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

[SkidAce]

I have recently shifted to having potions being drinkable on a bonus action. Gives PCs more options with their bonus action and I hoping that it will help encourage the use of potions in general.

I mean, healing aside, drinking a potion as a bonus action lets you;

"dramatically pull out the potion of giant growth*, throw down the flask and charge into battle"

It brings potions into play more often. WE like it.


*substitute any example you like

 

[SkidAce]

...

Healing potions are supposed to be to save yourself or comrades when things are really hairy, not to keep yourself topped up to max health.

...

This is a playstyle choice, not a hard rule.

Regardless of statistics and effectiveness, I have had players who definitely choose to heal when injured.
Who am I to say no?

 

[SkidAce]

...
Also, I agree that dropping to 0 HP should give some penalty.
Like exhaustion level that gets removes if you are healed to 50% of max HP.

That's clever!

 

[TheSword]

This is a playstyle choice, not a hard rule.

Regardless of statistics and effectiveness, I have had players who definitely choose to heal when injured.
Who am I to say no?

You don’t have to say no. You just don’t have to make it a comparatively effortless activity. The fact that they do it already suggests that it doesn’t need to be made easier.

If they want to do it then great, but are we honestly saying the thing characters and npcs need in 5e is more HP?

 

[Stalker0]

I have not tried it myself (and do not intend to, for multiple reasons), but I have seen people down 300+ ml alcopop bottles in much less than six second. The neck of the bottle would be about the same or slightly thinner than the one ounce vial in @Horwath's image, and the volume is an order of magnitude more.

I mean if we want to go down this rabbit hole, let’s get into the absurdity of bottle durability. The bottles are almost certainly glass, as most games don’t have plastic.

These bottles are on the bodies of adventurers that:

1) dive to the ground to avoid fireballs. (Or get hit with said fireball)
2) get ripped up by giant beasts.
3) are thrown like rag dolls by giant scorpions.
4) are pulled underwater by giant whirlpools

Etc etc. yet those little glass bottles survive all of it. Now THATS absurdity.

When it comes to potions, we simply accept a certain amount of insanity in the interest of clean gameplay. My players have never batted an eye that bonus action potion drinking was the straw that broke the camels back…it’s just added to the pool of absurd things they already accept around equipment

 

[James Gasik]

Maybe the concentrated magic of the potion makes the bottle hard to break until it's contents are quaffed?

 

[Staffan]

Healing proportional to HPs? That's a great idea; they could call it healing surges or something...

EDIT: To be clear, I actually like healing that is proportional to HP and not only for potions.

Ironically, 4e healing potions were one of the few things that didn't use your own healing surge value but instead healed for a fixed amount (even though you had to spend a healing surge for it). I think the reason was that you'd need to buy the expensive potions at high levels in order to keep up.

 

[Stalker0]

Maybe the concentrated magic of the potion makes the bottle hard to break until it's contents are quaffed?

Sure, and the same magic makes the contents of the bottle super easy to drink, the liquid literally just jumps down your throat. Hell maybe you don't even need to open the bottle, you just utter a phrase and the bottle's liquid leaps into your mouth.

Aka we are at the point where these things are easy to hand wave by whatever flavor you would like.

 

[James Gasik]

Sure, and the same magic makes the contents of the bottle super easy to drink, the liquid literally just jumps down your throat. Hell maybe you don't even need to open the bottle, you just utter a phrase and the bottle's liquid leaps into your mouth.

Aka we are at the point where these things are easy to hand wave by whatever flavor you would like.

I preferred some of the variant consumables in 3.5, like instead of potions, having edible herbs, or ceramic tiles you broke in half to activate their magic.

 

[CM]

Added that to a houseruled Tavern Brawler.