to these two annoyances are to –
1. Create new Leveled Lists that reorganize the ingredients into 4 tiers based on how dangerous they are for an average adventurer (the person the Apothecary buys stock from) to get their hands on.
* Tier 1 – Easy as picking a flower or catching a butterfly (Mountain Flowers, Luna Moth Wings, Torchbug Thorax, etc.)
* Tier 2 – Potentially braving weak enemies or gathering from somewhat unsafe areas (Mudcrab Chitin, Slaughterfish Eggs, Bleeding Crown, etc.)
* Tier 3 – Defeating common, “middle of the road” enemies or exploring dangerous dungeon areas (Chaurus Eggs, Sabre Cat Eyeball, Dwarven Oil, etc.)
* Tier 4 – Besting the toughest opponents the game has to offer and looting the prizes from their remains (Troll Fat, Giant’s Toe, Briar/Daedra Heart, etc.)
2. Increase the number of ingredients available in vendor stock. The numbers will differ based on the type of Apothecary and random chance, but all have been increased to have potentially 100 to 280 items in addition to the normal vanilla stock.
Additionally, I took the liberty of adding a couple missing items into the potential stock, namely Crimson Nirnroot (very small chance of appearing and increased in value) and Glowing Mushroom. There is also a chance for Orc and Dark Brotherhood Apothecaries to sell Human Flesh and Human Hearts.
Finally, I added the appropriate keyword to the ingredients listed below so they will now appear in Apothecary inventory without the player having to purchase the ‘Merchant’ perk from the Speech skill tree. It made no sense to me that these were excluded without that perk when they appear in the vanilla game’s leveled item lists for Apothecaries, therefore SHOULD be for sale without the player having to purchase the perk. The ingredients are:
– Bear Claws
– Beehive Husk
– Blue Dartwing
– Eye of Sabre Cat
– Hawk’s Egg (Hearthfire DLC)
– Honeycomb
– Human Flesh
– Human Heart
– Large Antlers
– Mudcrab Chitin
– Orange Dartwing
– Pearl
– Poison Bloom (Dawnguard DLC)
– Powdered Mammoth Tusk
– Sabre Cat Tooth
– Small Antlers
– Small Pearl
– Torchbug Thorax
– Wisp Wrappings
What makes this mod different than other inventory changing mods is that this one reclassifies some of the hard to get ingredients making them easier to find for purchase. In addition, it increases not only the overall number but also the variety of ingredients that are available to purchase. Other mods have increased the number available of each item in the vanilla stock while not actually increasing how many different items are in the vendor inventory. So you would end up with a bunch of a handful of specific items but still see zero of a lot of others. With this mod, if you go to an Apothecary in a major hold capital you will have a very good chance to see a minimum one of each item for sale.
The number available of each tier of items depends on the type of Apothecary you visit. Those in major hold capitals (Markarth, Riften, Solitude, Whiterun, Windhelm) will have more than those in minor hold capitals (Dawnstar, Falkreath, Morthal) or what I categorize as specialty Apothecaries (Herluin Lothaire, an Apothecary Spouse, or Edla).
Those in an Orc Stronghold (Dushnikh Yal, Largashbur, Mor Khazgur, Narzulbur) or that are dangerous themselves (Babette, Feran Sadri) will have a different distribution based on the fact that they have access to folks that will brave tougher areas and enemies. These are the best vendors to find more “dangerous” ingredients at.
Vendors:
* Angeline’s Aromatics
* Arcadia’s Cauldron
* Elgrim’s Elixirs
* The Hag’s Cure
* The White Phial
* Grave Concoctions
* Thaumaturgist’s Hut
* The Mortar and Pestle
* Atub (Largashbur) — NOTE: Set as Apothecary vendor by Unofficial Skyrim Patch
* Bolar (Narzulbur)
* Murbul (Dushnikh Yal)
* Sharamph (Mor Khazgur)
* Herluin Lothaire (The Ragged Flagon)
* Heljarchen Apothecary — NOTE: Not utilized in vanilla that I can tell…still modified it just in case
* Babette (Dark Brotherhood)
* Spouse Apothecary
* Feran Sadri (Dawnguard DLC)
* Florentius Baenius (Dawnguard DLC)
* Milore Ienth (Dragonborn DLC)
* Elynea Mothren (Dragonborn DLC)
* Edla (Dragonborn DLC)
Install:
Extract the ApothecaryInventoryRebuildDLC.esp file to your Skyrim Data folder (typically C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Skyrim\Data) and enable it in a way appropriate for the mod manager of your choice.
Uninstall:
Delete the .esp file.
Conflicts:
This mod adds some new Leveled Item Lists which should not conflict with anything.
It also modifies the ingredient records listed above, plus Crimson Nirnroot, and changes the merchant stock of the above people/shops. If any other mod you have modifies those same records, then they will conflict and the one lower in your load order will be the one that is active.
Use:
For personal use, feel free to do anything you want with this. If you are going to use a part or all of this in a mod of your own, please make me aware of it and provide credit as appropriate. At this time I am only making this mod available on the Nexus site. If you see this anywhere else then it was stolen. Please let me know!
Parting Comments:
Like I said above, I love alchemy in Skyrim. But I hate harvesting and being weighed down while exploring out in the world. I do it when I start every character, but at a point fairly early in the game (level 10 or so) I always find myself with bunches of gold and would love to just stock up on tons of ingredients at an Apothecary. For someone who doesn’t use fast travel and keeps vanilla inventories, that is a time consuming proposition with many loading screens, carriage rides, and plenty of running between shops. This minimizes that by making each stop much more worthwhile. Plus it helps by making all ingredients available in Apothecary shops without the need for spending perks in the Speech skill tree, which is the way I feel it should be.
Version 1.0
– Initial release
Version 1.1
– Fully integrated all DLC ingredients and apothecary vendors
– All DLC is REQUIRED
– Removed optional Jarrin Root version (very small chance, very high price) — if people show in interest in it returning, I can put it back in
