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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5517765" data-attributes="member: 2011">It's not just a way to find an optimum way to play the game. In fact, that's not the primary motivating factor.It's a way for the player to decide how to spend his gold. Some players in 3.5 will buy the nastiest weapon around. Another player such as myself will have a Scroll of Knock and a Potion of Water Breathing so that I don't get trapped in a situation.It's about choice. And for many players, choice = fun. Lack of choice, still can be fun, but not as much.As a player, I want more than the 5 options that 4E gives me at a low level and 20+ options that 4E gives me at the highest levels. Why? Because the vast majority of those options are "attack foe, do damage".I want other combat options, many of which were stripped out of 4E as miscellaneous spells got made into rituals. Tensor's Floating Disk to carry the unconscious Rogue out of combat (which I have done on numerous occasions in 3.5 and earlier).The real down side of 4E is that many of the miscellaneous options such as using spells for non-combat stuff in combat and using charged items mostly went out the window.It would be great if 5E brought them back in. They don't have to be identical in mechanics to 3.5 and earlier, it would be just great to have the options. Those options could also have a balance cost associated with them.For example, a spell to cast a 10 minute or fewer casting time lower than the spell level ritual (the vast majority of rituals that are relatively non-potent) that you know as a standard action in combat.Players are somewhat limited in their combat options in 4E. It's mostly, use a power. The designers went overboard in their attempt to simplify the game, throwing the baby out with the bath water.1st level Warden with CON 18 plus Toughness = 40 hit points. Not quite any 1st level PC.True. It takes a wimpy hit point PC level 7 to get to 44 hit points (level 8 with a starting Con of 8 or 9), but most PCs get there by level 4 or 5 at the latest. Course, most healing potions should be used by PCs that get more bang for the buck, so level 5 Potions of Healing start losing their luster around level 4 to 6 or so. The 5th level Wizard might still like a Potion of Healing, but the 5th level Fighter could more or less care less.Just yesterday, we had an encounter where the minions were doing 12 points of damage (the PCs were 5th level). Minions. A Potion of Healing is pretty lame compared to that.As written, a Potion of Healing doesn't really serve it's purpose of helping the PC for a few rounds. It's lucky to help out for half of a round. The real sad thing about it is that it helps out some classes more than others due to it's fixed value nature.We already have too many flavors of each type of item as is. To me, the flaw in 4E healing potions is not the number of different ones, it's that they heal a fixed amount.I think the way to fix healing potions is:1) Limit their use to once per encounter per PC (it doesn't matter the type of potion, the magic doesn't work frequently enough to suck down more than one per encounter). Note: this is more of a balance rule that some DMs might not find necessary, but I think it is a good rule for when the DM is planning only one to three encounters for a given day and healing surges aren't at a premium.2) Change them to Potion of Healing = 1 healing surge heals 25%, Potion of Vitality as currently written except it heals 35%, Potion of Recovery as currently written except it heals 50%.Note: I've liked this type of healing concept for decades now and often introduced it into some of my 3.5 and earlier campaigns. It doesn't matter if one is a King or a pauper. The healing of the potion (or a spell for that matter) is the same. All versions of 4E healing that require a healing surge should work this way. It should be percentage based.Sure, high level PCs could carry around a hundred Potions of Healing in their bag of holdings at high level and suck one down every encounter, but it still uses up a healing surge. It still has that cost, even if the monetary one is negligible. Is 25% of hit points really worth that when the party Leader can typically heal 50% for a single healing surge (often out of combat)?Even the Potions of Vitality would eventually start to cut into the party funds and players would have to decide whether to use the cheap Potion of Healing, the moderately priced Potion of Vitality, the pretty expensive Potion of Recovery, or none at all.And of course, with healing potions working like this, it would incentivize monsters to have them as well. This opens up a lot of good combat possibilities when a (typically humanoid) monster is able to heal itself reasonably mid-encounter (hence, another reason for the once per encounter limitation since Paragon and higher creatures get more than one healing surge). A slightly challenging encounter just became more challenging. Plus, it creates stronger reasons for healing potions to be found in monster lairs.Course, this healing is all peanuts compared to powers like Cloak of Courage anyway at high Paragon and Epic. But at least this type of modification to Healing Potions would make them a viable option again.</blockquote>

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