I've been working on a version of this for a Alchemist class (as well as subclasses for Wizard/Sorc/etc). I went for simple a system that so far I haven't had to many people test... I could compare differences, but that's probably a bit much for a comment. ^^
I agree. It also makes the most sense as understanding the alchemical properties of gathered reagents feels much more Int based than a survival check that's typically used to find food
@@TheDungeonCoach The way I differentiate survival and nature is that survival is living in nature without dying whilst nature is knowing about nature. A survival check could be used to find food or track prey whilst a nature check could tell you if that mushroom is the poisonous or magic kind.
Coach, just a thought, but this could be applied to crafting magic items as well. Less herbs and reagents and more exotic ingredients like the rib bone of a satyr, the hair off a unicorn's mane, etc...
Thank you! I really loved the direction of the content... That said, "regent" was an [OCD] immersion-breaker for me. Best-practice: Google the pronunciation of the words that come up +20 times per video.
Im writing a campaign currently with survival and crafting elements to it, at least for the first chapter. This video was really helpful, I came to similar conclusions about having variable DCs for making different potions, making it easier to create a specific potion once you make it successfully. I was mostly going to use things that are also edible as the players will have to gather food to survive but I really like the idea of specific ingredients having vaguely defined properties and letting players experiment.
Great video, Coach! That DC system is something I may borrow from, honestly. It's a great idea. Videos like this really get the gears turning in my head lol. A fun method I've set up for my own Potions/Enchanting system is to have some ingredients for Potions and materials for Enchantments/Gear be exclusive as loot from big monsters, or exclusive to different Planes when the players get to higher Levels. This can encourage the players to get out and explore the world, and you can reward them with more powerful stuff that'll be harder to come by, so they can't make a ton of the same thing. An example I've done is after my players took down an Adult Black Dragon, they looted it for everything they could take. A potion brewed by adding it's heart and some of it's blood and scales created a strange, eerie green potion that, when drank, altered the Wizard's body. Due to the fact that the ingredients were super fresh, the change was permanent. This made her skin and bones a bit tougher, but didn't change her appearance much. It did, however, result in her gaining a permanent Natural Armor feature, making her AC 14+ her Dexterity Modifier while unarmored, saving her a Spell Slot usually used on Mage Armor, as well as a resistance to Acid Damage.
Amazing. Start to home brewing a potion of these system into my game. As natural one I would say something like "you found herbs but not ingredients becouse something big step on the plants and nothing can be recover" Beside from one plant you can take a leaf to one potion, petal to other, and stalk to the third
I always love your stuff whether I use it or not it's inspiring! The way I do mine is a recipe for a particular potion has x amount of ingredients and a DC check based on terrain types. If they succeed they make the potion. And then they get to add their wisdom modifier to the role if they succeed the potions crafted if they fail they can pick a few of the ingredients to keep. If they critically fail everything's ruined. I know it's a simplified version but I'm just trying to steer clear of a whole mini game.
This has been awesome. this brought to my attention as well there's the possibility of using a decay system for ingredients, you want them fresh or they're less affective/completely ineffectual. This would lead to the ability to preserve and even refine the ingredients. Maybe the snapdragon petals only last for X amount of time but with the herbalism kit they can be dried into a tea like state for preservation and ground into a powder afterwards to make them more potent.
Love it! You are very creative! Combine these potions with a homemade bottle of resin & colouring... And you have yourself a cool potion to roll your dice in for the effects of these potions. Love to make hands on props for my game. These potion ideas you shared are great for my homebrew ideas and dice bottle rollers. Thank you!
After gathering, each reagant requires a certain type of preparation in order to be potent. Some require drying, possibly powdering afterwards. Maybe they are put in alcohol or oil to keep their properties. Of course, some items can only be used fresh or might require a spell to prepare them.
This is neat. I have a system for creating spells and magic items (nothing this detailed). You have to be of a level commensurate with the spell level/power of the item. You make two checks, with a DC, cost, and time dependent on the level/power. The first is to get the right materials, ingredients, and process. The second is to get the process and balance of ingredients just right. If you fail a check, you can get a minor or (on a 1) major wild magic effect and possibly even a cursed item. Even if you succeed, you still get a minor wild magic effect. This makes it easier to make the same item again (only one check) but keeps people from creating mass production. And my wild magic effects are such that you want to perform them under a full moon to limit them, away from town. This is magic, not chemistry!
There is a Kickstarter called Helianas Guide to Monster Hunting very similar to this but with monsters, it is worth a look lol. I run a 1on1 campaign that can really use this and am cant wait to get it. Got a question how would you use monster parts in potions and magic items?
@@TheDungeonCoach Lol. Sorry Coach, just thought you'd like to know. Yes, words ARE hard. I spent years mispronouncing words because I only read them and never heard them spoken.
Fyi: for extraction of odors in modern day perfume making, there are multiple ways. If we split up quality of flowers in 4, broken, common, rare and epic (or 5 for the legendaries) and accept that a normal dandelion is common or broken, but a dandelion on a meadow on a full moon is rare, whereas one collected on a solar eclipse is rare, and for those extremely lucky, a planet is in equinox (be straight lined with sun, earth, planet) makes the dandelions legendary, adding a d4, 2d4 and a d12 respectively 1 cold fat extrusion: layer pure fat with flowers for 8-12-24h, remove flower heads, put on new ones, repeat for 14 days and you get dandilion infused fat, for use in potionmaking. (Expensive, timeconsuming and obv the best for quality, less so for quantity) Hot extrusion, put all in a flask of solvant, be it water or alcohol. (Quantity/quality, medium time consuming Crushing, quick and reduces quality in MOST cases. Some do obv require careful crushing preperations Oh yeah and dwarfs, elves, tabaxi or humans have different metabolisms. Whats a poison for one race (humans might die from nightshade, elves revvel in it giving a druglike effect, dwarves feel it healing) but tabaxi die from rocksalt etc.... Have fun i guess,
Literally run with it, heh. I would not like to be in a game where the wizard spent half an hour with you experimenting with potions while the rest of us waited.
The thing about WOTC potions is that they're just bottled spells. Nobody feels the need to use them since you can just cast a spell for the same effect. I want potions that are unique from spells.
In Xanathar's, it explains when you're proficient with an herbalism kit, you're adept at gathering materials. I feel like it would suck to be really good at MAKING potions but an idiot when it comes to finding the right materials. I feel like the 2 should go hand in hand. But it doesn't mean you're good at finding EVERYTHING. Just ingredients for herbalism specifically. Like how people with proficiency in smith's tools can spot metal veins in mines or leatherworkers proficiency means you can identify where leathers came from and how to skillfully cut leather and tan it. The more my players use their tools the more bonus I give them. If it's a character that spend the majority of their downtime crafting, they should be rewarded for making that choice, same with other tool proficiencies
How is it that we are usually so in sync?!?! I have developed almost the same system independently for use at my table. I called my reagents catalysts because they are non-magical items that help you craft any magic item, not just potions. The catalysts each have 1 or 2 aspects of magic that they provide and to craft any magic item, you need specific aspects from these catalysts.
Maybe on a nat 1 of the gather check they get poisoned for a while. They gathered poison ivy or somthing. And whether they used it or not, they will be feeling side affects
Hey :) I've been using this system in my DnD campaign and it's been really fun but I did have one question, I feel like there is a missing step of "what they find" the PC rolls for how much of a reagent they find but outside of specifically looking, for one thing, how do you decide on what to give them? I've just been picking things randomly off the biome table that make sense or making them roll and then picking herbs off the list in increasing rarity. I guess I'm asking if am I missing something. or is there an already-made solution for this? ( I know this is a old vid but i have hope)
I got you! The doc leaves it up to the GM You're doing it as intended, but it could have certainly been more explicit in that matter. The biome table was intended to give GMs a list of 2-5 reagents (some common, some uncommon in that region) to pick from Unique reagents are up to the GM to use and/or include at their own discretion for unique effects and gating the rarity of certain concoctions like "lycan's bane" to cure lycanthropy. The system leaves those sorts of effects up to the GM to include or not so that we don't step on their worldbuilding toes
This may be a foolish question but why is there no mention of using the Herbalism tool for a check to gather herbs? Xanathar's even lists a check (DC 15) for "finding plants."
Suggestion: half a long rest is the normal DCs listed. Half time increases the DC by 5. Multiple times, too, down to a short rest. So 1-5 is finding nothing in 4 hours, 1-10 is finding nothing if you only take 2 hours, 1-15 for 1 hour. Edit: I heard long rest at first, not half, so i fixed the numbers
You can have a bad potion forcibly, take an action or reaction away depending on a die the DM rolls for them to vomit Yak up the bad mixture they made If they fail the DC by a close number, they could still get the effect, but also suffer the penalty of the forced retching
I'm an alchemist potions maker. If my dm pushed this on me I would have a heart attack. Either I brewed the potion I needed or I didn't. That's all the time I want to spend on that.
You could also have each success reduce the DC by 1 and each failure that is within 5 of the DC also reduce it by 1. That way if they fail, but were close, they are able to learn from it. But if they roll too low it just fails and they have no idea why.
I know there's a "4 against Darkness" expansion with how to make potions, alchemy in general, including some sexy stuff like seducing (!?)... might be interesting to take a look at, maybe that too is somehow compatible with whatever game
I like it but I have a few things to add. In my world, natural ingredients are perishable, so they lose potency with age. Also, because some geographic areas exude more magical power than others, the living and non living ingredients that can be found in these areas are more or less potent than in other areas. NPCs and monsters know this and act accordingly to control access, etc. There are also special containers, harvesting methods, etc. that can be used to preserve the potency. There are likewise techniques to concentrate the potency. These have to be purchased, created and learned from a teacher. Some teachers are better than others. All teachers have their strengths and weaknesses. Unique to my world, the type of magic depends on geography of birth so that extends to magic users as well as the type and potency of their spells and potions. The closer to their birthplace the stronger, the further from their birthplace the weaker. Some powerful potions require ingredients from several locations. All these complications make potion creation an art, a science and a valued skill. Once learned, such individuals are in high demand so it is worth the effort for PCs to invest the time and effort to learn. That’s key. Because if there isn’t a big payoff to the PCs for learning, then they will find your rules burdensome and not fun.
Sounds like you played Elder's Scrolls. If you want the real stuff try Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer - there you can make basic potions from basic reagants and then mix the potions for layered potions and then mix those into white potions and finally the african-american potions.
Warning: DC PLAYBOOK VOL 10: POTION CRAFTING uses REAL plant names. After purchasing and integrating it into my home brew campaign, I eventually took some 'flack' that the *real* homeopathic uses of herbs like Sanguinaria have nothing even close to their use in the guide. In the updated form of the campaign content I've taken to changing all of the plants in this playbook to have fictitious names.
I brew beer IRL. Almost every time I tell other nerds that I homebrew, I’ve got to explain that I _don’t_ mean D&D! 😂
I've been working on a version of this for a Alchemist class (as well as subclasses for Wizard/Sorc/etc). I went for simple a system that so far I haven't had to many people test... I could compare differences, but that's probably a bit much for a comment. ^^
Very cool! Yea that would be a MASSIVE comment :P
So, I would make gathering a nature check because god knows it never gets used.
I agree. It also makes the most sense as understanding the alchemical properties of gathered reagents feels much more Int based than a survival check that's typically used to find food
Absolutely
would totally sign off on that
@@TheDungeonCoach The way I differentiate survival and nature is that survival is living in nature without dying whilst nature is knowing about nature. A survival check could be used to find food or track prey whilst a nature check could tell you if that mushroom is the poisonous or magic kind.
You're really taking this home-BREW thing seriously, aren't you? 😁
Coach, just a thought, but this could be applied to crafting magic items as well. Less herbs and reagents and more exotic ingredients like the rib bone of a satyr, the hair off a unicorn's mane, etc...
Regent is the head of a university; re-agent is an ingredient used in a formula.
Or you could cast Locate Animals or Plants...
Thank you! I really loved the direction of the content... That said, "regent" was an [OCD] immersion-breaker for me. Best-practice: Google the pronunciation of the words that come up +20 times per video.
Im writing a campaign currently with survival and crafting elements to it, at least for the first chapter. This video was really helpful, I came to similar conclusions about having variable DCs for making different potions, making it easier to create a specific potion once you make it successfully. I was mostly going to use things that are also edible as the players will have to gather food to survive but I really like the idea of specific ingredients having vaguely defined properties and letting players experiment.
Great video, Coach! That DC system is something I may borrow from, honestly. It's a great idea. Videos like this really get the gears turning in my head lol.
A fun method I've set up for my own Potions/Enchanting system is to have some ingredients for Potions and materials for Enchantments/Gear be exclusive as loot from big monsters, or exclusive to different Planes when the players get to higher Levels. This can encourage the players to get out and explore the world, and you can reward them with more powerful stuff that'll be harder to come by, so they can't make a ton of the same thing.
An example I've done is after my players took down an Adult Black Dragon, they looted it for everything they could take. A potion brewed by adding it's heart and some of it's blood and scales created a strange, eerie green potion that, when drank, altered the Wizard's body. Due to the fact that the ingredients were super fresh, the change was permanent. This made her skin and bones a bit tougher, but didn't change her appearance much. It did, however, result in her gaining a permanent Natural Armor feature, making her AC 14+ her Dexterity Modifier while unarmored, saving her a Spell Slot usually used on Mage Armor, as well as a resistance to Acid Damage.
Amazing. Start to home brewing a potion of these system into my game.
As natural one I would say something like "you found herbs but not ingredients becouse something big step on the plants and nothing can be recover"
Beside from one plant you can take a leaf to one potion, petal to other, and stalk to the third
I always love your stuff whether I use it or not it's inspiring! The way I do mine is a recipe for a particular potion has x amount of ingredients and a DC check based on terrain types. If they succeed they make the potion. And then they get to add their wisdom modifier to the role if they succeed the potions crafted if they fail they can pick a few of the ingredients to keep. If they critically fail everything's ruined. I know it's a simplified version but I'm just trying to steer clear of a whole mini game.
This has been awesome. this brought to my attention as well there's the possibility of using a decay system for ingredients, you want them fresh or they're less affective/completely ineffectual. This would lead to the ability to preserve and even refine the ingredients. Maybe the snapdragon petals only last for X amount of time but with the herbalism kit they can be dried into a tea like state for preservation and ground into a powder afterwards to make them more potent.
Love it! You are very creative! Combine these potions with a homemade bottle of resin & colouring... And you have yourself a cool potion to roll your dice in for the effects of these potions. Love to make hands on props for my game. These potion ideas you shared are great for my homebrew ideas and dice bottle rollers. Thank you!
After gathering, each reagant requires a certain type of preparation in order to be potent. Some require drying, possibly powdering afterwards. Maybe they are put in alcohol or oil to keep their properties. Of course, some items can only be used fresh or might require a spell to prepare them.
This gave me some inspiration...I feel some ideas BREWING.
I'm working on a rogue, Phantom type, that is also a sort of witch doctor. This works so perfectly for that!
Hype for more crafting!!!
Thanks- I nabbed this system PDF for my sandbox Eberron campaign!
my favorite system so far! so fun!
The system looks so amazing! Definitely getting it
YES, I’ve wanted a brewing system for ages. Don’t know why it’s not in the base game
Mostly because they were avoiding putting too many numbers in the game
This is neat. I have a system for creating spells and magic items (nothing this detailed). You have to be of a level commensurate with the spell level/power of the item. You make two checks, with a DC, cost, and time dependent on the level/power. The first is to get the right materials, ingredients, and process. The second is to get the process and balance of ingredients just right. If you fail a check, you can get a minor or (on a 1) major wild magic effect and possibly even a cursed item. Even if you succeed, you still get a minor wild magic effect. This makes it easier to make the same item again (only one check) but keeps people from creating mass production. And my wild magic effects are such that you want to perform them under a full moon to limit them, away from town. This is magic, not chemistry!
There is a Kickstarter called Helianas Guide to Monster Hunting very similar to this but with monsters, it is worth a look lol. I run a 1on1 campaign that can really use this and am cant wait to get it. Got a question how would you use monster parts in potions and magic items?
Nice
Okay I'm a patron now actually lol
Woah! Welcome! I’ll message you on there in a bit! Thank you for the support!
Do you have a Kickstarter book? If not why and when are you starting a campaign. I just found your channel and have been blown away.
It's Ree-ay-gent.
OMG i had to read your comments a few times to get the sound right... but I know what you mean now! HEY... words are hard lol
He's now the Dungeon Linguist 😂
@@TheDungeonCoach Lol.
Sorry Coach, just thought you'd like to know. Yes, words ARE hard.
I spent years mispronouncing words because I only read them and never heard them spoken.
@@TheDungeonCoach Are you still struggling with the pronunciation of lycanthropy? That video was nigh-unwatchable because of it.
@@zdunken oooooo shoot! Is it “Lycan-thropy” with a pause in the middle??
So this is Skyrim alchemy ... I dig it
Yayyy
Fyi: for extraction of odors in modern day perfume making, there are multiple ways. If we split up quality of flowers in 4, broken, common, rare and epic (or 5 for the legendaries) and accept that a normal dandelion is common or broken, but a dandelion on a meadow on a full moon is rare, whereas one collected on a solar eclipse is rare, and for those extremely lucky, a planet is in equinox (be straight lined with sun, earth, planet) makes the dandelions legendary, adding a d4, 2d4 and a d12 respectively
1 cold fat extrusion: layer pure fat with flowers for 8-12-24h, remove flower heads, put on new ones, repeat for 14 days and you get dandilion infused fat, for use in potionmaking. (Expensive, timeconsuming and obv the best for quality, less so for quantity)
Hot extrusion, put all in a flask of solvant, be it water or alcohol. (Quantity/quality, medium time consuming
Crushing, quick and reduces quality in MOST cases. Some do obv require careful crushing preperations
Oh yeah and dwarfs, elves, tabaxi or humans have different metabolisms.
Whats a poison for one race (humans might die from nightshade, elves revvel in it giving a druglike effect, dwarves feel it healing) but tabaxi die from rocksalt etc....
Have fun i guess,
Intelligence really feels like the invention stat.
Literally run with it, heh. I would not like to be in a game where the wizard spent half an hour with you experimenting with potions while the rest of us waited.
The thing about WOTC potions is that they're just bottled spells. Nobody feels the need to use them since you can just cast a spell for the same effect. I want potions that are unique from spells.
In Xanathar's, it explains when you're proficient with an herbalism kit, you're adept at gathering materials. I feel like it would suck to be really good at MAKING potions but an idiot when it comes to finding the right materials. I feel like the 2 should go hand in hand. But it doesn't mean you're good at finding EVERYTHING. Just ingredients for herbalism specifically. Like how people with proficiency in smith's tools can spot metal veins in mines or leatherworkers proficiency means you can identify where leathers came from and how to skillfully cut leather and tan it. The more my players use their tools the more bonus I give them. If it's a character that spend the majority of their downtime crafting, they should be rewarded for making that choice, same with other tool proficiencies
How is it that we are usually so in sync?!?! I have developed almost the same system independently for use at my table. I called my reagents catalysts because they are non-magical items that help you craft any magic item, not just potions. The catalysts each have 1 or 2 aspects of magic that they provide and to craft any magic item, you need specific aspects from these catalysts.
Maybe on a nat 1 of the gather check they get poisoned for a while. They gathered poison ivy or somthing. And whether they used it or not, they will be feeling side affects
Hey :) I've been using this system in my DnD campaign and it's been really fun but I did have one question, I feel like there is a missing step of "what they find" the PC rolls for how much of a reagent they find but outside of specifically looking, for one thing, how do you decide on what to give them? I've just been picking things randomly off the biome table that make sense or making them roll and then picking herbs off the list in increasing rarity. I guess I'm asking if am I missing something. or is there an already-made solution for this? ( I know this is a old vid but i have hope)
I got you!
The doc leaves it up to the GM
You're doing it as intended, but it could have certainly been more explicit in that matter. The biome table was intended to give GMs a list of 2-5 reagents (some common, some uncommon in that region) to pick from Unique reagents are up to the GM to use and/or include at their own discretion for unique effects and gating the rarity of certain concoctions like "lycan's bane" to cure lycanthropy.
The system leaves those sorts of effects up to the GM to include or not so that we don't step on their worldbuilding toes
This may be a foolish question but why is there no mention of using the Herbalism tool for a check to gather herbs? Xanathar's even lists a check (DC 15) for "finding plants."
Suggestion: half a long rest is the normal DCs listed. Half time increases the DC by 5. Multiple times, too, down to a short rest. So 1-5 is finding nothing in 4 hours, 1-10 is finding nothing if you only take 2 hours, 1-15 for 1 hour.
Edit: I heard long rest at first, not half, so i fixed the numbers
its be use to give weapons special covers that do different things
You can have a bad potion forcibly, take an action or reaction away depending on a die the DM rolls for them to vomit Yak up the bad mixture they made If they fail the DC by a close number, they could still get the effect, but also suffer the penalty of the forced retching
I'm an alchemist potions maker. If my dm pushed this on me I would have a heart attack. Either I brewed the potion I needed or I didn't. That's all the time I want to spend on that.
O for sure! This is only designed for the times when BOTH the PC and the DM are wanting to have a "system" for this :)
You could also have each success reduce the DC by 1 and each failure that is within 5 of the DC also reduce it by 1. That way if they fail, but were close, they are able to learn from it. But if they roll too low it just fails and they have no idea why.
I know there's a "4 against Darkness" expansion with how to make potions, alchemy in general, including some sexy stuff like seducing (!?)... might be interesting to take a look at, maybe that too is somehow compatible with whatever game
What are your thoughts on Dungeons & Glory by One Page Rules?
is this going to be part of alkamander almanac?
Artificer subclass: potion brewer
I like it but I have a few things to add. In my world, natural ingredients are perishable, so they lose potency with age. Also, because some geographic areas exude more magical power than others, the living and non living ingredients that can be found in these areas are more or less potent than in other areas. NPCs and monsters know this and act accordingly to control access, etc. There are also special containers, harvesting methods, etc. that can be used to preserve the potency. There are likewise techniques to concentrate the potency. These have to be purchased, created and learned from a teacher. Some teachers are better than others. All teachers have their strengths and weaknesses. Unique to my world, the type of magic depends on geography of birth so that extends to magic users as well as the type and potency of their spells and potions. The closer to their birthplace the stronger, the further from their birthplace the weaker. Some powerful potions require ingredients from several locations. All these complications make potion creation an art, a science and a valued skill. Once learned, such individuals are in high demand so it is worth the effort for PCs to invest the time and effort to learn. That’s key. Because if there isn’t a big payoff to the PCs for learning, then they will find your rules burdensome and not fun.
Maby if they barely fail they could burn a spell slot to help succeed
💜💜💜
Hi DC! Will this be in Alkander's Almanac by any chance?
No AAA is about the CORE rules of the game around combat, social encounters, and exploration. So crafting systesms like this will not be in there. :)
Sounds like you played Elder's Scrolls. If you want the real stuff try Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer - there you can make basic potions from basic reagants and then mix the potions for layered potions and then mix those into white potions and finally the african-american potions.
Aw man, no pdf download? Huge bummer
I think it's
Step three- Profit.
Hey guys, what are your opinions on the guide before I buy it? lol
👍🏻
Is it pronounced re-A-gent?
Have I been pronouncing "reagent" wrong this whole time?
S
Respectfully... it is pronounced re-agents
Warning: DC PLAYBOOK VOL 10: POTION CRAFTING uses REAL plant names. After purchasing and integrating it into my home brew campaign, I eventually took some 'flack' that the *real* homeopathic uses of herbs like Sanguinaria have nothing even close to their use in the guide. In the updated form of the campaign content I've taken to changing all of the plants in this playbook to have fictitious names.