D&D 5E Why are potions of healing so expensive?

Mort said:
The default healing rules are meant to be cinematic not realistic.

There are variant rules in the DMG which are much grittier - plus, 5e being as popular as it is, there have been many variants developed. You can certainly find one to your taste.
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I think your missing the point by focusing on something else. Look at it a different way. you can celebrate making it back from the fight by drinking a cask of brandy& the next morning the hangover is affecting you more than the fact that a dragon was feeding upon your liver(it's okbro healing word) the morning before after the kobold servants kept (it's okbro healing word)stabbing you in the lungs (it's okbro healing word)on the way to the dragon that kicked things off by breaking both your arms (it's okbro healing word) and legs (it's okbro healing word)

The complaint is not that d&d doesn't have lethality & walking wounded states akin to fate (which can get very nasty in deep death spiral territory if conceeds aren't used). The complaint is that you need to look to things like spawn deadpool & wolverine for a reasonabe "cinematic" comparison to even an average PC. That wasn't always the case in d&d as 1st/2nd, 3.x, (I skipped 4e) all had PCs who needed to put in some level of effort to not die from sheer stupidity while 5e you almost need to try hard to die intentionally after level 5 or so & even then will still probably need to tell another player to let you die because that was your goal when you became a wizard tank taking on literally everything in the session face first for the second session in a row.

edit: the gritty realism rules are a farce but I guess we could add loony toons to spawn/deadpool/wolverine
 

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Crimson Longinus said:
And video game mechanics generally do not make any sense from verisimilitude perspective. I strongly feel that rules for a tabletop RPG where immersion and suspension of disbelief are goals should do a better job.
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A fair point, but D&D 5e was designed for playability and enjoyment rather than realistic depiction of the mundane real-world.

What would be a preferable option?

Slower natural hit point recovery methods still won't satisfy the simulationists or the "hit points are meat"-heads. - To have a realistic depiction of recovery from a life-threatening injury might require months of downtime, so wherever you draw that line, there will be someone complaining their immersion is ruined.

In practice, what slower hit point recovery methods actually do is mess with the balance of classes, heavily favouring the arcane casters (often regarded as already being in the top spot) in general. The martial classes, who likely don't have any acceptable method of restoring their own health, but who are generally the ones who lose it more often, are now dependent upon the magical-healing classes. The classes with access to healing spells find their resources are drained by keeping the party's health up rather than some being used for more interesting purposes, and need more frequent long rests.
 

Cap'n Kobold said:
A fair point, but D&D 5e was designed for playability and enjoyment rather than realistic depiction of the mundane real-world.

What would be a preferable option?

Slower natural hit point recovery methods still won't satisfy the simulationists or the "hit points are meat"-heads. - To have a realistic depiction of recovery from a life-threatening injury might require months of downtime, so wherever you draw that line, there will be someone complaining their immersion is ruined.

In practice, what slower hit point recovery methods actually do is mess with the balance of classes, heavily favouring the arcane casters (often regarded as already being in the top spot) in general. The martial classes, who likely don't have any acceptable method of restoring their own health, but who are generally the ones who lose it more often, are now dependent upon the magical-healing classes. The classes with access to healing spells find their resources are drained by keeping the party's health up rather than some being used for more interesting purposes, and need more frequent long rests.
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Of course what is acceptable level of verisimilitude depends on personal taste, but at the point when a good night's sleep gets you from the deaths door to perfectly fine we have passed 'cinematic' and reached absurd. And things can be balanced in many ways. 'Gritty realism' rest variant slows down recovery of all resources equally and of course there is not any inherent reason why casters need to have as many and as powerful spells than they have now. Hell, in olden days combat cantrips were not a thing, so casters actually had to ration their spells more carefully.

In general I feel the default rest mechanic doesn't fit the sort of games many (possibly most) people actually play these days. They assume insane amount of encounters per day; in my experience people don't play that sort of grinds much these days. It's more story focused stuff with some combats here and there, but certainly no six to eight in one day. This issue became very apparent in one long 4e campaign I was playing in. It was rare that there were multiple combats in one day, so the difference between encounter and daily powers really didn't matter. And of course as in 5e some classes are long rest based whilst others are short rest based this kinda matters even more. Something like the 'gritty realism' should probably be the default, if the classes are actually balanced around having a certain amount of encounters between the rests.
 

Cap'n Kobold said:
A fair point, but D&D 5e was designed for playability and enjoyment rather than realistic depiction of the mundane real-world.

What would be a preferable option?

Slower natural hit point recovery methods still won't satisfy the simulationists or the "hit points are meat"-heads. - To have a realistic depiction of recovery from a life-threatening injury might require months of downtime, so wherever you draw that line, there will be someone complaining their immersion is ruined.

In practice, what slower hit point recovery methods actually do is mess with the balance of classes, heavily favouring the arcane casters (often regarded as already being in the top spot) in general. The martial classes, who likely don't have any acceptable method of restoring their own health, but who are generally the ones who lose it more often, are now dependent upon the magical-healing classes. The classes with access to healing spells find their resources are drained by keeping the party's health up rather than some being used for more interesting purposes, and need more frequent long rests.
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I don't think that's the same thing as
  1. GM: bob the kobold does x
  2. Bob: I'm down
  3. Alice: I cast sacred flame on the dragon & as a bonus action cast healing word on bob for 6hp
  4. GM: bob your up
  5. Bob: I attack the dragon
  6. GM: bob the dragon crits you for zomglots
  7. Bob: I'm down
  8. Chuck: I cast hideous laughter n the dragon & healing word on bob for 5
  9. GM: bob the kobold hits you for 4 damage
  10. Bob:I'm still up with 1hp!
  11. Alice: I cast sacred flame on the dragon & can I bready a bonus action to healing word bob if he goes down?
  12. GM: No alice, per
    1619369720502.png
    the ready a spell is worded to stop you from doing that with healing word & catches every other BA spell in the process rather than just not making healing word insane.. bob your up
  13. Bob: I attack the dragon
  14. GM: bob the dragon breathes on you for zomglots
  15. Bob: I'm down
  16. Chuck: I cast hideous laughter n the dragon & healing word on bob for 5
  17. GM: bob the kobold hits you for 4 damage
  18. Bob: I'm still up with 1hp!
  19. IF $DRAGON=LIVING THEN GOTO 1;
  20. Party: Dave can you cast tiny hut so we can take a rest to get back spell slots & such?
 

Crimson Longinus said:
And video game mechanics generally do not make any sense from verisimilitude perspective. I strongly feel that rules for a tabletop RPG where immersion and suspension of disbelief are goals should do a better job.
Click to expand...
I agree it's a terrible option, but it seems to be better than the alternatives. Most people don't want a death spiral.

I'm not even really sure it's all that realistic. There are many stories of people being badly injured or even fatally wounded and not even realizing it. Unless you've been physically disabled, adrenaline kicks in and shuts down the pain initially.

Unless you want to deal with lasting crippling wounds, I don't see that it adds much to change anything.
 

Oofta said:
I agree it's a terrible option, but it seems to be better than the alternatives. Most people don't want a death spiral.

I'm not even really sure it's all that realistic. There are many stories of people being badly injured or even fatally wounded and not even realizing it. Unless you've been physically disabled, adrenaline kicks in and shuts down the pain initially.

Unless you want to deal with lasting crippling wounds, I don't see that it adds much to change anything.
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There probably could exist a middle ground between gruesome critical injury tables that produce death spirals and no one ever being able to be injured in manner that is not fixed by a good night's sleep...
 


tetrasodium said:
I don't think that's the same thing as
  1. GM: bob the kobold does x
  2. Bob: I'm down
  3. Alice: I cast sacred flame on the dragon & as a bonus action cast healing word on bob for 6hp
  4. GM: bob your up
  5. Bob: I attack the dragon
  6. GM: bob the dragon crits you for zomglots
  7. Bob: I'm down
  8. Chuck: I cast hideous laughter n the dragon & healing word on bob for 5
  9. GM: bob the kobold hits you for 4 damage
  10. Bob:I'm still up with 1hp!
  11. Alice: I cast sacred flame on the dragon & can I bready a bonus action to healing word bob if he goes down?
  12. GM: No alice, per
    View attachment 136086
    the ready a spell is worded to stop you from doing that with healing word & catches every other BA spell in the process rather than just not making healing word insane.. bob your up
  13. Bob: I attack the dragon
  14. GM: bob the dragon breathes on you for zomglots
  15. Bob: I'm down
  16. Chuck: I cast hideous laughter n the dragon & healing word on bob for 5
  17. GM: bob the kobold hits you for 4 damage
  18. Bob: I'm still up with 1hp!
  19. IF $DRAGON=LIVING THEN GOTO 1;
  20. Party: Dave can you cast tiny hut so we can take a rest to get back spell slots & such?
Click to expand...

You need several Bob the fighters per campaign else, so :P
 


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