Do potions ever expire? Go Bad?

[Dawgmoah]

Do potions ever go bad? How long can some of these concoctions sit in a dungeon before it loses its efficiency, does something else, or does nothing?

By RAW they appear to last forever. When building a dungeon that no one has been in for close to a thousand years; will that Invisibility potion sitting there still work? Should it still work?

[Psyren]

By RAW they last indefinitely, like (most) other magic items. As for why - see the last two words of the previous sentence.

[tomandtish]

I have a vague memory of an older edition module that had potions that had gone bad, but also that they were apparently not stored correctly.

[GrayDeath]

If they are made using white Wine, yes, and quickly. Red Wine Potions keep for up to a century though ^^

[Zaq]

There are no provisions for this in the rules as written. Once a potion, always a potion, until used/broken/etc.

You could invent something, but it would be pure homebrew.

My first thought would be that they’ve basically been concentrated. Like, you ever find a congealed and evaporated bottle of cough syrup in the back of the medicine cabinet after forgetting about it for years? Kinda like that. So maybe they’d have duration/intensity increased by some amount (2x, or +50%, or get some dice involved if you feel all Gygax-like) but either they take longer than expected to drink (because it’s all turned to sludge) or it also inflicts some minor penalty (sickened, probably). Also, non-mechanically, describe it as having the aftertaste from hell. Like, well after it’s used, mention that you can still taste the freaking thing and that’s really not especially pleasant.

If you just wanted to be mean and needlessly punitive, you could just give it a mild ingested poison (or disease) effect in addition to the normal magic effect, with the idea being that the magic is unchanged but the liquid medium that holds the magic has decayed, bred bacteria, etc. But inflicting pointless penalties without a corresponding upside (since it’s not exactly like these cane at a discount if they were found as treasure) is mean, so I don’t think you should do that.

Alternatively, you could dig up that old “potion miscibility” April Fool’s article from the WotC archives and cherry-pick some appropriate effects.

[frogglesmash]

The DMs guide has describes the cursed item, Potion of Poison, as a potion that has gone bad, but beyond that, I'm not aware of any codified best-before-date for potions

[tomandtish]

I have a vague memory of an older edition module that had potions that had gone bad, but also that they were apparently not stored correctly.

Update: Module WG-4 had some potions that were 75% likely to have a reverse effect because of their age.

[Thurbane]

If you wanted to home-brew, maybe some kind of variation on the Potion Miscibility table (while an April Fool's article, this was based on how potions worked in 1E).

http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20060401b

[Saintheart]

Under Frostburn, if the temperature drops sufficiently a magic potion can freeze, but thawing it out does no damage to it. That said you could try some DMly lols to the effect that the potions are in glass bottles and the expansion of the liquid on freezing explodes the bottle.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Here's something fun in the same vein: http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20060401b

Probably a good kicking-off point if you do want to homebrew some spoilage rules too.

[Arkhios]

What an awfully mundane thing to ask! :smallbiggrin:

Seriously though, I would understand if non-magical (a.k.a. mundane) alchemical concoctions would expire over time, but Potions are explicitly magic items.

[False God]

The's no reason they can't, but there's no rules to say they do. It would be an interesting way to make potions cheaper and more readily available in the world if they all expired (either simply no longer had an effect, or had alternate effects) after a certain amount of time.

[rel]

Seems reasonable that they could.
The rules don't cover it since the average adventurers lifespan is measured in months.

When stocking a dungeon, I recommend going with what's fun over what makes sense.
Verisimilitude results in drab holes filled exclusively with undead and constructs more often than not.

[TheStranger]

“It’s a shame to see a potion go bad like that. Started out in a good lab, but then he started hanging out with a gang of heavily armed ruffians, killing things and taking their stuff. Stay in school, kids.”

I have nothing useful to add to this thread.

[nedz]

No, but the labels can fall off though.

[tomandtish]

The's no reason they can't, but there's no rules to say they do. It would be an interesting way to make potions cheaper and more readily available in the world if they all expired (either simply no longer had an effect, or had alternate effects) after a certain amount of time.

I would certainly argue that a potion that was improperly (or not at all) sealed could go bad or be contaminated.

Mage is making potion. Right as he finishes he has heart attack before he can seal it in a vial. Sits undisturbed in his lab. Seems dubious that it would be fine years (or centuries) later.

[Kurald Galain]

The rules are written with PCs in mind. That is, it is not intended that potions go bad in the few days/weeks between a PC brewing (or buying) them, and the PC using it.

That doesn't mean that centuries-old potions found in dungeons always work as normal.

[Arkhios]

The's no reason they can't, but there's no rules to say they do. It would be an interesting way to make potions cheaper and more readily available in the world if they all expired (either simply no longer had an effect, or had alternate effects) after a certain amount of time.

That gave me an idea for some homebrewin' (should I find the time)...

Especially in regards to having alternate effects after the "expiring date". Maybe try and figure out different reactions depending on the container used in the making of a potion, such as clay, glass, porcelain. And maybe depending on the manner of sealing as well, whether sealed with cork or wax.

EDIT:
Maybe something like this:

When found gathering dust in a dungeon, ruins, or simply having been forgotten, a potion may have its use-before-date expired and produced a side-effect.

Roll on the tables below to determine what happens when the potion is used:

Container material - 1d3:
1: clay [container#1]; low price
2: porcelain [container#2]; medium price
3: glass [container#3]; high price

Seal material - 1d2:
1: cork [seal#1]; high price
2: wax [seal#2]; low price

The combination of the dice results gives a total of 6 different effects, one of which may as well be that the potion has lost all its former oomph, and has the sole effect of a stale taste and potential stomach ache :smalltongue:

And, honestly, I wouldn't make any potions expire in less than a year, so you can easily handwave the tracking as a player (at least most campaigns don't last much longer than a year in-game-time), and use the table above only if you're the DM.
That said, the materials used could make crafting a potion more or less expensive than it normally would be, so that players could have a choice.