Apoapse's Alchemy

As modders, I feel that we've been skirting around the issue of Morrowind's alchemy for some time now. The issue is that you cannot really play an alchemist in the vanilla game; however good you may be at brewing potions, you need to invest time and effort into a weapon or school of magic to deal any damage. For this reason, your "alchemist" options are restricted to a spell-casting mage who dabbles in alchemy, a thoroughbred warrior who picks wild flowers, or a stealthy rogue who keeps a stash of Invisibility potions on hand.

There are a few mods available that attempt to change things: Shanjaq's Alchemical Warfare and Scruggs' Alchemist's Arsenal come to mind. These mods are fantastic, and they inspired this one, but they fail to get to the core of the issue (mostly because of scripting limitations). They both allow you only to choose from a small list of preset "alchemical weapons". I don't think that this jives with Morrowind's vanilla potion-making mechanic, and it certainly doesn't offer the same sort of freedom the game is known for.

I think the whole situation is bollocks. In Apoapse's Alchemy, I added a selection of alchemical matrices, which solve the alchemy issue in a lore-friendly, balanced, and entertaining fashion. You can store a single potion in a matrix—when an NPC or creature gets near, the matrix will explode and apply that potion to everybody nearby. This works with all potions, whether vanilla, mod-added, or player-made. There are additional details, which I discuss below.

Alchemical matrices are not very complicated, and they blend in well with Morrowind's existing magical goodies. You carry these matrices around in your inventory until you are ready to use them. At that point, you place it on the ground and click on it (press your standard "Activate" button).  At this point, you can pick it right back up without any consequences. You can also do nothing to it, in case you only activated the matrix by mistake. The third option here is to activate the matrix. This opens the matrix's inventory, which can take only a single potion. If you try to place other items (or more than one potion) in the matrix, it will return those items to you immediately. This is to prevent players from using these as free storage devices.

Once you have placed a potion in its inventory and closed your menu, the matrix is activated. Clicking it again will give you a new menu. You can no longer access its inventory, but you can pick the matrix up. If you do, you will lose the potion you placed inside.

Once activated, the matrix will wait for an NPC or creature to enter a (roughly) 6 foot radius. The matrix will then explode, subjecting everybody within that radius to the potion you initial