Berserker Draught (3.5)

[Afgncaap5]

tl;dr version: Workin' out pricing and miscibility issues for a potion that combines the effects of Rage, Bull's Strength and Enlarge Person, and lookin' for input.

I'm working on a plot-specific potion for either my personal campaign setting or for Eberron, and am looking for a few pointers. The potion is effectively just a mix of a Rage potion, an Enlarge Person potion and a Bull's Strength potion that's developed/discovered by a particular villain and used to create a small army of brutes to cause damage wherever he wants. In addition to losing AC from Enlarge Person and Rage, the potion also has the drawback of exhausting the imbiber for 1d6 days (minus the target's unmodified Con modifier) and not allowing the target to heal naturally (with magical healing only possible with a DC 20 Heal check.) The target of the potion will also continue fighting for the duration of the potion's effect (minutes feels "fairer" but hours seems more story appropriate), only not fighting people who've received a certain tattoo that the villain has developed (if another potion drinker is nearby and that potion drinker doesn't have the tattoo, some scent-like capability informs the raging berserker to hold off on the other berserker until other targets are gone.)

My first question is regarding the miscibility aspect of things. should the players discover the method for reproducing this draught on their own, do the drawbacks of the multipotion draught seem fair? The no-healing curse is the one I'm attached to the most, as I'm hoping that the villain will kidnap someone that the players need to rescue, only to have him force the kidnapee to drink the draught so that the players have to take out the victim without overkilling it. The inability to tell friend from foe while fighting (without the presence of the magical gang tattoo, at least) is more story driven, but feels like the kind of thing that would make the players only choose to use the potion tactically, if at all.

Second, I'm trying to figure out the best way to price the potion for the purposes of item creation. Combining the prices of the three potions is a good starting point, but I'm trying to decide if they count as "similar effects". On the one hand, each potion boosts strength; on the other hand, each potion gives a different type of bonus (morale, enhancement and size). More than that, if I treat the duration of the draught as an hour per level (or even ten minutes per level) then that implies some metamagic that would boost the spell slots required for crafting (and it would boost it more for Rage than for the other two). Using an arbitrary number of "three" spell levels to boost each spell through metamagic, that'd give me...

level 4 Enlarge Person: 1400 gp
level 5 Bull's Strength: 2250 gp
level 5 Rage: 2250 gp

So, that either added together for 5900 gp or changed to 75% for one of the 5th level spells and 50% for Enlarge Person for a total of 4637 gp and 5 sp.

Given the number of rules being broken here for potion creation, the crafting requirements will include either access to (or knowledge gained from) a unique Schema if in Eberron, or knowledge of an Alchemical Secret if in my campaign setting (effectively making it harder to make in Eberron, but more dependent upon plot.)

Anyway, that's almost certainly more than you wanted to know about this mini-plot of what I'm working on. Thoughts for how I should implement it?

[The Dragon]

Having people be unable to tell friend from foe is the sort of thing that results in character death on a regular basis. You should not expect your players to use it at all if they are aware of this effect, assuming the campaign you are running in is one where people are expected to care about their character.
Expect some bad feelings when the barbarian decides he needs a power boost for the final battle and kills his party wizard by happenstance.

I've had d&d games that played more like FIASCO, and while fun, they tend to require a steady stream of characters to keep running (the poor sods keep dying) and are not really campaign material.

I'd say that the effects very much count as similiar.
What level is the campaign taking place at? Some five thousand GP seems quite excessive if it is for something that you expect be consumed on more than special occasions. I think you can get away with reducing the price significantly,because of the added drawbacks. In fact, I'd say that the drawbacks just about cancel out the increased duration.

This makes the potions a 650gp magic item, which is still a quite expensive one-use item. Or maybe my DM just doesn't hand out enough gold to be WBL appropriate.`

Edit: Ihavee a plot-device you could use. Where does the BBEG get his money for potions from? Where does he get is materials? Maybe a royal convoy of potion ingredients were raided, an issue that is seemingly unrelated to the rise of gang violence, yet it is in fact because the BBEG needs the supplies to power his gangs? Asking yourself to 'follow the money' is often useful when making plots.

Alternatively, maybe the potions require some item that is hard to come by.

You know, I think I might steal your idea for a plot device, call it troll bloodpotion, and have it give regeneration and require troll blood in the creation proccess. I think I like this idea. I could have troll gangs being forced out of their territory by upstart humans, and the pc's could investigate.

*scribles down idea in campaign notes*

[GGambrel]

Edit: Ihavee a plot-device you could use. Where does the BBEG get his money for potions from? Where does he get is materials? Maybe a royal convoy of potion ingredients were raided, an issue that is seemingly unrelated to the rise of gang violence, yet it is in fact because the BBEG needs the supplies to power his gangs? Asking yourself to 'follow the money' is often useful when making plots.


I like this idea quite a bit.

Due to the effects (and spell levels) of this "Potion" I think you might consider making it technically a Wondrous Item (which seems to give more leeway in terms of effect) or partly alchemical (and poisonous, disease-causing, or hallucinogenic) in nature.

If you're concerned about players abusing the potion, you might make some of the components rare or "controlled substances" when the potion is better understood. I wouldn't make the potion too expensive if it is used frequently by the villain or his/her minions though.

[Afgncaap5]

Well, I'm not planning on having the villain use it *too* often. If he could make one of the potions per day, it'd be too easy to wonder why he didn't use it for even more. It's a monster army in a bottle if it's too cheap.

As for making it a Wondrous Item or something involving Alchemy... my campaigns expand the use of Brew Potion as a feat (and, in fact, have special bits of knowledge that players can learn called Alchemical Secrets). I open up a few things to creation through the Brew Potion feat, if the player using it has enough Craft (Alchemy) ranks and if they know the proper Alchemical Secret.

[XionUnborn01]

If you're worried about it having a fairly low cost, you could always make it addictive via the BoVD I believe. I forget how they work exactly, but it's a start. It's like super steroids, so some sort of reduction to Wil saves if you've gone without could be a possibility.

[gr8artist]

My suggestion is that rather than trying to find an aggregate value for all the separate abilities you're mashing together, take a look instead at the end result, and see what spells are about that strong.
Your character gets +8 Str, +2 Con, -3 AC, Weapon size increase (avg +2 dam), Reach, etc... Does that sound like a 4th level spell? 5th? Since the downsides only matter during the time that the potion isn't in effect, it's really just the confusion effect that's troubling. Cut the price by 20% or so for the "cursed" effect.

[Afgncaap5]

My suggestion is that rather than trying to find an aggregate value for all the separate abilities you're mashing together, take a look instead at the end result, and see what spells are about that strong.
Your character gets +8 Str, +2 Con, -3 AC, Weapon size increase (avg +2 dam), Reach, etc... Does that sound like a 4th level spell? 5th? Since the downsides only matter during the time that the potion isn't in effect, it's really just the confusion effect that's troubling. Cut the price by 20% or so for the "cursed" effect.

Good idea. A single spell would simplify the process a bit (though I think I'll retain the different types of bonuses.) A bit like a less pleasant version of Tenser's Transformation.

As for the addiction rules... that might be a good way to go about it, thanks. Or, at least, something similar to it.

[gr8artist]

And price doesn't really matter if your group can't buy or sell it.
You can write up the addiction as a disease, contracted with the dose.

[Afgncaap5]

My primary reason for calculating a price is because it helps to determine things like XP expenditure. If it wasn't a potion, it'd also help determine time spent.

[GGambrel]

I had an idea when the upgrade of the forum was happening.

Some characters may be immune to some of the negative effects of the potion. When writing out the description of the potion (or the spell upon which it is based), you may want to word it carefully. I'd probably add a clause which makes it so that you can only gain the benefits of the potion/spell if the penalties can actually effect you.

Ability damage/drain might be another penalty option you'd like to consider, if you haven't already included the potion/spell in your campaign to the point of the players fully understanding its effects.