Are Potions Labelled in Your Game?

[Li Shenron]

I give them to the PCs unmarked, but usually IMC there are not people with many potions at their disposal.

I suppose it would be almost necessary to label potions if a DM allows regular shopping for them.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Some are and some are not. If a character has the skill to create a potion they can perform an ID role.

Oh, mean trick, Exploding Runes on the label.

 

[Janx]

odds are good, any shop will label its potions before selling them. This ensures they sell the right potion.

Most normal sane folk will label their potion correctly, not wanting to risk their own health on grabbing the wrong potion. Few would actually put a false label on (and as a GM, the trick would wear thin, you've got to get the PCs used to accurate potion labeling, before you can pull the ol'wrong label trick on them).

Consider how many of you would peel the labels off all the seasonings in your kitchen?
How many of you would then put a blue dot on the paprika, and 3 red dots on the oregano?
How many of you would remember what was what?

Yeah, didn't think so. People label their little vials so they don't screw up and quaff a Reduce potion when they needed a CLW potion and end up dying in the middle of combat due to their own stupidity.

Janx

 

[Dryfus]

we do it...

Hi Everyone,

Potions in our group are never labelled. Sure, they can be identified pretty easily (Spellcraft DC 25, 1 minute) but once this has been done, it is assumed that it can be found and used as needed. Really though, I'm surprised the other DMs have not been too concerned about this.

To my way of thinking, if an NPC has a variety of potions, surely they would always label them? Even if it was just an order thing, or a colour, picture or even a label?
Maybe I'm being too nitpicky but I'm thinking that all my NPC's are going to have their potions labelled in some way. And if the PCs just grab a potion out without it being labelled or ordered, I'm tempted to make a random roll to determine what it is that they actually chug. Is this too mean?

How do you guys deal with potions?

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

The way I do potions, most of them are not labled. But sometimes they are, and I have had evil NPC's "mislable" the potions. One in particular had the healing potions labled "Caution, deadly poison" in common, and "Healing potions" on the poison. "Flying" on a potion of bull strength...You get the idea. I just figured that the evil NPC(who had an int of 17) would remember which potion he labled what. It was quite ammusing when the players grabbed the potions after the fight, and started to quaff the poison.

 

[HeapThaumaturgist]

I usually assume labeling.

We're a potion-heavy group. All those utility 1st and 2nd level spells of various casting classes end up in our "Survival Kits" and "Last Man Standing" bags. I know our rogue was saved by a handy Potion Of Hide From Undead last session, and I've spent good mony on Heightened Sanctuary ... my PCs always have the "Last Man" bag with Sanctuary, Expeditious Retreat, Invisibility, and Pass Without Trace. All in their own pouch, easily accessible. I also like the "Poltion/Oil of Obscuring Mist". I've been known to equip Grimlock assault teams with those. (Gust Of Wind? Oh, nobody took Gust of Wind ... Mwa hahahahahaha.) It doesn't have a range of "Personal" but it IS an "affects you" spell ...

In the current campaign I'm playing an evil Drow wizard (in a party full of Good/Neutral freedom fighters ... not everybody hates the Empire for moral reasons) and the GM seems to have stopped having us (ME) roll Spellcrafts for potions after I kept "keeping" all those "useless" Potions Of Resistance, Potions of Familiar Shampoo, and the like. Mwa ha ha ha ha. Same with that "Cursed Ring Of Minor Flatulence" I can't get off that unassumingly has a few spell levels stored in it.

--fje

 

[Psion]

Most normal sane folk will label their potion correctly, not wanting to risk their own health on grabbing the wrong potion. Few would actually put a false label on (and as a GM, the trick would wear thin, you've got to get the PCs used to accurate potion labeling, before you can pull the ol'wrong label trick on them).

Consider how many of you would peel the labels off all the seasonings in your kitchen?
How many of you would then put a blue dot on the paprika, and 3 red dots on the oregano?
How many of you would remember what was what?

Yeah, didn't think so.

I rather think you presume incorrectly.

I do that because it's convenient given the technology around me.

A little old woman living in a hut with no conveniently printed labels has no such luxury. In all likelihood, she might gather two different types of herbs that might look similar when dried and crushed, and only distinguish them by the fact that she put them in different pots, like the one with the black glazing or the one with the little swirl on the lid.

She might not even be literate to even consider actually writing any sort of a label. Even if literate, ink might be a luxury (as the cost of scribing new spells in a wizards spell book seems to indicate), so at best you might expect some simple, sloppy looking charcoal marks or engravings that might be meaningless to anyone else.

 

[devilbat]

Depends where the potions are found. If the characters steal them from a wizards lab, a nobles home, etc... they'll be labled. If the potions a part of a treasure horde, they'll usually be weather worn, and unlabled.

 

[der_kluge]

IMC (As yet completed, still an idea in my head), potions come solely from alchemists, not wizards. Though, a wizard could devote his time to become an alchemist if he truly wanted to. To become an alchemist, one has to spend as much time studying alchemy as one would have to study wizardry, so it's like a double major in music and electrical engineering. They are not related fields at all.

And the alchemists specialize in specific potions, and closely guard their recipes and hand them down through family names. As such, certain alchemists can supply certain potions, but not all potions. A few recipes are well known, or variants exist, like chili recipes. There's a number of ways to make a delicious chili, for example. So, a lot of alchemists can create basic healing potions and maybe a few others.

But these potions are heavily marketed with great fanfare and sold by the bottle for a hefty price (to the average person, at least). Great exhibitions are formed around these marketing promotions and these individuals with their enterouges tour the countryside in a spectacle of marketing and showmanship displaying their wares and they value they bring. These individuals are so successful that locals have said that they could even successfull sale "snake oil" and thus they are called snake oil salesmen.

And indeed all the potions are labeled, with glorious names like "Adelaide Cartwright's Miraculous Nostrum" or "A. H. Parikh's Holistic Elixir".


As a side note, the Artificer's Handbook has a potion flavor and consistency chart, so you could go through and assign all the consistencies and flavors to all the potions in the world if you wanted to. Over time, the PCs could develop a sense of identification based on that combination, assuming all potions of invisibility are created the same, that is.

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

Consider how many of you would peel the labels off all the seasonings in your kitchen?
How many of you would then put a blue dot on the paprika, and 3 red dots on the oregano?
How many of you would remember what was what?

Yeah, didn't think so.
Janx

Stay out of my aunt's kitchent then.

Also, you won't find diddly in my library either. I use my own organizational theory.

Know some blind people who do, indeed remove all the labels & replace them with their own code system (not always braille either).

In my games,

Once the players have identified them, I assume they know what they have some way of keeping track of what's what.

When they buy potions, they are labeled. Usually, they have enough ranks in Sense Motive they can catch any body trying to pull a fast one (not always though).

As for found potions. They come in all sorts of containers, some labeled, some not. The older/wierder the ruin, the less likely the container will be labelled.

Also, I don't have a set color/smell/viscosity for my potions. Potions can be made several ways (i.e. a Druid's Cure Light Wounds, looks different from a Clerics, differs from a Bard's, from a Paladin's etc). There is a pattern to potions, but not enough for players to be sure substance X is a potion of fly.

Keeps players on their toes.

 

[KB9JMQ]

I have always assumed that once my players have identified a potion they label it in some way as to distinguish it from the others.
What I don't get is they are still carrying around 3-4 vials which they havent ID yet.