Epic House Rules: Potion Toxicity and Quick Drinking

Tags Dungeon Master Tips Potions Magic Items Epic House Rules

Epic adventures are more than just ensuring the heroes win against unthinkable odds. No, epic adventures raise the stakes to astronomical levels, setting the heroes up for either godlike victory or devastating defeat. No matter what happens in an epic adventure, it’s going to become a story that can be told for years and years to come. Epic House Rules are optional variant rules that you can use in your D&D game to raise the stakes in every situation, making successes grander and failures more disastrous.

In fifth edition D&D, when you want to drink a potion (or apply it to someone else), you have to use your action to do so. When embroiled in combat, that action-to-drink requirement usually means that drinking a potion is the only meaningful thing you can do that turn. If movement is important in the current encounter, you could keep moving; or if you’re a spellcaster, you might have a spell you can cast as a bonus action. Nine times out of ten, however, drinking a potion tends to feel like you’ve wasted your turn, unless the effect is immediate and proactive, like the effects of a potion of invisibility.

This is especially true for potions of healing, unless the amount of hit points the potion heals is incredibly high for your level. It feels great when your 5th-level fighter pops from 2 hit points to full health after healing 45 hit points from a potion of supreme healing. Outside of that sort of situation, though, most characters are better off spending their action fighting, casting spells, or interacting with the environment in some way rather than healing a few hit points.

Here’s one variant rule that many D&D groups already use, just through intuition. Critical Role even used a similar rule in their first campaign.

Variant: Quick Potion Drinking

You can use a bonus action, instead of an action, to drink a potion you’re holding.

This variant rule is very simple. Instead of having to use an action to drink a potion, now you can use a bonus action. As usual, you do have to be holding the potion in order to drink it. D&D’s rules for interacting with objects in combat are minutiae, certainly, but they’re also simple. In short, the first time you interact with an object on your turn, such as drawing an item from your pack or sheathing a sword, it doesn’t cost an action. Doing so is so quick and simple, it’s not a significant expenditure of either time or effort. The second time you do so, however, the time and effort taken to draw items has started to pile up. You must use your action in order to interact with a second object on your turn.

If you use the Quick Potion Drinking variant rule, be warned that it will make your characters significantly more powerful and harder to kill, especially if they have a lot of potions to use. If your characters regularly face foes that use potions too, then this variant rule balances itself out perfectly well. If you rarely give potions to your party’s enemies, however, this rule could wildly tilt combat encounters in your players’ favor. Here’s an additional variant rule that will help keep your players from abusing potions: Potion Toxicity. I wouldn't recommend using this variant rule without also using the Quick Drinking variant rule above—unless you're using a different house rule that makes potions easier to use.

Variant: Potion Toxicity

Magical potions have powerful beneficial effects, but most beings weren’t built to handle the raw power of so much magic running through their veins. Drinking a single potion has no immediate side effects, but if you drink more before your body has the chance to clean the potion’s potent magic from your system, it could have serious consequences. 

If you consume more than one potion before finishing a long rest, you must make a Constitution saving throw after drinking it. The DC of the saving throw is equal to strength of the potion you drank. If you drink three or more potions before completing a long rest, you have disadvantage on this saving throw.

Potion Rarity

Potion Toxicity DC

Common

9

Uncommon

11

Rare

13

Very Rare

15

Legendary

17

On a success, your body is able to withstand the residual magic from multiple potions mingling in your body. On a failure, the magic overpowers you. You feel queasy and vomit. You take acid damage equal to 1 + 2d8 per level of rarity above common of the potion you drank. For example, a rare potion deals 4d8 + 1 acid damage.

Alternatively, you could roll on the Expanded Toxicity Effects table, below.

Expanded Toxicity Effects

1d10

Effect
 
1

Your stomach twists and turns, visibly wriggling inside you. You become poisoned, and take 1d6 acid damage per level of rarity above common of the potion you drank at the end of every hour.

2

Your veins begin to glow an unusual color, and your blood feels like it’s burning. You take necrotic damage equal to 1 + 1d8 per rarity above common of the potion you drank. You also take this damage whenever you’re effected by a spell that deals damage. You can repeat the saving throw at the end of every day, ending the effect on yourself on a success.

3

Your eyes secrete a thick, cloudy fluid veined with neon color. You become blinded. You can repeat the saving throw at the end of every day, ending the effect on yourself on a success.

4

Your ears fill with a colorful, gummy substance. You become deafened. You can repeat the saving throw at the end of every day, ending the effect on yourself on a success.

5

Your saliva turns into a thick, glue-like ichor, sealing your mouth shut. You can’t speak, and can’t cast spells that require verbal components. You can repeat the saving throw at the end of every day, ending the effect on yourself on a success. Lesser restoration also ends this effect. 

6

Your legs lose all feeling, and solidify into a chalky, brittle substance. At the end of every hour you travel at a normal or fast pace overland, or at the end of every turn in which you move 30 feet or more, you take necrotic damage equal to 1 + 1d6 per rarity above common of the potion you drank. You can repeat the saving throw at the end of every hour, ending the effect on yourself on a success. Greater restoration also ends this effect. 

7

Your skin becomes translucent, and feels as thin as an insect’s wing. You take necrotic damage equal to 1 + 1d8 per rarity above common of the potion you drank. You also take this damage whenever you take damage from a weapon attack. You can repeat the saving throw at the end of every day, ending the effect on yourself on a success. Greater restoration also ends this effect. 

8

Your thinking slows, and you feel a strange liquid sloshing around within your skull. You take psychic damage equal to 1 + 1d8 per rarity above common of the potion you drank. You also have disadvantage on Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma saving throws. You can repeat the saving throw at the end of every day, ending the effect on yourself on a success. Greater restoration also ends this effect. 

9

Your limbs feel like jelly, and your flesh becomes slick and wobbles when touched. You take necrotic damage equal to 1 + 1d8 per rarity above common of the potion you drank. You also have disadvantage on Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution saving throws. You can repeat the saving throw at the end of every day, ending the effect on yourself on a success. Greater restoration also ends this effect. 

10

Your entire body convulses, and then locks up. You become paralyzed until the start of your next turn. Then, you hiccough, and a tiny frog hops out of your throat.

How would you modify this house rule for use at your table? What other effects would you add to your own Potion Toxicity table? Let us know in the comments!

James Haeck is the lead writer for D&D Beyond, the co-author of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus, and the Critical Role Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting, a member of the Guild Adepts, and a freelance writer for Wizards of the Coast, the D&D Adventurers League, and other RPG companies. He lives in Seattle, Washington with his fiancée Hannah and their animal companions Mei and Marzipan. You can find him wasting time on Twitter at @jamesjhaeck.

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