D&D (2024) Taking a healing potion as a bonus action?

[tetrasodium]

This has to be one of the most common house rules in 5e: you can use a healing potion on yourself as a bonus action (it's still an action to use on someone else). Should it just be made canon?

I've tried it and find it extremely unsatisfying. Changing the associated action doesn't ause players to be more likely to use potions.. Making potions better so the d4 is replaced with whatever die size hit die the used has doesn't either. Not even aking potions only semi-consimable with a potion flask & mechanic that makes the flask only lose capacity sometimes* changes that.

The reason none of those things change anything is because the system is built to thwart their proactive use by making it sub optimized in nearly all cases. When a player is reduced to zero or beyond all of the excess damage simply goes away with a single point of healing & it does not really matter how much extra damage there is outside of a very narrow level band where potions are still very expensive. It does not matter how available you make potions how good they are or how easy it is to use them in combat because of that design choice of 5e. The rules for 5e have too much risk motivation with death saves & too good of a reason to not use potions early for these sort of usability changes to matter if the goal is anything other than further insulating the PCs from risk when they dance on a knife's edge balanced between "perfectly fine" and "almost certainly perfectly fine before my turn comes back up"

* your flask has a die dize (ie d4/d6/d8). When you use it roll that die. If you get anything but a one there is no change to the flask. If you ger a one then the die drops one step d8>d6>d4>1>empty. Sounds cool but the foundation it builds off of is unsuitable for building on.

 

[Leatherhead]

Combat healing is an incredibly sore spot for 5e.

The current system is designed with the intent that your party does not require a healer of any kind, which is good, because regulating someone to a healbot is a horrible gameplay experience (if you don't want to be a healbot, obviously). In order to facilitate this, only the last hit point matters on characters. And the only healing that counts is the healing that takes you from 0 hp (because negatives don't exist) to 1 hp, where upon a character regains the ability to make their full actions.

And there are no easy solutions for this.

If you make it so that characters are weaker the less hp they have, then you create a death-spiral.
If you use wounding rules to make dropping to 0 hp more impactful, then you have to homebrew all kinds of tables for missing limbs and ad-hoc solutions for prosthetics, on top of having player buy-in.
If you make it so you can't rejoin the fight after you drop to 0 hp, then you end up with healing meaning even less (in addition to having players sitting out for longer parts of combat).
If you boost healing to the point where it is significant, then you make it required or worse, overpowered (have you seen people talk about the twilight cleric, that's not even real hp, just temp hp!)

 

[Guest 7034872]

I have heard of the house rule that you get full healing (10 hp) when used as full action but have roll for healing (2d4+2) as a bonus action

Whoa. That is an incredibly generous house rule right there. Tentatively, I kind of like it. I might playtest this this weekend...

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I'd prefer if drinking the potion was an action, but the HP recovered should be higher, making it worthwhile. As of now, drinking with a bonus action is an inconsequential action cost...for a inconsequential amount of healing.

It would be cool if various object interaction cost movement instead of actions. Like grabbing a potion and drinking it would cost 10 movement, drawing a weapon would cost 5 movement per weapon, donning a shield would be 15 movement etc, with maybe cap on object interaction per turn.

 

[aco175]

It is not just your action to drink or administer it it is also your interact to draw it.

Could this be part of the rogue uncanny action feature that lets them interact with an object. You give a small boost for a rogue, but might make more sense.

You could grant disadvantage on any attack rolls for the turn if used as a bonus action. This may simulate as being distracted while getting out the potion and drinking while in combat. This still allows for an attack but as cost. This may penalize fighters over second rank casters and such who can cast a save spell vs an attack spell. But then again, they are not in as much danger.

My group adopted the rule as you can bonus action on yourself and roll the dice or full action for max HP. You still need to use your action to give to another, but they get max. We still have not adopted any other potions like invisibility where you bonus action for 1d6 rounds instead of 1 hour.

I'm not sure if this should be an official rule.

 

[Stalker0]

Inthink it’s a common house rule…on enworld. I doubt a majority of tables use it, but frankly there is probably no house rule that a majority of tables use.

I do use it myself and I really like the rule.

 

[Staffan]

Combat healing is an incredibly sore spot for 5e.

The current system is designed with the intent that your party does not require a healer of any kind, which is good, because regulating someone to a healbot is a horrible gameplay experience (if you don't want to be a healbot, obviously). In order to facilitate this, only the last hit point matters on characters. And the only healing that counts is the healing that takes you from 0 hp (because negatives don't exist) to 1 hp, where upon a character regains the ability to make their full actions.

And there are no easy solutions for this.

If you make it so that characters are weaker the less hp they have, then you create a death-spiral.
If you use wounding rules to make dropping to 0 hp more impactful, then you have to homebrew all kinds of tables for missing limbs and ad-hoc solutions for prosthetics, on top of having player buy-in.
If you make it so you can't rejoin the fight after you drop to 0 hp, then you end up with healing meaning even less (in addition to having players sitting out for longer parts of combat).
If you boost healing to the point where it is significant, then you make it required or worse, overpowered (have you seen people talk about the twilight cleric, that's not even real hp, just temp hp!)

Healing kinda works in Pathfinder 2, through these means:

1. Out-of-combat healing is time-consuming but doesn't cost resources (though you kinda want to spend character resources to be good at it in order to reduce the time taken).
2. In-combat healing is fairly strong. Heal heals 1d8+8 per spell level (so a little over 6 hp per character level), and a fighter typically has 10 hp + Con bonus per level, plus 6-10 at first level. It also works at range.
3. Healing someone from 0 hp gives them the Wounded X condition, where X increments each time. In 5e terms, it basically means you're X failed death saves in the hole should you be KOed again.

 

[Digdude]

I am against the bonus action healing potion. To me, it makes the game even more like a computer simulation. As someone who does some limited medieval combat reenactment, I can assure you, I could not fish out a potion bottle in gauntlets from my belt, remove the stopper, and drink it, in the heat of battle after swinging a sword at someone in six seconds. This "house rule" just stinks of power gaming. I have however, made a magical belt that utilizes a type of mage hand to actual do just that, but its expensive and rare. My players love it, except when its on a boss.

 

[Stalker0]

I am against the bonus action healing potion. To me, it makes the game even more like a computer simulation. As someone who does some limited medieval combat reenactment, I can assure you, I could not fish out a potion bottle in gauntlets from my belt, remove the stopper, and drink it, in the heat of battle after swinging a sword at someone in six seconds. This "house rule" just stinks of power gaming. I have however, made a magical belt that utilizes a type of mage hand to actual do just that, but its expensive and rare. My players love it, except when its on a boss.

Let’s be honest, the idea that you can grab anything from your person that is not immediately in your belt or pocket within a second is absolutely ludicrous…but we still allow it.

We also allow people to use their dex mod to ac against 10 archers shooting arrows, when dodging even one arrow from anything other than long range has been proven practically impossible.

In the grand scheme of ludicrous things that are commonplace in dnd, a bonus action potion drink barely even makes the cut.

Now if you don’t like the rule because you don’t like it, fair enough. But realism just isn’t a good argument.

 

[James Gasik]

Interaction for potions? I'd been doing bonus action, but I like this better. I remember when I got a potion of giant strength during Storm King's Thunder, and there never seemed to be a good time to use an action to drink it as opposed to anything else I could do with my action, which is why "bonus action" potions became my house rule.

To be fair, this had been a huge problem in 3e/Pathfinder 1e games I've run as well, even when I made drinking a potion a move action. The players rarely used consumables because of the action economy loss. And as a DM, I like using consumables as treasure.