Healing Potions seem woeful

[NMcCoy]

Just a note - if I recall correctly, if you're below zero and get any sort of surge-based healing (potion, Healing Word, etc.), but you're out of surges, you end up conscious with 1 HP.

 

[Alkiera]

To me, the concept of Healing Surges feels like the way healing works in the Wheel of Time (and other fantasy stories): Being healed magically is stressful on the body and mind, makes you tired and/or hungry, and you can only take so much of it. In 4e, they've made all healing pull from the same energy source. When you're out of this vital energy, you can't be healed by anything short of actual divine intervention (ex. Cure Light Wounds; Healing Word is just the cleric's words, not the power of a god, imo) without giving your body and mind time to recover.

Also, note that at high paragon/epic tier, regen and other non-surge healing effects become more common; this will change the surge economy somewhat.

 

[Colawley]

Originally Posted by Colawley
Yes but can you really see a level 7 character dropping 1000gp for a single healing potion that heals 25hp, gives an extra save, but still costs a healing surge? Especially when a single surge at that level is going to probably be more then the 25hp you get from the potion.

Surges are the main form of healing in 4E, so every one counts when you are in between extended rests.

Yes, I can. In fact, my 8th-level rogue was grateful to have a potion or two in our last battle.

The minor action to drink a potion is a major advantage, easily worth the trade-off of the few HP I lost by not doing Second Wind. If I'd taken a standard action instead, I'd have been screwed.

Healing potions were one of the things I hated when I first read the rules. But having actually played with them, they work well as written. Any house rules to increase their effectiveness are, quite frankly, going to break them.

After reading through all the posts on this I would have to agree here. I haven't seen them in play but from what everyone is saying it looks like they are well balanced.

So I guess I stand corrected.

 

[Thundershield]

100+ hit points are not going to be common at 7th level. The only way you can do that is to max out con and take toughness for virtually every feat.

Except you can't take Toughness more than once now.

The maximum possible for a 30th-level Fighter, provided he's of a race that gets a bonus to Constitution, is 234 hp, meaning you'll have a healing surge value of 58 before any boni from race or feats, from what I gather.

So, as already pointed out, the facts that the potions are relatively cheap for whatever level you get them at, and that they're only a minor action to use, and lastly that they allow you to spend more healing surges in a given fight that you'd otherwise be able to (including whatever options your powers and allies give you) all account for the viability and usefulness of even a simple 1st-level potion.

 

[Regicide]

Yeah, that's the funny part, the healing potion no longer does anything for you, but if you take a nap for a few hours you'll be completely fine.

Exactly. The concept of a healing surge is just stupendously stupid. A magic potion can't heal you but take a nap and *bamf* you can spend a full day's healing surges and get back hundreds of HPs instantly. It's mindbogglingly stupid. Yes, it's a fantasy game, it's not supposed to be realistic, but theres fantasy and then there is sheer random drooling copy-a-video-game stupidity.

Tying it to minor actions was also grossly retarded. You think you could pull a potion out of a backpack and utilize it while wearing armor during the middle of combat as such a trivial action it has no consequences? Give me a bloody break. The convenience of video game macro palettes DOES NOT TRANSLATE to a PnP game. It is downright dumb. Whats going to be in the next splatbook, the ability for characters to wear 6 backpacks at the same time?

 

[Saeviomagy]

Fer instance, I've heard (from you perhaps) that characters scrabble for every +1 bonus to attack and damage they can get. This makes all the seemingly piddly +1 bonuses to hit from various powers seem less piddly, though I still don't "grock" why this is.

Isnt' it Grok?

Anyway - everyone is now towards the middle of the d20 scale of hit/miss now, AND hitting a target is usually the ONLY thing you have to do to make an entire power work.

So in 3.5, people were either way down on the scale, or way up. Past the first couple of levels, either you missed almost all the time, and a hit bonus wasn't worth anything to you because you were never rolling attack rolls, OR you hit all the time, and a hit bonus was just for converting into power attack.

Also you might hit a target with disintegrate, and then he gets to save against it. Or, just launch a fireball and not care about bonus to hit.

Now the disintegrate takes it's full effect on a hit, and the fireball needs you to roll to hit each target.

Defense bonuses are also pretty limited for the same reason.

 

[helium3]

The same way a lvl 15+ party kills anything: stack a few armor decreases / hit increases and let the ranger one-shot him with cascade of blades

Oh. Is this what everyone's collapsing on the fainting couches over?

I should check out the numbers in the "Ranger Is New God Of Damage Thread."

 

[helium3]

Isnt' it Grok?

Correct!!!

Anyway - everyone is now towards the middle of the d20 scale of hit/miss now, AND hitting a target is usually the ONLY thing you have to do to make an entire power work.

Yeah, but as I recall, the context of the quote was more that you NEEDED those +1 bonuses because the other choice was death. Basically, every +1 is more important. I suppose what you're talking about and how it ties into game balance explains how they were able to generate this "feeling."

 

[Mouseferatu]

Just a note - if I recall correctly, if you're below zero and get any sort of surge-based healing (potion, Healing Word, etc.), but you're out of surges, you end up conscious with 1 HP.

Not to my knowledge. If you're out of surges, you're out of luck.

 

[VannATLC]

Exactly. The concept of a healing surge is just stupendously stupid. A magic potion can't heal you but take a nap and *bamf* you can spend a full day's healing surges and get back hundreds of HPs instantly. It's mindbogglingly stupid. Yes, it's a fantasy game, it's not supposed to be realistic, but theres fantasy and then there is sheer random drooling copy-a-video-game stupidity.

Tying it to minor actions was also grossly retarded. You think you could pull a potion out of a backpack and utilize it while wearing armor during the middle of combat as such a trivial action it has no consequences? Give me a bloody break. The convenience of video game macro palettes DOES NOT TRANSLATE to a PnP game. It is downright dumb. Whats going to be in the next splatbook, the ability for characters to wear 6 backpacks at the same time?

Is it fun inside that box?

Take your misplaced vitriol elsewhere. You have not got a valid reason that has been presented, just rage because it doesn't fit your pre-conceptions.

Healing now requires vital energy from the person being healed, short of particular abilities that directly call upon divine energy, which are then particularly taxing on the healer.

The Wheel of Time analogy was perfect, as is all of the healing present in Tolkien.

It is a much cleaner, less abuseable, more internally consistent system.