The Alchemist's Ledger

The Alchemist's Ledger

Alchemy companion for modded Skyrim

Cast a power in game and the companion mod writes down every ingredient your load order actually contains. Drop that file here and the Ledger ranks the strongest potions and poisons you could brew from it.

Getting your file

Not installed the mod yet? Get it on Nexus - this page reads the file it writes.

  1. Cast Alchemist's Ledger in game. The first cast on a new load order takes a few minutes while it reads every ingredient - longer on a big one, or if you keep playing while it works. After that it is near instant.
  2. Open Data/SKSE/Plugins/StorageUtilData/ in your Skyrim folder and take AlchemistsLedger.json.Mod Organizer 2 writes it to overwrite/SKSE/Plugins/StorageUtilData/ instead. Ignore the file with DO_NOT_UPLOAD in its name — that one is the mod's own cache.
  3. Drop it here. It is read in your browser. The file is never uploaded, and the ingredients you own stay in this browser.

Everything happens on your machine. No account, no upload, no tracking.

Tired of finding this file? There is a desktop version that finds it for you and updates itself every time you cast. It comes with the mod.

What is The Alchemist's Ledger?
The Ledger reads an export of your Skyrim load order and ranks the strongest 2- and 3-ingredient recipes by Potency. It works with any modlist, because the data comes from your own game rather than a list someone else curated. It opens on Your Ledger — the best things you can brew from what you are carrying right now — with the full list and an ingredient browser a click away.
What is Potency?

Potency is one consistent number for comparing recipes, so every combination your load order allows can be ranked from strongest to weakest. It is worked out from the effects themselves:

baseCost × (magnitude × duration ÷ 10)1.1

Your game will show a bigger number than this, and that is expected. Skyrim starts from the same underlying effects and then applies everything about your character on top:

what you actually brew ≈ the effects above,
then Alchemy skill, perks, Fortify Alchemy gear and other modifiers

Shown to explain why the two numbers differ. It is not the game's real formula, and not a calculation the Ledger performs.

The Ledger leaves all of that out on purpose. If it counted your skill and gear, the ranking would shift every time you levelled up or swapped a ring, and it would be different for every character. Leaving it out means one ranking that is true for everyone and stays true as you level.

So: use Potency to decide what to combine. Use your alchemy menu to see what you actually get.

Is there a desktop version?

Yes, and it is the better way to use this if you brew often. It is one small file, nothing to install.

It finds AlchemistsLedger.json on your machine by itself — Steam, GOG and Epic installs, and the Mod Organizer 2 overwrite folder — so there is no dragging and no hunting through folders. If it cannot find yours it asks once and remembers.

It also watches the file. Leave it open beside the game, cast the power again, and the Ledger reloads itself with what you are carrying now. A web page cannot do that, which is the whole reason it exists.

It comes with the mod, as a separate download.

Why are some recipes 2 ingredients and some 3?
A potion only gains an effect if at least two of its ingredients share it. Sometimes the strongest version comes from two well-matched ingredients; other times a third brings in an additional shared effect and produces something more powerful overall. Both are ranked together, so you never have to guess whether a third would have helped.
Where the data comes from

Every ingredient, effect, magnitude and duration comes from your running game, read by the companion mod. Nothing here is hand-curated, so it matches whatever mods you actually have installed.

The companion mod is on Nexus: The Alchemist's Ledger.

There is nothing to configure. Whatever is in your load order is what you see — Creation Club, mod-added or vanilla, all treated the same, because your game already decided what you have.

The Alchemist's Ledger

The Alchemist's Ledger

Ingredient database, recipe finder & potency rankings · from your own load order

Data
with 
with effect 
Ranked by Potency — not gold value, not your final potion strength.

Potency is one consistent number for comparing recipes, so every combination your load order allows can be ranked from strongest to weakest. It comes from the effects themselves:

baseCost × (magnitude × duration ÷ 10)1.1

Your game will show a bigger number, and that is expected. Skyrim starts from the same effects and then applies your Alchemy skill, perks and Fortify Alchemy gear on top. The Ledger leaves all of that out on purpose — if it counted your gear, the ranking would change every time you swapped a ring, and it would be different for every character.

Per ingr. is that Potency divided by how many ingredients it costs, so a strong two-ingredient recipe beats a slightly stronger three-ingredient one. Yield is Potency multiplied by how many you could actually brew from what you are carrying — ten weak potions often beat one strong one. Sort by any of the three.

Use Potency to decide what to combine. Use your alchemy menu to see what you actually get.

Distilling the ledger…

The reckoning

Every ingredient, effect, magnitude and duration on this page came out of your own running game. Nothing is curated, and nothing was uploaded.

Potency compares recipes against each other. What you actually brew still depends on your Alchemy skill, perks and equipment.