D&D 5E (2024) Healing Isn’t What You Think: The Value Curve Across a Fight

[Silam]

Feeding a healing potion to a fallen teammate, or otherwise healing/stabilizing them, is usually an action, unless you have a bonus action healing spell like Healing Word. So yes, there is an asymmetry in the two, and it is better for someone to heal as a bonus action before they go down and cost someone else an action, or worse end up laying there making death saves while the action continues around them and they get no actions as they are down.

For what it’s worth… I just got the 2024 starter kit and on healing potion card, it says it takes a BA to consume or to feed it to someone else… the starter kit might be approximating certain rules here and there for the sake of simplicity, but overall it seems to pretty much follow regular rules (just with fewer options and no further than level 3…).

 

[FrogReaver]

For what it’s worth… I just got the 2024 starter kit and on healing potion card, it says it takes a BA to consume or to feed it to someone else… the starter kit might be approximating certain rules here and there for the sake of simplicity, but overall it seems to pretty much follow regular rules (just with fewer options and no further than level 3…).

That’s interesting.

 

[Tessarael]

You are correct. It is a bonus action to drink or administer a healing potion per the 5.5E PHB p.228. I will correct my earlier comment.

 

[Silam]

You are correct. It is a bonus action to drink or administer a healing potion per the 5.5E PHB p.228. I will correct my earlier comment.

Ah, yeah, there it is. But then, it's a rule specific to healing potions, but not for all potions!? 5e, as usual, is being simultaneously helpful and confusing by tucking information in very specific places

 

[Tessarael]

5.5E DMG p.216: "Drinking a potion or administering it to another creature requires a Bonus Action ... Once used, a potion takes effect immediately, and it is used up."

 

[Silam]

5.5E DMG p.216: "Drinking a potion or administering it to another creature requires a Bonus Action ... Once used, a potion takes effect immediately, and it is used up."

Ah, in the DMG. That’s why I wasn’t finding it … well, that settles everything then. Thank you my good sir/lady, you are a gentle[wo]man and a scholar!

 

[Distracted DM]

BTW, how do you folks cost the act of feeding a potion to a fallen teammate?

5.5e introduced Diablo-style sword-in-one-hand-potion-in-the-other-binge-drinking via BA, but it seems unclear if that is only for the self or for others too. It seems logical that drinking one’s own potion requires less opportunity cost than feeding it to someone else who’s prone and unconscious, but as far as I can tell it’s not spelled out in the rules.

If a table plays with an asymmetry in the cost of gulping a potion for one’s self versus someone else, that adds an interesting dimension to the tradeoff.

It's counterintuitive maybe, but if I were to add bonus action potions id only have it work for feeding to teammates, and still an action for self. Maybe you can reason the mechanics to fiction as you pass it to them and they do the drinking (you could make it a reaction for the receiver to drink, but I worry that'd just make it less likely to be used).
The idea is to encourage teamwork, it costing less action economy to heal another than yourself.

 

[ECMO3]

nm

 

[Tessarael]

I'm more inclined to handle it the other way round, at least for a fallen comrade. Unless you're healing them by pouring the potion over them, or throwing it near them so it splashes ala BG3 style, actually kneeling to open their mouth and pour the potion in, I don't see how that would be other than a standard action.

I think the action economy should favor the teammate healing themselves before they go down, rather than you helping them from a dying/unconscious situation.