Expiring date for potions

[Steven McRownt]

Do any of you allow a magic potion to be out of date?

I have a very simple house rule that set the expiring date in this way: level of the caster who make the potions ^2. In this way a potion made a 20th level character will last 400 years, while a potion made by a 11th level character only 121 years.

You know, i started to think to it when they had a very short trip to Myth Drannor, short enough to have the whole group still alive (well... not really whole group, our cleric left us there... ). They found some potions and i thought that they could be no longer usable.

Anyway if any of you have some collateral effects table in mind and want to post it... he will be warmy welcome!!!!!

 

[Crothian]

Interesting idea. So, after they are expired do they go bad? Become cursed? Mutate into something else? Become a combo of a few things?

 

[twjensen]

expiration dates

Nope, I don't expire potions. But I DO expire items that could potentially make mince-meat out of the economy. Take the clear spindle shaped ioun stone. Eventually, everyone would have one! Simple economics. If it costs 500 silver per year to eat, but an Ioun stone takes care of that, I either have to make the price so silly that no PC would want it, or tell the PCs to ignore the fact that no one farms anymore and everyone has a spindle orbiting their head. Same deal with castles that have auto-filling larders, vials that produce water/acid/milk/orange juice/blood/oil and so forth.

All that said, I'm all in favor of expiring potions too.

 

[Limper]

The expenditure of life force in the creation process would hopefully keep them Mmmmm. Mmmmmm good forever.

Spoilage should come only from cutting corners OR outside magical contamination. But this is just one frequent player of wizards opinion.

 

[Crothian]

Re: expiration dates

Nope, I don't expire potions. But I DO expire items that could potentially make mince-meat out of the economy. Take the clear spindle shaped ioun stone. Eventually, everyone would have one! Simple economics. If it costs 500 silver per year to eat, but an Ioun stone takes care of that, I either have to make the price so silly that no PC would want it, or tell the PCs to ignore the fact that no one farms anymore and everyone has a spindle orbiting their head. Same deal with castles that have auto-filling larders, vials that produce water/acid/milk/orange juice/blood/oil and so forth.

All that said, I'm all in favor of expiring potions too.

How would be mass producing these things that everyone could get one? And how are all these people saving up 5000gp (100 years of food costs to afford these things?

So, do these items that expire just become non magical or do they turn into something interesting?

 

[twjensen]

Accumulation

Simple. Every year a few more get made. People die, but the stones live on. Eventually, it starts to really impact things. Think about the cost of a modern car. No one could afford one 100 years ago, but they made so much economic sense that eventually nearly everyone has one. If these things can block out the possibility of famine entirely, magi will start working on getting that price down. There are a couple of possibles:

1) No one knows how to make them anymore. So the number that there are, that's the total and the price is whatever the market will bear. Like the price of collectables or old art.

2) They don't last forever. At 5000 GP, if the things only last 100 years, well, there will be a limited number of them. I actually price that item at 300 GP and it lasts 1 year.

 

[Steven McRownt]

I think that everybody here caught the point. In terms of "economy of magic items" there should be a sort of balance, because the most of the time a magic item survive to his owner if he's defeated by someone. After centuries of creating magic items the world we'll be filled by ioun stones, farmer's pick +1 that cast control weather, fire elementals trapped in cages where water flows so they can heat entire castles.

But i am going off topic too!!!!!

Expiring date for potion is the most evident thing we can have in mind. It is not something that we hold, or that gravitates around us. It is something that we ingest. So squaring the level for calculating the expiring date could be a good compromise to say that nothing in this world is everlasting. Even if someone spent centuries before a couple of Xps to make this fluid being curative, that doesn't mean that it is still good as an healing potion.

Now collateral effects. There were a table in 2e to calculate the effects of combining different potions, i mean making cocktails! uhmmmm, no it is not usable as it was written. I can start to think to a table.

Any suggestions?

Steven McRownt

 

[Steven McRownt]

BUMP

 

[Artoomis]

I like the idea.

they should probably just no longer be potent, unless you want dice to rule your world - in that case you coudl allow for random odd things to happen after they expire.

Some possibilities:

No effect (like water)
Nausea
Poison (mild - 1 temp point of Con loss, no secondary effect)
Poison (any)
Random potion effect happens (some sort of organism has changed it's properties somehow?)

 

[Steven McRownt]

Actually i ruled that there were simply no effects. If someone tried too many potions out of date, i will ask him to save against poisons. That is the most obviuos idea. After all, is just that magical properties faded away. I do not think that for making an healing potion or a bull's strenght one there are some poisons as ingredients, and those poisons resist more than the magic effects.

Squaring the level is a good (and simple) choose? well, i did it very simple just to easily keep track of them. But if you have some better ideas just write it down here!!!!!

Thanx everybody,

Steven McRownt