Potion Commotion looks at a few staple potions in the game and plays around with them. We’ll look at taking the standard abilities and offering them with either boosts or limitations, providing new versions of these old classics for all levels of play!
In this second installment, we’ll play around with a mainstay of the game: the potion of poison.
Pick Your Poison
The potion of poison is one of those sneaky and dangerous items. Masquerading as a potion of healing or other beneficial potion, it can be dangerous to adventurers not paranoid enough to insist on casting identify on every magic item that comes into their possession.
Its power as an uncommon item makes it more of an inconvenience to higher level characters, but deadly to a low-level one. For the game master who wants to scale this potion’s power for their party, or simply add in a few extra twists to keep them on their toes, here’s a list of variants of this staple.
First, let’s look at simply scaling the standard potion by adjusting damage, save DC, and duration. Here are a few examples on how to do that:
POTION OF POISON, LESSER
Potion, Common
50 gp
This elixir looks, smells, and tastes like a potion of healing or other beneficial potion. However, it is actually poison masked by illusion magic. An identify spell reveals its true nature.
If you drink it, you take 2d6 poison damage, and you must succeed on a DC 11 CON save or be poisoned for 3 rounds. At the start of each of your turns while you are poisoned this way, you take 2d6 poison damage. At the end of each of your turns, you can repeat the save. On a success, the poison damage you take on your subsequent turns decreases by 1d6. The effect ends when the damage decreases to 0.
POTION OF POISON, GREATER
Potion, Rare
350 gp
This brew looks, smells, and tastes like a potion of healing or other beneficial potion. However, it is actually a powerful poison masked by illusion magic. An identify spell reveals its true nature.
If you drink it, you take 4d6 poison damage, and you must succeed on a DC 15 CON save or be poisoned. At the start of each of your turns while you are poisoned this way, you take 4d6 poison damage. At the end of each of your turns, you can repeat the save. On a success, the poison damage you take on your subsequent turns decreases by 1d6. The effect ends when the damage decreases to 0.
POTION OF POISON, VIRULENT
Potion, Very Rare
1,500 gp
This concoction looks, smells, and tastes like a potion of healing or other beneficial potion. However, it is actually a powerful poison masked by illusion magic. An identify spell reveals its true nature.
If you drink it, you take 6d6 poison damage, and you must succeed on a DC 17 CON save or be poisoned. At the start of each of your turns while you are poisoned this way, you take 6d6 poison damage. At the end of each of your turns, you can repeat the save. On a success, the poison damage you take on your subsequent turns decreases by 1d6. The effect ends when the damage decreases to 0.
While poisoned this way, your flesh is virulent. Any creature that touches you while you are poisoned this way takes 3d6 poison damage and must make a DC 13 CON save or become poisoned. At the start of each of the poisoned creature’s turns, it takes 3d6 poison damage. At the end of each of the poisoned creature’s turns, it can repeat the saving throw. On a successful save, the poison damage it takes on subsequent turns decreases by 1d6. The effect ends when the damage decreases to 0.
Other Types of Poisonous Potions
Now consider these other ways to introduce poisonous potions into your campaign, some intentional, others by accident or circumstance.
CUSTOM POTION FOR CREATURE TYPE
Potion, Rarity Varies
Price Varies
Creatures sometimes want to ensure their resources can’t provide aid to the enemy, brewing potions that work fine for their kind, but are harmful to others. In this instance, choose any other type of potion, such as a potion of healing. For a particular type of creature (a general category, such as fey, or a more specific one, such as humanoid [orc]), the custom potion of healing functions as normal. For any other type of creature, it is acts as one of the previously detailed potions of poison, determined by its rarity. For purposes of a custom potion, treat its rarity as one category lower than that of a standard potion of its type.
A step up from the potion of bad taste from the Vault of Magic, this next potion provides protection at a price.
POTION OF POISONOUSNESS
Potion, Uncommon
100 gp
When you drink this green liquid, you gain the poisoned condition for 10 minutes. While you are poisoned in this way, your flesh is poisonous to other creatures. Any time a creature makes a successful bite attack against you that does at least 1 damage, the creature must succeed at a DC 13 CON save or suffer the effects of a potion of poison.
Continuing with this theme, here’s a sort of template you can apply to any potion, with a reduction in rarity offset by its poisonous nature.
CORRUPTED POTION
Potion, Rarity Varies
Price Varies
This concoction is a beneficial potion that has been corrupted by age, contamination, or other means. It functions as a standard potion of its type, but you gain the poisoned condition for the potion’s duration. If the potion’s effects are instantaneous, such as a potion of healing, you are poisoned until the end of your next turn. For purposes of a corrupted potion, treat its rarity as one category lower than that of a standard potion of its type.
