D&D 3.x D&D 3.5 - Potion drinking question

[sirgarberto]

I remember having read in the PHB or DMG that you have to drink every last drop of a potion for it to take effect, but I can't find RAW on it anywhere. Can someone drop me a ref? SRD is fine too.

 

[Sekhmet]

Potions And Oils :: d20srd.org

You can attempt to taste-test any potion. However, since every potion is usable only one time, it makes sense that you have to drink it all to gain the effect.

 

[sirgarberto]

Yeah, I got that, but you could argue that drinking half of it is more than just tasting it and, even if the rest would become unusable, it would be enough to trigger the potion effect. I was hoping for something that clearly states that you have to drink every last drop of it. Wasn't there something about that?

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

As far as I know there is no RAW detail about every last drop, but I do know a potion vial is small. It's implied, not directly stated, that you're expected to drink it all.

 

[Empath Negative]

I don't see any justification for that premise. I could see drinking the overwhelming majority of it (i.e. 7/8ths or so), but expecting the character to bust out a bendy straw and slap the bottom of the bottle is silly.

 

[Sekhmet]

Vials hold only an ounce of liquid.
Lets say, for simplicity's sake, that you need to drink the majority of the potion. If the liquid is sticky or whatnot, a drop or two might remain in the vial even after attempting to drink all of it. I wouldn't punish the player for that.

 

[sirgarberto]

Yeah, I see your points. In my defense, I didn't know how much an ounce was until I looked it up I always assumed it was the standard size potions are always pictured, which are actually about 6 ounces. This is part of a discussion of whether a cat can drink a potion or not... I assume the other guy was as confused about it as I was, since he suggested the cat could lap up just about 10% of it to be able to drink it all in one round.

 

[Oryan77]

This is part of a discussion of whether a cat can drink a potion or not... I assume the other guy was as confused about it as I was, since he suggested the cat could lap up just about 10% of it to be able to drink it all in one round.

Potions are 1 use items. Not 2, but 1 use. That is the easiest way to keep up with how you can use a potion. You would be unnecessarily complicating things by nit picking any details about something as minor as drinking a potion.

Size of the creature doesn't matter. A colossal creature doesn't need more than 1 ounce for a potion to work. If you want the potion to work for the cat, rather than claiming that the cat doesn't drink an ounce in 1 round, just claim the cat drinks the entire ounce or hand wave it and assume whatever it drinks in 1 round is good enough and the rest is wasted. Otherwise, you are rules lawyering for no good reason other than to either screw over the cat by not making the potion work, or you're trying to bend the rules and get a potion to work more than once.

Anything other than this would be a house rule. Tasting a potion to identify it is the equivalent of touching your tongue to the liquid or smelling it. Neither of which is going to reduce the "1 ounce" enough that it wouldn't still be considered to be an ounce.

I assume you don't drink alcohol or you're underage since you didn't know how much an ounce is. But a good way to think about this is to consider this; if I can get drunk by drinking a shot of vodka (a shot glass is considered 1 ounce), will I not be drunk if I don't lick the glass clean? Or if a drip of it falls on my shirt as I'm taking the shot, does that mean I won't get drunk because I didn't include that drop? It won't really make a difference. Just think of a potion as being the same thing.

 

[sirgarberto]

I assume you don't drink alcohol or you're underage since you didn't know how much an ounce is

Neither, I'm just not from a country that uses them as a volume measure. We use liters instead. So until I looked it up I just assumed it was about 200ml, while it's actually around 30ml.

Anyway, it was really more of a discussion of what were the mechanics of a cat using a potion than whether it could or not, RAW says "Any corporeal creature can imbibe a potion. The potion must be swallowed" so that was never in doubt. My side of the argument was "It can drink it all in a single round, even if it would normally be unrealistic" while the other side was "it can just drink the proportional amount if the potion to its size and the potion will work". It's not a big deal, I just thought I read that most/all of the potion had to be drunk for it to take effect.

 

[Oryan77]

We use liters instead. So until I looked it up I just assumed it was about 200ml, while it's actually around 30ml.

Ah, I never thought about that before. So how much is a "shot" around your area if you don't go by ounces?

I'm just curious now, but what was the situation with the cat drinking a potion in your game? And what was the potion? Or was this just hypothetical table talk?

If you want the game to flow smoothly and be less rules lawyery, I'd just go with "the cat can drink it in a round". An ounce really doesn't seem like that much for a cat to drink up if it liked it. Given the fact that we can pull out the potion, open it, and drink it as a full round action (2 moves), a cat most likely isn't going to make a move action to pull it out and open it. So it only needs 1 move action to drink. Even if it opened it, I'd say it would take a cat a lot more than a round if it was able to open it.

So if the potion was already available for a cat to drink, a full round to drink it doesn't seem that unrealistic. If you really wanted to rules lawyer it, I wouldn't think any more than 2 rounds is needed.

But really, is the game going to suddenly go haywire if a cat drank it in 1 move action as opposed to multiple rounds? It's a cat. Follow the KISS rule.