Why do potions cost XP to make?

[Tortoise262]

I had a player ask me this recently, and I don't really know the answer. The best I can figure, is that XP costs don't reflect "forgetting stuff" as much as they reflect being distracted and taking a longer time to reach the next level. But if that's true, then why can't you craft without the spare XP?

[Wabbajack]

The answer is simple: It's a game-mechanic. Without it every player would make masses of potions and get infiniti gold and imba potions.

[Lizardfolk Lich]

When making a potion, you imbue some of your magical power into the liquid. That's why it's magic!

[Dan_Hemmens]

XP don't reflect learning, they're an abstract reward for playing the game - that's why you can go from Level 1 Nobody to Level 20 Badass in less than a year of gametime. Hell at 4 encounters a day, every day, assuming you level every 20 Encounters (which is, I understand, roughly the assumption) you should go up a level a week.

Crafting costs XP because you need to pay for in-game power with an in-game resource. Gold is one such resource, XP is another.

[Rutee]

Dan Hemmens has the meta-reason, Lizardfolk Lich has RAW one for in-setting.

[Patashu]

It could be like in Tolkien, where making magical items et cetera drained from the crafter's power. Although there you couldn't get it back by slaughtering some popcorn.

[Collin152]

It could be like in Tolkien, where making magical items et cetera drained from the crafter's power. Although there you couldn't get it back by slaughtering some popcorn.

You can only slaughter popcorn for xp at really low levels. By the time you can make worthwhile potions, popcorn's CR is too low.

[Artanis]

You can only slaughter popcorn for xp at really low levels. By the time you can make worthwhile potions, popcorn's CR is too low.
Why do I suddenly get a mental image of a bucket of Pseudonatural Paragon Celestial Half-Dragon Weretiger Popcorn?

...with butter, of course :smallcool:

[Jack_Simth]

It could be like in Tolkien, where making magical items et cetera drained from the crafter's power. Although there you couldn't get it back by slaughtering some popcorn.
You get the power back when you slaughter the popcorn because on the popcorn's dissolution its power is released, and you soak some of it up. The more power you've soaked up, the less low-density power releases can soak into you. The less power you've soaked up, the more high-density power releases can soak into you. How else would a rogue get better at picking locks by killing kobolds?

[Spiryt]

I always treated it just as cost of energy, tiring labour of creation demands your concentration and your effort.

Besides yes, it's game mechanic.

[WrstDmEvr]

You can only slaughter popcorn for xp at really low levels. By the time you can make worthwhile potions, popcorn's CR is too low.

I once made a wizard that could get infinite experience. All you gotta do is find a plane with an infinite number of Paragon Pseudonatural Kobolds and cast Cloudkill.

[Megafly]

I once made a wizard that could get infinite experience. All you gotta do is find a plane with an infinite number of Paragon Pseudonatural Kobolds and cast Cloudkill.


It's easier than that!! You don't need to kill the Kobolds, Just "defeat" them.

put them to sleep. Wait for them to wake up. Put them to sleep. wait for them to wake up. In theory each is a different encounter.

[Roderick_BR]

I saw a game system that used a mix materials and experience points. When a character wants to make a item, the DM sets the "xp cost", and the characters then go on quest. The awarded XP is then considered the rare materials needed, meaning that the group can share the XP costs. Kinda sucks to spend 5 healing potions to brew 6 healing potions, though... :smalltongue:
Scribing scrolls had a different mechanic, requiring only the gold, but taking weeks to make even low level spells, but it used a mechanic similar to AD&D, where some low-level scrolls were usable by non-casters.

[holywhippet]

If there was no XP cost for making potions or other magical devices, players could just sit back and stockpile up enough supplies so that they could kill things way out of their league.

[FlyMolo]

You don't ever want a player asking how hard it is to build a cure light wounds potion IV. Ever.

In an interesting homebrew mechanic, make all potions 3/4 exp, but introduce potion miscibility issues. (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/20060401b) Of course, this means old adventurers accumulate SLAs and stuff that's always on due to rolling 100's. This could be cool, or annoying, depending.

But that has nothing to do with anything.

[UglyPanda]

Of course, new adventurers explode by those rules.

[Jothki]

So how much would several hundred Potions of True Strike cost?

[John Campbell]

You can only slaughter popcorn for xp at really low levels. By the time you can make worthwhile potions, popcorn's CR is too low.

You kidding? Popcorn is like unto a tiny refreshing GOD! (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0301.html)

[Fuzzy_Juan]

now that is alot of fun...I gotta use that for when players want to mix potions...oddly enough, potions have never been a large part of our game...nooone ever wants to waste time or money on them...hell...hardly anyone even uses scrolls in our groups.

Wands, sure...staffs...only if they are found...the rest is all weapons, armor, rings, and wonderous magic.

[Emperor Tippy]

It's a balance mechanic but it makes little ingame sense. Like lots of things.

[GrassyGnoll]

Fumes, horrible chemical fumes.

[Aquillion]

If you want to homebrew a better mechanic, here's an idea to eliminate XP costs entirely:

Create some kind of valuable magical fuel (like Vis from Ars Magicka, or Dragonshards in Eberron.) They have a value that translates to XP. You have to use this stuff up to create magical items. Obviously, it is extremely valuable and cannot be reliably purchased at any price, although it is sometimes available in limited quantities. (In general, the people who need it the most are the most powerful people in the world, established magical houses or prestigious organizations, and so on... so demand is so high that even a high-level adventurer can have trouble buying it on their own.)

With a feat, perhaps you could burn it to fuel metamagic, too, although (as with Metamagic Song) you couldn't use it to pay for metamagic levels that would raise a spell's level above the highest you can cast.

Since you'd assign an xp value to your magical fuel, this houserule could be easily translated from existing rules. Basically, the DM could give out this XP-fuel as treasure as if it was a sort of 'wildcard item', which the players can spend to get items they want... like money, yes, but for someone with lots of good item-creation abilities it would be even more valuable. It would make spells that cost xp more feasible, too.

[SadisticFishing]

Making (almost) any sort of permanent or semi-permanent magic takes part of your soul to make, hence, your XP.

[Hectonkhyres]

My group doesn't burn xp when it creates items. We are limited mainly by time and how pissed off the current DM is. If he thinks you are trying to cheeze, crap will just start happening that negates whatever benifit you might have just squeezed out of the system. If you still try to weasel your way around things, the offending character will be eaten without so much as a single roll of the dice.

So we keep our play in check. Because, if we don't, our gnome's alchemy lab gets turned into a hostile animated creature come next battle. That has acid and fire-based breathweapons, randomly casts grease (among other things) as a SLA, and detonates violently when finally slain.

[Dan_Hemmens]

It's easier than that!! You don't need to kill the Kobolds, Just "defeat" them.

put them to sleep. Wait for them to wake up. Put them to sleep. wait for them to wake up. In theory each is a different encounter.

I always wanted to have a setting with School of Wizardry that worked kind of like this. They got all their students to have wrestling matches once a day. Each one counting as a CR-appropriate challenge (you have "defeated" an opponent of equal level). As a result their students would gain approximately a level a month.

[Newtkeeper]

So how much would several hundred Potions of True Strike cost?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you can make a potion of a Range:Personal spell.

If you can, it would certainly be well worth the cost. 1st level spell potions are *cheap*!

[Toric]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you can make a potion of a Range:Personal spell.
Sure you can! The tough part is finding a way to fit yourself into that little flask. :smallbiggrin:

[JadedDM]

In 2E, you actually earn XP for brewing potions. ^_^

Why is everyone saying 'popcorn?' I feel like I'm missing something here.

[Reinboom]

In 2E, you actually earn XP for brewing potions. ^_^

Why is everyone saying 'popcorn?' I feel like I'm missing something here.

It's just rolling off of this post:


It could be like in Tolkien, where making magical items et cetera drained from the crafter's power. Although there you couldn't get it back by slaughtering some popcorn.


-Aside.
I use this (http://wiki.faxcelestis.net/index.php?title=Experience_Buffer) for item crafting.

[Tortoise262]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you can make a potion of a Range:Personal spell.

If you can, it would certainly be well worth the cost. 1st level spell potions are *cheap*!


Brew Potion
You can create a potion of any 3rd-level or lower spell that you know and that targets one or more creatures.

True Strike
Target: You
Certainly, you can! Anyhoo, thanks for all the input, guys. It seems like it's mostly a game mechanic, and any practical reason anyone comes up with is just speculative. But we're DM's, doggone it! What we speculate is reality!

[Collin152]

You kidding? Popcorn is like unto a tiny refreshing GOD! (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0301.html)

That popcorn, certainly, but you must bear in mind "The Law of Conservation of Divinity" If all popcorn were like unto tiny refreshing gods, they'd be so weak individually that anyone could defeat them, as they'd have a divine rank of about 0.00001876 .

[Tortoise262]

-Aside.
I use this (http://wiki.faxcelestis.net/index.php?title=Experience_Buffer) for item crafting.

Wow! I really like that idea! I just might implement it. Thanks ^_^