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Dungeons & Dragons is a game filled to the brim with mechanical complexity and rules that can easily be missed by new players. One of the most common roles that a party aims to fill is that of a healer. While healers most often replenish their allies hit points through the use of healing spells, adventurers are also capable of healing themselves through the use of potions.
Thanks to Xanathar's Guide to Everything, players can now brew their own potions to keep their parties healed and for a wide range of other benefits. Here's how you too can craft potions in Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition.
Updated July 16, 2023, by Sean Murray: Being able to make potions in 5E is a great new feature, but a lot of players find that the rules as written make potion brewing either too long or too expensive to bother with. That's why we've added a section of suggested homebrew rules that tweak potion crafting to be a little more flexible.
What You Need To Get Started
Before you start brewing your own health potions, it's important to know that not every character is capable of brewing potions from the get-go. While characters of any class are capable of brewing potions, to create one's own potions, a character must have proficiency with herbalism kits.
Proficiency with herbalism kits can easily be gained during character creation by taking the Hermit background or another background that provides access to a tool proficiency of a player's choice.
Brewing Your Potions
Once a character is ready, there are two things they'll need: time and money. Depending on the strength of the potion a character is looking to brew, they'll need to spend additional time and money in order to craft more potent potions.
While there is a wide range of potion types available in D&D, the potion-brewing rules presented in Xanathar's Guide to Everything only allow characters to reliably craft healing potions.
Below, you can see how much time and money for materials a character is required to expend in order to brew healing potions.
Potion of Healing |
2d4+2 HP |
One day of work to brew, requiring 25 gold worth of materials. |
---|---|---|
Potion of Greater Healing |
4d4+4 HP |
One workweek to brew, requiring 100 gold worth of materials. |
Potion of Superior Healing |
8d4+8 HP |
Three workweeks to brew, requiring 1,000 gold worth of materials. |
Potion of Supreme Healing |
10d4+20 HP |
Four workweeks to brew, requiring 10,000 gold worth of materials. |
While the more potent potions may seem rather costly, it should be noted that brewing one's own potions is still incredibly economical, costing a mere fraction of the standard prices of these items.
Brewing Other Types Of Potions
Xanathar's Guide to Everything may only specifically mention healing potions, but it also mentions rules for creating your own magic items. Since potions are magic items, we can apply these rules to crafting other types of potions through the use of a herbalism kit.
Firstly it should be noted that, unlike healing potions, magic items will require key ingredients, which are specified by a DM. Also, unlike Healing Potions, these items can only be created if a character knows the correct recipe, dictating which ingredients are required to brew the potion at hand, as well as the steps needed to prepare the item.
These ingredients are most often either obtained from or are parts of various monsters. The higher the strength of the item (or in this case, potion) that a character is trying to create, the more deadly the monster. This means that creating anything other than Healing Potions is often a much more involved experience, as key resources must be obtained and brewed in a specific manner.
Once a character has obtained the ingredients dictated by the recipe, they must spend an amount of time and money dictated by the potion's rarity in order to brew it.
For example, a Potion of Growth will require less time and resources to brew than a Potion of Strom Giant Strength.
Below, you can see how much time and money for materials a character is required to expend in order to brew potions of various rarities.
Common |
Half of one workweek, requiring 25 gold. |
---|---|
Uncommon |
One workweek, requiring 100 gold. |
Rare |
Five workweeks, requiring 1,000 gold. |
Very Rare |
12 and a half workweeks, requiring 10,000 gold. |
Legendary |
25 workweeks, requiring 50,000 gold. |
Suggestions For Homebrew
One of the common complaints about potion brewing in Xanathar's Guide to Everything is just how long it can take to brew a potion. An entire day's work to make one Potion of Healing seems like a lot for something that should reasonably take an afternoon at best, and taking almost a month to brew a Supreme Healing Potion is just rediculous.
A good homebrew solution to this issue is to shorten the time required to make potions to be something that fits better with the pace of your campaign. Working with the DM, you could establish a revised timeline that might require a full day for a Supreme Potion of Healing, but a regular Potion of Healing might take a single short rest.
You can also tweak the gold requirements for the ingredients, or possibly even add a skill check to determine how long and how costly brewing your potion turns out to be.