Herbalism Kit

This kit contains a variety of instruments such as clippers, mortar and pestle, and pouches and vials used by herbalists to create remedies and potions. Proficiency with this kit lets you add your proficiency bonus to any ability checks you make to identify or apply herbs. Also, proficiency with this kit is required to create antitoxin and potions of healing.
Proficiency with an herbalism kit allows you to identify plants and safely collect their useful elements.

Components

An herbalism kit includes pouches to store herbs, clippers and leather gloves for collecting plants, a mortar and pestle, and several glass jars.
Arcana. Your knowledge of the nature and uses of herbs can add insight to your magical studies that deal with plants and your attempts to identify potions.
Investigation. When you inspect an area overgrown with plants, your proficiency can help you pick out details and clues that others might miss.
Medicine. Your mastery of herbalism improves your ability to treat illnesses and wounds by augmenting your methods of care with medicinal plants.
Nature and Survival. When you travel in the wild, your skill in herbalism makes it easier to identify plants and spot sources of food that others might overlook.
Identify Plants. You can identify most plants with a quick inspection of their appearance and smell.

Activity	DC
Find plants	15
Identify poison	20

---

Mechanics & Inner Workings

Herbalist’s Knowledge

Herbalist’s know pretty everything there is to know about plants. Which at eatable, which are rare and, therefore, expensive, and which plants to avoid. Beyond that, herbalist also might know:

• Potion sellers! Always helpful.
• How to barter/trade for the best prices on potions
• How to brew an exceptional pot of tea
• How to forage for tasty and nutritional food
• Identify a variety of diseases based on their symptoms

When to ask for a Herbalism Kit skill check

When a player wants to create a potion, healing balm or salve, have them roll an intelligence/wisdom check and add their proficiency to the roll. Some other situation that might call for a herbalism kit skill check are:

• Identifying a poison and creating an antitoxin
• Identifying a disease and knowing a cure
• Foraging for herbs or food
• Identifying plants or berries
• Analyzing the contents of a potion to know its effects

An herbalism kit is different from an alchemist’s tools or a poisoner’s kit. Herbs are the main ingredient used in potions, while chemicals are the base of alchemist kits. The two are very different. Herbalist focus on finding/growing herbs necessary to create healing potions and antitoxins. Herbalists know plants and how to use them. They can create balms and salves that can be used to treat diseases. Proficiency in this kit is required to create antitoxins and potions of healing.

Herbalism Kit

Rarity

Common

Weight

3 lb.

Base Price

5 gp

Raw materials & Components

A set of Herbalism Kit contains:

• pouches to store herbss
• clippers and leather gloves for collecting plants
• a mortar and pestle
• several glass jars

What Can I Use the Herbalism Kit For?

There are several predefined uses for the herbalism kit in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, which we’ll cover here. You shouldn’t let your imagination be constrained by these uses, but they’re a useful starting point.

Bonuses to Skill Checks

Proficiency with the herbalism kit means you’re highly knowledgeable about Plants and their uses.
In situations where your knowledge of herbalism is relevant, you’re able to gain bonuses to skill checks and learn additional information that specifically relates to herbalism.
This is especially true when you make skill checks using arcana, investigation, nature, and survival. Your herbalism knowledge allows you to more easily identify magical Plants and potions using arcana.
When investigating a heavily overgrown area, you’re more likely to notice anomalies in and among the plant matter.
You can also more easily identify Plants and food sources when traveling in the wild using nature and survival respectively.

Medicine

You can more effectively treat illnesses and injuries using medicinal Plants. This applies in situations where you use the medicine skill.
Xanathar’s Guide to Everything isn’t clear regarding exactly what bonuses this gives you. Some DMs may allow you to heal your companions for a couple of hit points instead of just stabilizing them at 0hp.
Some DMs may rule that you gain a bonus to the initial medicine check but that a success yields the same result.

Finding, Identifying, and Collecting Plants

If you’re in the wilds, you’re able to find specific Plants that would reasonably be present with a suggested DC 15 skill check.
You can identify what properties a plant has and what its possible uses are. You’re also able to collect and store plant matter using your herbalism kit.

Identifying Poisons

You can identify poisons with a suggested DC 20 skill check. This may vary based on the poison and may only apply to poisons where knowledge of herbalism would be relevant.

Downtime Crafting

You can also use your herbalism kit to craft potions and poultices in periods of extended downtime between adventures.
These can be magical or mundane, although crafting potions with magical effects is more complicated.
Xanathar’s Guide to Everything also provides special rules for crafting health potions, allowing them to be crafted more cheaply and easily than other potions.

Mundane Crafting

Crafting mundane items is simple. You need:

• Access to any relevant alchemical equipment.
• Raw materials worth half of the item’s value.
• A number of workweeks equal to 1/50 of the item’s Gold value.

You can use this to craft useful adventuring supplies like antitoxin, which grants advantage on saving throws against poison.

Crafting Magical Potions

Brewing up magical potions is the most exciting thing you can do with the herbalism kit.
There are tons of amazing potions to craft in D&D, and these items’ consumable nature means they often have much more powerful and dramatic effects than other magic items of the same rarity.
To craft a magical potion, you need:

• A recipe. You might acquire this naturally in the course of adventuring. If you want to expedite this or if you’re looking for a specific recipe, then the library may be a good place to begin your search.
• Access to any required equipment. This might include a set of scales for weighing ingredients or a cauldron for mixing your potion. You might also need more specialist alchemical equipment like a retort or a crucible.
• Raw materials worth a specific value based on the rarity of the potion you’re trying to craft. These ingredients are things you can buy in most towns and cities.
• An exotic ingredient. You’ll need to go on an adventure to acquire this ingredient. The adventure should be thematically linked to the potion you’re attempting to craft and the CR of the encounter you face should correspond to the potion’s rarity.
• Time. Each rarity of potion requires a set length of downtime to craft.

Potion Rarity	CR of Encounter (Exotic)	Cost of Raw Materials	Time Required to Craft
Common	1-3	25 gp	1/2 workweek
Uncommon	4-8	100 gp	1 workweek
Rare	9-12	1,000 gp	5 workweeks
Very Rare	13-18	10,000 gp	12.5 workweeks
Legendary	19+	50,000 gp	25 workweeks

There are tons of great potions you can craft in officially published books.
This includes some incredibly powerful options like Potion of Speed, which increases your move speed and AC and allows you to take two actions per turn for a limited time.
Many DMs are also more willing to allow homebrew potions because their temporary nature means they’re less likely to permanently unbalance the game.

Crafting Health Potions

There are specific rules in Xanathar’s Guide to Everything for crafting Healing Potions. Unlike other magical potions, these don’t require a recipe or an exotic ingredient.
To create potions of healing, you need raw materials worth a certain value and a specified length of time depending on the type of health potion you’re attempting to craft.

Potion	Healed HP	Downtime Required	Value of Raw Materials
Potion of Healing	2d4+2	1 day	25 gp
Potion of Greater Healing	4d4+4	1 week	100 gp
Potion of Superior Healing	8d4+8	3 weeks	1,000 gp
Potion of Supreme Healing	10d4+20	4 weeks	10,000 gp

Health potions are likely to be in high demand, so it’s a good idea to be familiar with the rules for crafting them.