Anyone who says Alchemy isn't as good as spellcasting obviously hasn't spent a few hours casually working out how to break the system so bad it makes everyone else give up and go home. What's better is that the spell combo I mentioned above? If you give a sack of touch-activated Marbles with all of those on them (Except the health spells, which need to be voice activated) to a street sammie then he can activate them all in one go too. A buff mage can have a bunch of stuff like that all ready and turn the team into virtual gods if he has time to get prepped. Use the Reagent cheese above to avoid having nasty drain issues too.

Here's another thought for you: Fireball BBs and a slingshot. Have fun.

EDIT: In answer to the OP's original question: Yes, yes I have.

Because someone can break it? If that were the guideline nothing in the game would exist.

The touch rules are pretty harsh so it actually is pretty hard to break, can someone work around it in an awkward I'm trying to break the game fashion? sure, but its not nearly as simple as making a bunch of touch marbles and putting them in your pocket. The act of putting it in your pocket would activate the touch spell. You have to really game it to break it, and at that point if it wewnr't SR5 would you care? There are plenty of things just as breakable in SR4 which you seem fine with because you just wont break them.

Oh, come on TJ, you KNOW that's circular.

Does not change the fact that I liked Alchemy in SR4A, and absolutely despise it in SR5. The idea of potions/scroll type magic in SR5 is just dumb (and to me, that is exactly what it feels like in SR5), in my opinion. Completely and utterly. That is how I feel.

And if you just want to feel that, whatever - but when it comes to actually having a discussion on the subject, that's another matter entirely.

Does not change the fact that I liked Alchemy in SR4A, and absolutely despise it in SR5. The idea of potions/scroll type magic in SR5 is just dumb (and to me, that is exactly what it feels like in SR5), in my opinion. Completely and utterly. That is how I feel.

I'm serious about this, but what was to like with Alchemy in SR4A. It did pretty much nothing.

TJ, you do know that Alchemy is the skill used to harvest reagents in SR5, right?

Crafting of Reagents was also a fundamental application of Alchemy in SR4A.
That would have been a perfect application for it in SR5, since Reagents can alter how Spellcasting functions.
Absolutely no need for "spell in a potion effects" in SR5. Horribly implemented... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif)