Gathering Ingredients

Idenitfying Ingredients

Certain areas may contain plants, herbs, and fungi which can be gathered and turned into ingredients that can be used to craft various balms, elixirs, poisons, or other potions. These plants may grow on the sides of trees, ontop of logs, or even at the bottoms of streams and lakes. Inspecting an area for these types of plants takes about one hour, which can be performed while traveling or during a short or long rest. Make an Intelligence (Nature) check or a Wisdom (Nature) check and compare the result to those below. If you are traveling at a quick pace, you make this check with disadvantage. Once you attempt to inspect an area for these types of ingredients, you cannot do so again until you come upon a new type of environments (i.e. traveling from a forest environment into a marshy environment), or until you have finished a short or a long rest.

Result 1-10, You do not gather any ingredients from the environment in which you are traveling through.

Result 11-15, You gather 1 ingredient from the environment in which you are traveling through.

Result 16-20, You gather 2 ingredients from the environment in which you are traveling through.

Result 21-25, You gather 3 ingredients from the environment in which you are traveling through.

Result 26-30, You gather 4 ingredients from the environment in which you are traveling through.

Result 30+, You gather 5 ingredients from the environment in which you are traveling through.

The DM may decide to alter the DC according to the environment that you are treveling in. For example, the DM may increase the DC to find and identify one type of plants or fungi in a windswept desert up to 20 because of the scarcity of plants and animals in that environment, while they may similarly lower the same DC to 10 while traveling through a lush and verdant jungle.
The DM may also decide that regardless of the result of your ability check, there are very few of these plants in your current location. For example, if you are taking a short rest on the side of a road and wish to try and find any of these ingredients, even though you roll a 20 for your check, the DM may decide you only find one or two common plants because of your proximity to a common travelway.

Gathering Animal Parts

Some concoctions also require parts from animals, such as the crushed teeth or fangs from a sabrewing, the venom extracted from a poisonous serpent or a giant spider, the scales of a blue dragon, etc. Once a creature has been defeated, you must spend 10 minutes obtaining the specific ingredient, using the appropriate supplies. Make a Dexterity (Nature) check and compare the result to the DC of each individual creature. On a success, you gather all harvestible parts of the creature. On a failure, the ingredients are destroyed, or they are too minimal to effectively use.
The DM may rule that none of a creature's particular ingredients are salvageable from the fight, or that only limited amount of an ingrediant are salvageable. For example, if you are trying to obtain giant wolf spider hair, and you cast several fire-based spells at it, the DM may determine that most, if not all, of the spider's hair is burned up.

Recipes

In order to make appropriate use of the animal parts and the plants, herbs, and fungi you find in your travels, you need to have access to recipes. Recipes contain a list of ingredients as well as the steps and methods required to use those ingredients to brew a specific potion, concoct a specific poison, or make a specific balm. The methods for creating these potions and poisons are wide and varied. You can make Alchemical Recipes using alchemist's supplies, Remedial Recipes using herbalism kits, and Poison Recipes using poisoner's kits.

Developing Recipes

When you gain proficiency with the alchemist's supplies, the herbalism kit, or the poisoner's kit, you learn three common recipes associated with that tool. When your proficiency bonus increases, you automatically learn two new recipes associated with that tool without spending any time or gold to learn it. This new recipe must be of an appropriate level or lower for your proficiency bonus. You cannot learn a recipe that is of a higher rarity than what is allowed for your proficiency bonus, for example learning an uncommon recipe while you have a Proficiency bonus of +2. If you gain proficiency with any of these tools at a higher level, you retroactively learn recepies at the same rate. For example, if you are 5th level and so have a proficiency bonus of +3, and you gain proficiency with the poisoner's kit, you learn three common recipes and two uncommon recipes.

Proficiency Bonus: +2 -- Recipe Level: Common (3)

Proficiency Bonus: +3 -- Recipe Level: Uncommon (2)

Proficiency Bonus: +4 -- Recipe Level: Rare (2)

Proficiency Bonus: +5 -- Recipe Level: Very Rare (2)

Proficiency Bonus: +6 -- Recipe Level: Legendary (2)

If you have expertise with either alchemist's supplies, herbalism kits, or poisoner's kits you can learn a recipe that is one rarity higher than your proficiency bonus, as long as that recipe uses the tool for which you have proficiency. For example, For example, if you are 4th level and so have a proficiency bonus of +2, you could normally only learn recipes of a common rarity; however, if you have expertise with herbalism kits, you could learn and produce a remedial recipe that is of an uncommon rarity. You can only learn this recipe (see the section below).

Learning New Recipes

You may also find new recipes on your adventures. You may find a recipe tucked away in a web-covered tome in a hag's lair, or you may find a note with a hastily-scrawled recipe in a wizards's tower, or you may purchace a carefully-inked recipe from an apothecary in town, or you may have found a chemist or a healer who is willing to teach you some of their own potions and remedies. Regardless of how you come across a recipe, you must spend time and money experimenting with it to be able to use it, indicated by the table below. The DM may decide to alter the time and cost depending on circumstances. For example, if a healer is teaching you a remedial recipe, they may choose to provide the cost for teaching you the recipe. Learning a new recipe always succeeds, though it does not result in any finished or usable product.

Recipe Level	Time	Cost
Common	1 workday	50 gold
Uncommon	5 workdays	200 gold
Rare	10 workdays	800 gold
Very Rare	30 workdays	3,200 gold
Legendary	60 workdays	12,800 gold

If you have expertise in either alchemist's supplies, herbalism kits, or poisoner's kits you can learn a new recipe that uses that tool in half the time and expending only half the gold cost.

Using Recipes

Once you have learned a recipe, you can then make the associated concoction. To do so requires the appropriate tool kit, as well as time and money in addition to the specific ingredients for the recipe. These other costs include items like phials, beakers, shears, wicks and oils to keep the potion simmering, and other common ingredients not unique to any one recipe. Each rarity of a recipe requires a certain amount of time and has a certain cost associated with it.

Recipe Level	Time	Cost	Sell
Common	1 workday	25 gold, in addition to the ingredients of the recipe	50 gold
Uncommon	3 workdays	100 gold, in addition to the ingredients of the recipe	200 gold
Rare	7 workdays	400 gold, in addition to the ingredients of the recipe	800 gold
Very Rare	15 workdays	1,600 gold, in addition to the ingredients of the recipe	3,200 gold
Legendary	30 workdays	6,400 gold, in addition to the ingredients of the recipe	12,800 gold

Most potions and poisons do not require constant attention for them to finish. Most of the work is usually upfront, as you chop or grind the ingredients, distill liquids, set certain temperatures, etc. but once that process is completed, most of these elixirs need only to boil or simmer for the remainder of the time, and only occasionally adding in other ingredients or performing other necessary actions according to the recipe.
As a result, you may simultaneously brew a number of recipes at a time equal to half your proficiency bonus rounded up, regardless of the rarity of the recipes you are brewing. For example, if you are 5th level and so have a proficiency bonus of +3, you can brew up to two recipes at the same time; you may wish to brew two uncommon recipes, or two common recipes, or one common and one uncommon recipe. If you begin brewing the uncommon recipe, which takes three days, you could also brew three common recipes during that same time, one for each day while the other one is brewing.
If you have expertise with either alchemist's supplies, herbalism kits, or poisoner's kits you can work on one additional recipe, as long as that extra concoction usese a tools's recipe for which you have expertise. For example, if you are 4th level and so have a proficiency bonus of +2, you could normally brew only one recipe at a time; however, if you have proficiency with poisoner's kits and expertise with herbalism kits, you could brew two recipes as long as one of those is a recepie that uses your herbalism kit.

Alternative Rules

The following are optional rules that a player can ask their DM about, or which a DM may choose to implement in a certain situation.

Chance of Failure

Some players and DMs may wish to include more risk to these brewing rules. In this case, the DM may call for an Intelligence (Nature) check when a player begins brewing a potion or poison and again at various stages of the brewing process, comparing the result to the DCs below. If a player fails the roll based on the rarity of the concoction they are making, this may increase the gold cost or the time required to make the elixir. If the roll fails by 5 or more, the DM may determine that the potion or poison along with all of its unique ingredients are wasted.

Recipe Level: Common -- DC 9

Recipe Level: Uncommon -- DC 12

Recipe Level: Rare -- DC 15

Recipe Level: Very Rare -- DC 18

Recipe Level: Legendary -- DC 21

Splitting the Process

The DM may also allow a player to work on a concoption over a period of time that is nonsequential. For example, a player may wish to spend some of their time out on the road working on Blasting Powder. As a common recipe, a player must spend 1 day working on it, or 8 hours. The DM may choose to let that player spend 2 hours working on it here, while they are keeping watch, another 2 hours there while they are taking a short rest, and then finish the last 4 hours when they return to a settlement. The DM may rule that this cannot be done for items such as potions with higher rarities that must be brewed for longer periods of time, though the DM may still allow a player to shave off some time, such as by grinding or chopping ingredients beforehand.