In “The Witcher 3”, potions can hurt – Geralt has a Toxicity bar that adds up to 100, and each potion fills it up slightly. When you get to that ~75% or higher mark, you start to take damage.
So how do we apply that do DnD 5e? Here’s my idea…
Table of Contents
What we need:
- Character Toxicity maximums, based somehow on their stats
- Potion Toxicity numbers, based on the potions themselves
Character stats
Each character must have a Toxicity maximum which tells them how capable they are of handling their drink, as it were.
I reckon we can get that by multiplying either our CON or INT Ability Score (player choice) by 100. This means characters can either gain resilience to Toxicity either through sheer toughness, or by methods that require brain over brawn (say, immunising yourself little by little over time throughout your life). In this way, spellcasters or other squishy PCs aren’t just going to get KO’d every time they drink a potion.
Character Toxicity Stat: CON/INT Ability Score x 100
Resistances
If your character is resistant in some way to poison, it will affect their resilience.
- Resistance to poison doubles your Toxicity maximum but still take the full effects, including damage.
- Immunity to poison doubles your Toxicity maximum and you take no consequences for consuming too many potions.
In both cases, characters still can’t consume more than their maximum Toxicity level without falling unconscious. Why? At this point it’s the magic that is destroying them from the inside, not any type of toxin. They are resisting the poisons, but not the maelstrom of alchemical magics inside their bodies. This is also why even those with poison resistance take damage.
Potion stats
We need to now apply a Toxicity number to each potion in DnD 5e. A little DM discretion is advised here, as each potion is slightly different.
Our potion ranks
In “The Witcher 3”, potions have a Toxicity number of 15, 20, 25, 30 or 70. But, Geralt consumes quite a lot of potions and maxes out at 100 Toxicity. To account for DnD PCs generally consuming fewer potions, and because we max out at 200, we’re going to up those figures.
Our potions ranks are:
- 50
- 75
- 100
- 150
- 200
Rough and quick idea
Base the potion rank on the rarity of the potion. Feel free to play with the numbers depending on how frequently PCs consume potions in your game, but that could look like this:
- Common: 50
- Uncommon: 75
- Rare: 100
- Very Rare: 150
- Legendary: 200
You’ll note, though, that it’s a bit brutally simple. For e.g., mid to high level players may struggle to heal themselves properly with Greater Potions of Healing as the Toxicity would be quite high.
Use DM discretion
The alternative is to apply DM discretion to all potions as they appear in the game. Discretion should take into account:
- Rarity of the potion
- Power of the potion effect/magic
- How frequently this potion type would be consumed
- Which ingredients went into making it (where applicable)
So in this way, we would see that while our Greater Potion of Healing is rare and moderately powerful, it must be consumed quite regularly. So we might not rank it at 100, but rather 75.
Meanwhile, the Potion of Diminution, while rare, won’t be consumed regularly (presumably) and has quite a drastic effect on somebody’s body. Its Toxicity may then be 150, not 100.
Consequences for high Toxicity
When a character has consumed too many Potions in one day, there must be consequences.
- At 75% or higher max Toxicity level: Gain the Poisoned condition
- At 100% max Toxicity: As above, and take 1d10 damage per half hour
- At >100% max Toxicity: As above, and knocked unconscious (stable) for 1d4 hours.
Consuming more potions after being knocked out will reset the 1d4 hours and the damage timer (as in, if there were still 20 mins left before a character would take the next lot of damage, they take it immediately and the half-hour count begins again).
Potions or spells that remove the Poisoned condition cannot remove this condition if it is caused by Toxicity. Or rather, it is removed but then immediately re-applied because the magical toxins are still inside the body. However, any spell or ability which would remove/negate the effects of a potion do remove Toxicity, for the magic is made null.
Potions that increase HP (i.e. Potion of Healing) can heal the HP damage from Toxicity but would still add their Toxicity for being consumed, probably KO’ing the drinker. Healing spells can also heal this damage, but more damage will continue to be applied every half hour.
Reducing your Toxicity
A short rest will reduce your Toxicity level by half of your maximum (e.g. if your max is 150, a short rest will reduce your Toxicity by 75).
A long rest will reset it back to zero.
Removing the negative effects
If you are at 100% Toxicity or higher, reducing your Toxicity level below 100% will prevent any further damage, although you will remain unconscious for the remainder of the 1d4 hours unless forced awake. To decide whether a PC can be woken early, consider them comatose rather than simply out cold. A bucket of water may not do the trick, but healing magic might.
If you gain the Poisoned condition from Toxicity, you remain Poisoned until your Toxicity is reduced below 75%. From here, you can be cured normally (i.e. any potion or spell which removes Poison). The Poisoned condition will cure naturally when your Toxicity resets to zero.
Further Toxicity-related content
While I haven’t put together anything specific, using this mechanic would also open up your game to other Toxicity-related content. For example:
- Potions that reduce Toxicity, rather than add to it (like White Honey from “The Witcher 3”)
- Feats which allow characters to consume more potions before being harmed.
- Spells which replicate the effects of Toxicity in an opponent.
Summary
- Character Toxicity maximum: CON/INT x 100
- Potion Toxicity ranks: 50, 75, 100, 150 or 200, based on power, rarity, frequency of consumption and ingredients of potion.
- 75% Toxicity? Gain Poisoned.
- 100% Toxicity? 1d10 damage per half hour until Toxicity is reduced below 100%.
- >100% Toxicity? KO’d (stable) for 1d4 hours.
- Short rest: Reduce Toxicity by half maximum
- Long rest: Reset Toxicity to zero
So what do you think? This hasn’t been well play-tested and there may be kinks. Feel free to use it in your games and, if you have any feedback, let us know by commenting below, or email us at contact@sillygoosecontent.com!
– Duncan