This is my first post and I just recently got into D&D and I'm running LMOP for my friends on Roll20. I'm having tons of fun so far. There have been some questions come up that we have worked through, but there is one thing that my more experienced friend and myself are still not sure what to do. In the wizards library there is mercury and dragon bile and one other component. My friend, a dwarf cleric named Hogaak Mending-Fist, picked up the components in hopes of being able to use them. I have searched all of my books and resources and can't find any viable information about alchemy. My question is, how do you more experienced DM's handle alchemy and what mechanics do you use?
For example, another friend who is not as experience, tried to take the information that Iarno has about creating invisibility potions and attempt it herself. I had her roll a series of checks, which she did pretty well, and I added her two checks together. I wanted a chance for her to succeed but I didn't want to just give it to her. The two checks that actually were used to make the potion added up to 25. So I allowed her to succeed but the potion has a DC10 constitution check to not vomit up the liquid due to the terrible taste, since she is attempting things for the first time. Thoughts?
If you're finding something in a dungeon that the players will be only toying with briefly, and not try to colonize, I'd suggest just telling them that they can brew a limited number of potions with the leftover supplies on hand (1d4), and just do a straight arcana check for success.... maybe 10 to make a common potion, 15 uncommon, 20 rare, and 30 very rare? Or something like that which makes it easy and fun to get some potions to the group.
Because potions are single use, I wouldn't worry about unbalancing what they're allowed to make, so long as its limited in quality and not setting the stage for them setting up shop and mass producing these things to break combat or the economy.
If you're finding something in a dungeon that the players will be only toying with briefly, and not try to colonize, I'd suggest just telling them that they can brew a limited number of potions with the leftover supplies on hand (1d4), and just do a straight arcana check for success.... maybe 10 to make a common potion, 15 uncommon, 20 rare, and 30 very rare? Or something like that which makes it easy and fun to get some potions to the group.
Because potions are single use, I wouldn't worry about unbalancing what they're allowed to make, so long as its limited in quality and not setting the stage for them setting up shop and mass producing these things to break combat or the economy.
Champ, thank you! That's a good concept there. I don' think my players are going to try and commercialize anything, lol! But that would be hilarious if that were to come up, I didn't even think about that. Have you ever come across anything pertaining to gathering ingredients? The Druid, an in-experienced excited player, wants to really dive into her alchemy kit and herbalist kit in an attempt to flesh out her nature character. I want to give her a system for doing so, but not sure the best way. Do you think I could adapt the above system with investigation checks to gather ingredients? And on top of that, how would you guide a player that is looking to you, as a DM, to provide her with herbs and items that she finds on successful checks and what she can do with them?
Gathering herbs during travel to be used for crafting Potions of Healings and Antitoxin using an Herbalism Kit is already a thing, and that's usually sufficient. Xanathar's suggests it's a DC 15 Herbalism Kit/Survival check to gather plants relevent to crafting potions... but it doesn't quite go far enough in telling you how much you gather each day, which is relevant for item creation as written, let alone how climate might influence the gathering, or whether different sorts of plants are relevant for different sorts of potions.
If your group (or that character) is interested in potion creation beyond the herbalism angle for simple healing potions, the best advice I'd have is to completely unshackle yourself from the rules in Xanathar's and the PHB that are overly concerned with time/gold, and instead embrace homebrewing something fun that keys off of experience. By and large, spending your money and downtime on crafting single use potions is just not going to be engaging enough to pin the character's identify and party role on. Instead, monster parts (kobold whiskers, basilisk eyes), items with symbolic significance (a leaf grown on an elfhome tree, a rock struck by a dwarven miner's pick), mundane substances collected during unusual or mystical circumstances (rain fallen under the light of a full moon, ash from a forest fire)... encourage your player to just keep track of items or substances they've come across in their adventure that have any sort of fun significance, and during a long rest let them take a crack at describing how 2-3 of them together justifies a specific potion they're hoping to craft, and then have them take a swing with an Arcana check! Potion brewing and alchemy should feel far witchier/supersititious than they do as written, in my opinion, and I've never seen a player or party get excited about exploring the written item creation/potion brewing rules.
As long as you only let one potion be brewed per long rest, and make it clear that potions are not to be stocked for resale but instead you expect them to be frequently and casually used by the party.... I don't think your party will mind you turning on the faucet with easily-brewed potions, and if there's one in particular that you think might cause trouble with the upcoming day's encounters, just give them a different one instead.
On reflection, what I offered above is kind of loosey-goosey. Maybe more of a hybrid.... keep the published potion brewing rules in Xanathar's and PHB, but let the player "replace" some or all of the gold cost with creative/signifigant materials they've collected on their travels and fights. Or something else, just feel like the RAW system could use some sort of a boost if it's going to be a major focus of your play.
Gathering herbs during travel to be used for crafting Potions of Healings and Antitoxin using an Herbalism Kit is already a thing, and that's usually sufficient. Xanathar's suggests it's a DC 15 Herbalism Kit/Survival check to gather plants relevent to crafting potions... but it doesn't quite go far enough in telling you how much you gather each day, which is relevant for item creation as written, let alone how climate might influence the gathering, or whether different sorts of plants are relevant for different sorts of potions.
If your group (or that character) is interested in potion creation beyond the herbalism angle for simple healing potions, the best advice I'd have is to completely unshackle yourself from the rules in Xanathar's and the PHB that are overly concerned with time/gold, and instead embrace homebrewing something fun that keys off of experience. By and large, spending your money and downtime on crafting single use potions is just not going to be engaging enough to pin the character's identify and party role on. Instead, monster parts (kobold whiskers, basilisk eyes), items with symbolic significance (a leaf grown on an elfhome tree, a rock struck by a dwarven miner's pick), mundane substances collected during unusual or mystical circumstances (rain fallen under the light of a full moon, ash from a forest fire)... encourage your player to just keep track of items or substances they've come across in their adventure that have any sort of fun significance, and during a long rest let them take a crack at describing how 2-3 of them together justifies a specific potion they're hoping to craft, and then have them take a swing with an Arcana check! Potion brewing and alchemy should feel far witchier/supersititious than they do as written, in my opinion, and I've never seen a player or party get excited about exploring the written item creation/potion brewing rules.
As long as you only let one potion be brewed per long rest, and make it clear that potions are not to be stocked for resale but instead you expect them to be frequently and casually used by the party.... I don't think your party will mind you turning on the faucet with easily-brewed potions, and if there's one in particular that you think might cause trouble with the upcoming day's encounters, just give them a different one instead.
I like this idea of allowing the PC to collect interesting elements from the world around them, it gives both them and myself the chance to pull in that witchier side of things that you mentioned. I also like the idea of giving them to power, or lack of power, to justify the potions they are trying to create. Your comments helped a lot and I think I can come up with a homebrew situation that still follows the RAW system but doesn't break the rules/game.
I think what I will do is have the PC explain their intentions, and depending on the explanation and rarity of the potion the DC's will reflect the situation. That in turn will go towards collecting their ingredients. The monster parts and significant items will make it interesting, and using a long rest to identify a property or properties of something collected will create mystery and suspense for the player.
Thanks again for the help!
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Hello All!
This is my first post and I just recently got into D&D and I'm running LMOP for my friends on Roll20. I'm having tons of fun so far. There have been some questions come up that we have worked through, but there is one thing that my more experienced friend and myself are still not sure what to do. In the wizards library there is mercury and dragon bile and one other component. My friend, a dwarf cleric named Hogaak Mending-Fist, picked up the components in hopes of being able to use them. I have searched all of my books and resources and can't find any viable information about alchemy. My question is, how do you more experienced DM's handle alchemy and what mechanics do you use?
For example, another friend who is not as experience, tried to take the information that Iarno has about creating invisibility potions and attempt it herself. I had her roll a series of checks, which she did pretty well, and I added her two checks together. I wanted a chance for her to succeed but I didn't want to just give it to her. The two checks that actually were used to make the potion added up to 25. So I allowed her to succeed but the potion has a DC10 constitution check to not vomit up the liquid due to the terrible taste, since she is attempting things for the first time. Thoughts?
Look in Xanther's Guide.
Downtime Revisited, Page 125
General rules on crafting are page 128
Thanks much! I will review it again and re think on what I may have missed.
If you're finding something in a dungeon that the players will be only toying with briefly, and not try to colonize, I'd suggest just telling them that they can brew a limited number of potions with the leftover supplies on hand (1d4), and just do a straight arcana check for success.... maybe 10 to make a common potion, 15 uncommon, 20 rare, and 30 very rare? Or something like that which makes it easy and fun to get some potions to the group.
Because potions are single use, I wouldn't worry about unbalancing what they're allowed to make, so long as its limited in quality and not setting the stage for them setting up shop and mass producing these things to break combat or the economy.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Champ, thank you! That's a good concept there. I don' think my players are going to try and commercialize anything, lol! But that would be hilarious if that were to come up, I didn't even think about that. Have you ever come across anything pertaining to gathering ingredients? The Druid, an in-experienced excited player, wants to really dive into her alchemy kit and herbalist kit in an attempt to flesh out her nature character. I want to give her a system for doing so, but not sure the best way. Do you think I could adapt the above system with investigation checks to gather ingredients? And on top of that, how would you guide a player that is looking to you, as a DM, to provide her with herbs and items that she finds on successful checks and what she can do with them?
Gathering herbs during travel to be used for crafting Potions of Healings and Antitoxin using an Herbalism Kit is already a thing, and that's usually sufficient. Xanathar's suggests it's a DC 15 Herbalism Kit/Survival check to gather plants relevent to crafting potions... but it doesn't quite go far enough in telling you how much you gather each day, which is relevant for item creation as written, let alone how climate might influence the gathering, or whether different sorts of plants are relevant for different sorts of potions.
If your group (or that character) is interested in potion creation beyond the herbalism angle for simple healing potions, the best advice I'd have is to completely unshackle yourself from the rules in Xanathar's and the PHB that are overly concerned with time/gold, and instead embrace homebrewing something fun that keys off of experience. By and large, spending your money and downtime on crafting single use potions is just not going to be engaging enough to pin the character's identify and party role on. Instead, monster parts (kobold whiskers, basilisk eyes), items with symbolic significance (a leaf grown on an elfhome tree, a rock struck by a dwarven miner's pick), mundane substances collected during unusual or mystical circumstances (rain fallen under the light of a full moon, ash from a forest fire)... encourage your player to just keep track of items or substances they've come across in their adventure that have any sort of fun significance, and during a long rest let them take a crack at describing how 2-3 of them together justifies a specific potion they're hoping to craft, and then have them take a swing with an Arcana check! Potion brewing and alchemy should feel far witchier/supersititious than they do as written, in my opinion, and I've never seen a player or party get excited about exploring the written item creation/potion brewing rules.
As long as you only let one potion be brewed per long rest, and make it clear that potions are not to be stocked for resale but instead you expect them to be frequently and casually used by the party.... I don't think your party will mind you turning on the faucet with easily-brewed potions, and if there's one in particular that you think might cause trouble with the upcoming day's encounters, just give them a different one instead.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
On reflection, what I offered above is kind of loosey-goosey. Maybe more of a hybrid.... keep the published potion brewing rules in Xanathar's and PHB, but let the player "replace" some or all of the gold cost with creative/signifigant materials they've collected on their travels and fights. Or something else, just feel like the RAW system could use some sort of a boost if it's going to be a major focus of your play.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I like this idea of allowing the PC to collect interesting elements from the world around them, it gives both them and myself the chance to pull in that witchier side of things that you mentioned. I also like the idea of giving them to power, or lack of power, to justify the potions they are trying to create. Your comments helped a lot and I think I can come up with a homebrew situation that still follows the RAW system but doesn't break the rules/game.
I think what I will do is have the PC explain their intentions, and depending on the explanation and rarity of the potion the DC's will reflect the situation. That in turn will go towards collecting their ingredients. The monster parts and significant items will make it interesting, and using a long rest to identify a property or properties of something collected will create mystery and suspense for the player.
Thanks again for the help!