I hate potions.

[Quasqueton]

In all my years of D&D gaming (20+), potions have proved pretty darn useless to my characters.

Recently, this has been my experience with potions:

A friend is wounded to unconsciousness. Give him one of my potions of cure light wounds to bring him around well enough to retreat. A couple rounds later, the poison he took in the fight knocks him unconscious again.

I was wounded near unconsciousness. I drank a potion of cure light wounds because we might run into trouble pulling out of the dungeon. The way out and home was safe, and the cleric had left over cure spells.

About to fight a demon thingy. I drank a potion of protection from evil. The demon never attacked me, and was dead one round later.

I can look back on similar situations throughout the years. It seems, to me, that I can end a battle by drinking a potion for that battle. I've had characters who found or bought a special potion and then never had that special situation ever come up.

I had a tank character in a party of stealthy guys. I bought a potion of hiding for our next adventure, but never needed it for that adventure or the two that followed.

<sigh>

What is your relationship with potions?

Quasqueton

 

[Chunklets]

My favourite potion experience...

The party's paladin was down (this was awhile back, in a 1e campaign, and I remember all the specifics of how the paladin ended up down), and something big and nasty was coming for us, so it behooved us at the time to get out of Dodge rather quickly. Unfortunately, as mentioned, the paladin was down. In full plate armour. Anyhoo, somebody suggested firing an unidentified potion that we'd recently found into our comrade, just in case it was something beneficial. We did that... turned out it was a potion of Levitation. In the end, in what was probably not a canonical interpretation of the Levitation effect by our DM, we tied a rope around the paladin and hauled him out of there like a balloon.

In general though, I do find potions to have limited use, which is probably why they're among the easiest items to make in 3E. I can only recall a couple of occasions when the group I'm DMing for now (who are about 19th level, on average) have actually made use of them.

 

[MerakSpielman]

Limited to primarily healing potions.

I'm thinking the stat-boosting potions could be pretty good, but I've never really used them.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I know where you are coming from, although I don't know if I'd go so far as to say I hate them. I've found that most people (myself included) hoard their potions, saving them for "an emergency", after all, you don't want to waste a potion.

So what happens is that you cart around these potions for years (good thing they don't have expiration dates, although that could be an interesting twist...) and when you finally feel desperate enough to pull one out and use it, the battle is often near its conclusion one way or another.

I can think of a few occasions where a timely potion really made a difference (usually a potion of invisibility or gaseous form), and those healing potions can make a big difference when the cleric goes down.

 

[billd91]

I'd consider looking into your relationship with your DM. Why didn't your character with the potion of protection from evil not get attacked by the demon? Did it just die too quickly? Or did the DM avoid your character because he knew you were less vulnerable?
Sometimes DMs avoid well protected characters in favor of more vulnerable ones without considering how the monster should act. Would it know your character was protected? Probably not, but the DM did. It might not even be that intentional either. He may not realize that by playing the monster in as intelligently adversarial a fashion as he can that he's metagaming rather than playing the monster and what the monster would know.
It might also be a variation of Murphy's Law at work. Because you are prepared for the eventuality, said eventuality will not happen. There's not much you can do about that because, sure enough, as soon as you stop preparing for it, you'll pay for it.

 

[Cor Azer]

Honestly, I almost never use them. Sure, I give them out as part of treasure when I DM, and I frequently buy them as a PC, but I usually see them as insurance - I know if I have to heal, I've got a potion of cure x wounds. True, I'll likely never be in a situation when I need the potion and can use it, but still, they're nice to have as insurance.

 

[EricNoah]

We use tons of potions in our high-level games. They're a relatively cheap way to make sure the whole party can do basic things that are almost required for high-level gaming. (see invisible, fly, etc).

 

[Halivar]

As a DM, I hate (hate hate hate HATE) potions of glibness. I'd ban them outright if I thought it had more to do with then my inability to prepare for them.

 

[GrayPumpkin]

My group makes great use of potions and scrolls. They all carry multiple potions and if they have time to prepare, each downs several of them before a big fight, I can’t tell you how many battles they’ve won do to there efficient use of potions.
Like anything it’s a something that you’ve got to learn to do, my group pretty much ignored them at first but after being smacked down by potion (and scroll) using enemy NPC’s several times they caught on and learned to swim rather than sink.

 

[Shard O'Glase]

I hate potions since 3e. There just perosnal/single target spells of 3rd level or less. One thins makes it a really weak item creation feat. I don't care if they can be handed to other people to use 3rd level personal spells what a waste of a feat. 2nd and most importantly thye moronically removed the really cool potions like potion of fire breath, or potion of longevity they flat out stole the magic from the potions.

But hey in earlier editions I thought potions were cool and they felt more effective especialy considering the healing potions had a much more dramatic effect on a person proportionally.