Should potions of longevity be put back in the game?

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I think they just wanted to avoid "mental stat munchkinizing". You could bring it back, but it would be as expensive as three mental-stat-boosting books (and not stack).

Alternatively, it could be brought back as a story element. It wouldn't have rules for creation or anything like that, but could explain why this NPC has lived so long. PCs could even kill that NPC and steal the one or two potions they have lying around without much risk of game breaking (they can't make their own).

If you had to have rules for making it, it should be an epic item. By the time you go epic, that's hardly broken (IMO). You can boost your mental stats pretty high by that level anyway...

 

[Terath Ninir]

yay! i missed you!

Good to see you too, mang.

FWIW, my short answer is "hell yeah!"

living past your time unnaturally is a time-honored fantasy staple. heck, you could even quest for the fountain of youth if you like.

That's one of the things I was thinking of, too. It's just such a standard part of fantasy -- it seems so *odd* to not have it in the core D&D rules!

 

[Lanefan]

The longevity potions were removed, with some others, because of the much-too-arbitrary design restriction that says 3e potions have to mimic spells. There's no longevity spell, so...

Dumb design restriction, pointless result. So, remove the restriction, put 'em back in, and put aging effects back in with 'em.

Lanefan

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Aging effects are quite unfair (which is one reason they stripped it from Haste) in part because of the maximum ages of the core races varying widely.

It would also be a PitA if a PC uses an aging effect on a creature like a troll (what is its maximum age?), fluumph (likewise) or a dragon (eek!). Of course, a spell that simply advanced the opponent one age category would be much more reasonable ... and also deadlier.

 

[Lanefan]

Aging effects are quite unfair (which is one reason they stripped it from Haste) in part because of the maximum ages of the core races varying widely.

Easily fixed by converting anything that ages you by a set amount to have it age you the equvalent of that amount of a human's life. (the term I use is "HYE", stands for Human Years Equivalent). So, if the maximum lifespan of a Human is 100 years and the maximum lifespan of an Elf is 600 years, the HYE for the Elf is 6. So something that would age a Human 3 years makes the Elf 18 years older.

Once you've done this you can always tinker with the HYE value to have aging effects do more (or less) to some races than others, just for variety.

Lanefan

 

[Terath Ninir]

I miss all the potions that were unique! Heck, I miss all the unique magic items. I like that there is actually a method to make magic items now, but I miss all the weirdness...

 

[Bad Paper]

I want life extending magic. I also want living too long wear on one's sanity.

hear! hear!

And remember too much downtime and not training cost experience points. The DMG does call this out.

Where?

 

[hagor]

I said yes.

The ancient wizard who loves some form(s) of physical pleasure too much to give them up using magic to extend his/her life, is a fantasy staple. Especially if it takes the form of some deal-with-death-unholy-bargain.

I agree. I would put them back in, but rather as plot elements.
As several other have said as well, life extending magic, delaying death, quests for the Fountain of Youth, etc or immortality are a standard theme in fantasy.

IMO, such potions/elixirs would be expensive (with some rare, hard to come by ingredients). Of course, you can always make them evil (like the deal-with-death-unholy-bargain): to make the potion to prolong your own life you have to include the life force (blood, soul) of others (e.g. of elfs or dwarves, as the more longer living races, of children or other innocent people,...).

Other possible drawbacks can be that the more you take them, the less effective they become, or that they be addictive (so your friendly king becomes a cruel tyrant, opening the way for intervention by the local adventure company, a farmer's uprising, etc...)

Hagor

 

[BOZ]

I miss all the potions that were unique! Heck, I miss all the unique magic items. I like that there is actually a method to make magic items now, but I miss all the weirdness...

they haven't totally gotten rid of the non-spell potions, they're just called "elixirs" now and are listed in the miscellaneous magic section. for example, the potion of fire-breath is now IIRC called the elixir of fire-breath. also IIRC, you need Brew Potion to make those.

Edit: nope, i was wrong. i checked, those require Craft Wondrous Item. when i DM though, i'll make sure to switch those to Brew Potion instead.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

The ELH has an epic feat that extends one's lifespan and that is a far better choice IMO. It lets the human, who's been exposed to more magical forces than imaginable, stay hale and hearty far longer than anyone would expect and lets the longer-lived demihumans become those mythical semi-immortals.

Since I've been viewing XP as a kind of internal store of magical life energy, I've been thinking that level should provide a bonus to lifespan-- something along the lines of adding the die from your race's and class's "starting age" to your maximum lifespan every level. Maybe adding the minimum result of that roll to each age category.

Of course, the Epic feat just expands this even further, since those characters have way more magical energy than normal adventurers.