Changes listed here viewtopic.php?f=23&t=25&p=336214#p336214
Overall I like the general thrust of the changes but think some of them have some issues with the way arelith works.
First up if the intention is to drink in a tavern then head out to battle the 1.5 hour duration might not be long enough. The travel time and length of several dungeons especially epic ones can be as long or longer than 1.5 hours even if you rush and never stop to RP or take a break. Which means it will wear off usually in the final room. Lower level character who might do 2-3 dungeons before running to town might also see the buff run out. I think changing the tavern duration to 2 hours (or 3 if you are feeling generous) would allow people to drink and take their time in dungeons RP etc.
As for the drinks:
Ripplebark Beer: bit of a odd one, there aren't many dieases on arelith and in their current implementation you can just wait for combat to be over then use a heal kit even with no skill to remove it before you suffer any effects so this one would be mostly QoL.
EXCEPT, several of the new curses are blocked by disease immunity which this would grant for 30min (fresh) and 1.5 hours if tavern which seems like a bit much.
Yarrow bear: Solid drink, can see pretty much everyone who can craft or find someone to craft to use it, 1 regen for such a long time will make low level dungeons much smoother with less down time and will even find use in high level dungeons. Can see this being the default drink for pve unless you need something else for a specific purpose.
Fresh Mead: Another solid drink, +2 skills (if fresh) for up to 1.5 hours is pretty amazing, previously the short duration was an issue but this will be good for anyone that makes use of skills, possibly allowing higher dirty fighting dcs, or special fear dcs etc. Might be the go to drink in PVP for +2 unremovable (never checked can it be dispelled) disc/conc/etc. Also useful in pve for skill monkey's like bards, more search, more lore for book cases.
Rice Wine: NOTE, Currently bugged, tested on live, supposed to give 50% poison immunity with fresh (and +2 poison saves) but does nothing, ran to mushroom and my save bonus was equal to my char sheet fort and I took full dmg (minus essence) from mushroom.
However I will review it based on what it is supposed to do. In which case I find this drink very questionable. There are very few sources of poison dmg on arelith and they typically don't crest above 10 or so damage so this doesn't do much. The typical use of poison immunity isn't the damage but protecting someone from nat 1 rolls, especially from poisoned player weapons. The save bonus also isn't much, most poison's have low dc so base fort +con bonuses alone are enough past the first few levels. (dont think it stacks with ironguts which is +4 anyway)
I think if we don't want full poison immunity then an alternative might be to give it 10 posion dr (if fresh) and, if possible within the engine, give it a slippery mind like effect for poison rolls, say reroll 1 failed save per round (or turn if that too powerful) This grants you pseudo immunity without making you actually immune and will protect you against most pve poison effects while not being too strong against poisoned player weapons.
Additionally the old drink giving poison immunity gave you +10 to applying poisons on your weapon, maybe that bonus could be added separately to the fresh effect?
Harnak Spirit: Not as useful as some other but still solid. Fresh giving +2 will is fairly strong espcially for classes that struggle to get enough will saves and can't get full spellcraft. It also protects against spellcraftless ablities like barbarian fear or knight fear and dirty fighting. Can be nice in pve in places with a lot of will saves where you havent save capped yet and can't afford to spam lesser mind blank scrolls.
Fruit Brandy: one of the problematic ones. (along with golden spirit which I will get to) it's primary effect of restoring HP doesnt grok with drinking in a tavern for a bonus, and drinking in a dungeon for hp will remove the bonus of any other drink and if not fresh will lower it's own bonus (if you drink in tavern then drink again) rendering it questionably useful.
Further more the heal on this one was already pretty useless (20% before change) at 15% it's nearly useless give the large sobriety cost and the fact that it doesn't stack. Heal's for about 75 hp with 540 max hp, which is just about crit heal level, while costing as much sobriety as a heal pot(without iron guts).
The special bonus of +2 fort for fresh is kinda nice for the same reasons as the +2 will of harnak, frankly if the heal was removed this might be nice on it's own. Though not as strong as the will bonus considering that most people max out con for hp and thus will have enough fort save for most dc's, this could still be nice for non con maxxing mages and the like against dirty fighters.
Golden Spirit: Hoo boy this one is not a super great change. Same as with fruit brandy having it give a specialty bonus when it's primary use is healing is odd, it will remove any other bonus and nerf it self if not fresh. The biggest issue reduced healing 30% down from 40%. A high hp 720 character will get only 210 heal from it which is only a bit better than heal pot (155hp) while not benefiting from iron guts(and thus costing twice as much sobriety) as well as not stacking and not healing instantly. With a cost of mojo, glass bottle, and gold leaf it's also not much cheaper either. And this is all with a high hp character! with a more typical hp level (I tested 540) it will only heal 150 hp! which is LESS than a heal pot while having all those downsides previously mentioned.
In all honesty I think golden spirit should simply be reverted to it's old form (40% heal, no specialty effect so it doesn't overwrite other drinks) it's hard to change the heal amount as it will always complete with heal pots. Potentially a different change could be to make iron guts apply to all drinks, Though I prefer the former as at certain hp levels 30% would still end up weaker than heal pot while not being instant or stacking (in inv). Could always add to the description "Everlasting freshness!"
Spiced Rum: Not as universally useful as the other but still solid, 10% cold di and dr makes it very useful in any situation where you might take cold damage; granted there are only a few places where that applies. Also potentially useful against spellsword with cold imbue (a decent pvp imbule for its effect though many use magic imbue and rely on crits for ele strike)
All in all I like the changes but feel some drinks could use a tweak. For me personally its unfortunate that I can't sell these drink in a shop anymore but I get that was an intended change. Only drink I really have issue with is golden spirit as listed above.
