How to Craft Healing Potions for D&D 5e 

as someone whos currently trying to make crafting more accessible and rewarding, i thank you kindly

Pathfinder handles potion crafting very well. An excerpt from the system: "Brewing a potion takes 2 hours if its base price is 250 gp or less, otherwise brewing a potion takes 1 day for each 1,000 gp in its base price." Perfectly reasonable, and there are feats that reduce crafting times even further. Now, an alchemist can make potions in their evening downtime, or even during rests between fights.

4:40 "What is this, red wine that needs to age?" Depending on how you do it, yeah, probably. I've always assumed the time for potions was about how long the ingredients had to rest/steep/ferment/age/mature etc. before they reached the desired potency. So you only need a day to make the potion itself, but it won't be _ready_ until next week/month. I do like the video's rules for 'quick potions' during a long rest, I'll probably use them or a variation thereof in future. Our group also agreed on rough rules for Batch Crafting potions. Just raise the material costs proportional to how many you're making and then you just need a big enough pot to do it in. No different from making one gallon or fifty of homebrew beer. I mean yeah, you can brew your beer one bottle at a time, but why?

3:28 That's what winter is for. But 100 days does seem very excessive for only 8d4 healing. Might as well make ten 4d4 potions.

Another way to alter the time requirement is to alter the "uninterrupted" part, which makes sense when we're talking about "brewing" potions. A good portion of the time in normal brewing is just sitting back and letting it do it's thing.

on 154 of the player's hand book under Herbalism Kit it clearly states "This kit contains a variety of instruments such as clippers, mortar and pestle, and pouches and vials used by herbalists to create remedies and potions. Proficiency with this kit lets you add your proficiency bonus to any ability checks you make to identify or apply herbs. Also, proficiency with this kit is required to create antitoxin and any potion of healing."

My favorite gameplay concept is when healing potions have some sort of drawback to prevent guzzling. In the Witcher franchise all healing potions use strong alcohol as a base component and thus too many can result in you becoming intoxicated. I can't remember where but one game had healing potions heal by magically accelerating your metabolism meaning you'd be absolutely starving after healing and you'd hemorrhage weight (basically all adventurers where gaunt dudes with noticeable ribs). In several borderline scifi games healing potions equivalents have a slightly toxic component and overindulging can result in overdosing, requiring other medical operations or components to stabilize you.

Reminds me of this one homebrew crafting book I found. It expands everything out. I gather herbs to make assorted potions, my one friend buys bolts of cloth/scraps looted clothes to make tailored outfits and plush toys etc. It even has monster part harvesting , blacksmithing and jewelry crafting. Something base 5e needs to branch into. (it's kinda why I love the crafting system in Divinity so much)

When we were playing Pathfinder with my friends, the “healing and antiseptic salve” making used the “ingredient” rule. (they’re not as strong as a healing potion but they definitely came in clutch in some situations). You required herbalist kit proficiency, multiple ingredients and a high medicine skill. And it didn’t require you to know a spell to craft them. I was playing as a Barbarian with very high wisdom. And I had proficiency in both cooking utensils and herbalism kit (my barbarian was a pharmacist in his tribe). So it was my barbarian who crafted the healing consumables for your party! And because we didn’t have a cleric, my barbarian was essentially the main healer. XD It was so fun both in roleplay standpoint and in gameplay mechanics. And I was very happy to put those tools in actual use We are now playing DnD 5e. We haven’t talked about potion making yet, but will definitely apply your video’s ideas! And maybe mix it with Pathfinder logic too

Got a new player that REALLY wants to lean into the fact they are a healer and craft potions. This vid has been VERY helpful!

When I make jams, chutneys, home brews, etc. I can easily double the recipe so I have plenty to use at a later date. I wonder if it would be possible to batch cook a bunch & decanter it out so I'd have several in the same time it'd take to make one potion.

As someone who makes a lot of liquid foodstuff in his personal time, I genuinely feel that the current crafting rules favor less single use items, but instead batches in pints to gallons.

Thanks so much for this my party has been wanting a system just like these

My best friend’s wife (she plays too) makes Health, Mana, and Ether potions for large sessions. They’re each a proprietary blend of Red, Blue, and Purple Kool Aid respectively. We also call them liquid diabetes lol Edit: Ether is the name of a potion in Final Fantasy that replenishes both health points and magic points.

Thats so funny, i had a homebrew item called Healer's Root that has exactly the same function as yours. Only i added another homebrew rule that a healer's root can be consumed as a bonus actions and provide 1d4+CON modifier in healing. I also thought about making it 1d4+1 in healing but i liked the idea of your con mod being used for something other that your HP total. And it made it feel a bit fair to those who invest points in con and gave them a bit more healing because they had higher health pools to fill

Adding to this, perhaps a person can substitute the spellcasting component of potion brewing with aging it? Basically, if a player has the required ingredient (ie, a healroot for a basic potion, greater healroot for a greater potion, etc) and can cast spell needed then they can make the given potion over a long rest. Alternatly, if they can't cast the spell, or if it's an NPC doing the brewing, then they can still brew the potion but it takes longer to 'age'. So they can brew up a basic potion in a day, a greater potion in a week, etc. However... the aging process doesn't have be carefully maintained by the player or NPC. They can spend a few hours preparing the ingredients and bottling it up, but then they just have to place the unaged bottles somewhere dark and cool for a while so the magic can activate or whatever. Someplace like a chest. If the party doesn't have a healer but they have the recipe for healing potions, they can get a bunch of healroot, spend some time cooking them up and bottling the liquid, and then let the resulting potions age for 24 hours to get their healing potions. Or, if they get a greater healroot and have the recipe they can cook that up and keep the bottle somewhere to get a greater healing potion in a week. Or... you could have various NPC out in the world who prepare these potions, bottle them up, and then keep them securely locked up in chests or buried in places dark and cool for the potions to age properly. Sure, a basic healing potion would only take a day or so to brew and there's no problem, but greater potions would need the bottles kept somewhere for a week, or two, or three. If someone was brewing these potions and then left them in a secure place to age, that just provides more opportunities for the players to run into them. Perhaps they come across a town that was raided and in one of the houses they find some potions in the basement of a place that were put there to age but the raid happened before the brewer could collect them. Or, if a potion takes a really long time to age, the brewer might make a few, put them in a box, bury them in a hole, and keep a map of the spot for if they need to dig it up in the future. They could give the players directions to dig it up as a reward, to give them supplies for fighting a group of bandits, or the players just come across the map during their scrounging.

I love this so so much. In a recent video, Matt Colville pointed out that rolling to hit is basically rolling to see if you get a turn that round or not. This is a way to counter that! If you’re using one of yesterday’s spell slots, to prepare a healing potion for tomorrow, it’s a way to give you one more healing spell slot (in a sense) for tomorrow that you wouldn’t otherwise have.

Our DM went the scroll crafting like route and would let you sort of force imbue the spells into the liquid if you didn’t have any of the cooking components. It would take roughly double the slot levels to create a potion (aka 2 casts of cure wounds=1potion, there was a chart). This also allowed healers something to do with daily spell slots on long periods of rest/travel. It also explained how non-adventuring NPC with spell abilities could make money, all those bored clerics in the church just turned into a potion factory.

I've working on a potion crafting system. I usually focus on crafting recipies. Usually I think it is better that the recipies use the same few common materials. This makes less tedious finding 'that' root that you need for your potion as you probably have it. The hard part is chosing what you want to make with your limited supplies. That are my usual design chocies but rn I want to make a system that can have as much depth as the players wants it to have. I am taking inspiration from other PC games like Big Pharma, that is simple to understand but can have a lot of depth. I am focusing in materials, how they interact between them, and the processes you can apply them. The bare idea I have is that there are three types of ingredients: materials, catalysts and additives. The materials are the barers of the effects of the potions (Can have more than one), the catalysts interact with the materials to create new effects, change or upgrade them, and the additives add, boost or change the properties in a predicatble way not dependant of the material. The processes can change the properties of the materials so you can play with them and mix them with other materials. That is my bare idea. This way making simple potions or poisons can be made just triggering the effects of the materials with a simple proccess like brewing, where you don't even need to understand the system and can do fine with just a recipe. But you can make very good potions or develope your own recipies with if you want to.

High Heals... God, I love you guys

Hey, just wanna say: loved your article, "Can You Pet the Dog", from the website Great discussion and an excellent breakdown of what we can learn in the _videogame : tabletop game_ spectrum

Yoinking this type of system for ALL SORTS of crafting. As someone who loves crafting useful consumables or items that can be utilized where even spells may fall short or have unintended effects, ive been trying to make a better system but couldnt quite figure out what i wanted. Now i do!

Your custom potion crafting guidelines are SO fantastic!!

I love this. Another possible element to add might be fermentation. You can make the potions quickly, but they'll need a certain amount of extra time to wait before they become functional. That way it takes a some advance planning to keep your stock up.

The way I read making potions, you could brew the potion and cork it during a long rest, but it needs a certain amount of time to cool or ferment to become effective. This would also give DMs an option to have certain potions "go bad" after some time, which can add to inventory controls.

Excellent video, very high quality of both voice work, content and graphics. Subscribed :)

Y'all's vids are some of the most practical out there.

One of the side quests in my game was to find a source for the healing tubers for the Abbot. After finding said source the party went off the map and after a nat 20 Nature check found a larger patch of tubers. They're now an alternate souce of healing potions, the Abbot is a Rival now.

Nice homebrew bro, i like it

A suggestion for the 'success check': Profiency bonus! We have tool profs, so this would be a place where proficiency for the alchemist kit is finally useful. Or in my own experience, smith's tools. I'm playing an artificer with a smithing backstory, and going by RAW, crafting my own armor (which I would have done numerous times already during my lifetime) would take me an unreasonable amount of time. Even with the discount on crafting we get through level perks.

And what about fetching ingredients from anyother source?. 😼 Troll's blood is canonically used to make potions. 🧐 Maybe using different ingredients and a really good roll get some additional effects to the potion. 😳 Spended potions may gets a wildmagic's chart roll. 👺 And using too frequently potions gives you a level of poisoning, like in the Witcher. 🤯 Just in case you want down time to matter a lot more in your games. 🥳

This is the third of three excellent videos I have watched by you. Outstanding!! I subscribed.

- A work week is 5 days, not 7, so you could make a Supreme one in 20 days. - I don't think there are level requirements on Xanathar, or at the very least not for potion brewing. Bonus: It's stated in the book that a character needs an herbalism kit, but that multiple characters (who have the same proficiency) can speed up the process by working together, with the DM having the final call on how many people can work at the same time. In the PHB there are a list of services that you can hire, among them skilled hirelings, which are basically NPCs that work on something that requires proficiency (Including tools, such as the herbalism kit), with their base price being 2gp/day. I'm sure you can see where this is going: You can either go full production line or simply make batches at the time (If your DM argues that the potion needs to boil slowly or something like that). Now, as a DM, you can still shoot this down, and as a bonus get some nice plot hooks: Maybe said hirelings are skilled enough to help but not to do this on their own, so you need to stay close to them all the time (Unless you're willing to pay lots of extra for a particularly good one to take your place - And even then you better have a non-compete clause, or he may end up taking all the other hirelings from you); Maybe there are few skilled hireling herbalists nearby and they're already busy (Perhaps a quest could make them put helping you whenever you're in town as a priority - A rare ingredient to make a potion that can cure an even rarer condition that someone he loves has?); Maybe you managed to hire a lot of them, but you potions start to produce unexpected/weakened effects, as one of such hirelings is trying to sabotage you from the inside, but there are so many it's hard to pinpoint who (Is he jealous? Was he hired by an enemy? - Yay, internal intrigue!). You could also just greatly increase the prices of such hirelings, but tbh that feels like the most boring option IMO.

I worked up a system that makes several of the factors in potion creation variable based on the recipe. A randomly generated recipe may allow the creation of a very cheap potion that takes longer than usual to brew with a higher DC, or an quick and easy potion that requires something rare or difficult to obtain (like a beholder stalk eye, or a sunflower grown from holy water, or a gallon of rainwater collected in light of a full moon, or something similar). So interested PCs will constantly be hunting for a better formula (or create one themselves over the course of experimentation that will cost them almost as much as it would to buy a recipe from an alchemist). Currency doesn't need to be gold coins, after all.

i actually really like the idea of pointing being like wine that needs to age. you could end up with a much better balance between time spent and the actual payoff if there’s some kind of fermentation process that takes the same amount of time regardless of what quantity of potion you’re brewing. but that 1000 day brewing time suddenly makes a lot more sense if you can get an entire barrel out of it (maybe with periodic skill checks required to make sure the process has no ill effects or accidents) rather than just one measly potion. i could see it leading to some interesting narrative stuff too, since it would encourage the players to set up a home base and return to it regularly to check on their potion still :D

In the lore, healing potions are made from the blood of creatures with a regeneration like hydra or trolls, but the later tend to have side effects regarding the unstable nature of trolls. You could go on the fact that, given the space, you can craft more than one potion at a time, like crafting 10 basics potions at a time with a big cauldron.

I'm sorry but that "High Heals" sticky on the DM's Screen got me so good XD

This is an amazing idea, and I'm on my way to create a healing potion raw material magic item now. Thank you!

I absolutely love love love alchemy in history. I am really glad my DM put in Herbalism and Alchemy homebrew set it is comprehensive and has a large variety of herbs, potions, and poisons. Ill link it below highly recommend.

I use a modified version of Dael Kingsmill's alchemy system. You don't need to know the spell, just need to find the information and items and craft. But what you find is dependent on your survival/nature check

I incorporated aspects from Dragon Age Origins/TTRPG and Numenera for my home game D&D game... 1. Consumables have ingredients; so you need the ingredients to make it. 2. For a stronger version, you need materials to concentrate; you can either do this by giving them time too...or you can buy a concentrate formula. 3. Bottle your goods and go. Concentrated formulae can be brought at any Herbalist or General Goods Store with a steady supplier, however, I give the players the option that, if they take their time, they can roll 2d20's at the end for a chance to either create 2 bottles, or double a bottles effectiveness. My players have really enjoyed this, and I tied consumable crafting to the Survival & Nature Skills, so that makes the Rangers and Druid's feel more needed.

I'm gonna take the time to write this out and print out a small pamphlet explaining this in my new games from now on. keep up the amazing content

I'm remembering when I was running for an artificer, I basically gave them a rough guide on how much their abomination against the laws of psychics would cost, and the time frame, with making them do multiple rolls for various things. What this basically amounted to was it was rolls to save money and to save time, with the standard timeframe and cost I give them being the costs from screwing up as well, so if they rolled well, they saved money and time, because they didn't end up messing up something and needing it replaced. It is also, (entirely related) how I normally run artificers and crafting of items in general. Which is that I give a base cost, and time frame and then work from that.

I would love a link in the description to a pdf or article yall have made describing these rules. Wonderful art and narration btw. I'm officially fully subbed.

I love this. Crafting has always felt wrong in D&D. It is the one thing I hope they completely overall in the next version.

I personally have my own system for this, it involves something akin to the heal root, and all that, 25gp even for a normal healing potion, though higher tier potions require rarer ingredients. It takes a long rest to make a healing potion, no spell slots required, even a martial wants to make one they use their Con, which under 5e is the cooking stat based off the Chef feat, and instead of being magically made, it's based around survival or nature typically, and uses Cook's Utensils/Brewer's Supplies as well as Alchemist's Supplies or Herbalist's. When it comes to casters they can choose to do the nonmagical method, or a magical method, which uses their spellcasting modifier and uses either arcana/medicine/survival skill proficiency and Alchemist's Supplies/Herbalist's Kit. If you have both a tool proficiency and a skill proficiency you get advantage in the check, rewards redundancy as consistency. Finally there are two more smaller stipulations, Artificers are better at crafting and can craft 2 consumables at once with the materials of one, and Alchemist Artificers pay only 12.5gp in materials to make a potion. (This is specifically to buff Alchemists, since otherwise they are quite bad compared to other Artificers.) There are of course level restrictions as well for when you can craft potions, though there are magically enhanced tools and such that reduce level requirements, time spent, and such.

My rules is that items and potions require 4 steps. 1- item prep (container or make item for enchantment) 2- Focus (use of Sigils, spell script or circles to channel magic) 3- catylyst (a special ingredient or material like residuum to spark the enchantment) 4- Time (the more powerful an item is the more magic it needs to intake: every long rest spend time to focus more magic to complete item) For my players it allows them to make items as they please and requires them to take the effort in buying or harvesting materials like dragons blood for a protection orb or the ashes of a fire elemental for a flame sword

Our DM was generous in the last game and allowed a nature check to find the ingredients, then a medicine check to use them over a long rest, with the success level for nature determining how many ingredients if any are found, and the medicine if it works, fails or makes something even stronger. It worked well since none of us wantedto sell the potions.

in my game I've also introduced a homebrew item: "Cure Wounds Concentrate". Allows players with Alchemy tools start brewing without needing the spell right away.

Thank you, this is a great jumping off point! Currently trying to add crafting into a campaign, but there's so little information out there

I always figured that healing potion strength is basically just healing per volume and the process of making stronger potions is basically just distilling and condensing the potions slowly, so that you can stop at any time with the brewing and have the potions strength be dependent on the time you spent. so using the updated values from xanathar's if you start off brewing a greater healing potion but have to stop before the time finishes, instead of losing it all you could just take 4 common potions. (i usually base the amount off of the gold spent on materials.) as someone else said as well most crafting or brewing is rarely done for singular items, but for batches. so the time frames instead of creating one potion could be for 5 potions, giving more incentive to wait around for the potions to brew. I also see some crafting as "non active" crafting this is basically points in the crafting process that don't really require a person for the crafting to continue, like potions boiling/fermenting. this means that after all of the active parts are done, such as mixing ingredients and casting the spell, your character is free to do other things, including starting another batch of potions. this ups the amount of potions that can be made in the time limit while still making health potions seem like a special resource that needs to be used wisely rather than as a replacement healing spell (which is what they become when crafting is easier).

I love this channel and can't wait to use this mechanic

I think it's worth noting that Xanathar's time tables uses work weeks, which is 5 8 hour days. Obviously, a day's work is just 8 hours. This leaves you with weekends off, as well as another 8 hours of the day to spend. And if you don't need to sleep, you have another 8 hours in a day to play with. Playing with having time like this can increase what your characters can accomplish. I also run "travel days" where you spend 8 hours walking, 8 hours relaxing and/or setting up camp, and then actually resting for 8 hours. Of course, you can force march, and each hour of extra travel requires an increasingly difficult con check. Or was it save? I don't remember, but it's how travel officially works in dnd. Go to the library and do some research, then head home and work the forge. A light activity pairs nicely with a heavy one. Maybe require a certain con score to do 2 heavy activities per day, like if you have 15 con you can be a blacksmith for 16 hours a day instead of 8. This is getting long, but if you still find crafting to be taking too long, you can borrow my simple homebrew rule: Crafting time is based on proficiency level. The base times listed are for a proficiency of 2. So at level 5 when your proficiency bonus becomes 3, you can make 50% more progress a day. Proficiency bonus of 4? You've literally doubled your work output. 1 minor healing potion per day? Nah, if you've got the materials, you've mastered the art of getting two of those bad boys out in a day. This simple change also adds value to picking up expertise in tools. Some classes get them. Rune Knights with a fire rune have expertise in all tools. In Tasha's cauldron of everything, under the patrons section, members of a crafting guild get to use guild facilities for crafting and receive expertise while using the guild's tools and facilities as a perk of that patron. Expertise doubles your proficiency, so a level 1 character would be producing twice the listed amount per day. You still need to pay for materials or find them, so I don't think it gets too out of hand.

I think it would also be helpful, especially in this case, that if you're going to have long brewing times for potions that you can make big batches and that you only need to check on them for like an hour a day - kinda like how traditional soy sauce in Japan takes years to make, but it's made in huge vats and one guy can tend like 100 of them if he's working full time.

I have a campaign I'm making where foraging and hunting monsters for materials is high key used to make magic items. Looking at spells for materials is a good way to look for materials

This video is a great way to craft potions. Combine this with the components listed in the AD&D DMG I think it would be perfect

As someone who played an alchemist artificer I think the linking of king rest with crafting is a good idea. However, for anyone looking to make a more dynamic crafting system you’ll want to probably get what resources you need to make potions other then healing, as well as the accessibility of them. Or at least that was the biggest problem I faced when I was playing a class heavily focussed on potions in a game that wasn’t really prepared for it.

Falling in love with the content one awesome video at a time.

Not sure if this was mentioned but another complication you can give plaver with needed to get the heal root is that in a feudal system the king or local lord owned land and what was on it like the animals and trees. So if they stared using survival checks to find the heal root the local authorities may come after then to fine or stock or dungeon or execution depending on the local laws or wims of the lord.

For those who consume potions en mass, here's a variation to the new rules provided in the video: On a long rest make an arcana check (DC:12 for normal healing potions) on a failure, the ingredient is destroyed and you have to stop making potions for the night. On a success, the ingredient is consumed, the bottle is filled, and you can make another arcana check for the next potion, given that you have the ingredients and bottle space. You make the check with advantage if you are proficient in the tools that you are using (alchemist's OR brewer's supplies). I also recommend removing the cure wounds and spell slot requirement, because if you're crafting healing potions that usually means you don't have a designated healer in the first place. Tip for DMs, the easiest way to limit this system is by controlling the amount of bottles the players have access to. Classic Zelda game style. For lore reasons, say potions are super acidic or something and you need strong enameled glass to contain them. You can also take a page from some classic mods and introduce the bottle, jar, flask system. Bottles are the default and get one potion charge when the potion is crafted. Jars are rare, but you can usually find one or two in a lvl 3-10 party. Jars store two charges of a potion when it's crafted, meaning you can drink from it twice, but it only costs one ingredient to craft. Flasks are even rarer, showing up at ~lvl 15 give or take a few levels. Flasks hold 3 charges per potion crafted. For ingredients, I recommend using something similar to xanathar's normal magic item crafting rules, and let the players hunt down monsters for parts. Ingredients for basic healing potions should be found on specific (DM's choice) monsters of CR 1-3. Upon defeat, the players can try to harvest the materials with 3 survival checks (~DC 10+CR). for each success, they get ~1d4+CR materials. These are all suggestions, and are meant more to inspire than to dictate

Based on the reading from Xanathar’s, because it’s downtime system is meant to be an alternative to the earlier posted method; one no longer requires a similar spell that causes a like effect for crafting magical items, especially health potions. The heading states that health potions and scrolls are “exceptions to the following rules. See the appropriate section…” Scrolling through the following rules to the appropriate section, it states one only needs herbalism kit proficiency and here’s the chart for relevant info. Now, scrolls require that one knows the spell as it specifically calls out that the spell must be among those that are prepared or known (for those that don’t prepare spells), and Arcana is required as a proficiency.

I DM'd the Alexandrians Waterdeep: Dragon Heist campaign recently, and had a player who was a Cleric who previously owned a Tavern so he knew how to brew alcohol. We made a system that ended up very similar to the homebrew rules in this video, having him spend a long rest, spell slots and a small amount of gold (i think it was 25gp/spell level) to make what we decided were Ales/Beers/Ciders of healing. I didn't offset the chance for him to make dozens of them in downtime while other members were scoping out the villains lairs, but we did decide that to offset players just having so many available and chugging them, was that if a player drank a 2nd Ale/Beer/Cider in a 1 hour time period, they'd need to make a constitution save or get levels of drunkenness (basically, disadvantage on more 'dextrous' checks, or con saves later to stave off levels of exhaustion). It worked pretty well as a way for the players to know they could recover their HP easily, but might have a cost if their players drank too much in a single battle. Gave some fun flavour for him to explain how his drinks tasted too.

I just got a new player that wants to learn alchemy so this homebrew system to brew potions comes real handy rn

That's a pretty great potion crafting framework you have there. I absolutely *despise* 5e's current "crafting" system. I'm currently planning on a switch to PF2e, so I'll be seeing what they think crafting is about, but I still might bring that framework with me.

I recently made a scout rogue with the hermit background (tabaxi if anyone wants that context) and they have skills in the herbalism kit because of the background. With their high survival proficiency (expertise from subclass), nature proficiency (expertise from subclass), and medicine proficiency (normal expertise) I am often able to talk my dm down to vastly lowering the difficulty, time, and expense of my healing potions. Since our cleric is strength based and is the front liner in battles, it’s preferred that I use the healing potions as much as possible so they can conserve spells. For our small party is just me, the scout rogue, a wizard, and the previously mentioned cleric. Since I’m more evasive and less likely to be able to be hit (gotta love that bonus disengage) I can get in and out fast for heals with potions. Oh and it should be noted, for those wondering, my dm specifically waves the cure wounds spell as it seems redundant for making potions if you have access to this. Also we started at lvl 10 so I never needed to worry over that. Just so long as I had access to medicinal plants and with the expertise I had, the dm ruled that I could easily find plants and animals that would replace the need for the spell itself. And with my experience and expertise would easily craft these at least.

I'm trying this out alongside the Gritty Realism variant rule for the campaign I'm running. It makes health potions very accessible and reduces the difficulty of Gritty Realism.

We used to force downtime by requiring "training time" to gain level. And we allowed only class appropriate PCs to craft potions. Healing was clerics, invisibility was wizard for example. What keeps PCs from crafting is cramming all the adventures into a sequence with no significant downtime. The Hobbit (while written after LotR) occurred 60 years before LoTr. And The Hobbit took right at 1 year. (but only had a few days described) DMs not noting "you take 6 months to make this journey" are short changing the players.

NGL I had no idea my ranger needed to know cure wounds, I thought it was just a material component. I'll be sure to start doing it better now. Thanks :)

would love to see more options for long rest activities!

Thank you! I wondered how to logically make some and what would be needed according to the DMG and PHB. I really like your Crafting logic and ideas. I am going to allow my players to do this.😊

Herbalism/Alchemist kits to collect and/or craft potions. Brewing doesn't need to take more than a few short rests, assuming you have a static space to set up a "lab." DM Binder has some info on this, but we should all probably homebrew our own.

6:39 what I like to do is the following; make it where abusing said item you'll build up a tolerance to it, or get addicted such as painkillers. Then with method 2; keep things needing more resources for stronger healing potions, AND requiring rolls instead, having it where the smarter the character is the less time it takes, also making it where better equipment to make said potions would decrease time, and cost. By giving different methods to approach the same concept whether realistically or not; it adds more depth, and allows for better plays.

I have been using crafting rules that are a mix of DMG and XGtE. Crafting items require knowledge on how to make the items, materials they are made of, and costs half their market value. For nonmagical items, it is done at 10 gp increments per a day til you equal up to the total cost you paid for. Magic items is the same but at 25 gp daily increments. Consumables are half cost and half the times, and having others help aid you is dividing up the work. The idea of using long rests to craft items is a pretty great idea as it does make sense and gives my players something to do during adventures. Especially potion making.

I actually ran something very similar to your suggestion (down to even calling the item needed a heal root), with some differences. I had a player who took the cooking tool proficiency, and I didn't want them to feel like they wasted it, so I let them create "potion pastries" as something you can do with cooking tools. Each pastry required one "main" item and miscellaneous herb. For healing potions, the main item was the heal root, but other potion pastries could be made with rarer items. The party could take 2 hours to forage for items, and I'd allow them to roll on a table of items. Players with proficiency in survival were allowed to roll on the table a number of times up to their survival modifier/2. When cooking the pastry during a long rest, the player rolled for the pastry's potency (x.05, x1, or x2 modifier) and for how long the pastry would keep. (1d6 * 8 hours). The latter prevented them from making a bunch of potions and never having to worry about healing, and it made each potion a lot more personal having to do this little mini game to make them.

That was actually very good video. Gracias.

If you know the lore about the ancient elven spell weaving. You can place up to 100 items in a single spell when creating a magic item. If you can catch and cage a troll. You can draw out as much regenerating troll blood as you need. One down side to this. The trolls blood will cause the consumer to appear more troll like in appearance. If you fill 100 potion bottles and place them in a transmutation circle. The player can attempt to magically alter the base material of the potion. Essentially changing DNA via magic. What ever 100 empty bottles cost, a quest to capture a young troll, endless pleaser from repeatedly stabbing the troll over and over and over until you have what you need. Some time to practice this method of spell weaving, and a willing test subject to test the potion. It’s almost free. But we should limit them from drinking 100 health potions a day. It can’t be that good for you. So let’s say the potions are bigger when they heal more. If we say you can drink up to one or two superior potions of healing a day. You must take a short or long rest before you can drink another one or two superior healing potions. This way the players can mix and match the potions as they need them and when they have them. If you follow the weight system. The players won’t be able to carry that many potions. This means they will have to leave many of them behind at home base. Weaving that type of magic should cost a spell slot per strength of the potion. And should take no less than eight hours. This works on many items and spells. But transmutation circles are not always fit for the job. Only when you are trying to mess with the bass code of DNA or other material. There are other types of magic circles for different types of spell weaving. Enjoy and happy crafting!

Tools (plus a place to brew) + ingredients + knowledge of how to. With this i let my player do a batch brew of healing potions over the coarse of 3 days after attaining the above i had them spend time while doing a small skill adventure tools, medicine and luck checks ( i have them roll a D100 for lols) against a set DC to keep the brew good each major sucess 18+ roll during this time gave a plus 1 to the final D10 roll to see how many good potions came from the batch. Crits added an additional potion of the next level up from the brew in the end they spent the 3 days and a little skill challenge to monitor and stir the brew ending up with 4 greater healling potions and 6 basic.

0:13 Is that you, Sokka? What are you doing here?! 😂

Another homebrew you can try, one that causes more NPC roleplay options. Since a 'Hero' is expected to have many talents and skills, the crafting rules stay mostly the same. However, Expert NPC's are able to craft much faster and cheaper as they have spent their whole lives perfecting their art. Now your PC's can make work orders with an Expert to have batches of potions made, or even a magic item crafted (once they finish doing a job or two in the mean time), still making crafting a feature, if used more remotely.

I created my own potion creation system, I nabbed the idea from Mystical Agriculture, a minecraft mod. Basically 8 ingredients are required to make any potion and the ingredients can either be bought in shops or grown or found in nature.

i find it fun to use minigames for activities like this. maybe something like having to solve a water cup puzzle, or make something up on the spot like "ok if you hit the dartboard you get a potion, closer it is to the middle the stronger it is"

An option would also be to allow bulk production (Increasing the material cost, but keeping the time-effort) and/or not making the work effort to be continuous. At least if an base / alchemy station is available. The brew simply needs to age or ferment before it can be processed further. Maybe making it a triangle balance, where increasing the cost will reduce time and level requirements (Buying more refined material), increasing time will reduce price (Forging for material), or a more skilled/higher level hero can make them cheaper or quicker (Maybe by sacrificing higher-level spellslots. This can still be combined with skill-checks to modify the result further. This seems to be a nice option for longer running campaigns, when the group has access to a base.

As a dm another thing I do is if you have an alchemist or someone who's proficient in herbalism they can make more then one of the item at a time. Alchemist can make a significantly more with the right equipment and a set up. This also means they need to have a work shop to work from. But using things like a cauldron to make larger batches would be withing such a chars skill set.

Great video!! Thanks for posting!!

So I've always wondered about potion making in dnd but my dm and I have been working together on how to obtain ingredients for items for potions, but I brew mead in my off time so what we do is get the effects of the potion in question and base off its properties we look at healing benefits of plants online and put them together and let the items ferment in water and cast a spell inside of the solution and for greater effects let the potion ferment longer but you can have it ferment on a utility belt that way if you do need it that's not more potent you can still use it allowing the player utilize the potion but with more patience and dedication it can be a stronger potion

love the advice thanks i may incorporate a bit if some of my players want to try and make their own. what i ended up doing for my players that decided not to run with anyone doing a cleric or healer, is i made basic potions rather cheap as in 10 gold a pop and even gave each party member a set of 5 when they joined the adventurers guild. But i added the stipulation that due to the divine nature of the potions no person can have on them more then 5 for any length of time and if they do then all healing potions they have will loose potency. also the dungeons in my campaign are divine in nature and have wellsprings of natural healing potion base liquid on various levels, and the adventuring guild pays well for people to go delving with special jugs to carry out some of this base liquid which can be distilled into potions for sale. fun note i havn't told my players yet a filled jug attracts monsters , hehe still waiting for one to try and undercut the guild without asking why only the guild makes these potions. i also plan on them having access to the ability to make/aquire higher lvl potions when their lvl is higher, possibly making it to where the potion draws energy from the player holding it and if made from a suitably higher lvl base liquid it will be made into a higher lvl potion. with the further stipulation that the potion cannot exceed the players lvl and if it does it will begin to degrade.

from a DM stand point I like using the crafting rules in the dmg/xan as a guide for how often shops in town restock and how much they should charge for items that they might make in house. I've used this to generate quests for players who want things crafted faster. Some player becomes reliant on the healing potions sold at the healers house, but oh NO suddenly they've been having trouble getting some basic ingredient and they need someone to investigate why this is happening.

Playing my Warlock, I found that scroll crafting really helped with my limited spell slots. I could make scrolls for my non-scaling early spells that were useful but not worth a 5th level, pact slot. Unfortunately, making anything above a 1st level spell required some serious time investments. I had a few 2nd level prepared, but those took 3 days each to make. After that, I'd need a week of downtime for 3rd level, and beyond that, it was just unreasonable. I almost never had time for anything but 1st level, and even that needed at least opportunities to arise. I wouldn't mind if the cost became harder to meet with special ingredients, if I could just make them during long rests. But yeah, if anyone is planning to play a Warlock anytime soon, I highly recommend grabbing that Arcana proficiency so you can craft scrolls. Being able to drop a 1-hour Hex without using a spell slot leaves them open for more game-changing, impactful spells should the fight call for it.

I use almost the same mechanics. Players can craft common item during short rest. (but the healing ingredients is some rare herb) if you miss the DC you still make an unstable potion ( heal 1D8 + nothing) unless you make a critical fail. They have also found an arena with rare fruits that work like a healing potion but rot quickly after being picked up (12 to 24h)

Potion crafting is a really underrated tool in DnD. I have a work in progress Homebrew world and crafting of all kinds, from potions to enchanted items, is a BIG part of it. Item enchanting can be VERY powerful, so it has certain restrictions that aren't important since I'm talking about potions. Alchemy in my world is complicated, requires specialized ingredients, and requires specialized tools. At the very basic level, you could make Potions of Healing, or Lesser Potions of Healing which heal very little, and are more likely to be what happens when you screw up a better potion's creation. Even those can be useful though in an emergency. 1D4 of healing is enough to get someone up from unconscious at the very least. At the most basic level, you could make a potion of healing over a long rest, with a skill check due to the very simple equipment you're working with. This DC may disappear eventually as you level and just get really really good at it. There is no DC if you're in a dedicated workshop using the good equipment, though you are still limited by your ingredients, so you can't just say "I make 300 healing potions, alright let's go." You COULD make that many, but you would need a whole ass adventure to collect THAT many ingredients. Which it's the player's choice to go on that adventure just for unlimited basic healing potions. Bringing all of them with you would certainly be a trial, even with a bag of holding. Setting that aside, potions of all types are priced with Ingredients, equipment, and labor. If you have the equipment and labor, potions will be MUCH cheaper to make, until the ingredients get REALLY exotic for the stronger stuff. However you need to be trained in alchemy, otherwise this stuff is mostly useless. So buying potions from people is much more expensive cause, hey, can YOU do it? No. 100 gold pieces then, or piss off. Just with healing potions you can add more complexity to it, if you have a cleric that can cast cure wounds, by adding a skill check you can improve the basic potions a bit so they heal a little more. So Enhanced Potions of Healing more or less. Instead of 2D4 plus 2, maybe they heal 2D4 plus 5 or so. Or you could say it's plus 2 per spell level. So a first level cure wounds would make it heal 2D4 plus 4. You can also cap how much magic a basic potion could handle, so say limiting it to second level, so you can only get a 2D4 plus 6, which is very good, but doesn't tip too much so long as you need to dedicate time to it. The REALLY fun part though, is with OTHER potions. With rarer ingredients, such as MONSTER PARTS, you can make some really interesting things. Say you come across a basilisk eye at a market? You can concoct a potion of stone curing, so if someone gets petrified you can splash this potion on them and turn them back to normal. Because this potion is really hard to make (there's more than one ingredient, the basilisk eye is just the most important one) you only have one, but it could be really valuable. You could also use more common ingredients and make a potion of fire breathing that lets you deal say, 4D4 fire damage for like, a minute. What if, you kill a Red Dragon? You can harvest it and make a potion of Red Dragon's Breath, letting you actually use that dragon's breath attack. Let's say you manage to slay an ADULT red dragon, then you harvest the organ that handles its breath attack, and from it you manage to make one of these potions, and it lets you use its breath attack one time, dealing 18D6 points of fire damage in a large cone! Now THAT is a satisfying reward that still requires some work to achieve due to how strong it is. You can also only make ONE for each dragon you fell because it requires an organ each dragon only has one of, not something like dragon blood or a tooth, that would be OP. Dragon blood CAN be used for, say, better healing potions? Alchemy can be SO interesting and fun to explore in a campaign if the DM is willing to put in the work to thinking of what parts of which monsters can be used to make what potions. Of course you can make things up on the fly, though you could always say "Hm, maybe this part can be used to make something. You will need to do some research on that, but it can't hurt to take it just in case." Then you have time to think about it, which is probably what you should go with. You don't want to accidentally make a part too powerful AND plentiful so now they have 30 invisibility potions.

I like to steal a little bit of ruling from 3.5! They have a system that will allow you to craft a bonus amount of gold worth per day with said forge, alchemy station etc. Also there are magical forge, alchemy stations etc that will have certain spells inbued into them. example being a legendary alchemy work shop with a station that has cure wounds imbued into the cauldron that can also produce 50gp worth of progress a day.

My potion crafting system is based on creature types: all monsters are put into potion groups and drop ingredients. You can use any ingredient from certain groups to make potions you want. The cool part about the system I use is that they can have cool side effects, like breathing bubbles for 1d4+1 hours. (there is more to it like needing proficiencies and tools)

Another nice addition to that homebrew ruleset might be to give players the choice between updating their prepared spell list and producing consumables - With the excuse being that you can either use that 2 hours of downtime to do one or the other. This makes for a strategic cost in the game, where players might ideally want to swap out their spells for the upcoming situation, but instead feel the pressure in the party to provide extra healing instead.

This is a beautiful idea thank you so much I’m definitely going to use this In my campaign!!!!

1. Players could buy or build a Guildhall of some description and hire 5 skilled Hirelings. Each could do different things (one of which is brewing), or they could all do the same thing, which would speed up the production of healing potions, or a combination of different activities. 2. Use the cost of Crafting a Magic Item table (half the cost maybe for potion brewers) for the cost of hiring the required Hireling. 3. It gets even better. As a Life Cleric at 1st level you can boost your healing spell by 2+Spell Level. So a 1st Level Cure Wounds spell would be 2d4+5 instead of 2d4+2 4. Use batch brewing rules. 5. Come up with a system of transportation from the Hirelings to the players for endless healing potions without the need for them to go to the shops. By my math just 1 3rd Level Cleric in 20 work days on average could brew 120 healing potions. Costing about 3000 gp. Healing ~1560-840 damage.

In most of my Plays, the GM always said a consumable craft is from 1h to 1 day depending the quality, some ingredients found in nature and need proper equipment to make ( Alchemist table for a potion for exemple ). It makes the crafting of potions fun to make and the journey in a forest is not just a dice Roll for encounter but also an opportunity to find some rare materials hard to find on the village market

I'm about to introduce a homebrew I've been working on for years using an elemental magic system centered around gems and the players being able to craft any type of item if they can sort out the necessary magical components, but everytime I look up crafting it's clunky and frustrating. I appreciate this alternative. I think I can adapt this easily into the game too

I usually use a mix of willow tree bark and the blood or flesh of any creature that has a kind of accelerated healing ability or regeneration. Troll's blood, most commonly.

This video came at the perfect time. I've been working on a crafting system, especially with potions, and while I have a lot of ideas for the material process (basically, the players will need to combine ingredients related to the potion they want to make and then use a specific magical catalyst to finish it off, allowing me as the DM to more easily control the amount of potions that can be crafted), I didn't know how to approach the whole time issue. With this though, I can use some of y'all's rules to build a system that works really well for my world and setting. Thanks?!

One difference I make with brewing vs time used is allowing multiple amounts of the potion to brewed simultaneously - basically if they want to brew out in the wild and they only have a pot it's not going to be very time efficient as they can only brew one potion at a time. If they haul around a cauldron the can brew up to three potions (or a stronger potion that can boil down to make it more potent) at the same time making it better time wise but someone has to carry the damn cauldron around (or wear it as a helmet..... don't ask) Best use of this was fining a brewery that had a vat they weren't using as all the ale had been kegged and was fermenting at the time and they hire the use of the vat for a period of time, brewed up a shit load and sold most of it - this helped to account for the potions found in the wild or in stores and also gave the brewery a use for downtimes that helped that business diversify making the world that little bit richer.