Potion ingredients and cost ( Answered)

potion
#1

Hello! I am looking for some help coming up with ingredients and costs for various potions. I run games for kids at the school I work with. We use it as a learning tool mostly for social skills but the math and forethought of saving and spending money wisely is another skill we push. I have always had potions to some degree but this year I am using the Ancient Crypts & Creatures add on by @DSMyers (which is pure gold) and one of the TAGs is Alchemy so I figured i’d add in some ingredients for them to forage or buy. Problem is I haven’t really used stuff like this in the past so I need some help finding some fun sounding ingredients and a generalized cost for them.

We keep money pretty simple and everything is Gold so no Silver or Copper pieces. I have also priced things so kids will tend use strategic planning and their teamwork with healers rather than relying on potions (social skills building) for some examples a starter weapon with no frills costs 100gp, and arrow 1gp, a potion of healing (6hp) 15gp and a grand potion of healing (10hp) 20gp though I think the potions could go for a bit higher.

Again my hope would be that they would rely more on each other than potions but I want the option so I’m willing to let the costs go up a bit. I figure the more useful the higher the cost and the cost of buying would be higher than the cost of making, but maybe that goes without saying. A big pre-thank you to anyone who is willing to help!

TL;DR- need ingredient names and individualized prices for potions

-Potion of Healing- Heal 6hp

Cost

Ingredients

-Great Potion of Healing- Heal 10hp

Cost

Ingredients

-Potion of Strength- all STR checks are easy until the end of the encounter

Cost

Ingredients

-Potion of Haste- until the end of the encounter each round you get an extra action to move NEAR

Cost

Ingredients

-Potion of Protection- +2 AC until end of the encounter

Cost

Ingredients

-Potion of Water Breathing- you may breath underwater for 1 hour

Cost

Ingredients

-Potion of Luck- you may reroll any 1’s on a D20 once until the end of the encounter

Cost

Ingredients

-Antidote- Cures poison

Cost

Ingredients

Potion of Mana- spell attempts are EASY till the end of the encounter

Cost

Ingredients

#2

If you don’t mind some old homebrew notes, you could take a look at these from my friend’s system he developed around 10 years ago. I don’t believe they are necessarily useable in their current state, but you could pillage them for ideas, names, effects, and so on. It’s funny what you find when you go digging in the odd corners of digital archives. Hope it helps at least a little :smiley:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1thZ4SqD6N2iGOgEoGAkoonhQvWajSAkq

#3

You bet! I’d love to dig through them, thank you!

#4

Any particular theme for the ingredients? Plants? Monster parts? Supernatural stuff?

#5

I’d say stick with plants or things they could harvest from monsters; Spider Eye’s, Gillyweed stuff like that but if it sounds cool I’ll find a way use it.

#6

and I guess if it sounds thematic to the potion itself, like gillyweed would be used for water breathing, or manna mites for the manna potion. I think it may be good to have some ingredients be useful in multiple potions while others are specific

#7

To make things faster and simple (specially for students), I’d lump ingredients into a broad category called “ingredients” and then only vary the amount you need versus forcing players to keep track of disparate items. e.g, to make a poison antidote, you need only find 2 Potion Ingredients.

But, if you are set on coming up with unique items to combine, Magic has a good list on p.25.

#8

ohhhh yeah, that’s really good. I dig that. So each type would cost X ingredient’s to make. I also feel really silly not thinking to look in MAGIC haha, you made this really easy. Thank you.

#9

Hahaha. I’m glad you think so.

I will say, the cool part about the Magic ingredients is that each one has its own effect, which makes merely having them a fun endeavor in its own way.

#10

I think I’m going with the X Ingredients to make a potion approach. 1 ingredient costs 10gp and will adjust prices accordingly to make making cheaper than buying but the trade off is time and need for a lab or study. that said I may still want some cool sounding names or maybe some require a special ingredient for a few.

#11

I will have to give MAGIC a look over again. I haven’t given it much time since I mostly run for kids and it seems a step too much, though I look forward to using it in campaigns for my friends.

#12

There’s also a middle of the road-approach that, for example, the Witcher takes where you have a small number of abstracted ingredients. So maybe a blue ingredient, a red, and a yellow type.

If you want to include names, you can still do “gillyweed (1 ingredient OR chewed for limited water breathing)”.

#13

Thank you @Looten had some financial difficulties lately because of all that’s been going on, but I hope to get back to writing more things for it soon.

#14

I’m sorry to hear that, that’s super frustrating. I hope that things can get back on the upswing for you soon. You should be absolutely proud of your work and I can’t wait to see what you have in store once you are able to get back to it.

#15

@Looten
Shameless plug here. I have written brand new 100 rare ingredients with each having different effects in my book. Maybe it’ll help you.

#16

I got that as soon as it came out and it has loads of useful things! As with MAGIC I went through it and set it aside until I was able to play with a friend group. For some reason I spaced on looking in both before posting this question.