How to brew your own potions in DND

Dungeons & Dragons is a game filled to the brim with mechanical complexity and rules that can be easily missed by new players. One of the most common roles a party aims to fill is that of a healer. While healers most often replenish their allies' hit points by using healing spells, adventurers are also able to heal themselves by using potions.

Additionally, it is quite possible to make your own healing potions if your party is short. Beyond healing potions, you can craft a variety of different types of potions to help your fellow adventurers out of sticky situations. Here's everything you need to craft potions in D&D 5E.

Updated January 7, 2025 by Jack Filsinger: With the release of the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide, some rules have been changed when it comes to potion brewing. We've updated this guide to reflect these changes and added some additional information regarding the time and materials needed to brew your own potions.

What you need to start brewing potions

Before you start making your own health potions, it's important to know that not every character is capable of creating potions from scratch. while characters of any class are capable of brewing potionsto create their own potions a character must have familiarity with either herb kits or alchemist materials.

You can acquire these skills through your personal environment. Proficiencies with herb kits can be easily acquired during character creation by taking the hermit background. You can gain proficiency with the Alchemist's Supplies of choosing the Artisan fund and choosing Alchemist's Supplies as the Artisan's Tools proficiency.

Create your own healing potions

Once a character is ready, there are two things they will need: time and money. Depending on the strength of the potion a character wants to brew, they will need to spend additional time and money to create stronger potions.

Below, you can see how much time and money for materials a character is required to spend to brew healing potions.

While stronger potions may seem quite expensive, it should be noted that making your own potions is still incredibly economicalcosting only a fraction of the standard prices of these items.

How to create other types of potions

The 2024 Player's Handbook only provides rules for creating healing potions, but the 2024 DM Guide provides rules for creating your own magical items. Since potions are magical itemswe can apply these rules to create other types of potions in 5E by using an Herb Kit or Alchemist's Supplies.

What do you need to create other potions?

First, it should be noted that unlike healing potions, magic items will require key ingredientswhich are specified by a DM. Also, unlike healing potions, these items can only be created if a character knows the correct recipedictating what ingredients are needed to brew the potion at hand, as well as the steps required to brew the item.

These the ingredients are most often obtained from or are parts of different monsters. The greater the power of the item (or, in this case, the potion) a character tries to create, the more deadly the monster. This means that crafting anything other than Healing Potions is often a much more involved experience, as key resources must be obtained and prepared in a specific way.

Determine the time and money required

Once a character has obtained the ingredients dictated by the recipe, they must spend an amount of time and money dictated by rarity of the potion to prepare it.

For example, a Growth potion will requires less time and resources to brew but a Potion of Strom Giant Strength.

Below, you can see how much time and money a character must spend on materials to brew potions of various rarities.

How to make potions at home

Existing homebrew potions

One of the common complaints about making the potion is how long a potion can take to brew. A full day's work to make a Healing Potion seems like a lot for something that should reasonably take an afternoon at best, and taking nearly a month to create a Supreme Healing Potion is just and just ridiculous.

A good homebrew solution to this problem is to shorten the time required to make potions something that better fits the pace of your campaign. Working with DM, you could establishing a revised calendar that might require an entire day for a Supreme Potion of Healing, but a regular Potion of healing might only take a short break.

You can also adjust gold requirements for ingredients, or possibly even add a skill check to determine how long and how expensive the preparation of the potion proves to be.

Create new potions

You can also create completely new potions in Dungeons & Dragons via homebrew. There are only a few quick steps required to create your own custom potion.

1. Decide the effects of the potion – Work with your DM or the player to determine what the effects of the potion should be. Make sure there are no other potions that already have the same effect!
2. Determine the rarity – Compare potion effects with others in the Dungeon Master 2024 Guide to determine your potion's rarity. homebrew. This will determine the work time and materials needed.
3. Have beer! – Once you have determined the potion's rarity in the game, you can now brew the potion for yourself, provided you have the materials and time.