Crafting looks optional for a long stretch of the run, and mostly it is. It contains one thing that is not optional, so it is worth learning the shape of the list even if you never brew a tonic.
The Razkovniche Elixir
Every other recipe in the game can be held five at a time. This one has a limit of one, because its effect is permanent: 20% more maximum human health, 10% more maximum vampiric health, and a skill point.
It needs one Strong Ancient Reagent, two Tatzelwurm Glands and one Razkovniche Plant. The first two turn up in containers and on the things you kill. The plant does not drop anywhere in the valley, from anything, ever.
The plant comes from one quest and costs you a day
The only source is The Hedgehog Herb, a point of interest quest that starts at an abandoned house. You sweep the place in Focus Mode, find seeds of a blood-drinking plant, plant them, and feed the plant your own blood.
Then you wait a full day for it to grow. That is sixteen segments, eight of day and eight of night, and it is one of the few times the game asks you to spend time on purpose rather than as a side effect. Budget it.
At the end you can make the potion yourself, or have Anca do it, or pay the Silberstein medic. The reward does not change. Only the cost does, so there is no decision to agonise over.
Crafted consumables beat food where it counts
Food has its effects reduced in combat. Crafted consumables do not. A modest crafted tonic therefore outperforms an impressive meal in the only situation where either matters.
Both still have to sit in a quickslot to be reachable mid-fight, so the crafting bench and the quickslot bar are really one decision.
The five families, by size
Health is the largest at twelve recipes, covering instant restores, regeneration over time, temporary maximum health, and the three Blood Infusions that refill your reserve at the price of Corruption.
Enhanced Melee has ten, Enhanced Active Abilities has nine, Utilities has seven and Stamina has six. Every family runs in minor, standard and potent tiers, so most of the forty-four entries are the same eleven or twelve ideas at three strengths.
Two ingredients gate a third of the list
Weak Spirits appears in ten recipes and Linseed Oil in nine. Both come out of common containers and point of interest containers, which means they accumulate on their own while you explore and run dry if you do not.
By volume the heaviest is Yellow Sweet Clover: fifteen units across six recipes. Comfrey wants eleven across four. Those four plants are the ones worth picking every time you pass one.
Every ingredient has a findable source, but not an equal one
All forty-four ingredients can be obtained. Most of the plants come off roadsides, caves and common containers, which is to say they come from ordinary exploring.
A handful are tied to specific creatures instead. A Tatzelwurm Gland comes from a tatzelwurm. Dust of Anachora comes from an astral psoglav, a headhunter, a mare or a monster. If a recipe stalls, it is nearly always one of these rather than a plant.