D&D General How many healing potions do you give your party?

[Stalker0]

So magic items tend to be more limited in 5e....but healing potions are often a special case. So how many healing potions do you tend to give your party? (see poll above). Also curious what types of healing potions you often give them.

 

[ART!]

None. In 5E, so many classes have healing features that I simply don't bother.

 

[Zaukrie]

So magic items tend to be more limited in 5e....but healing potions are often a special case. So how many healing potions do you tend to give your party? (see poll above). Also curious what types of healing potions you often give them.

I voted uncommon, but one of my groups has three players.... And the other just doesn't care about rules all that much and isn't optimized....

 

[Lazybones]

I only occasionally place healing potions in encounter areas as treasure, although a mid-level NPC or a bandit captain might have one or two on them. However, most towns in my setting have a temple, alchemist, or herbseller who sells them, and almost every city will have multiple opportunities to purchase them, including the stronger versions. Thus I leave it up to the players to determine whether they want to have them, just in case. I will also sometimes give them out as quest rewards, for example if the party is going on a mission to help out a local temple. I once had a quest where an adult copper dragon offered the adventurers a cache of six potions of superior healing in exchange for assistance; those potions are rare and expensive enough that they feel significant when found.

 

[Theory of Games]

Healing potions are such a crutch in D&D. Reminds me of the old Popeye cartoons where whenever he was in a jam, Popeye'd just pop a can of spinach and save the day like Superman. I never give them to PCs - they earn them by defeating monsters for their treasure troves.

Ultimately, I blame Elrond and his Miruvor

 

[tetrasodium]

I tried many things to make healing potions interesting treasure in 5e and could never fix the two pronged core of the problem in a way that brought back the "ok awesome, who should get that" vibes of base & greater healing potions in the past without descending into an adversarial quagmire. The two prongs are that 5e went too far beyond 2e"s "should be readily available" gm advice by making them video game style intimately available in player facing material and the fact that yo-yo healing is just too powerful to resist when paired with 5e's trivialized all or nothing explosive recovery so players only use them for that ultra meta game style stop gap.

I'm not longer interested in taking the heat to make healing potions into interesting loot for wotc, and feel unsupported when it comes to their goa,l so have not bothered giving them out for quite some time.

Edit: none of the options apply though. I give basically zero healing potions and wotc has ensured players that those potions are available at a level well beyond very common unless they have some EvilKillerGM engaged in BadWrongFun so players shamelessly walk around with an embarrassing number of healing options as a group and feel no risk giving one of their 1-2 potions to another party member.

 

[Shiroiken]

Running 5E24, and given that a group is only expected to find 6 common magic items by level 5, they're rarely found. I'd rather give away more interesting items instead, given that the party can just buy potions of healing from the PHB.

 

[Minigiant]

Very common.

There is a whole basic healing potion economy in both my settings. But only adventurers, high ranking officers, and nobility enter it.

Every town who has a healer, alchemist, or apothecary has healing potions. However they are too expensive for commoners.

But healing potions aren't magic. They are actually just medicine in a glass vial and easily break in combat.

So if adventurers carry a sack of 30 potions, they will have to set their sack down while fighting and only keep the 1-2 on their person. And the sack is loud as heck.

 

[aco175]

A lot depends on what level the PCs are. At low level the basic potion can be found in some treasure location or towns might have a couple to buy. By 3rd level all the PCs would have one and most may have used another in combat or somewhere but my players tend to save them in case they go down and the others can find it to use on them.

Somewhere around 5th level they start to find greater potions and 10th level potions above this. These are rarely found in towns but a city might have one or two. The PCs generally do not need to use them though. At this level they tend to still find a few basic potions but might use them for plot and give them away to hirelings or NPCs having problems.

 

[Steampunkette]

Depends on group composition.

I have even given out reusable/refilling healing potions.