Would it be mean for me to have Potions of Inflict Serious Wounds as treasure?

[BiggusGeekus]

Eh.

Pitch 'em a softball first.

Have the good potions labeled with the skull-and-crossbones for poison and the poison labeled with the word "cure" or whatever. The bad guy knows that they're reveresed. It's "realistic" in the sense that the bad guy might want to keep poison and healing potions, but he also wouldn't want his minions shoplifting, so he mislabels them.

You'll install the same level of fear and terror into the PCs, but you'll have a reason for it. Players tend not to mind getting the shaft as much when there's a good reason behind it.

 

[Zephyrus]

I half skimmed through some of the latter posts so I might have missed it if someone said it... but... wouldent attacking the illusionist and injuring them constitute interacting with the illusion and thus affording them a save to disbelive or similar?

This could be one way you could make the encounter not as bad as thet party might realize that he's undead and drinking potions that 'appear' to heal him (when they later find out he's undead and he was doing a good job of masking his actions to make him appear 'living inclined') then that should give the players a sufficient chance of discovering somethings fishy with the potions.

If your concerned, secreatly change the strength of the potion to a inflict light or inflict moderate instead of serious or critical. Simple lable the potions healing maybe using different colored ink (that in and of itself might screw with the players as they might wonder if the color of ink might have some meaning or its significance. run with it!). Then when whoever drinks it unless they've actually identified the potion the damage issent so bad (a shocker yes, but hopefully wont kill the PC.. unless they were counting on it to save their backsides in a later fight).

This begs the question.. cause Dungeon has some potions in one of its adventures that are infested with parasites (i'm not gonna give a spoiler as to which adventure). Drinking the potion results in the imbiber swallowing it and becoming infested with a spot check appearently to noticed they swollowed something. the potion bottle is dark color tinted to hide the contents..... how do you keep track of nafrious potions or the like without giving it away or drawing attention to it?

 

[Dog Moon]

Originally posted by ThirdWizard
I doubt this would work on my players. They'll want to know how much is cures. 3d8+7? 1d8+1? Spellcraft check. Inflict. Toss.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought potions worked based on the level of the imbiber. Thus a 3rd level character drinking a potion of cure light wounds would heal 1d8+3.

Although they would have to check originally what the potion is by sipping it. They would then, assuming they pass their check, figure out what the potion is and they'd toss it. To get around this, however, just have all potions of a type be described the same [Think NWN, for example, where all Cure Light Wounds look the same as all Cure Light Wounds and different from everything else]. Although do this too often and players will disbelieve every potion from then on.

 

[the Jester]

I've done it before, actually.

Heck, I have a Brew Elixir feat that allows the user to brew potions of spells above 3rd level; I had some undead bad guys with elixirs of harm.

 

[KenM]

If the PC's know they are up against undead, then that should be a clue about the potions. Most careful parties will cast ID on the potions just to be sure. Also, once the players have them, they will use them when you least expect them to, they are players.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought potions worked based on the level of the imbiber. Thus a 3rd level character drinking a potion of cure light wounds would heal 1d8+3.

Nope, the healing amount is based on the caster level used to create the item. So, a 7th level cleric could create a potion of cure light wounds with a +1 (minimum) up to +5 (maximum). The cost of making the potion would go up with the caster level used. Cost is prohibitive, however, and there is no reason to make a potion of cure light wounds that heals 1d8+2 really.

The skill check to identify a potion isn't even based on the caster level or level of the spell in question, either, which looking at it, I dont' know why they chose to do it this way. In any case, its a DC 25 Spellcraft check, so lower level wizards are going to have a harder time with this. Even at mid levels, they might miss the check, so it isn't as bad as I had origionally thought. The 8th level wizard PC in my game, though, has a +25 Spellcraft check or something like that. He could take a 0 and get it.

 

[Xath]

I think it's a great idea. One of the gripes I have with D&D is that noone stops to think about the treasure they get (at least in most of my campaigns). You "loot the body" but noone actually thinks about what that means. And treasure is what it is.

I killed the creature.
It faded away.
A "treasure bag" appeared.
I ran over it.
It appeared in my inventory.

This seems like an interesting way to spice it up. Make them paranoid. I love it.

 

[Dog Moon]

SRD:
The drinker of a potion is both the effective target and the caster of the effect (though the potion indicates the caster level, the drinker still controls the effect).

Ah, I guess I always misread this as since the character is the caster, it goes off what level he is for the effect, or maybe I simply never read what was in the parenthesis, I don't know.

 

[Trevalon Moonleirion]

What about some Sovereign Glue stored in a potion bottle

I did that one once. Then the party tried to have the newest player, a fighter cut the bottle off of the drinkers face...with a sword...

There were damage dice rolled, and much amusement on my part.