Bottoms up! a 5e / GLOG bolt-on mechanic for potion brewing

"I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses. I can tell you how to bottle fame, brew glory, and even put a stopper in death."
- J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Who needs a better reason than Snape's speach to learn potion brewing? This is a bolt-on system that any class can make use of. Fit for D&D 5th edition and for the GLOG.

Our party barbarian has been spending time with the local potion brewer to learn the craft. Although I use Goblin Punch's 100 potion recipes, ad-libbing the brewing process costs me a bit of time every session. So if I just hammer out a quick system, that should me save time in the long run...

To your health!

Lab work 101. Much still to learn.

TOIL AND TROUBLE

To become a potion brewer, you need to learn the Alchemy skill (a couple of sessions of work with a friendly alchemist in downtime gets you basic proficiency). Then, it's time to experiment and trade so you can learn new recipes. These come in 5 categories: common - uncommon - rare - very rare - legendary.

• Once you learn Alchemy, you know how to make 3 Common potion recipes.
• Recipes cost half their store value to create.
• Very Rare and Legendary potions also cost a special component to create; you can flavor other potions with components if you like, but I just assume those are part of the base cost.
• Buying a new recipe costs the same as its store value.
• To brew any potion, you need a laboratory outfitted to certain specifications and you need to be of a minimum level yourself.

Identifying potions in Goblin Punch's potion system is a matter of keeping records: each has a distinct look, taste and effect for taking a sip. Anyone can work out that system with time and a notebook.
Trained potion makers can automatically identify potions they know the recipe to.

Using skill checks in your game? You can roll with advantage (2d20, take the best roll) to identify any potion type you could already brew, or roll an ordinary check to identify potions that are still too difficult for you. (Example: in 5e, a 5th level bard with alchemy training could brew and easily identify common, uncommon and rare recipes.)

5e prices and criteria:
D&D 5e doesn't formally put a price on magic items, but it's handy to know how much they're worth anyway. For instance, when you want to trade in a magic staff to buy yourself a bishopric. I'm using the lower end of these item prices, but adjusted the higher levels because I don't see anyone plonking down 50,000 gp for a single potion of youth, even though it de-ages you 3d6 years and gives you 1000 XP. Then again, maybe I'm just not used to high level play. 

potion type	5e level	lab size	sell potion	create potion
common	1	100 gp	50 gp	25 gp
uncommon	3	250 gp	100 gp	50 gp
rare	5	500 gp	500 gp	250 gp
very rare	7	1000 gp	1000 gp	500 gp
legendary	9	5000 gp	10000 gp	5000 gp

GLOG prices and criteria:
The GLOG has less levels and lower XP thresholds than 5e D&D, so using XP for gp, I expect players to have less wealth to throw around. These prices are aimed at having the lab be a serious investment, but not crippling.

potion type	GLOG level	lab size	sell potion	create potion
common	1	100 gp	50 gp	25 gp
uncommon	2	200 gp	100 gp	50 gp
rare	3	400 gp	200 gp	100 gp
very rare	4	700 gp	400 gp	200 gp
legendary	5	1000 gp	5000 gp	2500 gp

Basic supplies

POTION RECIPES

This has been taken wholesale from Goblin Punch; there's just no improving on his format with brief rules and sensory clues! Any edits and mistakes are mine.

common recipes

comprehension, false life, hate, healing 2d4+2, heroism, love, sovereign grease, ventriloquism

uncommon recipes

anchoring, bottle imp (blue, gold, green, grey, purple, red), bounty, breathlessness, burrow, clairvoyance, darkvision, energy resistance, fire breath, fleeting journey, giant size, glibness, gold, grandeur, healing 4d4+4, hide from animals, hide from undead, invincibility, iron skin, levitation, magic weapon, mapping, mirror image, purge poisons, reverse gravity, seal soul, shrink, sound bubble, speak with beasts, speak with birds, speak with crawling things, speak with fish, speak with plants, spider climb, suggestion, tongues, transposition, water breathing, zombie blood

rare recipes

alternate self, deep sleep, ethereality, flight, gaseous form, green slime, haste, healing 8d4+8, invisibility, mutate spell, mutation, nondetection, poison (DMG), raise dead, sovereign glue, speak with dead, speak with metal, the great gambler, the hero, the poltergeist, the scoundrel, transformation: bees, transformation: rat, transformation: salmon, transformation: seagull, universal solvent, water walk

very rare recipes

cloudkill, duo-dimensionality, exit, healing 10d4+20, liquid boat, petrification, polymorph, random teleport, recapture spell, simulacrum d6m, spell ward until sleep, transformation: troll, true seeing, void metal, void wood, X-rays

legendary recipes

lycanthropy, sovereign acid, time hack, time skip, youth

POTION EFFECTS

Originally by Goblin Punch, tweaks in red to up some durations or effects for 5e by myself.

>> GOOGLE DOC <<