It's always struck me as silly that in the standard D&D setting that you could pop down to the corner store, and pick up a 6-pack of healing potions @ 50gp a pop.
Sure 50gp represents a months wages for a middle class laborer - but it's a healing potion that fixes just about any non-magical injury! If these were a thing, at this price point, why are there not herbalist factories just pumping out this miracle juice?! Why does not every household have at least one of these squirreled away? And if the answer is that doesn't happen because they're rare, and they're rare because they're too difficult to produce en masse that way, then why is the price not vastly higher ( supply and demand ) ? Of course the real answer they're that cheap is so parties can afford them - but "in world" that seemed unsatisfying and unrealistic.
So, when my players decided to go for "gritty high-realism" it seemed a good time to retire healing potions.
Still ... the game mechanics seem to require something in their place, especially with the longer rests that are part of the "gritty realism" option. With gritty realism, even regaining spell slots is slower, so the Cleric doesn't just reload his/her full complement of spells every day - so a day or two downtime to heal everyone doesn't come without some cost and impact, either.
So I've decided to make Cure Wounds a ritual spell.
However, to limit "infinite healing", the ritual form of the spell now has consumable material components, worth about .... you guessed it ... 50gp.
Why is this not exactly the same as healing potions?
"In world" it's not usable be anyone who cannot cast Cure Wounds. You can't mass produce instant-healing, put it in a bottle and put it on the medicine chest, so there's a reasonable explanation why every household doesn't have a few tucked away for emergencies.
The demand for the material components isn't super high ( not that many casters as a percentage of the population ), so there's an explanation as to why the components aren't vastly more expensive.
And it's not quite the same for players, either. The option to stop, hide, and swig down "healing in a bottle" in the middle of combat no longer exists. Healing is something that can happen either in the middle of combat by a caster expending a spell-slot, or it can happen in downtime, but no longer for free.
Please bear in mind this is part of a gritty-realism/low-magic campaign; I fully realize that it's not a good fit for high-magic/high-fantasy.
What I'm wondering, is: can you spot any implications or issues that I'm not considering?
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I'm not sure whether a spell that has a consumed material component only when cast as a ritual is good (new design space) or bad (too complicated or weird), but I do know that you solved the only real problem I can come up with. There are the problems of a party without someone who can cast cure wounds not being able to have no-spell-slot healing, it taking much longer to use no-spell-slot healing, and it taking much longer to use no-spell-slot healing when a normal party would have access to potions of greater healing and so on, but I assume those aren't actually problems in the style of game you describe.
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I cooked this up with my current party specifically in mind - so I missed the implication that parties that did not have acure wounds caster would not having access to no-spell-slot healing. I will have to reflect on this, and maybe tinker with this solution.
As forpotions of greater healing I had thought to work my way up the ladder of healing spells - essentially adding a ritual version of each one, with the material component cost being equivalent to the healing potion it replaced - for similar game mechanic reasons.
But as you indicate, this isn't quite the same, as it restricts party access to the effects of more powerful healing potions based on their magic ability - whereas a standard party is only limited by access to the potion itself ( a matter of money, or theft, or trading in favors/missions, etc.)
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It's always struck me as silly that in the standard D&D setting that you could pop down to the corner store, and pick up a 6-pack of healing potions @ 50gp a pop.
In a city, sure. There's no guarantee remote outposts will carry an unlimited supply. Heck, the outpost in the Starter Kit adventure doesn't carry any if I remember right and that's less than a day's travel away from the nearest city.
Sure 50gp represents a months wages for a middle class laborer - but it's a healing potion that fixes just about any non-magical injury! If these were a thing, at this price point, why are there not herbalist factories just pumping out this miracle juice?! Why does not every household have at least one of these squirreled away?
50 gp is more than a month's work of wages for a lot of people: "If you spend your time between adventures practicing a profession as described in chapter 8, you can eke out the equivalent of a poor lifestyle." A poor lifestyle is 2 silver a day, which is 6 gold a month. Even if it were only a month, a lot of people in the real world right now live paycheck to paycheck and couldn't afford to save up an entire month's worth of pay. They just pray they don't get injured or seriously sick.
For the average person to consider a potion of healing, the wages they'll lose from not being able to work has to exceed the cost of the potion. Old McDonald can afford to get mauled by a bear; he has 8 kids, they can handle the farm for a while.
And if the answer is that doesn't happen because they're rare, and they're rare because they're too difficult to produce en masse that way, then why is the price not vastly higher ( supply and demand ) ? Of course the real answer they're that cheap is so parties can afford them - but "in world" that seemed unsatisfying and unrealistic.
The real answer is that they can't be produced en masse. If you're going by the DMG rules, you need to be at least a 3rd level spellcaster to create a common magic item, it'd take you 2 days and you'd only break even. (My suggestion in these cases is to assume the government is subsidizing the cost.) Using XGtE rules you can skip the level requirement and actually turn a profit but it still takes 1 day to produce 1 potion. In either case you also need a ready supply of whichever herbs are needed; the rules gloss over this for simplicity but if you're really going to flesh out the logistics of the economy you can't overlook that.
The demand isn't super high either because it's a niche market; adventurers are exceptional people, and they have a high mortality rate. It's also a really expensive way to heal and most adventurers are already saving up for something else; the fighter wants plate armor, the wizard needs rare inks to transcribe spells to his spellbook; the assassin would rather by poison. In the very worst case, they should be saving up 300 to 500 gold for Revivify or Raise Dead. And by the time you're a super rich, legendary adventurer, basic potions don't cover your healing needs in combat any more.
Potions are an insurance policy for low-tier adventurers; it hurts to pay it and you hope you never need it but it could save you if things go really wrong.
What I'm wondering, is: can you spot any implications or issues that I'm not considering?
50g is too much if you ask me. Since it's a ritual it's completely unusable in combat AND it breaks concentration; that makes it inferior to a potion of healing in most situations, so it should be cheaper.
If you make the main healing option really expensive, you're really incentivizing Life Domain and Grave Domain over the other options.
Healing Word and Lay on Hands still exist so there's still some in-combat healing even among 1st level spells; not sure if you deliberately ignored those. Life Domain + Goodberry is another strong option, and at 3rd level there's Healing Spirit.
Inquisitive Coder's analysis above explains a lot about the economy pretty well. 50gp may be a paltry sum for the average (successful) adventurer, but not really something the average commoner would ever consider spending on a one-use item, on a glass vial to boot. I usually imagine most noble houses do have a potion or two hidden away for emergencies. And other settings (like Eberron) actually have their economy take healing into consideration.
However, closer to your original thoughts, rather than make a ritual of Cure Wounds it sounds like what you're going for is closer to making a spell scroll of cure wounds replace the potions. It would remain a one-action item if you need it in combat, and only those with the spell in their list could use it.
And if you want it usable by parties that do not have any of the classes that have Cure Wounds in their spell list (Cleric, Bard, Ranger, Druid, Paladin, Celestial Warlock... they're a lot), then you could give some leeway to other spellcasters being able to use it.
It's also adjustable by spell-slot used, if you need it to be (a spell scroll of Cure Wounds at spell level 4, for example).
And don't forget how effective the Healer feat is with a couple of healer's kits.
As a caveat, I think we're discussing from slightly different perspectives. To me, it sounds like you're arguing from a more game mechanics perspective ( only adventurers get injured much, players need their money to save up for plate armor and components, etc. ), where I'm trying to approach this from the perspective of a rational / logically consistent fictional world. My approach isn't objectively better than yours, but it means we'll put different spins on things.
I'm not sure defending the economics of the "default setting" is particularly fruitful. DnD is good at many things, but economics isn't one of them - but it's not meant to be an economic simulator, so that's fine. I do agree that few people would likely to be able to afford them, for other reasons.
I disagree that this would is a niche market "adventurers only" item. We're talking about an item that can heal any injury short of death, and with "common man" in DnD having only a handful of HP, even the least healing potion would do exactly that. Adventurers, soldiers, etc. do not have a monopoly on injury, they just are injured more often. Even if medieval farming village of a few 100 farms had to pool money to get 1-2 as an emergency medical backup for the next time someone falls off a barn, or is trampled by a horse, why would they not? If you think that "Old McDonald can afford to get mauled by a bear" so he wouldn't use a healing potion, then I suspect you've never been seriously injured before ( and/or had access to modem pain relief medicine ).
If they can't be mass produced as you assert - and I agree - then I would think the demand would be high enough as to drive the price much higher.
Even if there's only a relatively small percentage - even 1% - of a population which can afford such a thing, given its mindbogglingly miraculous effects, and given that high-medieval populations of someplace like France ( and yes, DnD's default setting does not exactly conform to medieval demographic models - but it's the best approximation we have) had a population of millions, the demand would still be still very high.
Think about it in modern terms. If someone could create an injection of "healing nanobots" which could repair just about any injury short of death, what would the demand be like - especially if you could only produce a few thousand of them annually?
So we're back to: assuming that the setting world is set to "high plausibility", then either the price in RAW is way to low, or they'd be so common as to warp the appearance of the "default setting" civilization, with people swilling down the stuff way more often than you typically see.
I can't see a way to have healing potions exist RAW, at the price stated, in a high-realism setting - since they are structured as they are for game mechanic reasons. Either you have to dial "realism" down, or change how healing potions work. I chose the latter - you may choose otherwise.
As for the cost of spell components being too high, I think you're mistaking the meaning of ritual spells here. To quote the player's handbook
"Such a spell can be cast following the normal rules for spellcasting, or the spell can be cast as a ritual."( my emphasis )
I am doing something "weird" here, as I'm requiring the material component only for the ritual form, and not the spell form.
Which does not make it "completely unusable in combat". A Cleric can still use the spell RAW - without the material component - it's just that the spell would now had an additional form which could be used outside of combat, allowing for healing without the expenditure of spell-slots/points. Remember that this under the "gritty-realism" rule variant, with vastly inflates resting times, so spell slots are harder to recover.
To my mind, either the components can power the spell ( with a little cantrip-level power poured into the ritual by the caster ), or the caster can bear the entire cost of the spell themselves, and expend a spell-slot.
The existence of expensive ritual components is meant to keep the party from just hitting the "ritual button" over and over for free healing. The cost of the components is meant to mirror the cost of the magic healing item they replace. This acts as a rational as to why the healing magic is now not sold in the supermarket to 1000s of people every day - the caster themselves, and the rarity of such people, is now the bottleneck.
As noted above, it's not a perfect replacement - there are still some effects that are different ( no insta-healing by potion in the middle of combat ), but overall I think it still works as a rationale as to why you can't buy casks of healing potion on market day ( or have to pay 1000gp for a simple healing potion ), while still providing a plausible rational for allowing adventuring parties access to similar healing magic in game.
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However, closer to your original thoughts, rather than make a ritual of Cure Wounds it sounds like what you're going for is closer to making a spell scroll of cure wounds replace the potions. It would remain a one-action item if you need it in combat, and only those with the spell in their list could use it.
This is a very good point - I think the function of spell scrolls changed somewhere in the progression of editions in the years since I was playing last, and I missed this :) - thanks.
Using spell scrolls of healing - as a replacement for the existence of healing potions - is an excellent fit for what I'm intending - it puts healing magic in the hands of the party, doesn't give them infinite free healing, and explains why not every farming village has a cask of potion purchased with pooled resources on hand for farming accidents.
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I disagree that this would is a niche market "adventurers only" item. We're talking about an item that can heal any injury short of death, and with "common man" in DnD having only a handful of HP, even the least healing potion would do exactly that. Adventurers, soldiers, etc. do not have a monopoly on injury, they just are injured more often. Even if medieval farming village of a few 100 farms had to pool money to get 1-2 as an emergency medical backup for the next time someone falls off a barn, or is trampled by a horse, why would they not? If you think that "Old McDonald can afford to get mauled by a bear" so he wouldn't use a healing potion, then I suspect you've never been seriously injured before ( and/or had access to modem pain relief medicine ).
Adventurers don't have a monopoly on injury, but most people don't receive life-threatening injuries with any regularity. If you have the option of going to a doctor and healing over a few weeks or having your entire family go bankrupt but healing immediately, most people are going to pick the doctor. The potion really doesn't make sense unless you seriously might die from the injuries OR being unable to work will leave you and your family destitute anyways and you can afford to work off the potion's cost.
Guards are at higher risk of injury, but they're tougher and armed; soldiers even more so. In a war there'd be rationing though.
100 farms pitching in for one potion means 99 to 100 farms don't have the potion handy for immediate life-threatening injuries (which means they'll need first aid anyways), and there'll be some serious deliberation over when the potion is used and on whom. A situation like that would probably be mediated by the local lord and paid with taxes. The lord's in a better position to protect the potion and you don't get any feuds between farmers if it does happen to get stolen.
I am doing something "weird" here, as I'm requiring the material component only for the ritual form, and not the spell form.
Ah, I understand now. That sounds fine then. What about other healing spells and Lay on Hands though? Healing Word isn't that much worse than Cure Wounds.
Interestingly, you're kind of proposing a medieval emergency care insurance program :) We all pool resources to buy some expensive medical treatments, which is then administered by a local health care professional? Sure, someone else might use it, and I have to pony up 1% of the cost of replacement - but it's cheaper than me having to pony up 100% for my own - even if multiple neighbors end up using the community resource.
This is not something you typically think of in medieval civilizations - but it could work.
And it again drives up the demand and therefore cost of healing potions, unless the production can be scaled to meet the demand - which again changes the face of the society with people popping healing potions like Pepto Bismol (tm).
At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter to the vast majority of games which aren't trying to be "medieval society with magic" sociology simulators. I still think that healing potions are written as they are for game mechanic reasons - and that's perfectly fine - it's supposed to be fun game :) I'm being a little bit obsessive about the level of plausibility in my game, but that doesn't mean everyone else should follow suit.
It wasn't my intention to change any other healing spells. There's nothing wrong with any of the healing spells in my opinion - all I'm doing is adding extra capabilities ( at cost ) to one of them to create a more plausible ( in my humble opinion ) alternative to healing potions.
I think it's best combined with Onyx's suggestion of some disposable magic item like the spell scroll ( again, only usable by a caster with the spell ability, and not every farmer who gets his hands on one ) to offset the fact that you could no longer pop a healing potion in combat. It's still not a full replacement, as you need the caster to be up and able to act - but it bridges most of the gap, and I think it's "close enough" for the low-magic/gritty-realism of my current campaign world.
A creature you touch regains a number of hit points equal to 1d8 + your spell-casting ability modifier. This spell has no effect on undead or constructs.
The non-ritual form of the spell does not require a material component.
The ritual form uses incense, pigments, and a simple pen or stylus carved from bone. The areas of skin around the injuries have complex arcane diagrams and inscriptions in divine speech drawn upon them with the stylus. The recipient is then placed within an inscribed magic circle, and the spellcaster chants the healing ritual, while the incense is burned at three points around the outside of the ritual circle.
The incense is consumed & the pigments fade from the skin completely as a mystical side-effect of the ritual. The stylus is not consumed, and can be reused.
If relatively common incense and pigments are used, whose value is no less than 50 gp the ritual heals 1d8 + the caster's spell-casting ability modifier..
If uncommon incense and pigments are used, whose value is no less than 100 gp the ritual heals 2d8 + the caster's spell-casting ability modifier..
The addition of a rare ground black pearl, whose value is no less than 400 gp to the pigments will also add an additional 1d8 of healing effect to the ritual.
The spellcaster can be the subject of the ritual as well, in that case preparing themselves as they would any other recipient, and sitting meditatively within the circle while performing the healing chant.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell in its non-ritual form using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the healing increases by 1d8 for each slot level above 1st.
Note: This and other ritual forms of healing spells take the place of purchasable healing potions in the Vecorria setting.
* - incense, pigments, and a simple pen or stylus carved from bone. Optionally a black pearl.
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What I'm wondering, is: can you spot any implications or issues that I'm not considering?
Most potions of healing come from druids, who get the herbalism kit as part of their class. If you don't want mass produced healing potions, say that druids are rare, and very few people have the knowledge of how to use herbalism kits.
Secondly, I'm not sure why Cure Wounds is so expensive now. For the average person, a Healing Word, or Good Berries, or Song of Rest, or just about any other healing ability is just as good. Cure Wounds would basically just fall out of favor for other abilities with little overall change to the PCs.
I presume that you're going to somehow restrict Lay on Hands, or the Celestial Warlock's abilities as well? Those are not spell slot based.
Most potions of healing come from druids, who get the herbalism kit as part of their class. If you don't want mass produced healing potions, say that druids are rare, and very few people have the knowledge of how to use herbalism kits.
That's dubious. Druid is the only class that gets herbalism kit proficiency but most people aren't adventurers and don't have class levels. Case in point, the hermit background grants proficiency with herbalism kits too, and anyone can pick up a new tool proficiency with training.
Crafting potions is a full-time job (it takes at least 8 hours of work); druids have better things to do than sell potions to cities for money.
Secondly, I'm not sure why Cure Wounds is so expensive now. For the average person, a Healing Word, or Good Berries, or Song of Rest, or just about any other healing ability is just as good. Cure Wounds would basically just fall out of favor for other abilities with little overall change to the PCs.
I presume that you're going to somehow restrict Lay on Hands, or the Celestial Warlock's abilities as well? Those are not spell slot based.
"It wasn't my intention to change any other healing spells. There's nothing wrong with any of the healing spells in my opinion - all I'm doing is adding extra capabilities ( at cost ) to one of them to create a more plausible ( in my humble opinion ) alternative to healing potions."
I am not restricting Cure Wounds ( much ); Cure Wounds still works like it did before - with an addition.
There is a ritual component to the spell which uses material components. The non-ritual form does not.
Clerics can cast Cure Wounds RAW - in or out of combat - without components, so the RAW version of Cure Wounds is not any more expensive than it was.
Clerics can additionally cast the spell using the material components, without using a spell-slot. Remember, this is under "gritty realism" where rests are much longer; spell slots are slower to come by.
This is the functional equivalent of saying "only clerics can administer healing potions" - which explains why there aren't buckets of the stuff in reserve for emergencies in every community, but still gives the party access to extra between combat healing, if they spend on the components. This is no different than them having access to extra between combat healing because they spent on potions.
It does make some changes to in combat healing.
Lay on hands regenerates more slowly that once/day, but I do not restrict it to "you have to sleep a week" of a gritty-realism long rest ( in fact, all abilities that require a long rest regenerate daily, but only partially - 1/7th - rather than having to wait the 7 days of gritty-realism's long rest and then suddenly generating 100% of your ability. ).
I haven't had to consider the Celestial Warlock yet.
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That's dubious. Druid is the only class that gets herbalism kit proficiency but most people aren't adventurers and don't have class levels. Case in point, the hermit background grants proficiency with herbalism kits too, and anyone can pick up a new tool proficiency with training.
Hardly. Its no more dubious than a GM stating that magic users are rare in society, and most temples won't have clerics.
I don't think it's particularly useful to argue about how the setting world should be. Part of the fun of D&D is that it's really a game system framework, not a set game - which allows us to build the worlds and adventures that suit our styles.
In my view ( and only my view ) potions should be rare, but then I can't see the cost staying that low ( supply and demand ), and suddenly they're useless as insurance for low-level parties who can't afford them - which is why I built this alternative take on healing.
I've never read the rules as most health potions being created by Druids before - but that's certainly a valid interpretation if that's how you want to spin your game/world.
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Here's my thinking, and I would admit that it may not be very satiating for the OP ....
This all takes place in a wonderful world of magic, elves, and dragons. In this world, a long rest brings anyone back to full health, which may be the most egregious suspension of disbelief in the game, but hey - the game is rife with such suspensions. Therefore, if you accept this particular rule, then few injuries are anything but fleeting and a desperate economy of healing potions would not exist as a good night's sleep will make all those bear maul wounds go away. This would effectively mean that the healing potions serve precisely as intended ... something you can quickly quaff in-situ to stave off the death that the next axe swing may bring.
Here's my thinking, and I would admit that it may not be very satiating for the OP ....
Being resurrected as a zombie is probably not super satiating...
This all takes place in a wonderful world of magic, elves, and dragons. In this world, a long rest brings anyone back to full health, which may be the most egregious suspension of disbelief in the game, but hey - the game is rife with such suspensions.
Technically... we.. don't know that everyone uses the same mechanics as our friendly neighborhood PCs do. NPCs are not built using classes, per se, their rest mechanics can work differently if you really want to. The PCs can be super extraordinary compared to everyone else if that floats your boat.
Therefore, if you accept this particular rule, then few injuries are anything but fleeting and a desperate economy of healing potions would not exist as a good night's sleep will make all those bear maul wounds go away. This would effectively mean that the healing potions serve precisely as intended ... something you can quickly quaff in-situ to stave off the death that the next axe swing may bring.
The real solution, IMO, is to just not have corner-store magic item peddlers. Potions seem to be the sort of thing the local government might have a monopoly on getting. The sort of thing that gets funneled into the hands of armies, or guardsmen. Not just left on a shelf at the shop that shares a wall with the muffin bakery.
If you tried to buy something medical that costs a month's wages do you think you could get it at your local Walgreens? That's not likely to happen. You have to go through medical experts, get prescriptions, etc. Why would healing potions be any different in a fantasy world?
They wouldn't be just sitting on a shelf because the notion of an entire month's pay sitting on a shelf collecting dust is sorta nuts. You'd be making these things to-order because that'd cut down on theft and overhead costs. What crazy wacko would be running a business with several months of pay worth of small easily palmed/stolen items laying out on a shelf...
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I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Smarm aside, my premise is my premise precisely because it helps explain away the things that you are attached to in your original argument. Technically, nothing says the NPCs heal differently than PCs do. However, if you feel that NPCs heal differently than PCs, then YES you are going to have a difficult time defending why potions of healing can just stock shelves in some shop, and for the very good reasons you lay out. You can then, as DM, make sure they are indeed not readily available - problem solved. However, doesn't your original idea of ritual-casting cure wounds change the "economy concerns" from *product* to *service*? I would imagine, just like your herbalism factory concern, healers could be sequestered by the Government to provide such services to those the power brokers deem appropriate.
As for the value of inventory, we have that in our world ... they are called pharmacies - tens of thousand of dollars in there by my estimation. And no one says that a proprietor needs to have healing potions in a place where they can just be sleight-of-handed on the way out - that is a consideration you introduced to make your point. Why cant they be locked down in the back room like in a pharmacy?
If you still want access to healing potions for PCs (but not purchasable), you could embrace the XGtE rule for healing potion creation but also make the recipe for healing potions be very difficult to obtain and heavily protected, but something someone in the party knows how to make.
This is a very big bump, but the OP is forgetting how insanely rich adventurers tend to be. He caually mentions that 50GP, they casually mention that is a months wages for a middle class laborer and then wonders why everyone doesn't have one squirrelled away, just in case. I months wages for a middle class labouered might be the equivalent of US$4000. That is a lot of money to spend on something you might never need, also bearing in mind if you have a healer's kit and access to a cleric you have a much cheaper option (while not in the core rules several WoTC publications have suggested 10gp for a casting of cure wounds). Then again even with gritty realism you will be fine after 7 days rest so would you spend a month's salary to avoid 7 days bed rest? Some people would but most probably wouldn't
I like the idea of Cure Wounds being a Ritual Spell. However, it seems this introduces another problem that Long Rest healing becomes irrelevant unless the whole party is so banged up the cleric would need to stay up all night to heal everyone. Adding a requirement for a consumable component is another good idea.
I am adding all sorts of Ritual Spells and Options in my homebrew. I have a bard with a Lute that casts a Zone of Truth, for example.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
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It's always struck me as silly that in the standard D&D setting that you could pop down to the corner store, and pick up a 6-pack of healing potions @ 50gp a pop.
Sure 50gp represents a months wages for a middle class laborer - but it's a healing potion that fixes just about any non-magical injury! If these were a thing, at this price point, why are there not herbalist factories just pumping out this miracle juice?! Why does not every household have at least one of these squirreled away? And if the answer is that doesn't happen because they're rare, and they're rare because they're too difficult to produce en masse that way, then why is the price not vastly higher ( supply and demand ) ? Of course the real answer they're that cheap is so parties can afford them - but "in world" that seemed unsatisfying and unrealistic.
So, when my players decided to go for "gritty high-realism" it seemed a good time to retire healing potions.
Still ... the game mechanics seem to require something in their place, especially with the longer rests that are part of the "gritty realism" option. With gritty realism, even regaining spell slots is slower, so the Cleric doesn't just reload his/her full complement of spells every day - so a day or two downtime to heal everyone doesn't come without some cost and impact, either.
So I've decided to make Cure Wounds a ritual spell.
However, to limit "infinite healing", the ritual form of the spell now has consumable material components, worth about .... you guessed it ... 50gp.
Why is this not exactly the same as healing potions?
"In world" it's not usable be anyone who cannot cast Cure Wounds. You can't mass produce instant-healing, put it in a bottle and put it on the medicine chest, so there's a reasonable explanation why every household doesn't have a few tucked away for emergencies.
The demand for the material components isn't super high ( not that many casters as a percentage of the population ), so there's an explanation as to why the components aren't vastly more expensive.
And it's not quite the same for players, either. The option to stop, hide, and swig down "healing in a bottle" in the middle of combat no longer exists. Healing is something that can happen either in the middle of combat by a caster expending a spell-slot, or it can happen in downtime, but no longer for free.
Please bear in mind this is part of a gritty-realism/low-magic campaign; I fully realize that it's not a good fit for high-magic/high-fantasy.
What I'm wondering, is: can you spot any implications or issues that I'm not considering?
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I'm not sure whether a spell that has a consumed material component only when cast as a ritual is good (new design space) or bad (too complicated or weird), but I do know that you solved the only real problem I can come up with. There are the problems of a party without someone who can cast cure wounds not being able to have no-spell-slot healing, it taking much longer to use no-spell-slot healing, and it taking much longer to use no-spell-slot healing when a normal party would have access to potions of greater healing and so on, but I assume those aren't actually problems in the style of game you describe.
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Thanks for the feedback :)
I cooked this up with my current party specifically in mind - so I missed the implication that parties that did not have a cure wounds caster would not having access to no-spell-slot healing. I will have to reflect on this, and maybe tinker with this solution.
As for potions of greater healing I had thought to work my way up the ladder of healing spells - essentially adding a ritual version of each one, with the material component cost being equivalent to the healing potion it replaced - for similar game mechanic reasons.
But as you indicate, this isn't quite the same, as it restricts party access to the effects of more powerful healing potions based on their magic ability - whereas a standard party is only limited by access to the potion itself ( a matter of money, or theft, or trading in favors/missions, etc.)
I appreciate the input :)
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In a city, sure. There's no guarantee remote outposts will carry an unlimited supply. Heck, the outpost in the Starter Kit adventure doesn't carry any if I remember right and that's less than a day's travel away from the nearest city.
50 gp is more than a month's work of wages for a lot of people: "If you spend your time between adventures practicing a profession as described in chapter 8, you can eke out the equivalent of a poor lifestyle." A poor lifestyle is 2 silver a day, which is 6 gold a month. Even if it were only a month, a lot of people in the real world right now live paycheck to paycheck and couldn't afford to save up an entire month's worth of pay. They just pray they don't get injured or seriously sick.
For the average person to consider a potion of healing, the wages they'll lose from not being able to work has to exceed the cost of the potion. Old McDonald can afford to get mauled by a bear; he has 8 kids, they can handle the farm for a while.
The real answer is that they can't be produced en masse. If you're going by the DMG rules, you need to be at least a 3rd level spellcaster to create a common magic item, it'd take you 2 days and you'd only break even. (My suggestion in these cases is to assume the government is subsidizing the cost.) Using XGtE rules you can skip the level requirement and actually turn a profit but it still takes 1 day to produce 1 potion. In either case you also need a ready supply of whichever herbs are needed; the rules gloss over this for simplicity but if you're really going to flesh out the logistics of the economy you can't overlook that.
The demand isn't super high either because it's a niche market; adventurers are exceptional people, and they have a high mortality rate. It's also a really expensive way to heal and most adventurers are already saving up for something else; the fighter wants plate armor, the wizard needs rare inks to transcribe spells to his spellbook; the assassin would rather by poison. In the very worst case, they should be saving up 300 to 500 gold for Revivify or Raise Dead. And by the time you're a super rich, legendary adventurer, basic potions don't cover your healing needs in combat any more.
Potions are an insurance policy for low-tier adventurers; it hurts to pay it and you hope you never need it but it could save you if things go really wrong.
50g is too much if you ask me. Since it's a ritual it's completely unusable in combat AND it breaks concentration; that makes it inferior to a potion of healing in most situations, so it should be cheaper.
If you make the main healing option really expensive, you're really incentivizing Life Domain and Grave Domain over the other options.
Healing Word and Lay on Hands still exist so there's still some in-combat healing even among 1st level spells; not sure if you deliberately ignored those. Life Domain + Goodberry is another strong option, and at 3rd level there's Healing Spirit.
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Inquisitive Coder's analysis above explains a lot about the economy pretty well. 50gp may be a paltry sum for the average (successful) adventurer, but not really something the average commoner would ever consider spending on a one-use item, on a glass vial to boot. I usually imagine most noble houses do have a potion or two hidden away for emergencies. And other settings (like Eberron) actually have their economy take healing into consideration.
However, closer to your original thoughts, rather than make a ritual of Cure Wounds it sounds like what you're going for is closer to making a spell scroll of cure wounds replace the potions. It would remain a one-action item if you need it in combat, and only those with the spell in their list could use it.
And if you want it usable by parties that do not have any of the classes that have Cure Wounds in their spell list (Cleric, Bard, Ranger, Druid, Paladin, Celestial Warlock... they're a lot), then you could give some leeway to other spellcasters being able to use it.
It's also adjustable by spell-slot used, if you need it to be (a spell scroll of Cure Wounds at spell level 4, for example).
And don't forget how effective the Healer feat is with a couple of healer's kits.
Thanks for the feedback :)
As a caveat, I think we're discussing from slightly different perspectives. To me, it sounds like you're arguing from a more game mechanics perspective ( only adventurers get injured much, players need their money to save up for plate armor and components, etc. ), where I'm trying to approach this from the perspective of a rational / logically consistent fictional world. My approach isn't objectively better than yours, but it means we'll put different spins on things.
I'm not sure defending the economics of the "default setting" is particularly fruitful. DnD is good at many things, but economics isn't one of them - but it's not meant to be an economic simulator, so that's fine. I do agree that few people would likely to be able to afford them, for other reasons.
I disagree that this would is a niche market "adventurers only" item. We're talking about an item that can heal any injury short of death, and with "common man" in DnD having only a handful of HP, even the least healing potion would do exactly that. Adventurers, soldiers, etc. do not have a monopoly on injury, they just are injured more often. Even if medieval farming village of a few 100 farms had to pool money to get 1-2 as an emergency medical backup for the next time someone falls off a barn, or is trampled by a horse, why would they not? If you think that "Old McDonald can afford to get mauled by a bear" so he wouldn't use a healing potion, then I suspect you've never been seriously injured before ( and/or had access to modem pain relief medicine ).
If they can't be mass produced as you assert - and I agree - then I would think the demand would be high enough as to drive the price much higher.
Even if there's only a relatively small percentage - even 1% - of a population which can afford such a thing, given its mindbogglingly miraculous effects, and given that high-medieval populations of someplace like France ( and yes, DnD's default setting does not exactly conform to medieval demographic models - but it's the best approximation we have) had a population of millions, the demand would still be still very high.
Think about it in modern terms. If someone could create an injection of "healing nanobots" which could repair just about any injury short of death, what would the demand be like - especially if you could only produce a few thousand of them annually?
So we're back to: assuming that the setting world is set to "high plausibility", then either the price in RAW is way to low, or they'd be so common as to warp the appearance of the "default setting" civilization, with people swilling down the stuff way more often than you typically see.
I can't see a way to have healing potions exist RAW, at the price stated, in a high-realism setting - since they are structured as they are for game mechanic reasons. Either you have to dial "realism" down, or change how healing potions work. I chose the latter - you may choose otherwise.
As for the cost of spell components being too high, I think you're mistaking the meaning of ritual spells here. To quote the player's handbook
"Such a spell can be cast following the normal rules for spellcasting, or the spell can be cast as a ritual."( my emphasis )
I am doing something "weird" here, as I'm requiring the material component only for the ritual form, and not the spell form.
Which does not make it "completely unusable in combat". A Cleric can still use the spell RAW - without the material component - it's just that the spell would now had an additional form which could be used outside of combat, allowing for healing without the expenditure of spell-slots/points. Remember that this under the "gritty-realism" rule variant, with vastly inflates resting times, so spell slots are harder to recover.
To my mind, either the components can power the spell ( with a little cantrip-level power poured into the ritual by the caster ), or the caster can bear the entire cost of the spell themselves, and expend a spell-slot.
The existence of expensive ritual components is meant to keep the party from just hitting the "ritual button" over and over for free healing. The cost of the components is meant to mirror the cost of the magic healing item they replace. This acts as a rational as to why the healing magic is now not sold in the supermarket to 1000s of people every day - the caster themselves, and the rarity of such people, is now the bottleneck.
As noted above, it's not a perfect replacement - there are still some effects that are different ( no insta-healing by potion in the middle of combat ), but overall I think it still works as a rationale as to why you can't buy casks of healing potion on market day ( or have to pay 1000gp for a simple healing potion ), while still providing a plausible rational for allowing adventuring parties access to similar healing magic in game.
Again - thanks for the feedback :)
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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.
Adventurers don't have a monopoly on injury, but most people don't receive life-threatening injuries with any regularity. If you have the option of going to a doctor and healing over a few weeks or having your entire family go bankrupt but healing immediately, most people are going to pick the doctor. The potion really doesn't make sense unless you seriously might die from the injuries OR being unable to work will leave you and your family destitute anyways and you can afford to work off the potion's cost.
Guards are at higher risk of injury, but they're tougher and armed; soldiers even more so. In a war there'd be rationing though.
100 farms pitching in for one potion means 99 to 100 farms don't have the potion handy for immediate life-threatening injuries (which means they'll need first aid anyways), and there'll be some serious deliberation over when the potion is used and on whom. A situation like that would probably be mediated by the local lord and paid with taxes. The lord's in a better position to protect the potion and you don't get any feuds between farmers if it does happen to get stolen.
Ah, I understand now. That sounds fine then. What about other healing spells and Lay on Hands though? Healing Word isn't that much worse than Cure Wounds.
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Interestingly, you're kind of proposing a medieval emergency care insurance program :) We all pool resources to buy some expensive medical treatments, which is then administered by a local health care professional? Sure, someone else might use it, and I have to pony up 1% of the cost of replacement - but it's cheaper than me having to pony up 100% for my own - even if multiple neighbors end up using the community resource.
This is not something you typically think of in medieval civilizations - but it could work.
And it again drives up the demand and therefore cost of healing potions, unless the production can be scaled to meet the demand - which again changes the face of the society with people popping healing potions like Pepto Bismol (tm).
At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter to the vast majority of games which aren't trying to be "medieval society with magic" sociology simulators. I still think that healing potions are written as they are for game mechanic reasons - and that's perfectly fine - it's supposed to be fun game :) I'm being a little bit obsessive about the level of plausibility in my game, but that doesn't mean everyone else should follow suit.
It wasn't my intention to change any other healing spells. There's nothing wrong with any of the healing spells in my opinion - all I'm doing is adding extra capabilities ( at cost ) to one of them to create a more plausible ( in my humble opinion ) alternative to healing potions.
I think it's best combined with Onyx's suggestion of some disposable magic item like the spell scroll ( again, only usable by a caster with the spell ability, and not every farmer who gets his hands on one ) to offset the fact that you could no longer pop a healing potion in combat. It's still not a full replacement, as you need the caster to be up and able to act - but it bridges most of the gap, and I think it's "close enough" for the low-magic/gritty-realism of my current campaign world.
A creature you touch regains a number of hit points equal to 1d8 + your spell-casting ability modifier. This spell has no effect on undead or constructs.
The non-ritual form of the spell does not require a material component.
The ritual form uses incense, pigments, and a simple pen or stylus carved from bone. The areas of skin around the injuries have complex arcane diagrams and inscriptions in divine speech drawn upon them with the stylus. The recipient is then placed within an inscribed magic circle, and the spellcaster chants the healing ritual, while the incense is burned at three points around the outside of the ritual circle.
The incense is consumed & the pigments fade from the skin completely as a mystical side-effect of the ritual. The stylus is not consumed, and can be reused.
If relatively common incense and pigments are used, whose value is no less than 50 gp the ritual heals 1d8 + the caster's spell-casting ability modifier..
If uncommon incense and pigments are used, whose value is no less than 100 gp the ritual heals 2d8 + the caster's spell-casting ability modifier..
The addition of a rare ground black pearl, whose value is no less than 400 gp to the pigments will also add an additional 1d8 of healing effect to the ritual.
The spellcaster can be the subject of the ritual as well, in that case preparing themselves as they would any other recipient, and sitting meditatively within the circle while performing the healing chant.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell in its non-ritual form using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, the healing increases by 1d8 for each slot level above 1st.
Note: This and other ritual forms of healing spells take the place of purchasable healing potions in the Vecorria setting.
* - incense, pigments, and a simple pen or stylus carved from bone. Optionally a black pearl.
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Most potions of healing come from druids, who get the herbalism kit as part of their class. If you don't want mass produced healing potions, say that druids are rare, and very few people have the knowledge of how to use herbalism kits.
Secondly, I'm not sure why Cure Wounds is so expensive now. For the average person, a Healing Word, or Good Berries, or Song of Rest, or just about any other healing ability is just as good. Cure Wounds would basically just fall out of favor for other abilities with little overall change to the PCs.
I presume that you're going to somehow restrict Lay on Hands, or the Celestial Warlock's abilities as well? Those are not spell slot based.
That's dubious. Druid is the only class that gets herbalism kit proficiency but most people aren't adventurers and don't have class levels. Case in point, the hermit background grants proficiency with herbalism kits too, and anyone can pick up a new tool proficiency with training.
Crafting potions is a full-time job (it takes at least 8 hours of work); druids have better things to do than sell potions to cities for money.
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I am not restricting Cure Wounds ( much ); Cure Wounds still works like it did before - with an addition.
There is a ritual component to the spell which uses material components. The non-ritual form does not.
Clerics can cast Cure Wounds RAW - in or out of combat - without components, so the RAW version of Cure Wounds is not any more expensive than it was.
Clerics can additionally cast the spell using the material components, without using a spell-slot. Remember, this is under "gritty realism" where rests are much longer; spell slots are slower to come by.
This is the functional equivalent of saying "only clerics can administer healing potions" - which explains why there aren't buckets of the stuff in reserve for emergencies in every community, but still gives the party access to extra between combat healing, if they spend on the components. This is no different than them having access to extra between combat healing because they spent on potions.
It does make some changes to in combat healing.
Lay on hands regenerates more slowly that once/day, but I do not restrict it to "you have to sleep a week" of a gritty-realism long rest ( in fact, all abilities that require a long rest regenerate daily, but only partially - 1/7th - rather than having to wait the 7 days of gritty-realism's long rest and then suddenly generating 100% of your ability. ).
I haven't had to consider the Celestial Warlock yet.
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I don't think it's particularly useful to argue about how the setting world should be. Part of the fun of D&D is that it's really a game system framework, not a set game - which allows us to build the worlds and adventures that suit our styles.
In my view ( and only my view ) potions should be rare, but then I can't see the cost staying that low ( supply and demand ), and suddenly they're useless as insurance for low-level parties who can't afford them - which is why I built this alternative take on healing.
I've never read the rules as most health potions being created by Druids before - but that's certainly a valid interpretation if that's how you want to spin your game/world.
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Here's my thinking, and I would admit that it may not be very satiating for the OP ....
This all takes place in a wonderful world of magic, elves, and dragons. In this world, a long rest brings anyone back to full health, which may be the most egregious suspension of disbelief in the game, but hey - the game is rife with such suspensions. Therefore, if you accept this particular rule, then few injuries are anything but fleeting and a desperate economy of healing potions would not exist as a good night's sleep will make all those bear maul wounds go away. This would effectively mean that the healing potions serve precisely as intended ... something you can quickly quaff in-situ to stave off the death that the next axe swing may bring.
Being resurrected as a zombie is probably not super satiating...
Technically... we.. don't know that everyone uses the same mechanics as our friendly neighborhood PCs do. NPCs are not built using classes, per se, their rest mechanics can work differently if you really want to. The PCs can be super extraordinary compared to everyone else if that floats your boat.
The real solution, IMO, is to just not have corner-store magic item peddlers. Potions seem to be the sort of thing the local government might have a monopoly on getting. The sort of thing that gets funneled into the hands of armies, or guardsmen. Not just left on a shelf at the shop that shares a wall with the muffin bakery.
If you tried to buy something medical that costs a month's wages do you think you could get it at your local Walgreens? That's not likely to happen. You have to go through medical experts, get prescriptions, etc. Why would healing potions be any different in a fantasy world?
They wouldn't be just sitting on a shelf because the notion of an entire month's pay sitting on a shelf collecting dust is sorta nuts. You'd be making these things to-order because that'd cut down on theft and overhead costs. What crazy wacko would be running a business with several months of pay worth of small easily palmed/stolen items laying out on a shelf...
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
Smarm aside, my premise is my premise precisely because it helps explain away the things that you are attached to in your original argument. Technically, nothing says the NPCs heal differently than PCs do. However, if you feel that NPCs heal differently than PCs, then YES you are going to have a difficult time defending why potions of healing can just stock shelves in some shop, and for the very good reasons you lay out. You can then, as DM, make sure they are indeed not readily available - problem solved. However, doesn't your original idea of ritual-casting cure wounds change the "economy concerns" from *product* to *service*? I would imagine, just like your herbalism factory concern, healers could be sequestered by the Government to provide such services to those the power brokers deem appropriate.
As for the value of inventory, we have that in our world ... they are called pharmacies - tens of thousand of dollars in there by my estimation. And no one says that a proprietor needs to have healing potions in a place where they can just be sleight-of-handed on the way out - that is a consideration you introduced to make your point. Why cant they be locked down in the back room like in a pharmacy?
If you still want access to healing potions for PCs (but not purchasable), you could embrace the XGtE rule for healing potion creation but also make the recipe for healing potions be very difficult to obtain and heavily protected, but something someone in the party knows how to make.
This is a very big bump, but the OP is forgetting how insanely rich adventurers tend to be. He caually mentions that 50GP, they casually mention that is a months wages for a middle class laborer and then wonders why everyone doesn't have one squirrelled away, just in case. I months wages for a middle class labouered might be the equivalent of US$4000. That is a lot of money to spend on something you might never need, also bearing in mind if you have a healer's kit and access to a cleric you have a much cheaper option (while not in the core rules several WoTC publications have suggested 10gp for a casting of cure wounds). Then again even with gritty realism you will be fine after 7 days rest so would you spend a month's salary to avoid 7 days bed rest? Some people would but most probably wouldn't
I like the idea of Cure Wounds being a Ritual Spell. However, it seems this introduces another problem that Long Rest healing becomes irrelevant unless the whole party is so banged up the cleric would need to stay up all night to heal everyone. Adding a requirement for a consumable component is another good idea.
I am adding all sorts of Ritual Spells and Options in my homebrew. I have a bard with a Lute that casts a Zone of Truth, for example.
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