Healing Potions seem woeful

[Ahglock]

Hit point damage does not necessarily represent physical wounds. It represents fatigue, luck, minor cuts and bruising, etc. After you've done a certain amount of fighting (expended your healing surges) no amount of magic is going to keep you going. A good night's rest gives you your energy back, gives the cuts a chance to scab over, etc.

I can buy this up to the point the character drops. Once they are down and a few bad saves away from death, i don't visualize them as just tired with a few scratches anymore. And I do not want to visualize them that way.

 

[Holy Bovine]

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?

No, no, no. It'll be the ability to carry around a cluebat....

 

[pweent]

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.

Actually, Ari, the "1 HP when you're out of surges" rule is correct. Check out "Healing a Dying Character", PHB p. 295, specifically the bullet point, "Regain Hit Points".

I like it. You're out of the action; they can keep you alive, but you're not going to be good for fighting until you get an extended rest.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Actually, Ari, the "1 HP when you're out of surges" rule is correct. Check out "Healing a Dying Character", PHB p. 295, specifically the bullet point, "Regain Hit Points".

Huh. How about that? I missed that completely.

Guess I was just assuming that it worked the same for death saves (where if you roll a nat 20 but you're out of surges, nothing happens).

Thanks for pointing that out.

 

[Stalker0]

I have to disagree with many of the posters in this thread. I think healing potions are wonderfully well designed.

I just played in a play test where we tried characters at both 1st and 12th levels. In the 12th level fight, my party was loving their basic healing potions, because both the paladin and warlord had drained their healing, everyone had used their second wind, and there was just no way to get more healing.

Potions are quick to use (minor action) and are cheap. But the fact that they use healing surges is a big balance. They drain your endurance to give you a quick boost. So even at high levels I may want a few regular potions, but I won't use them unless I need to, as I'm losing a lot of efficiency with them vs regular healing.

All in all, I think the potion system works beautifully.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

Pretty much every complaint about 4e boils down to "These rules don't model a world I personally find plausible." Okay, point taken, but they don't try to.

If you work from the mechanics that describe how things happen, and come up with interpretations and explanations that make you and your group happy, you're set. Yeah, it's some extra imaginative work the books leave to you, but that's how they did it.

The reason damage and healing work the way they do is a pacing mechanic, pure and simple. It's up to the people at the table to decide how that is represented in the fictional game world, and that'll probably differ from table to table. There are some definate guidelines (such as the indication that if someone is bloodied that indicates actual injury, whereas HP loss above bloodied might just be fatigue or morale), but they're pretty flexible. The whole game pretty much works this way -- flavor text for powers, for instance, gives an example of how you might describe the power use in game, but it's not a "must".

If that's someone's general complaint with D&D, I don't think it's really necessary to pick out one particular way in which the rules do it, because they do it all over the place. I'm not saying people don't have the right to complain about the little examples that particularly bug them, but it's sort of small potatoes compared to the general large difference in how you picture mechanics translating to in-fiction "reality" in this edition compared to some of the old ones.

 

[RefinedBean]

Minor action?

Drinking a potion is TWO minor actions, right?

1. One minor to draw it,
2. One minor action to drink it.

So switching the standard or move (probably standard, because you'll more than likely want to move away) to a minor to do all this in one round makes drinking a potion a wee bit more of an ordeal than people suggest.

Or am I off on this?

 

[Mouseferatu]

Drinking a potion is TWO minor actions, right?

1. One minor to draw it,
2. One minor action to drink it.

So switching the standard or move (probably standard, because you'll more than likely want to move away) to a minor to do all this in one round makes drinking a potion a wee bit more of an ordeal than people suggest.

Or am I off on this?

This is true most of the time, though it's still sometimes better than losing your standard action to draw on Second Wind.

OTOH, if you (like my rogue) have Quickdraw, it becomes that much more valuable.

 

[keterys]

You can also take the two minors over two rounds - like you act, move, then take out the potion so it's in hand, use a minor on your next turn.

 

[Blackeagle]

I can buy this up to the point the character drops. Once they are down and a few bad saves away from death, i don't visualize them as just tired with a few scratches anymore. And I do not want to visualize them that way.

I've actually been working on a house rule for a layer of meat damage that goes between hit points and unconsciousness. Should work really well if you want a really gritty game.