Use this series of tables to come up with random potions! You can use this as a DM to describe an unidentified magic potion that you give your players. As a player, you can use this when you create potions as a spellcaster or someone proficient in Alchemist’s Tools. Use this with the Alchemy Profession Guide!
Every potion has to be held in something! Roll on the following tables to generate a container for your potion including its material, shape, and its seal or stopper.
Roll on the following tables to create a random liquid! If you want your potion to be identifiable, try adding a telling ingredient to float in the potion. For instance, a Giant’s Strength potion can have a giant’s toe inside, while a Potion of Fly might have an angel’s feather within. A healing potion might have some medicinal herbs floating inside.
Potion Color
Potion Smell
Potion Taste
How it’s Made
Randomly describe how to create the potion. Roll twice or more on the Ingredients table. Then roll once for each ingredient beyond the first on the Alchemical Processes table to determine how each ingredient is added to the first ingredient. It might be mixed in a special way or treated in a unique way before it’s added.
I should note this is for D&D fluff and narration and is not based in science. Dissolving Aqua Fortis and Mercury in alcohol will not make a healing potion so do not drink it!
Ingredients
Alchemical Process
Potion Effects
There are many existing potions, but I feel like a lot of existing spells could be made into potions. So, I added some. I based them loosely on spell scrolls but tried to move the better ones to higher rarities because potions are objectively better than scrolls (anyone can drink a potion, only casters can use scrolls).
If you roll for a potion randomly as part of a treasure hoard, be sure it’s of an appropriate rarity for the players.
Playing 5th edition for the first time and feeling overwhelmed? Here’s a quick glimpse into the classes.
Barbarian
Fundamentally: It’s like when you step on a Lego in the middle of the night and for a moment your capacity for rational thought is eclipsed by the fact that the entire world must tremble before the unfathomable depths of your wrath. Only with fewer Legos and more swords and stuff.
Mechanically: You can go into a rage in battle that diminishes the damage you take and increases the damage you deal. A lot of your fighting is based on high-risk, high-reward strategies, intimidation, and instinct rather than careful calculation.
Bard
Fundamentally: The words you speak change the shape of the minds around you. You’ve taken motivational speaking to a whole new level. You can also insult someone so hard they die from it.
Mechanically: Your day-to-day repertoire of spells stays the same (once you’ve learned a spell, it tends to stick in your head) and also pulls from a lot of different specializations. You can also inspire your allies, mess with your enemies’ morale, and, yes, insult someone so hard they die from it.
Cleric
Fundamentally: You’re pretty tight with some sort of higher power who’s granted you abilities commensurate with their sphere of influence. You might be a warm and fuzzy beacon of light and love, you might heal the sick, or you might make swarms of insects descend on your screaming foes. God stuff, you know?
Mechanically: You have access to a huge number of spells but don’t know them all off by heart, so every morning you spend some time in prayer and contemplation to make sure a few of them are ready at your fingertips when you need them most.
Druid
Fundamentally: You can turn into animals and control a lot of powerful magic that’s tied in with nature and the elements. You also may have read too many Animorphs books as a kid.
Mechanically: Much like clerics, you have a huge number of spells potentially at your disposal but have to concentrate each morning on picking out which ones you’ll pack with you. You can also, you know, turn into animals. That’s a thing.
Fighter
Fundamentally: You probably watch a lot of action movies and wince every time a character pulls off an amazing fight despite not having any experience or training. You’ve worked very hard to learn strategy, tactics, and precision, and when the stars align, the whole battlefield is yours to control.
Mechanically: Depending on your specialty, you’ll have a variety of abilities to make combat go a little more smoothly for you and your friends: taunting enemies so they focus on the right people, shielding your squishier allies, or just doling out an absurd amount of hurt.
Monk
Fundamentally: You think people get a little weird about their swords; you’ve never needed more than just your fists and maybe a good stick. You’re highly trained and absurdly dexterous: if someone tries to pull a coin out from behind your ear, they’ll probably find themselves with a rabbit in their hand instead and no idea what happened.
Mechanically: You’re so quick that you can snatch arrows out of mid-air. You’re also very centered on precise, devastating strikes, and have a store of ki points that allow you to do special attacks/defenses.
Paladin
Fundamentally: While clerics are generally a little more buddy-buddy or reverential with their divine patrons, yours is something more of an… employer. You know how it is when you’re on the clock: sometimes you gotta do your best to be the good you want to see in the world, and sometimes you gotta swear to enact vengeance for ancient wrongs. It’s a living.
Mechanically: Your singularly goal-oriented abilities are a blend between magic and more traditional combat, and you can frequently use magic spells to imbue weaponry with divine power. You also have an impressive ability to suss out both strong good and strong evil.
Ranger
Fundamentally: You know the wilderness pretty darn well (and probably complain about weekend hikers a lot). Your idea of a good time is being dropped in the woods without a map and having to puzzle your way out, preferably while hunting a few monstrosities along the way…
Mechanically: Your experience and survival instincts will serve you especially well in particular regions (a favored terrain you select) and against particular enemies (a favored type you select). You pick up a bit of magic here and there, mainly to help yourself and your friends make it through the wilderness unscathed.
Rogue
Fundamentally: You’re a very sneaky person who figures the best battle is the one that you ensure is over before it even gets a chance to start… mostly because you know if you get cornered you’ll probably get squashed like a bug. It’s probably a good thing that you’re so stealthy you practically vanish into another dimension.
Mechanically: You get huge bonuses and incentives for attacking first or when an opponent is distracted. You’re also notoriously quick-fingered and can be assured that if something ever goes missing, every eye in the room is going to be looking at you. Whoops.
Sorcerer
Fundamentally: You’ve got some powerful magical abilities that just sort of… happen, and your control over them is a little shaky at best. But it’s fine, it’s all good, you’ve got it handled. That tree was always on fire, right?
Mechanically: You learn a limited selection of powerful spells that are always at your disposal, and also gain access to a pool of Sorcery Points that will let you further manipulate your magic as you get more and more comfortable with your spellcasting.
Warlock
Fundamentally: Some incredibly shifty and absurdly powerful ancient being decided you seemed kind of neat, so they were all, “Hey, how would you like to have some seriously freaky magic in exchange for making a sorta dodgy pact with me?” and you were all, “alksdjflgk???” because hey, otherworldly and unfathomable, and they were all, “Cool, have fun,” and now you can kill things with your brain.
Mechanically: You have an extremely limited number of very powerful spells, but your spellcasting recharges very quickly, since the channel between you and the source of your magical abilities is pretty darn open. You also made a pact with something strange and a little bit unknowable. What could go wrong?
Wizard
Fundamentally: You’re the kind of person who got all A’s in school but also studied their ass off to do it. It’s like you read Harry Potter so many times that you managed to will magic into existence. You’re probably going to drag the party to every used bookstore on the planet.
Mechanically: You have a spellbook that contains every spell you know. Every day, you have to study up on a handful of these spells that you want to have immediately at your fingertips. You can add to the spellbook by finding more spells out in the world and copying them down using fancy-ass stationery.
An elf maiden dances on feet of living wood sung into shape, planted in soil and watered when she takes them off. Every year she plants the old ones and sings a new pair. (Incidentally, the pair of peach saplings from three years ago have produced an excellent crop- She makes preserves from them, and despite the inevitable jokes about “toe-jam”, they are appreciated.)
A dwarf king has a metal fist, all tiny gears and fine wires, kept wound by a mischievous mine-spirit bound to the spring as punishment- the more it struggles, the tighter the spring.
An orc chieftaness is regularly asked for the story of how she earned the name Wyrmthrottler- she boasts of how she strangled the dragon that ate her arm, and had her shaman make a new arm from its bones, with its fangs as the fingers.
A necromancer simply re-attached his old leg bones- Sacrificing a few mice each day keeps it going.
A pirate captain lost her arm to a shark attack: a passing selkie saved her, and gave her tattoos of kraken blood. Now she has an arm made of salt-water, that grows and wanes with the tides, and swings a cutlass as well as the original. (She doesn’t sail as far these days though: she doesn’t want her wife to worry.)
A wandering swordsman was broken at the waist- his ancestral armour allows him to walk again, as long as he keeps it polished, and burns incense to the ancestors regularly.
A high priestess has an eye made from a crystal ball- to predict the future, all she has to do is wink.
A bard was struck deaf by illness- he struck a deal with the god of music. Now he wears hearing-trumpets made from his old pipes, and dedicates his every song to the god of music- the better he plays, the better his hearing. (It is said his music could make statues weep, and he can hear a mouse fart at 60 paces.)
A princess has the arm of a golem, enchanted clay with mystic words carved in- her music tutor despairs of how her harp playing has become even worse, but her calligraphy tutor is ecstatic over her handwriting.
A goblin pickpocket has an arm made of whatever he steals- no-one feels his fingers, and even if they did, they couldn’t find their possessions amongst all the rest.
A witch has eyes made from shadow and starlight, given to her in a game with a demon. Nobody dares to ask what she wagered- they aren’t even sure she won.
A warg was born deaf and blind- his people learned of his power when the nearest birds started staring at them, and dogs pricked up their ears as he walked past.
ignore the histories about certain races being evil
your material plane now
have fun
I’ve reblogged this before but I will again, because it’s so, so damn important as a DM to remember this.
The world is YOURS. You don’t have to put up with whatever norms everyone expects from games. You want bright, cheerful, happy orc villages? Do it. You want elves and dwarves that get along perfectly well in a harmonious co-existing society? DO IT. You want friendly drow that take pleasure in guiding newcomers in tours through the Underdark? You know the drill by now – DO. IT. You are not bound by the constraints of someone else’s fantasy.
As I often remind my players. I am god, this is my world now, I do what I want.
Yes!!!! Fuck the canon, make it your own. We all know the basic shapes of fantasy all-canon well enough at this point; now it’s time to start playing with it and subverting it and making it into something better
Just figured out how to kill 99% of the world’s population in a single action in a single round in dnd lads
And I don’t mean something like cast mass suggestion and let it go out of control. I mean that within 6 seconds the entire population just dies. Instantly.
…….. you have my attention
alright alright gather around ill tell you how to destroy the world’s population with one level 1 spell slot at 1st level (theoretically, higher levels work better)
The spell we are using is called Chaos Bolt, it was released in the Starter Spells UA (its play test content)
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Chaos Bolt
1st-level evocation
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 120 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: Instantaneous
You hurl an undulating, warbling mass of chaotic energy at one creature in range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 2d8 + 1d6 damage. Choose one of the d8s. The number rolled on that die determines the attack’s damage type, as shown below.
D8damage type
1Acid
2Cold
3Fire
4Force
5Lightning
6Poison
7Psychic
8Thunder
If you roll the same number on both d8s, the chaotic energy leaps from the target to a different creature of your choice within 30 feet of it. Make a new attack roll against the new target, and make a new damage roll, which could cause the chaotic energy to leap again.
A creature can be targeted only once by each casting of this spell.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, each target takes 1d6 extra damage of the type rolled for each slot level above 1st.
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Now that branching part is how you are going to do it. If you roll the same number on the d8′s for damage (which determine damage type), the bolt branches off and hits another creature of your choice.
But there’s a loophole here.
In the first paragraph the spell says “… chaotic energy at one creature in range” NOT that you have to be able to see.
Second part, at the jump description “… from the new target to a different creature of your choice within 30 feet of it”. Again, you don’t have to be able to see OR KNOW about the target. So you just keep making the chaos bolt jump and jump using beetles and squirrels and shit, there’s a theoretical microscopic creature within 30 feet of EVERYTHING ON THE ENTIRE PLANET.
But how do we guarantee it jumps?
That’s where the class levels come in.
A second level cleric of the storm domain has “Channel Divinity: Destructive Wrath”
____________
Starting at 2nd level, you can use your Channel Divinity to wield the power of the storm with unchecked ferocity. When you roll lightning or thunder damage, you can use your Channel Divinity to deal maximum damage instead of rolling”
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So you cast chaos bolt, roll either one of the d8′s as lightning or thunder damage, and use your channel divinity feature. Now it is doing maximum damage instead.
8 + 8 + 6. Two 8s, that means it jumps again. And the damage type on 8?
Thunder damage.
Each time it strikes a new creature it deals thunder damage, so from the channel divinity it deals max damage, another 8 + 8 + 6, and continues branching because it has two of the same number on the d8s.
Now that’s great but you need to make a new attack roll on each creature it jumps to. And at 2nd level you’re only going to have +5 to attack rolls max, so you’d have a 25% chance of the attack missing against AC 10 and the bolt ending. So at higher levels, specifically 20 because hey thats max level.
At 20th level your attack modifier is 11, +5 from 20 ability score, +6 proficiency bonus. so that means you hit a minimum of AC 12 no matter what (by RAW rolling a 1 has no special effect on an attack, but people like to house rule critical blunder, but hey we’re breaking the game with RAW right now). Add a legendary tier magic item onto there for +3 to attack rolls on spell attacks, now you’re hitting AC 15 automatically. That means a creature needs to have more than 21 Dexterity (impossible by all non-magical, non-epic means) to have even a 5% chance of dodging the attack. Average human has 10, and no normal natural armor exceeds 15 (think bears and the like), and people don’t normally walk around in armor.
Basically, you’re hitting everything you NEED to hit automatically.
For the sake of overkill, cast it in a 9th level slot for 2d8+8d6 damage (maxed because of channel divinity)
Branch it all across the world. Kill everything on the planet that has less than 64 hit points (normal person has 4).
destroy the world
I want to figure out how to make this not work, but as long as “creature you choose” doesn’t require direct awareness, I legitimately think u just broke the spell
Even without that stipulation, you could use this to DECIMATE any fight you are in. It’s rare that there is no enemy within 30 feet of each other.
And even for mass murder. Any arena, theater, market place, any densely populated city. Stand on something high, cast it, watch it drop everyone in a 5 mile radius.
The old kobold scenerio where theyre running around the walls dropping traps and taking potshots, shoot into one of the walls, let it cascade through the tunnels wiping them all out.
FURTHERMORE!! Due to sage advice on Fog Cloud (basically if blinded you can make an attack into a space you cannot see, and the enemy cannot see you, with no disadvantage or advantage), to hit a space where you know someone is but cannot see. So if you cast it into a dense concert hall from behind a barrier and just mentally made it zigzag cause you know where everyone is, you could do it without needing to risk missing an attack from an empty space (but it targets CREATURES, not a space, so even then)
Throw in lvl 3 sorceror meta magic and cant stop it
There is a problem here though, and that problem is that by RAW, rolling a 1 absolutely has an effect! While it doesn’t need to fuck up horribly, you’re right, according to page 194 of the PHB “If the d20 roll for an attack is a 1, the attack misses regardless of any modifiers or the target’s AC.“
So it WOULD miss, but does that mean your attempt to end the world as we know it has to stop there? No! Because so far, you only require three things: the Chaos Bolt spell, the Cleric class, and a high level.
Make your Cleric a Halfling. Their Lucky trait states “When you roll a 1 on the d20 for an Attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll.”
Like, yeah, it still stops if you manage to roll two 1s, but I can’t actually think of a way that this would become infallible.
The folks behind D&D just took a sledgehammer to one of my least favorite d&d tropes: The Drow
Now instead of being a society of nazi dominatrixes who are inherently and spiritually corrupt, the modal inspiration for the drow is now the late roman empire: where scheming, selfishness, and ambition were considered primary virtues, making it easy for any individual to conform to society if it means their own advancement.
Set against this is the now cannon ability for elves to change their sex at will, understood by many as a blessing by their creator. The drow, having being recast as a “darkly gendered” society, see this ability as taboo, rebellious, and inviting anarchy.
The creators have literally canonized questioning your gender as a heroic act set in opposition to one of the game’s baddest of big bads . I’m so proud of these nerds!
SlythKris (tumblr backup babey) 