I've come up with a homebrew potion my players seem to love and hate

[FoxWolFrostFire]

I call it the potion of "Risky Luck"! What does this potion do? For the rest of the session (Time varies do to the unstable nature) you have advantage on all D20 rolls; HOWEVER if either roll is a 1 no matter what the roll was for it is treated as a critical failure with some manner of major ill befalling the drinker. (This can be something akin to their weapon getting destroyed, something that was normally always reliable is late or back fires, for the simple of us. A simple 5d6 psychic damage will do.) This 1 can not be reroll for any reason, and you MUST take that roll over others. This trumps the lucky feat and halfling's lucky feature

Also note, Potion Mix ability is a thing. So be careful with those healing potions and the likes.

[JNAProductions]

I wouldn't use it. Either I get lucky and avoid the 9.75% chance of rolling a 1 on every d20 roll, and curbstomp appropriate foes; or I don't, and I get screwed.

Either way, not super fun.

[LtPowers]

Agreed. This is worse than a critical failure table because it results in crit fails almost 10% of the time instead of only 5%.


Powers &8^]

[MagneticKitty]

Time to play a halfling.

[xroads]

Nice! Depending on my character and what was at risk, I'd play those odds. This could be useful if I needed every bit of luck to survive a particulary dangerous session. Or conversely, as a way to spice up a more mundane milk run session.

[Waffle_Iron]

I’m going to change it a bit, but I like the idea.

The way I’m going to try it is:
For the rest of the session, all normal rolls are with advantage, all rolls that would have advantage will be with super advantage(3 dice), and all rolls with disadvantage will be with super disadvantage (3 dice).

I’ll let you know how it goes.

[Bubzors]

I use something similar in my games but not as drastic. Found it somewhere on the inter webs but forget exactly where the idea came from. I call it the Pendant of Borrowed Luck.

Once per short rest you can call upon cosmic good luck to add 1d6 to any attack, ability check or save. However that luck must be paid back. Until the next short rest the DM can subtract 1d4 from one of the player’s attack, save or ability check. It cannot be used on the same check the player activated this for.

I found it’s a fun little ability that doesn’t break anything.

[MikeRoxTheBoat]

I played a Hexblade once who was a character that traded his luck for power. In exchange for the War Wizard's spell deflection ability, I gained the "Unlucky" feat, where the DM could force me reroll any die that wasn't a crit or wasn't made with advantage, once per short rest. The crit caveat was 'cause taking a crit away felt too bad for the both of us for normal situations. The advantage caveat was because by being at advantage, I was utilizing skill more than relying on luck. Everything else was fair game and it had the odd side effect of me not necessarily rushing to get short rests if I'd already had my unlucky die used. Consequences ranged from hilarious, to potentially deadly (got real close to falling off of a very high cliff). The DM was really good at using it when it would be most narratively dramatic and I would get more and more paranoid the closer we were to something significant if he hadn't used it it.

Results would definitely vary table to table depending on the player and the DM. My DM was good enough to ride that line of being conniving without being a total jerk with it.

Anecdote aside, I'd agree that I would have a hard time trying to use that potion. Seems like it could lead to cascading failure pretty quickly. I think the problem is that nat 1 fails feel worse than a crit or high skill check success feels good.

If I made something like this, I might do something similar to a blink spell, but with advantage/disadvantage. "For the next minute/hour/whatever time frame, before making an ability check, attack roll, or saving throw, roll a d10. On a 5 or higher, you make the roll with advantage. Otherwise, you make it with disadvantage. Ignore any other instances of advantage/disadvantage" If you wanted to add a layer of chaos, say if they roll the same number on both die, some nonsense happens (roll on the wild magic surge table, or just make something up) as luck in the area is being messed with.

[xroads]

After thinking about it, I'd probably change the duration to last one encounter, as opposed to one session. That way it's more beneficial and in line with standard potions (I can't think of any other potions that last a session).

[FoxWolFrostFire]

After thinking about it, I'd probably change the duration to last one encounter, as opposed to one session. That way it's more beneficial and in line with standard potions (I can't think of any other potions that last a session).

That is why it is homebrew. us as the Dungeon Masters can make what ever item we want that we think our very specific group would like to play with.

[sithlordnergal]

Ohhhh, I like that! A lot! I think I'm gonna add it to my games from now on, as is. I can assure you that, as a player, I would absolutely use it every chance I got, and potentially mix it with other potions to see the side effects. Then again, I'm the player who loves classes like the Wild Magic Sorcerer cause Chaos!