How many healing potions do your characters and parties tend to go through?

[Coidzor]

Especially vis-a-vis a dungeon crawl.

I thought I'd dedicated a fairly significant portion of my wealth as a 4th level character to healing potions, keeping about 4 of them on me, but if it weren't for the fact that there were healing potions in the loot we got in the dungeon I would've been out of them and dead, and my character is a fairly tanky Bear Totem Barbarian in +1 Breastplate with a shield. We ended up short resting once and using all of our HD to heal, then longresting, and then shortresting again and using up the half of our replenished HD from the long rest to heal again right before facing the boss encounter and we still ended up with the rogue dropped and my barbarian with 4 HP at the end of the fight and the rest of the group fairly chewed up.

Granted, this dungeon was full of Hold Person spam, which put a damper on my Rage-tanking, so that was an extenuating circumstance, of course.

Still, I'm curious about how many healing potions we should have per person and expect to be using, especially as we level.

So how much do you set aside for consumable healing? Is there a set number you always have and replenish up to when you go back to town and otherwise forget about 'em? Do you increase it as you level following some formula? Do you invest everything that isn't already accounted for into healing potions?

Also, when using healing potions outside of combat, how do you decide when to take a healing potion versus when it's time for a spell like Prayer of Healing or to take a short rest, assuming you're under no known tactical time crunch?

Edit: Also, how many encounters and what difficulty of them do you do before you retreat for a short or long rest? Or do you go based upon some fraction of max HP?

[hymer]

For me, 0. I use potions only for emergencies (when taking rests isn't an option and we need that hp), and the average dungeon doesn't smack us that hard. There's bad luck now and again, of course, which is what the potions are for.
I may get a little more liberal if there's a steady flow of healing potions coming in (based on play from other editions), but there usually isn't in 5e.

[Vogonjeltz]

Especially vis-a-vis a dungeon crawl.

I thought I'd dedicated a fairly significant portion of my wealth as a 4th level character to healing potions, keeping about 4 of them on me, but if it weren't for the fact that there were healing potions in the loot we got in the dungeon I would've been out of them and dead, and my character is a fairly tanky Bear Totem Barbarian in +1 Breastplate with a shield. We ended up short resting once and using all of our HD to heal, then longresting, and then shortresting again and using up the half of our replenished HD from the long rest to heal again right before facing the boss encounter and we still ended up with the rogue dropped and my barbarian with 4 HP at the end of the fight and the rest of the group fairly chewed up.

Granted, this dungeon was full of Hold Person spam, which put a damper on my Rage-tanking, so that was an extenuating circumstance, of course.

Still, I'm curious about how many healing potions we should have per person and expect to be using, especially as we level.

So how much do you set aside for consumable healing? Is there a set number you always have and replenish up to when you go back to town and otherwise forget about 'em? Do you increase it as you level following some formula? Do you invest everything that isn't already accounted for into healing potions?

Also, when using healing potions outside of combat, how do you decide when to take a healing potion versus when it's time for a spell like Prayer of Healing or to take a short rest, assuming you're under no known tactical time crunch?

I don't think we've seen a single healing potion, but we're playing a game where magical loot (and loot in general) are fairly infrequent, so all my healing (as a Fighter) has been via hit dice from short rests, long rests, and second wind. That being said, early on we had a few encounters that threatened to become TPKs where healing potions would have been extremely useful.

We also don't really have a healer as our Bard mostly just uses thunderwave primarily to thin out groups.

[Atalas]

haven't used one yet since there's always a healer in the party, namely, me. The Bard.

[Coidzor]

I don't think we've seen a single healing potion, but we're playing a game where magical loot (and loot in general) are fairly infrequent, so all my healing (as a Fighter) has been via hit dice from short rests, long rests, and second wind. That being said, early on we had a few encounters that threatened to become TPKs where healing potions would have been extremely useful.

We also don't really have a healer as our Bard mostly just uses thunderwave primarily to thin out groups.


For me, 0. I use potions only for emergencies (when taking rests isn't an option and we need that hp), and the average dungeon doesn't smack us that hard. There's bad luck now and again, of course, which is what the potions are for.
I may get a little more liberal if there's a steady flow of healing potions coming in (based on play from other editions), but there usually isn't in 5e.


haven't used one yet since there's always a healer in the party, namely, me. The Bard.

So it seems like the corollary here is, how able to do rests are you and how often are you resting?

[coredump]

Between healers and taking rests (short and long), I rarely need healing potions. That said, *sometimes* I do. My Tier 1 PCs carry 5 potions, my Tier 2 PCs carry 10 potions. Just in case.

[djreynolds]

I always seek out a merchant, for my fighter, and he keep 10 potions of healing and buys whatever else, vs. poison, etc. Second wind is a nice perk, but potions are better. Our DM loves to harass us and we run out spells in fights a lot, or our casters are conserving them for the next encounter so healing via spell is at a minimum because we never know what's around the corner. We rarely get long rests, he considers it an end of day period, so healing potions are used a lot. Short rests are used, and the same goes with long rests, if we don't clean up the enemy finds us and our rest stops and we're back at it. After every battle we have to send out scouts and skirmishers to make sure no one got away or other monsters are not coming to investigate. But I like, for realism's sake. I like a guys suffering from fatigue and exhaustion. So resource and spell conservation is big, and having rations and healing potions are real necessities.

[TopCheese]

I'm adventure league we have been going through healing potions like they are made of Zelda Fairies and Crack.

It frees up the cleric from being a heal bot, gives us something to use money on (some of us has all the stuff we would ever really need), and it really helps boost the healing we get from the two feats (healing kit and rally or whatever it's called).

Also we fluff them as stim paks or things from other games, that gives us some laughs.

[Daishain]

Have never purchased or used a healing pot in 5E, nor seen others do so. Frankly, even when cash is plentiful, they're a bad use of resources.

EDIT: Wait, the above isn't quite accurate, we found a healing pot at one point and shoved it down the throat of a downed party member shortly thereafter. He was immediately struck down again.

[TopCheese]

Have never purchased or used a healing pot in 5E, nor seen others do so. Frankly, even when cash is plentiful, they're a bad use of resources.

EDIT: Wait, the above isn't quite accurate, we found a healing pot at one point and shoved it down the throat of a downed party member shortly thereafter. He was immediately struck down again.

At low to mid levels 2d4+2 (average 7) outside of battle is fantastic use of resources. This stops you from needing a short rest based on HP without a reduction in spells.

Cure Sounds: 1d8+Wis Mod (we will call it 4): 8.5 (unless you are a life cleric).

50gp for a first level slot. I'll pay that. In average you get 1.5 less healing per use but that's not horrible.

I wouldn't use either option in battle, healing word is a thing, but for outside of battle they can really help you keep going.

[DanyBallon]

We use pretty much all the potion we buy and we buy a lot of them, when available.

But in our game long rest don't resplenish your health and restore only half your level in HD spent to heal on short rest.

As for the number of fight between rest, we try to keep a ration of 1-2 fights, and we use 2 short rest and 1 long rest a day.

[Joe the Rat]

My lot typically burns at least one pot per combat, mostly from the cleric injecting people when they start getting low. He tends to save his spell slots for inflicting grievous and/or amusing injuries.

[hymer]

grievous and/or amusing injuries

As if there was any other kind.

[TopCheese]

As if there was any other kind.

Pathetic?

Rolling a 1 onndamage dice is a thing... :p

[hymer]

Pathetic?

Rolling a 1 onndamage dice is a thing... :p

That tends to be amusing, I'd say. :smallsmile:

[TopCheese]

That tends to be amusing, I'd say. :smallsmile:

You are a monster.

:p

[Vogonjeltz]

At low to mid levels 2d4+2 (average 7) outside of battle is fantastic use of resources. This stops you from needing a short rest based on HP without a reduction in spells.

Cure Sounds: 1d8+Wis Mod (we will call it 4): 8.5 (unless you are a life cleric).

50gp for a first level slot. I'll pay that. In average you get 1.5 less healing per use but that's not horrible.

I wouldn't use either option in battle, healing word is a thing, but for outside of battle they can really help you keep going.

Some users mentioned carrying up to ten healing potions; I'd much rather have that money go towards a downpayment on Plate armor (worth 30 healing potions).

Or better still, craft an uncommon magical item provided you have the access and means. I love the idea of healing potions, they just seem too costly to be worth purchasing unless you're swimming in loot.

[Eugoraton Feiht]

I'm adventure league we have been going through healing potions like they are made of Zelda Fairies and Crack.

It frees up the cleric from being a heal bot, gives us something to use money on (some of us has all the stuff we would ever really need), and it really helps boost the healing we get from the two feats (healing kit and rally or whatever it's called).

Also we fluff them as stim paks or things from other games, that gives us some laughs.

Amen to this. My Rogue has 6 on him at all times. Cannot count the number of times it has come in handy saving other teammates.

[Naanomi]

Only time we have used them a lot is when a party member kept making them in down time

[TopCheese]

Only time we have used them a lot is when a party member kept making them in down time

And people think it's weird I take the hermit background...

[Raphite1]

The group I DM for hasn't used a single one from levels 1-5, although I've given them several in loot and they've sought them out from merchants. A couple of the PCs have hit 0 hit points several times.

However, they haven't yet been in multi-day dungeon crawls, so they've never been completely empty on hit dice to use during short rests.

[ChelseaNH]

It frees up the cleric from being a heal bot

I do miss healing belts.

"Medic!"
"I'm busy it, take care of it yourself!"

[TopCheese]

I do miss healing belts.

"Medic!"
"I'm busy it, take care of it yourself!"

Healing Belt needs to make a comeback.

[Coidzor]

Healing Belt needs to make a comeback.

Indeed. Even an attuned wand of cure wounds would be nice.

I'm not quite familiar enough with the system to ballpark a rarity or to put a price on it in keeping with Saidoro's prices for magic items (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?424243-Sane-Magic-Item-Prices) which is what my group is going with.

[TopCheese]

Indeed. Even an attuned wand of cure wounds would be nice.

I'm not quite familiar enough with the system to ballpark a rarity or to put a price on it in keeping with Saidoro's prices for magic items (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?424243-Sane-Magic-Item-Prices) which is what my group is going with.

Wands you have to hold, a belt holds itself.

[coredump]

Some users mentioned carrying up to ten healing potions; I'd much rather have that money go towards a downpayment on Plate armor (worth 30 healing potions).

Or better still, craft an uncommon magical item provided you have the access and means. I love the idea of healing potions, they just seem too costly to be worth purchasing unless you're swimming in loot.


Many folks don't need or can't use Plate armor. Others already have it.

And sure, if your DM lets you find the Rare 'recipe' for the exact Uncommon item you want....and will allow you to craft it fairly inexpensively.... may be a decent idea.

But the point of Healing potions is they are insurance. I have 10 because if I *need* 10 I will be very glad I have them. If I don't need them.... then I still have them for next session. Its not like we smash them every night.

[TopCheese]

Many folks don't need or can't use Plate armor. Others already have it.

And sure, if your DM lets you find the Rare 'recipe' for the exact Uncommon item you want....and will allow you to craft it fairly inexpensively.... may be a decent idea.

But the point of Healing potions is they are insurance. I have 10 because if I *need* 10 I will be very glad I have them. If I don't need them.... then I still have them for next session. Its not like we smash them every night.

Rather have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

[Alerad]

I just realized that our group is very not-combat oriented, or maybe it's just my players planning everything ahead. Each of them has one healing potion, they have probably used 1-2 each until now (level 5 group).

Although we actually have more climatic battles and longer downtimes in-between and healing potions are generally not very good in battle due to the low hp return. Reviving a fallen ally is what they mostly use them for.

[Vogonjeltz]

Others already have it.

What the what, who has plate already? No class in the PHB!