Forked Thread: Healing Potions, from First Aid Skill

[Starglim]

Forked from: Can the First Aid Skill "Use Second Wind" be used on unconscious characters?

A potion isn't supposed to be a replacement for Healing Word. It's your emergency kit, your thing of last resort, for when other methods of non-standard action healing have evaded you. Why -would- it be better than Second Wind?

From 6th level onwards (when a wizard with 10 CON has 40 hit points), it's guaranteed to be worse than Second Wind.

If a healing potion is the worst form of healing in the game and an absolute last resort, there's no reason for any party to have more than one of them or ever hope to use it. If that's the case, why give them out as treasure?

The cost of this last resort isn't negligible either. It's half a starting character's gold, as much as plate armour, 1/7 of a magic item, or five castings of Gentle Repose or Tenser's Floating Disk.

Shroomy, I'm surprised that you find them worthwhile, especially with two leaders in the party. It's not my experience that 4e characters need to be fearful enough when 10 hit points down that it's worth dropping future healing potential or spending the required actions and gold. Your contrary experience is interesting, though.

 

[Victim]

The point of healing potions is to bring more healing to bear on a given fight, after normal per encounter abilities have been used. Having more efficient surge useage can be somewhat less important than keeping people up. A character can also drink a potion AND attack, which will often be better than using a standard action for second wind.

Moreover, the value of the healing potion varies with the value of your healing surge. The potion, while expensive for first level characters, is also more than their normal healing surge amount. At higher levels, the potion is cheap, but often far less effective than a normal surge.

And then a little later, characters can get Potions of Vitality, which heal more. Some characters with weak surges might still find the potion to be more than the normal amount. Others not so much.

 

[Shroomy]

Well, 10 hit points is 20% of my character's total and only two off my surge value (were currently at 6th level), plus I have an aversion to ongoing damage, which our DM loves to throw at us.

As for our healing potion usage, well that may have evolved out of our particular situation. Firstly, the cleric didn't join our party until we were already at 4th level, so my character was the only source of healing for the party for more than half of our careers (and I have to confess that my initial misreading of my healing infusion ability probably saved our bacon).

Currently, our four person party is composed of a fighter, an artificer (multi-classed with rogue), a star pact warlock, and a Wis-based cleric, so right there, we have 1 melee character and 3 ranged combatants, so our fighter typically takes the brunt of the damage, especially from the most dangerous opponents, while the rest of us scramble around and take our shots (I would say that I'm the secondary melee character, but my AC is relatively low, making it a risky proposition; I typically go in for a flank to deliver sneak attack damage). In addition, our primary striker is under optomized, so he is not hitting as much as he should be, and as a result, our combats probably last 1-2 rounds longer than they otherwise should.

So basically, our fighter gets savagely pounded every fight, so each of us usually directs at least one of our healing powers towards the fighter once his hit points fall below bloodied (plus he makes liberal use out of his Comeback Strike and Boundless Endurance powers), leaving us two in reserve at best. For the rest of us, well we try to avoid damage and of course, we have the Second Wind, but its action cost makes it unattractive in our eyes except in the most dire of circumstances. That leaves us potions, which our DM passes out according to the parcel system (so we stumble across a lot of them); they're cheap, give us 10 hit points, and it only takes a minor action to use (which we usually have to spare).

 

[Syrsuro]

I see Healing Potions as having one, major and significant value.

They allow the party to revive dying healers alot more reliably than the Heal skill allows.

Carl

 

[CapnZapp]

A related question:

Am I the only DM thinking "where did all the other potions go?"

There's a level 5 potion for 50 gp (making it an item for PCs of level 2+) and there's a level 15 potion for 1000 gp.

To me, there seems to be a major gap here. What about healing potions costing 100 gp, or 250 gp?

(Same with Potion of Recovery, costing 25(!) times as much as the level 15 one)

In contrast, the Potion of Life only costs five times as much, which is more reasonable.


Edit: Nevermind, lets discuss this here instead
http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan-creations-house-rules/248221-level-10-healing-potions.html

 

[darkwing]

A non-dwarf 2nd wind costs a standard action. Drinking a potion is a minor action. Also, every character can drink potions so if your cleric is busy concentrating on keeping the fighter up, the strikers may be on their own for a bit and already used up their 2nd wind (or prefer to drink a potion and still have their std. action left for attacking). Also, hooray for quickdraw

 

[Jack99]

A non-dwarf 2nd wind costs a standard action. Drinking a potion is a minor action. Also, every character can drink potions so if your cleric is busy concentrating on keeping the fighter up, the strikers may be on their own for a bit and already used up their 2nd wind (or prefer to drink a potion and still have their std. action left for attacking). Also, hooray for quickdraw

Still costs a minor to draw though - but still, it's has it's uses.

 

[DrSpunj]

I see Healing Potions as having one, major and significant value.

They allow the party to revive dying healers alot more reliably than the Heal skill allows.

Absolutely agree. I currently DM 8 2nd level PCs and while the party has both a dwarf Cleric & (now) a TacLord, the former tends to rush headlong into battle with a grin (worships Kord ). In last night's game he dropped unconscious after already using his Second Wind. The TacLord was already out of Inspiring Words so the party poured one of their two healing potions down his throat to get him up & going again so he could heal others!

I think they used their second on another PC so they're out of them now. They don't use them often, but desperate times call for desperate measures!

Thanks

 

[gtoasnt3]

My PC's feel that since they can only use second wind once per encounter, healing potions keep them going and only cost a minor action. Our guys are 9th level and they still invest in 5 or so heal potions a piece.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

Even though it takes just a minor to drink the potion, shouldn't it at least take a minor to pull it out, and that's if the character has a free hand?

This would allow a player to pull it out one round and drink it the next, but by my understanding of the rules its not hugely faster than using ones second wind.

Dr. Ruminahui, shrink with a spear