How do you guys handle using potions during battle? A lot of players are surprised when I tell them this takes one whole action, but to be honest as a DM I cannot see a player going head to head with some monster, and then just being able to grab a potion from their pouch in the middle of the battle and taking a gulp.
Per the rules it does take an action. Many players are surprised by this because of Critical Role, in which Matt Mercer house rules that it takes a bonus action, but this is not RAW. RAW it takes an action, as does using any magic item.
Many players are surprised by this because of Critical Role, in which Matt Mercer house rules that it takes a bonus action
Matt also clearly explained to the audience in one of the episodes midway through season 2 why he uses this house rule... He said that they decided on the "bonus action to quaff" rule because their group is so large. With a group of 7 plus probably the same # of monsters, a single combat round can last a very long time. And to paraphrase him, it stinks to wait half an hour for your turn to come up, and all you can do is drink a potion and then you have to wait for another half hour to actually do something. Because of this, they decided that, as a large group of 7, they would make this house rule. (The reason it works, of course, is that everyone can do an action every round but a lot of characters have no suitable bonus action to take on most rounds.)
He was pretty clear that in a smaller group he would not use this house rule. But for large groups, he thinks it helps the players stay in the action and not get bored... It's hard enough to wait for 6 other players plus as many NPCs to go before your turn comes up once, let alone twice, before doing something fun.
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I think for small groups it is unnecessary. My current group is 4 PCs and often fights no more than 3 or 4 monsters. It takes us maybe 15 minutes to get through a round. So I am not changing the rule. If they want to drink a potion in combat, it takes an action.
But again for a larger group, I would probably do what Mercer does.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Action economy is a thing so that is why it takes a full action. Changing to a bonus action though for your own drinking isn't too bad though as it still eats a bonus action, but I'd still keep feeding a potion to an unconscious character a full action.
Depends what problem you're trying to solve. My problem with healing potions is "okay, you drink the potion and heal for 7 points. The monster then goes and whacks you for 7 points", making it pretty much a wasted action.
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As for the Healing Potion being a wasted action... it doesn't take long to adapt the mentality that Healing Potions prevent further death saves instead of Preventing Being Knocked Unconscious. Same reason that I used to hate Healing Word but now keep it readied on my War Priest... get them back in the fight, don't try to prevent the damage. You can't out-heal powerful monsters in many cases and a healing potion is a terrible way to do that... and yes, I do my fair share of Cure Wounds at higher levels too, but situationally getting someone up with a simple spell or potion is a better economy than trying to outheal the DPS. That's why I love the campaign with my Life Cleric and the Paladin. Focused healing is easy to maintain with spot heals in other places... and why I find it difficult in the Monk Tank with War Cleric campaign (he's a great off-tank and I'm a terrible main tank with low HP... thanks 2s... thanks...)
As for the Healing Potion being a wasted action... it doesn't take long to adapt the mentality that Healing Potions prevent further death saves instead of Preventing Being Knocked Unconscious.
Yes, applying healing to downed allies is a worthwhile use of an action (sufficiently so that I'm tempted to use negative hit point rules or something, the whack-a-mole nature of dropping PCs is a tad dumb), but I didn't think it was what this thread was about.
Same reason that I used to hate Healing Word but now keep it readied on my War Priest... get them back in the fight, don't try to prevent the damage. You can't out-heal powerful monsters in many cases and a healing potion is a terrible way to do that...
This is typically why as a DM I always double tap downed characters. If someone goes down, the entire party has to focus their healing on that person... or else. I find this makes potions valuable (PCs without healing will use them if they have them), and focuses healers on hitting their high-end heals to make that downed character go from 0 to at least 50%+ in short order. Any less and they’re going to get focused and killed very quickly.
Easy DM change that solves the “potions are useless if they cost an action” issue and the “I’ll just use 2hp with Lay on Hands to wake them up” issue.
As for the Healing Potion being a wasted action... it doesn't take long to adapt the mentality that Healing Potions prevent further death saves instead of Preventing Being Knocked Unconscious. Same reason that I used to hate Healing Word but now keep it readied on my War Priest... get them back in the fight, don't try to prevent the damage. You can't out-heal powerful monsters in many cases and a healing potion is a terrible way to do that... and yes, I do my fair share of Cure Wounds at higher levels too, but situationally getting someone up with a simple spell or potion is a better economy than trying to outheal the DPS. That's why I love the campaign with my Life Cleric and the Paladin. Focused healing is easy to maintain with spot heals in other places... and why I find it difficult in the Monk Tank with War Cleric campaign (he's a great off-tank and I'm a terrible main tank with low HP... thanks 2s... thanks...)
Indeed, in 5e those kinds of spells (Cure Wounds, Healing Word) are basically just wasted actions on a still-conscious creature. Only spells that give ongoing healing like Healing Spirit are really worth using on them. Spells that give massive amounts of health - so much as to prevent creatures that may have soon gone down from doing so - like Heal or Mass Cure Wounds can sometimes be worth it too.
The problem I have with with that is that's a "DM change", not a tactical choice made from the perspective of the NPC. E.g. - the NPC the Party is trying to capture and who has turned to fight the Party Rogue who had caught up to them well ahead of the rest of the Party, who gets in a lucky critical and drops the Rogue is going to take the time to stop and kill the Character while the rest of the Party is bearing down on them, because the DM has a tactical doctrine, even though it makes more in-character sense for the NPC to bolt for the shadows to try and escape?
It's very video game, and it's very DM vs. Players.
Again - your style is your style - but not for me. I very much believe that that tactical choices made by monsters/NPCs need to make sense from their perspective. I don't view them as programmed game components put there to pursue optimal tactical doctrines to maximize the drain on Player/Character resources. They're part of the game world.
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Same reason that I used to hate Healing Word but now keep it readied on my War Priest... get them back in the fight, don't try to prevent the damage. You can't out-heal powerful monsters in many cases and a healing potion is a terrible way to do that...
This is typically why as a DM I always double tap downed characters.
What does that even mean? Either you hit them enough times while down that they just die, or they still reset when they gain hit points.
Same reason that I used to hate Healing Word but now keep it readied on my War Priest... get them back in the fight, don't try to prevent the damage. You can't out-heal powerful monsters in many cases and a healing potion is a terrible way to do that...
This is typically why as a DM I always double tap downed characters.
What does that even mean? Either you hit them enough times while down that they just die, or they still reset when they gain hit points.
I believe they mean they do it to force players to heal their downed party members as quickly as they can through whatever means necessary, lest their companion get murdered. As in rather than waiting around for the Cleric's turn to come up so they can heal the downed player, whoever has a turn next needs to go heal their ally or they might get killed before someone else gets the chance.
This is very unrealistic in most cases though. Any intelligent enemy isn't going to waste their time stabbing unconscious/presumably dead people, they're going to deal with the threats still at hand. If it's a drawn out encounter and people keep going down and then getting healed back up, then they might start focusing on finishing them off, but more often they'll focus on the individual doing the healing.
There are some creatures that may prioritize attacking/eating a downed enemy over the active threats, but it's definitely a minority.
I’ve “double tapped” a player once, and that was after a loooong setup and it was an assassin that had been hired by the thieves guild for killing that specific PC. Otherwise, I agree. It’s not usually reasonable that an enemy would keep stabbing a downed pc and ignore others who were still dangerous.
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How do you guys handle using potions during battle? A lot of players are surprised when I tell them this takes one whole action, but to be honest as a DM I cannot see a player going head to head with some monster, and then just being able to grab a potion from their pouch in the middle of the battle and taking a gulp.
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Per the rules it does take an action. Many players are surprised by this because of Critical Role, in which Matt Mercer house rules that it takes a bonus action, but this is not RAW. RAW it takes an action, as does using any magic item.
RAW it takes an action. This generally makes using them in combat useless, and particularly healing potions are very dubious value.
Matt also clearly explained to the audience in one of the episodes midway through season 2 why he uses this house rule... He said that they decided on the "bonus action to quaff" rule because their group is so large. With a group of 7 plus probably the same # of monsters, a single combat round can last a very long time. And to paraphrase him, it stinks to wait half an hour for your turn to come up, and all you can do is drink a potion and then you have to wait for another half hour to actually do something. Because of this, they decided that, as a large group of 7, they would make this house rule. (The reason it works, of course, is that everyone can do an action every round but a lot of characters have no suitable bonus action to take on most rounds.)
He was pretty clear that in a smaller group he would not use this house rule. But for large groups, he thinks it helps the players stay in the action and not get bored... It's hard enough to wait for 6 other players plus as many NPCs to go before your turn comes up once, let alone twice, before doing something fun.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Mhm. Honestly it is a good house rule, makes potions far more desirable and interesting.
I think for small groups it is unnecessary. My current group is 4 PCs and often fights no more than 3 or 4 monsters. It takes us maybe 15 minutes to get through a round. So I am not changing the rule. If they want to drink a potion in combat, it takes an action.
But again for a larger group, I would probably do what Mercer does.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Action economy is a thing so that is why it takes a full action. Changing to a bonus action though for your own drinking isn't too bad though as it still eats a bonus action, but I'd still keep feeding a potion to an unconscious character a full action.
Depends what problem you're trying to solve. My problem with healing potions is "okay, you drink the potion and heal for 7 points. The monster then goes and whacks you for 7 points", making it pretty much a wasted action.
This is why we have our action chart in our Roll20...
Very nice! I've seen other versions of that, but that's very well done.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
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Wow, that's actually awesome. Also I'm stealing it.
As for the Healing Potion being a wasted action... it doesn't take long to adapt the mentality that Healing Potions prevent further death saves instead of Preventing Being Knocked Unconscious. Same reason that I used to hate Healing Word but now keep it readied on my War Priest... get them back in the fight, don't try to prevent the damage. You can't out-heal powerful monsters in many cases and a healing potion is a terrible way to do that... and yes, I do my fair share of Cure Wounds at higher levels too, but situationally getting someone up with a simple spell or potion is a better economy than trying to outheal the DPS. That's why I love the campaign with my Life Cleric and the Paladin. Focused healing is easy to maintain with spot heals in other places... and why I find it difficult in the Monk Tank with War Cleric campaign (he's a great off-tank and I'm a terrible main tank with low HP... thanks 2s... thanks...)
Yep... totally, cause that's how I got it too... lol...
Yes, applying healing to downed allies is a worthwhile use of an action (sufficiently so that I'm tempted to use negative hit point rules or something, the whack-a-mole nature of dropping PCs is a tad dumb), but I didn't think it was what this thread was about.
This is typically why as a DM I always double tap downed characters. If someone goes down, the entire party has to focus their healing on that person... or else. I find this makes potions valuable (PCs without healing will use them if they have them), and focuses healers on hitting their high-end heals to make that downed character go from 0 to at least 50%+ in short order. Any less and they’re going to get focused and killed very quickly.
Easy DM change that solves the “potions are useless if they cost an action” issue and the “I’ll just use 2hp with Lay on Hands to wake them up” issue.
Indeed, in 5e those kinds of spells (Cure Wounds, Healing Word) are basically just wasted actions on a still-conscious creature. Only spells that give ongoing healing like Healing Spirit are really worth using on them. Spells that give massive amounts of health - so much as to prevent creatures that may have soon gone down from doing so - like Heal or Mass Cure Wounds can sometimes be worth it too.
So everyone in the game world is that vicious?
The problem I have with with that is that's a "DM change", not a tactical choice made from the perspective of the NPC. E.g. - the NPC the Party is trying to capture and who has turned to fight the Party Rogue who had caught up to them well ahead of the rest of the Party, who gets in a lucky critical and drops the Rogue is going to take the time to stop and kill the Character while the rest of the Party is bearing down on them, because the DM has a tactical doctrine, even though it makes more in-character sense for the NPC to bolt for the shadows to try and escape?
It's very video game, and it's very DM vs. Players.
Again - your style is your style - but not for me. I very much believe that that tactical choices made by monsters/NPCs need to make sense from their perspective. I don't view them as programmed game components put there to pursue optimal tactical doctrines to maximize the drain on Player/Character resources. They're part of the game world.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
What does that even mean? Either you hit them enough times while down that they just die, or they still reset when they gain hit points.
I believe they mean they do it to force players to heal their downed party members as quickly as they can through whatever means necessary, lest their companion get murdered. As in rather than waiting around for the Cleric's turn to come up so they can heal the downed player, whoever has a turn next needs to go heal their ally or they might get killed before someone else gets the chance.
This is very unrealistic in most cases though. Any intelligent enemy isn't going to waste their time stabbing unconscious/presumably dead people, they're going to deal with the threats still at hand. If it's a drawn out encounter and people keep going down and then getting healed back up, then they might start focusing on finishing them off, but more often they'll focus on the individual doing the healing.
There are some creatures that may prioritize attacking/eating a downed enemy over the active threats, but it's definitely a minority.
I’ve “double tapped” a player once, and that was after a loooong setup and it was an assassin that had been hired by the thieves guild for killing that specific PC. Otherwise, I agree. It’s not usually reasonable that an enemy would keep stabbing a downed pc and ignore others who were still dangerous.