Fralex
2015-05-29, 07:46 PM
I was inspired a while ago by this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?385701-Foraging-Potion-Ingredients-Alchemy-Mini-Game-Idea) to create an alchemy/herbalism crafting/foraging system. It was a lot of work, but it's finally ready for testing! Tell me what you think!
http://i60.tinypic.com/2ij2ell.png
The Basics
These are the seven primary essences that can be extracted from any herb, fungus, or animal organ that has a use as an alchemy ingredient. The four on the top row are the four elements, Earth, Water, Air, and Fire, respectively. They are arranged in order of increasing energy, from the least active (Earth) to most active (Fire). In between each adjacent pair of elements we have the alchemical symbols for salt, mercury, and sulphur. They represent the essential trinity of Body (the physicality in all things), Spirit (the vital life force that suffuses all living creatures, giving them energy), and Soul (which for the sake of clarity we will be referring to here as the Mind; it directs the flow of Spirit through the vessel of the Body to control it, giving it a will of its own). Every alchemical formula calls for some combination of these seven essences, and success depends on efficient combining of ingredients as much as it does skill.
The first thing an alchemist must do is gather ingredients. This is best done in the wilderness. Although some herbalists' shops might sell a couple basic ingredients along with their completed potions, the ingredients will almost always be priced such that it would cost less to just buy the completed potion than it would to make it yourself. Thus, a good alchemist is a good forager. The next page has a table listing the various ingredients each biome is likely to have, but your DM is free to create their own table for specific areas, or declare that the remains of an exotic monster can be harvested as a source of alchemy. It's pretty simple to customize.
Foraging
To forage for alchemical ingredients:
Make a Wisdom (Survival) check against the area's foraging DC, as if you were searching for food.
If you pass, roll 1d6 and check the following table to determine what ingredient(s) you find based on the biome you're in.
If you beat the DC by 3 or more, roll on the table twice. If you beat it by 6 or more, roll on the table thrice. If you beat it by 10 or more, choose any of the 6 results on the table to get, then roll on it twice more.
http://i57.tinypic.com/122btrp.png
All a DM needs to do to make a new foraging table for a particular area is take one for an existing biome and replace the found ingredients with other ingredients of the same rarity. It needs five common (single-symbol) ingredients, three uncommon (double-symbol) ingredients, and one rare (triple-symbol) ingredient. Feel free to give them more interesting names; perhaps the Air-Water essence is extracted from the petals of the delicate frostflower, which blooms in the dead of winter. Use your imagination!
Crafting
To brew a potion or other alchemy-related item:
[*=left]To make any of these items you must both be a spellcaster and have proficiency in alchemist's supplies. There are a few exceptions, however. A few of the simpler potions, like potions of healing, can also be made with an herbalism kit. You don't need to be a spellcaster to use an herbalism kit, even if you're crafting something magical. You also don't need to be a spellcaster to make certain mundane alchemical items, such as acid or alchemist's fire. These can only be made with alchemist's supplies. As always, you cannot make magic items of a rarity beyond what your level will allow.
[*=left]You must provide all the listed ingredients for an item to make it. Certain rarer ingredients, represented on the previous page by the interlocking symbols, count as two or three ingredients for the purposes of providing all necessary components.
[*=left]To concoct the item, make an Intelligence check. Add your proficiency bonus if you're using tools you're proficient in (and honestly, since you can't make this stuff without proficiency in the tools you're using, the only time you won't add your proficiency bonus is when you're using makeshift or improvised tools).
[*=left]The DC for the Intelligence check is equal to:
8 + [Item's Rarity] + 2 × [Number of Ingredients Used]
[*=left]The rarity for an item is a number based on whether it's Common, Uncommon, Rare, etc. You can determine it by subtracting 1 from the number of symbols in its recipe. The addition of the number of ingredients used means that the Intelligence check will be easier if you use rarer ingredients, since those can take the place of several other ingredients.
[*=left]Even though you're not actually spending gold on resources, you still make progress in increments of 25 gp per day. If your check was successful, by the end of that time your item will be complete. If you failed the check, you ruin all the ingredients you were using in the recipe and will have wasted half the time crafting the item was going to take.
Putting it All Together
Let's say you want to make a potion of acid resistance. According to the recipe, that's an Uncommon item that requires one Water essence and two Body essences. You decide to search the nearby forest and coast to gather ingredients.
The forest is a pretty healthy and vibrant place, so the foraging DC is just 10. You make the Wisdom (Survival) check and get a 17. Since you beat it by at least 6, you get to roll on the table three times and collect ingredients each time. You roll a 1, a 5, and a 3, and after some coin-flipping get two Body essences, one Water essence, two double-Body essences, and one Spirit-Body essence. Next you search the coast, this time only just passing the foraging DC but getting lucky and scoring a rare Body-Water-Body essence, along with a Fire essence. In total, your inventory looks like this:
http://i62.tinypic.com/904pyu.png
You take the ingredients back to your home and begin sorting them. You have several options for which ingredients you could use. You could just mix the three single-essence ingredients you need. The DC for a concoction of that quality would be 8 + 2 + 2 × 3 = 16. Not terrible, but you can do better. If you use a double-Body essence in place of the two single Bodies, the DC drops to 14, and if you replace all three with the Body-Water-Body essence, the DC is only 12! It's important to you not to mess this up, so you go with the last option. You make the Intelligence check and pass handily. You're going to be able to make it!
The DMG states that an Uncommon magic item like a potion of acid resistance costs 500 gp to make. But since a potion is a consumable item (like every other item you can make with alchemist's supplies), you cut that number in half first. With 25 gp worth of progress being made every day, you complete the potion 10 days later.
http://i60.tinypic.com/2ij2ell.png
The Basics
These are the seven primary essences that can be extracted from any herb, fungus, or animal organ that has a use as an alchemy ingredient. The four on the top row are the four elements, Earth, Water, Air, and Fire, respectively. They are arranged in order of increasing energy, from the least active (Earth) to most active (Fire). In between each adjacent pair of elements we have the alchemical symbols for salt, mercury, and sulphur. They represent the essential trinity of Body (the physicality in all things), Spirit (the vital life force that suffuses all living creatures, giving them energy), and Soul (which for the sake of clarity we will be referring to here as the Mind; it directs the flow of Spirit through the vessel of the Body to control it, giving it a will of its own). Every alchemical formula calls for some combination of these seven essences, and success depends on efficient combining of ingredients as much as it does skill.
The first thing an alchemist must do is gather ingredients. This is best done in the wilderness. Although some herbalists' shops might sell a couple basic ingredients along with their completed potions, the ingredients will almost always be priced such that it would cost less to just buy the completed potion than it would to make it yourself. Thus, a good alchemist is a good forager. The next page has a table listing the various ingredients each biome is likely to have, but your DM is free to create their own table for specific areas, or declare that the remains of an exotic monster can be harvested as a source of alchemy. It's pretty simple to customize.
Foraging
To forage for alchemical ingredients:
Make a Wisdom (Survival) check against the area's foraging DC, as if you were searching for food.
If you pass, roll 1d6 and check the following table to determine what ingredient(s) you find based on the biome you're in.
If you beat the DC by 3 or more, roll on the table twice. If you beat it by 6 or more, roll on the table thrice. If you beat it by 10 or more, choose any of the 6 results on the table to get, then roll on it twice more.
http://i57.tinypic.com/122btrp.png
All a DM needs to do to make a new foraging table for a particular area is take one for an existing biome and replace the found ingredients with other ingredients of the same rarity. It needs five common (single-symbol) ingredients, three uncommon (double-symbol) ingredients, and one rare (triple-symbol) ingredient. Feel free to give them more interesting names; perhaps the Air-Water essence is extracted from the petals of the delicate frostflower, which blooms in the dead of winter. Use your imagination!
Crafting
To brew a potion or other alchemy-related item:
[*=left]To make any of these items you must both be a spellcaster and have proficiency in alchemist's supplies. There are a few exceptions, however. A few of the simpler potions, like potions of healing, can also be made with an herbalism kit. You don't need to be a spellcaster to use an herbalism kit, even if you're crafting something magical. You also don't need to be a spellcaster to make certain mundane alchemical items, such as acid or alchemist's fire. These can only be made with alchemist's supplies. As always, you cannot make magic items of a rarity beyond what your level will allow.
[*=left]You must provide all the listed ingredients for an item to make it. Certain rarer ingredients, represented on the previous page by the interlocking symbols, count as two or three ingredients for the purposes of providing all necessary components.
[*=left]To concoct the item, make an Intelligence check. Add your proficiency bonus if you're using tools you're proficient in (and honestly, since you can't make this stuff without proficiency in the tools you're using, the only time you won't add your proficiency bonus is when you're using makeshift or improvised tools).
[*=left]The DC for the Intelligence check is equal to:
8 + [Item's Rarity] + 2 × [Number of Ingredients Used]
[*=left]The rarity for an item is a number based on whether it's Common, Uncommon, Rare, etc. You can determine it by subtracting 1 from the number of symbols in its recipe. The addition of the number of ingredients used means that the Intelligence check will be easier if you use rarer ingredients, since those can take the place of several other ingredients.
[*=left]Even though you're not actually spending gold on resources, you still make progress in increments of 25 gp per day. If your check was successful, by the end of that time your item will be complete. If you failed the check, you ruin all the ingredients you were using in the recipe and will have wasted half the time crafting the item was going to take.
Putting it All Together
Let's say you want to make a potion of acid resistance. According to the recipe, that's an Uncommon item that requires one Water essence and two Body essences. You decide to search the nearby forest and coast to gather ingredients.
The forest is a pretty healthy and vibrant place, so the foraging DC is just 10. You make the Wisdom (Survival) check and get a 17. Since you beat it by at least 6, you get to roll on the table three times and collect ingredients each time. You roll a 1, a 5, and a 3, and after some coin-flipping get two Body essences, one Water essence, two double-Body essences, and one Spirit-Body essence. Next you search the coast, this time only just passing the foraging DC but getting lucky and scoring a rare Body-Water-Body essence, along with a Fire essence. In total, your inventory looks like this:
http://i62.tinypic.com/904pyu.png
You take the ingredients back to your home and begin sorting them. You have several options for which ingredients you could use. You could just mix the three single-essence ingredients you need. The DC for a concoction of that quality would be 8 + 2 + 2 × 3 = 16. Not terrible, but you can do better. If you use a double-Body essence in place of the two single Bodies, the DC drops to 14, and if you replace all three with the Body-Water-Body essence, the DC is only 12! It's important to you not to mess this up, so you go with the last option. You make the Intelligence check and pass handily. You're going to be able to make it!
The DMG states that an Uncommon magic item like a potion of acid resistance costs 500 gp to make. But since a potion is a consumable item (like every other item you can make with alchemist's supplies), you cut that number in half first. With 25 gp worth of progress being made every day, you complete the potion 10 days later.