The first line of every recipe description gives the name by which the recipe is generally known.

Beneath the recipe name is a line giving the form (and the sub-form, if any) to which the recipe belongs.

Every recipe belongs to one of eight forms. A form is a group of related recipes that work in similar ways.

Appearing on the same line as the form, when applicable, is a descriptor that further categorizes the recipe in some way. Some recipes have more than one descriptor.

Descriptor unique to advanced alchemy recipes are firework and soul-draining.

Recipes also have the same list of descriptors as spells with the addition of the calling, charm, compulsion, figment, healing, polymorph, scrying, summoning, and teleportation descriptors. Recipes with one of these additional descriptors, while non-magical and not spells or spell-like abilities, are treated as being of the corresponding subschool.

Most of these descriptors have no game effect by themselves, but they govern how the recipe interacts with other recipes, with spells, with special abilities, with unusual creatures, with alignment, and so on.

Alignment descriptors (chaotic, evil, good, and lawful) do not automatically indicate that performing the recipe or using the resulting item is an aligned act, only that aligned energies are used in the recipe. Some recipes with an alignment descriptor will indicate in their descriptions that an aligned action must be performed as part of the recipe, in which case performing the recipe is altogether an aligned action. Using items created by such recipes is not aligned action though creatures, particularly more devout ones, may have qaulms about using them or even outright refuse to use them anyway on principle.

For characters with ties to a god or similar power, performing a recipe with an alignment descriptor opposite the alignment of that deity may be an anathema to that god.

On the same line as the recipes form and any descriptors is the recipe's level, a number between 0 and 9 that defines the recipes's relative power. A recipes's level affects the DC for any save allowed against its effects.

Some recipes have Exceptional Reagents which are harder to acquire than some of the others. In order create an advanced alchemy recipe including exceptional reagents, the practicer must be able to acquire the listed reagents. Some exceptional reagents have an asociated cost. Unless specified otherwise, this cost is included in the cost of crafting the recipe, but abilities that reduce the cost of the recipe not including the cost of any exceptional reagents. As such, the cost of crafting a recipe cannot be reduced below the cost of the exceptional reagents.

Exceptional Catalysts are similar except that they are not expended in the creation of the recipe. As they are not consumed, the price of exceptional catalysts is not included in the price of crafting the recipe. When purchasing an advanced alchemical item whose recipe includes an exceptional catalyst, the crafter may choose to increase the price of the item by somewhere between 1/10th and 1/100th of the cost of the catalyst.

Activated, Applied, and Rocket recipes require a specific action to be activated, applied, or ignoted. This is generally 1 standard action.

A recipe that takes 1 round to activate is a full-round action. It comes into effect just before the beginning of your turn in the round after you began activating the recipe. You then act normally after the recipe is completed.

A recipe that takes 1 minute to activate comes into effect just before your turn 1 minute later (and for each of those 10 rounds, you are activating a recipe as a full-round action, just as noted above for 1-round activation times). These actions must be consecutive and uninterrupted, or the recipe automatically fails.

When you begin a recipe that takes 1 round or longer to activate, you must continue the concentration from the current round to just before your turn in the next round (at least). If you lose concentration before the activation is complete, you lose the recipe.

Activating a recipe with an activation time of 1 swift action doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity.

You make most pertinent decisions about a recipe (effect, version, and so forth) when the recipe is finished being crafted but the target, distance, area, and duration is determined when you finish activating the recipe.

Rocket recipes list their range increment and maximum range. The rocket cannot target a creature or square farther that its maximum distance and the creature firing the rocket takes penalties for shooting at targets beyond the range increment as normal for a ranged weapon.

Assume the range increment of a bomb recipe is 20 feet.

When performing some cauldron recipes, you must make choices about whom the recipe is to affect or where an effect is to originate, depending on a recipe's type. In which case, the next entry in the recipe description defines the recipe's target (or targets), its effect, or its area, as appropriate.

You must also aim a bomb or rocket recipe though you do so as a ranged attack, modified by the previous descriptions.

Some recipes have a target or targets. With these recipes you can target creatures or objects, as defined by the recipe itself. You must be able to specify the target as described in the recipe's descriptive text. You do not have to select your target until you finish preapring the recipe.

If the target of a recipe is yourself (the Target line of the recipe description includes “You”), you do not receive a saving throw. The saving throw line is omitted or marked as none in such recipes.

Some recipes restrict you to willing targets only. Declaring yourself as a willing target is something that can be done at any time (even if you're flat-footed or it isn't your turn). Unconscious creatures are automatically considered willing, but a character who is conscious but immobile or helpless (such as one who is bound, cowering, grappling, paralyzed, pinned, or stunned) is not automatically willing.

Some recipes allow you to redirect the effect to new targets or areas after you cast the recipe. Redirecting a recipe is a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity.

Some recipes create or summon things rather than affecting things that are already present. You must designate the location where these things are to appear, genrally by defining it as part of preapring the recipe. Range determines how far away an effect can appear, but if the effect is mobile, after it appears it can move regardless of the recipes's range.

Some effects, notably clouds and fogs, spread out from a point of origin, which must be a grid intersection. The effect can extend around corners and into areas that you can't see. Figure distance by actual distance traveled, taking into account turns the alchemical effect takes. When determining distance for spread effects, count around walls, not through them. As with movement, do not trace diagonals across corners. You must designate the point of origin for such an effect, but you need not have line of effect (see below) to all portions of the effect.

Some recipes affect an area. Sometimes a recipe description specifies a specially defined area, but usually an area falls into one of the normal categories for recipe effect areas.

Regardless of the shape of the area, you select the point where the effect originates, but otherwise you don't control which creatures or objects the recipe affects. The point of origin of a recipe is always a grid intersection. When determining whether a given creature is within the area of a recipe, count out the distance from the point of origin in squares just as you do when moving a character or when determining the range for a ranged attack. The only difference is that instead of counting from the center of one square to the center of the next, you count from intersection to intersection.

You can count diagonally across a square, but remember that every second diagonal counts as 2 squares of distance. If the far edge of a square is within the recipe's area, anything within that square is within the recipe's area. If the recipe's area only touches the near edge of a square, however, anything within that square is unaffected by the recipe.

Most recipes that affect an area function as a burst, an emanation, or a spread. In each case, you select the recipe's point of origin and measure its effect from that point.

Most spells that affect an area take the shape of a cone, cylinder, line, or sphere.

A recipe with this kind of area affects creatures directly (like a targeted recipe), but it affects all creatures in an area of some kind rather than individual creatures you select. The area might be a spherical burst, a cone-shaped burst, or some other shape.

Many spells affect "living creatures", which means all creatures other than constructs and undead. Creatures in the recipe's area that are not of the appropriate type do not count against the creatures affected.

A recipe with this kind of area affects objects within an area you select (as Creatures, but affecting objects instead).

A recipe can have a unique area, as defined in its description.

If an area or effect entry ends with "(S)", you can shape the recipe. a shaped effect or area can have no dimension smaller than 10 feet. Many effects or areas are given as cubes to make it easy to model irregular shapes. Three-dimensional volumes are most often needed to define aerial or underwater effects and areas.

A recipe's duration entry tells you how long the alchemical effect of the recipe lasts. For most recipes, this duration begins once the produced item is triggered by some means, such as activating an activation recipes or throwing a bomb, but for Cauldron, Creation, or Substance recipes this duration begins as soon as the recipe is completed. Creation recipes generally have a duration of instantaneous.

Usually a harmful recipe allows a target to make a saving throw to avoid some or all of the effect. The saving throw entry in a recipe description defines which type of saving throw the recipe allows and describes how saving throws against the recipe work.

This portion of a recipe description details what the recipe does and how it works. If one of the previous entries in the description includes “see text,” this is where the explanation is found.