In my various notebooks I've started working on a ridiculously complicated homebrew supplement: Advanced Alchemy. I'll give a quick run down of the basics.
"Alchemy in D&D is a fantasy that many wish to play out. And the game has given us tools to fulfill it! We have... 2 subclasses! That's good right? Well it should be but both of those subclasses (Transmutation Wizard and Alchemist Artificer) are... underwhelming. But what about potions? This game has... 26 potions. That is still pretty good, I guess. I'm assuming you can brew them and each of them have their own recipes? Well... sort of. If you count the optional incredibly vague crafting system. (Throw 1,000 gp and an ingredient decided by the DM from a CR 5-10 creature, and let it sit for 5 weeks! If the DM allows you at all and gives you the gold and the downtime and... I have to calm down.) Anyway, Advanced Alchemy aims to be a remedy for this. Here, we introduce a system where potions are easy to make, oozing with flavour, involve throwing in ingredients, and subclasses based off alchemy will get a boost for this system!"
There are four basic potions: Regenerative potions, which heal the drinker, Poison potions, which, are well, poisons, Transformative potions, which change substances into other substances (The base is Wood->Stone->Copper->Water->Wood with the maximum size of what can be transformed being a 1 inch cube. One transformation per drop.), and finally enhancive potions, which have a base of giving the drinker 2d10 temporary hit points.
Each potion can be made in 10 minutes with either Alchemists Tools or an Herbalism Kit. You can, for Alchemists Tools, buy the ingredients for about 25 gp in a town. However, for both, you can spend time foraging in the wilderness, with different biomes having different DCs for the different plants. For instance, Stillrot, the ingredient for making regenerative potions that is only found is deserts requires an hour of searching and a DC 20 nature or survival check, whilst Dreadspore, the ingredient for poison potions has a DC of 10 in the underdark and a DC of 15 in swamps (Nature or survival.) Practically every environment has an ingredient that can be used for your potion.
In addition, there are extra ingredients you can add. For instance, adding 30 gp worth of Mithril Dust using Alchemists Tools adds an extra dice to your potion, but you can only add each ingredient once unless you add a rare Catalyst ingredient, which allows you to add ingredients again. Also, when you start adding lots of ingredients, random stuff can start happening, based off a table. Alchemist Artificers can re-roll with any potion, and Transmuters can re-roll with Transformative potions.
Finally, different creature types can give you different ingredients based on CR. For instance, the CR 0-4 Fey ingredient makes regenerative potions turn back aging instead of healing. The heart of a sprite and freely given pixie dust are equally valid ingredients, for instance.
So my question is, should I fully flesh this out? And do any of you have any ideas of what I should add?
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Alright.
In my various notebooks I've started working on a ridiculously complicated homebrew supplement: Advanced Alchemy. I'll give a quick run down of the basics.
"Alchemy in D&D is a fantasy that many wish to play out. And the game has given us tools to fulfill it! We have... 2 subclasses! That's good right? Well it should be but both of those subclasses (Transmutation Wizard and Alchemist Artificer) are... underwhelming. But what about potions? This game has... 26 potions. That is still pretty good, I guess. I'm assuming you can brew them and each of them have their own recipes? Well... sort of. If you count the optional incredibly vague crafting system. (Throw 1,000 gp and an ingredient decided by the DM from a CR 5-10 creature, and let it sit for 5 weeks! If the DM allows you at all and gives you the gold and the downtime and... I have to calm down.) Anyway, Advanced Alchemy aims to be a remedy for this. Here, we introduce a system where potions are easy to make, oozing with flavour, involve throwing in ingredients, and subclasses based off alchemy will get a boost for this system!"
There are four basic potions: Regenerative potions, which heal the drinker, Poison potions, which, are well, poisons, Transformative potions, which change substances into other substances (The base is Wood->Stone->Copper->Water->Wood with the maximum size of what can be transformed being a 1 inch cube. One transformation per drop.), and finally enhancive potions, which have a base of giving the drinker 2d10 temporary hit points.
Each potion can be made in 10 minutes with either Alchemists Tools or an Herbalism Kit. You can, for Alchemists Tools, buy the ingredients for about 25 gp in a town. However, for both, you can spend time foraging in the wilderness, with different biomes having different DCs for the different plants. For instance, Stillrot, the ingredient for making regenerative potions that is only found is deserts requires an hour of searching and a DC 20 nature or survival check, whilst Dreadspore, the ingredient for poison potions has a DC of 10 in the underdark and a DC of 15 in swamps (Nature or survival.) Practically every environment has an ingredient that can be used for your potion.
In addition, there are extra ingredients you can add. For instance, adding 30 gp worth of Mithril Dust using Alchemists Tools adds an extra dice to your potion, but you can only add each ingredient once unless you add a rare Catalyst ingredient, which allows you to add ingredients again. Also, when you start adding lots of ingredients, random stuff can start happening, based off a table. Alchemist Artificers can re-roll with any potion, and Transmuters can re-roll with Transformative potions.
Finally, different creature types can give you different ingredients based on CR. For instance, the CR 0-4 Fey ingredient makes regenerative potions turn back aging instead of healing. The heart of a sprite and freely given pixie dust are equally valid ingredients, for instance.
So my question is, should I fully flesh this out? And do any of you have any ideas of what I should add?