Baldur’s Gate 3 Alchemy – Everything You Need to Know

Learn everything there is to know about the Baldur's Gate 3 Alchemy System, all wrapped up.

Alchemy in Baldur's Gate 3 is one of the best-kept secrets of the game. Tugged away in an unassuming menu on the Character Screen, most players will probably ignore its existence entirely.

A shame really, as Alchemy and Potions can make your life so much easier and substitute for many a spell slot you may waste in combat or exploration. So here is everything you need to know about Alchemy, Potions, and how to use them most effectively.

Baldur's Gate 3 Alchemy

Alchemy in Baldur's Gate 3 is the process of turning a bunch of random resources into a magical brew that could be life-saving. Or in most cases be applied at the wrong place, at the wrong time only to go several hours later, “Hm. Yea, I should not have used this Featherfalling potion to avoid taking 4 damage. Now I'm surrounded by giant spiders and death is imminent.”

It's accessed via your character's inventory screen (bound to me by default) by clicking the Alchemy icon. This will now allow you to extract ray essence from materials and brew potions, elixirs, poisons, and even grenades. As long as you have the materials needed.

You can then extract ingredients from raw materials by clicking Extract All Ingredients, which will process all the materials in that character's inventory. Careful though, this will also process raw materials needed for quests.

Baldur's Gate 3 How to Unlock Potions

Unlocking potions in Baldur's Gate 3 is equal parts easy as it is very complicated. Sometimes all it takes is collecting a certain ingredient, sometimes it's from reading a book and sometimes you get ones for talking to NPCs.

We'll refrain from making a list here for now, mainly because we're sure we've missed a dozen already. Don't make mistakes. Go around, and read every book, note, and stone tablet you can find. Exhaust all sorts of dialog options and pick up everything that isn't nailed to the ground.

There are also some potions you can't brew on your own. Merchants will either sell those or can be found through other means. The Teahouse in Act 1 contains such potions which are incredibly powerful but also have some unfortunate drawbacks. So be careful.

Baldur's Gate 3 Ingredients

There are so many ingredients in Baldur's Gate 3, you'd do best just to collect everything you come across. Hit Alt on your keyboard while exploring and collect everything off anything. Monster parts and mushrooms can often be fashioned into valuable ingredients and some are limited to their respective areas.

Ingredients also won't respawn in the overworld and some of them can wither away in your inventory if not processed in time. So make sure to read the item descriptions carefully and try to turn them into potions promptly.

Some ingredients are only sold by merchants. Some of these will only unlock gradually at those merchants depending on the player's overall level and progress. You'll need to check in with them regularly if you want to stay on top of your potion game.

Baldur's Gate 3 Potion Tips

And here are some general, fun things you should know about potions:

Don't Drink, Throw

Did you know that most potions in Baldur's Gate 3 have a splash effect? That does not only mean that their effects can be spread to multiple targets without losing out on any of their effectiveness. You can also throw healing potions to pick up downed teammates. Just be aware that throwing an item counts as an Action, not a Bonus Action.

Shoot Your Potions

Another neat little tick is placing potions bombs and so on on the ground, then hitting them with a ranged attack. Not only will this increase their effectiveness in many cases, but you can also use this to preplan and set up encounters. And it's always better to take initiative and lure a group of enemies back into an ambush instead of getting jumped yourself.

And that wraps up everything we know of Baldur's Gate 3's Potions and Alchemy. For more about Larian Studio's standout RPG, check out our features section here. Here you'll find anything from How to Unlock a Secret Subclass to How to Get Vampiric Powers.