Giving potions to unconscious characters

[genshou]

I guess what I'm asking is, "Could the attack of opportunity be avoided by rolling a Concentration check, the way AoO's can be avoided when casting spells or activating other magic items?"

Certain actions, such as firing a ranged weapon in a threatened square, can't avoid an AoO simply by using a Concentration check. Since drinking or administering a nonmagical vial requires exactly the same level of focus as with a cure potion, you could not make a Concentration check to avoid the AoO. If you're bending down to carefully pour the potion into your comrade's mouth, you'd better be ready to suffer the consequences!

Combat is fairly harsh that way. I'm a nice DM; I like to let my players drag the injured PC out of threatened space and am kind enough not to have their foes pursue mercilessly. But it seems some here are not so generous (ouch, drowning on a healing potion)...

 

[UltimaGabe]

So, I looked up drowning rules and the cleric failed every single save. I think I even gave him an extra Fort save to cough up the potion. Needless to say, (though I say it anyway) the cleric drowned, giving rise to the saying Death By Healing Potion!

You realize, of course, that a character doesn't have to make Constitution checks for quite a few rounds, right? If I remember correctly, a character can go (Constution score x 2) rounds before having to make Con checks. So, um, unless the battle went REALLY long, he wouldn't have died so soon.

 

[Arnwyn]

You realize, of course, that a character doesn't have to make Constitution checks for quite a few rounds, right? If I remember correctly, a character can go (Constution score x 2) rounds before having to make Con checks. So, um, unless the battle went REALLY long, he wouldn't have died so soon.

Only if you're actually conscious to hold your breath, of course.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Personally, I'm of the school of thought that the only way to hurt someone with a potion of healing is to hit them over the head with the bottle.

 

[ARandomGod]

Personally, I'm of the school of thought that the only way to hurt someone with a potion of healing is to hit them over the head with the bottle.

Me too. And even then the potion will get on them if the bottle breaks, probably healing up the damage your improvised weapon produced.

 

[Fieari]

I think I would have done the drowning thing too. My players would probably feel gyped if I didn't. They brag about the fact that I'm a RBDM.

 

[Garnfellow]

Sign seen in a Greyhawk apothecary's shop:

Cure Light Wounds Potion – And Now In Convenient To Administer Suppository Form!

 

[radferth]

I think drowning is caused by lack of oxygen, not water damage to the lungs. OTOH if you are a RBDM you owe it to your players to drown them with healing potions.

BTW, what would the posible forms of healing potions be: potion or powder, salve, sepository, patch? What else? I once played in a campaign where potions were also injectable, doing 1hp damage before their effect took place.

 

[genshou]

Personally, I'm of the school of thought that the only way to hurt someone with a potion of healing is to hit them over the head with the bottle.

Speaking of harming someone through healing, a cleric in my former gaming group used to deliver cure spells via unarmed strikes (subdual damage, of course). He would shout "Be ye healed!" and then slap the injured person. Since cure spells heal both hit points and subdual damage, we wouldn't suffer any adverse effects afterward unless we already had quite a bit of subdual damage, but OUCH!

As for drowning from a healing potion... you can also drown in an inch of water, as one PC was rather unfortunate to discover

 

[DonTadow]

Under potions in the DMG 3.0 p. 191 it says "a character can carefully administer a potion to an unconscious creature as a full-round action..." I had to look this rule up when a character in my group had to give a cure light potion to the cleric. Unfortunately, she didn't have the heal skill, which would have let her know this, and just dumped the potion down his throat. So, I looked up drowning rules and the cleric failed every single save. I think I even gave him an extra Fort save to cough up the potion. Needless to say, (though I say it anyway) the cleric drowned, giving rise to the saying Death By Healing Potion!

oh wow that's evil... I MUST TRY THIS