On Wishes and Magic Item Shoppes and Gold: The Paradox of Choice

[Maxperson]

I was thinking more about strong healing potions, or other things that are too good to use.

With things like potions and scrolls that don't do anything useful, I default to selling for cheap. The Potion of Climbing, for example, is not useful enough to warrant using. In a party of four people, giving one of them a climb speed for an hour is unlikely to help at any point before reaching level 5. I mean, I'll hold onto it if I can't sell it, but remembering to write it on my character sheet at every level is rarely worth the effort involved. A pound of gold would have significantly more utility.

That isn't my experience. At low levels with 4 people is exactly when the potion of climbing is useful. You drink it, climb up the problem area and lower a rope. It's very useful in solving problems. As for healing potions, those are rarely useful in combat in my experience. You find them at level appropriate strengths, so light wounds at low level, moderate-serious at mid level, and so on. The problem is that it took your action to drink the potion, and the amount you healed in combat would usually be instantly negated, often with more damage taken than you healed. It was a turn spent not doing something useful like fleeing or doing something to defeat the enemy.

 

[Lanefan]

If I-as-player know my character (any character!) has access to a wish right now, you can bet your left foot that wish is gonna get used right now.

The only decision I'd have to make would be what to wish for, if not made obvious by the circumstances.

Single-use items do get used IME, but only in dire situations. Potions of healing, for example, almost never get used unless a) the clerics are out of spells and-or b) someone is bleeding out right now and for whatever reason* there isn't a healer who can get there fast enough. With one general exception, scrolls get used when it makes sense to do so; the one general exception being spell scrolls where the user can already otherwise hard-cast the spell (e.g. a 10th-level mage with a scroll that has Fly and Haste on it; these being spells she already has in her book).

* - said reason often being that it's the healer who is down.

 

[Maxperson]

Single-use items do get used IME, but only in dire situations. Potions of healing, for example, almost never get used unless a) the clerics are out of spells and-or b) someone is bleeding out right now and for whatever reason* there isn't a healer who can get there fast enough. With one general exception, scrolls get used when it makes sense to do so; the one general exception being spell scrolls where the user can already otherwise hard-cast the spell (e.g. a 10th-level mage with a scroll that has Fly and Haste on it; these being spells she already has in her book).

I don't look at it like that. If I'm a wizard and I have a scroll with Haste and Fly on it, that's a fantastic opportunity for me to memorize two other spells in their places. The additional spells increase the odds that in any given situation I will have a useful spell.

 

[Coroc]

The only time i gave my party a wish, was for them to select between several good magic items and they did have to use it instantly because it was granted to them by a friendly efreet.

I hate the swinginess a wish stored in an item or scroll could create, at least before the group gets to high levels, and your post confirmed me in that.

For jokers I much more prefer inspirations, which we use (is it a house rule?) for d20 also those rolled by the dm. I roll in the open, so my players could make me reroll the attack which was lethal to one of them e.g.

 

[lluewhyn]

Hesitating to pull the trigger on limited use items is hardly unique to D&D. I've seen jokes for decades about finishing JRPGs with an inventory full of powerful rare consumables that were never used no matter how hard the boss fight got.

I find it funny that the old example at the top of the Too Awesome to Use TV Tropes page is of a JRPG game where they're hesitant to use a Megalixer even though half their party is dead, even though a Megalixer wouldn't work in that situation (doesn't revive downed players).

I myself am of this tendency, and would often end many of the Bioware D&D games with stacks of scrolls and potions that I never used. Especially stuff like Potions of Poison Resistance or whatever. Sometimes it's a hesitance to use up a limited resource, sometimes it's out of sight, out of mind. I will have to say, however, that my players don't seem to share this tendency when I DM. Unless they're about to immediately go on a Short/Long Rest, my players are always happy to start popping potions. Maybe a beneficial side effect of 5E's limited usage for Gold is the fact that PCs know they can buy Healing Potions with it, so they're happy to use them.