Crafting Refinements: Polished Potions

This pack is part of a series meant to refine the various recipes found in Minecraft to be balanced, consistent, and convenient.

This pack should work on the latest version of Minecraft, even if I haven't updated the metadata yet. Please report an issue if it doesn't function in the latest update.

Why Does This Exist?

While there are many data packs that tweak recipes, none provided a cohesive set of changes that prioritized balance, convenience, and consistency at the time Crafting Refinements was created. This pack has been split off to allow for greater modularity.

Design Philosophy

There are some general rules that Minecraft recipes generally follow (and which this datapack seeks to remove exceptions to)

1. Recipes should resemble the final product
2. Similar outputs should have similar recipes (minor differences are allowed for different material types)
3. Crafting results should be proportional to their input (some loss is acceptable, and often expected)
4. Specialized stations (stonecutter, blast furnace, etc.) should have equal or better rates
5. Crafting results should not grant an overabundance of materials
6. A block created with a 3x3 of the same material should be unpackable
7. A block created with a 2x2 of the same material should not be unpackable
8. Brewing recipes should not use full blocks, tools, or armor as ingredients
9. Time is an important resource and should be spent on fun gameplay
10. Impact on inventory clutter should be kept in mind
11. Recipes with the same output should be grouped in the recipe book

What Are the Changes?

Oozing Potion

Oozing potions now require a slimeball instead of a slimeblock. This makes the potion easier to craft, but it doesn’t really change much long‑term since getting one slimeball usually means you’ll get more. It also means you’re no longer cramming a full meter cubed of slime into three tiny potion bottles.

Infested Potion

Infested potions now require flint instead of a stone block. There isn’t anything magical about a full meter cubed of stone, and flint at least carries the idea of stone without being quite so absurd. It’s not the perfect replacement, but there really isn’t anything else in the game that fits better.

Turtle Master Potion

Turtle Master potions now use a single scute instead of a turtle shell. This means you only need to breed a fifth as many turtles, which means fewer to slaughter later when your pen fills up. The potion is almost never used anyway, so this makes it less of an obstacle to create. And the recipe no longer calls for brewing a piece of armor, which just weird in the first place.

These recipe changes seek to follow rules 2, 3, 8, and 9.

Related

For more recipe changes, check out the original pack: Crafting Refinements