D&D 5E Potions of spells which require concentration

jgsugden

Legend
My house rule - if you have a potion in hand, you can drink it as a bonus action. Otherwise it is an action to take it out and either drink it or feed it to someone. It works.

Potions are not spells, inherently. They do just what the description states. A potion of animal frienship lets you cast the spell. A potion of clairvoyance provides you the *effect* of the clairvoyance spell without casting it. Just follow the description of the potion.

If you make your own potion, you need to set the rules for it.

In my game, I made a potion called a "Spell Potion". By itself, it has no effect. However, if you cast a spell into the potion, that spell is delayed and then cast upon the drinker as the target at the time they imbibe it (using specified DCs, ability score, proficiency bonus, etc... rather than the 'caster's'). There are different rarities that can handle spells of increasing levels based upon rarity. Importantly, I decided that these potons and the spells they generate do not require concentration.

This did not break my game, despite these being the most popular potion, by far, in the game.
 

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CapnZapp

Legend
instead of entangling yourself further with house rules to fix house rules, in this case at least, my immediate thought was "why not simply stop bonus action potion usage?".

PS. The "in hand" special case probably works though. Most often having one hand occupied is cost enough (a hand that could hold a shield, torch or ingredient)
 


Tony Vargas

Legend
Obviously, the guy that made the potion has to concentrate. That's dedication.

… or, no, wait if the potion requires concentration do you have to run it through a high-vacuum evaporator before use? Store it in a freezer?
 
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Harzel

Adventurer
Old thread I'm resurrecting! Lol. So we have the (house rule?) that you can chug a potion as a bonus action. I think lots of groups do that. Anyway, it saved a characters life yesterday with a healing potion. But it's such a useful action economy that I know that intelligent enemies need to do it as well.

The party is going up against yuan-ti pretty soon and I want some of them (not all) to carry one to three potions on their persons that can be chugged as a bonus action each round. I'm thinking BLESS, STRENGTH (hill giant), HASTE and HEALING.

This goes back to the old issue of Concentration for Bless, but I'd probably rule no in this case. Someone else in this thread mentioned his house rule that spells with a range of self require concentration on a potion, but spells (like Bless) that are cast on others do not require potion concentration.

It's purely a matter of taste, of course, but a potion that allows you to cast a spell to me just seems wrong - that's what scrolls are for. Potion of Animal Friendship, is a unique (AFAIK) and unpleasant aberration.
 

Goblyn

Explorer
I think this opens up a possibility for some depth of the in-game magic economy. Some potions(obv. the ones in the DMG that state it) are higher quality potions that don't require concentration and others exist which are lower quality and do require concentration. Possibly due to the the presence of some rare, or difficult-to-acquire ingredient. Potions that require concentration would thus be easier and cheaper to make.

Note I'm not making a rules argument here. Just sharing an idea this thread gives me.
 

CapnZapp

Legend
To return to the thread question, no there are no potions requiring Concentration. Each and every potion that refers to a spell that requires Concentration specifically negates that requirement.

On the other hand, and this is the point I posted to make, not all spells have potion equivalents.

That is, you're not supposed to be able to boils down any spell into a potion to get rid of its Concentration requirement (if it has one).

There's no generic potion making rule in the DMG. You're restricted to only those potions you can find.

And you can only find the selection statted up by the DMG.

My suggestion here is that if you allow your party to create their own potions, absolutely do not let them get rid of the Concentration requirement. The ability to have the Fighter concentrate on his own Fly or Stoneskin (leaving the Wizard free to concentrate on something else) is plenty powerful as is.
 
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shadowoflameth

Adventurer
Drinking the potion of Invisibility is like having the spell cast on you. The imbiber isn't concentrating. It still ends when an action is taken or an attack made which would end it. Any caster with the spell and a proper area to work can make potions. This gives a good reason spend the gold and time. You could spend time and gold to fly invisible and stone skinned but it takes resources to make or buy and actions to drink them. Live by the cheese, die by the cheese. If my players were abusing this then enemy casters might do a well placed dispel magic occasionally or do similar things themselves.
 

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