Shock of shocks, I'm going to be not-lazy and make a mod! Mad Science is meant to be a companion (but entirely independent of if desired) skill to tinkering and provide rogues with more interesting gameplay than shoot, teleport, shoot. What I'm looking at right now is a first-level passive ability that gives a x%(15%?) chance for undead, animals, vegetables, demons, and constructs to each drop a certain item that can be used to give a random component used to actually craft the "inventions" that Mad Science is based around. Levels 3, and 5 would grant a chance for each type to drop a higher level "grab bag" item that contains better components, while 2 and 4 would be active-use filler abilities to provide some fun random-effect utility skills which also provides passive and (the main damages dealt by inventions and random effects), with a capstone at 6 that I'm undecided on. I'm still in the planning stages right now, but as far as I know everything I have planned so far is doable. Ideas I'm more on the fence about are the ideas of making some traps or high-level bolts and crossbows that can be created with rare pulls out of the 'grab bag' items. It sounds cool, but I don't want the skill to do too much, when it already provides rogues with access to a variety of quasi-spells and some utility abilities. I've only started on the even-leveled filler abilities so far, I'd just like input from those with a better feel on game balance than me before I start on the fun bits. EDIT: Realized that I was suggesting that I was going to add more levels to the skill than was actually possible. Ehm, yes.
Sounds like fun. You might also consider resist as it seems a natural for the sciency stuff. I guess that depends on what branch of mad science you're talking about. The resists you mentioned are more chemistry, I guess, but when I hear "Mad Science" I think steampunk and magnetism (or even b-horror "my monster is alive!"). In the suggestions sub-forum there was talk of a wind-up pet that was made via crafting. That concept would be a natural match here, I think. I can't really comment on play-balance impact until I see more of what you have in mind for the filler abilities or the exact list of components that can spawn. Throw out some specific ideas, and we'll no doubt critique them.
I did want to squeeze in some and , but it seemed excessive with three resists already being granted. I've actually continued work on this and was in the process of updating the OP two days ago, but the edit itself ended up looking like a garbled mess for whatever reason and I decided to hold off until I had all the basics in place.
Just FYI: If I'm not mistaken, some of the resists you mention have been added to Alchemy in the beta / upcoming 1.0.10 patch.
