Another thing to consider is armor. If you are playing a dwarf with beastly armor or Nanok in RtL after a few die upgrades, armor should directly be factored into how useful a health potion is.

A health potion is much more valuable for Corbin with 5/6 armor and damage reduction than someone without armor, as Corbin will in fact benefit from attacks having to bypass that armor and deal the three damage on top of it again, which can often take more than one attack.

The health gained from a health potion is usually gone in one attack on a hero with no armor, but it could take two or three attacks to get a tough hero back to where he was prior to chugging that potion (as inevitably, some attacks won't damage high armor heroes and others will ding him for a point or two), and that's work that an OL doesn't want to waste his time doing if a better opportunity presents itself.

So in these types of situations, that three health can be a real deterrent to the OL's plans, which will probably buy the hero enough time to get to town/get near a hero with a healing item/chug a second potion/etc.

poobaloo said:

Not at all. Death means you're back at full health without consuming any potions. You lose conquest, and might have to travel a ways to get back into a useful position, so it's certainly worth avoiding, but it does mean that the OL is starting from scratch if he wants to kill you again.

Restoring 3 health with a potion might mean that the next attack or trap won't kill you--if you're lucky. If you're in a special situation where whether or not you die this turn makes a big difference, that could certainly be worth it. But in the long run, you just canceled 3 damage, not an entire death. A single decent attack could easily put you right back where you were; a strong attack might do enough damage to kill you instantly with or without the potion.

Drinking a vitality potion will often allow you to get an extra attack (by battling instead of advancing, or something similar), which will often kill a monster before it gets a chance to attack, which will often negate at least as much damage as a health potion (in addition to saving you time on some future turn when you don't have to kill that monster, resulting in less time for the OL to collect threat and draw cards).

The Crystal of Tival is a rather weak item, but if you insist on comparing it to a healing potion, you need to take into account that it also restores fatigue, doesn't cost movement to use, and that you can also drink a potion on the same turn. These things make it considerably better than a healing potion even if it doesn't actually provide any more healing.

So what are you saying? Do you think players should not carry a healing potion?

Of course you could still die. There's dice involved. All you can do is play to optimize your chances. If you're in a position where you're going to receive 5 hits anyways, then it's not a good time to use it. Just die, and save the potion. There will be other times when there is maybe only 1 Razorwing left on the map, and then it could kill you if you're on 2, but it's not likely if you've got 5... Or a time when the OL having to send 1 or 2 extra monsters at that hero, means some other hero survives instead.

It all comes down to having options. If you only want to equip Vitality potions, that's fine, but keeping some options like a Healing or two in the group gives your party more flexibility to deal w what may come. The game involves random draws and other uncontrollable factors, so I think one should keep an arsenal of tools that can meet the diverse things that can come up. I even keep an Invisibility potion in the group, it does come in handy. There are cases where say you need to get a strong player posted up somewhere (like to destroy the Dark Shard in Rumor 6, or to kill Sorcerers in The Summoning), and in those cases where you want to have your big hitter up front and not have to come back from town and re-run thru an otherwise long path, an Invis could do just the trick. There is also the psychological edge, drinking an Invis throws the OL a curve ball, since he has to think if it's worth even attacking that hero now and likely miss 50% of the time. Anything you can do to keep the OL off his methodical killing or disrupt his rythm is worth it.

Keep your options open, and as flexible a hand as you can...

-mike

I have to admit, Aristone's argument is what prompted me creating this thread. It seemed at only 3 Wounds, Health Potions were almost too trivial and chugging along until death was preferred. I mean, if you're that far down, drinking a potion probably won't give you enough to save you for even one more turn (and due to the faq, you can't drink more than one Health potion that turn, which makes them even weaker). So, if you're going to die during the OL's turn anyways, why bother wasting a movement point and 50 Gold on a Health Potion?

-shnar

shnar said:

It's about resources. If you spending a movement point on a health potion causes the OL to have to discard a card to get a new spawn into play to hit you one extra time, not only is it worth it for the OL to do so, but it was worth it for you to spend the movement. Don't look at it like "well, that didn't gain me anything" - look at it like "Ha, the OL had to use an extra card to spawn some monsters to pick me off" or whatever. If you're playing the game to never die, you're going to be disappointed. Draining away resources early from the OL perpetuates that the OL will have to continue to expend resources if he wants to make opportunity kills. Granted, there are heroes that health potions are very weak moves for, notably any mage excepting Jaes, and anyone else foolish enough to wander around sans armor.

But for everyone else, think of it as x +3 more damage you can take, where x is your armor (sometimes twice or more your armor) depending on attack success.

But that's what I mean, for the most part (at least in our cases), the 3 Health did *not* make or break the death. The attack that kills the Hero usually does more than 3-over-damage anyways, so drinking the potion does seem like a waste...

-shnar

I have found that it is always nice to have a couple of healing potions in the group. In a game where timing is everything and the clock is ticking in favor of the OL, chugging a potion for 1 movepent point is a WHOLE LOT better than spending the next two or three rounds getting to a glyph, going to the church and then getting back into the "fight". As a general rule, no, I think they are pretty worthless. They do add a little flexibility to the hero strategy, though. And in a game where the OL is throwing anything and everything at the group, that added bit of flexibility can (and has) made quite a difference.

Summary: Don't rely on them. Use them as a situational tool, like power potions.

How about having the healing potions heal a hero 1/3 of their printed hit point total. Since there are only 3 different starting hit point totals for the heroes (8, 12, or 16) it can still be kept rather simple:

At 8 the hero would heal 3 points for every potion

At 12 the hero would heal 4 points for every potion

At 16 the hero would heal 5 points for every potion

It's a rough approximation of 1/3 for each total, but it makes potions more valuable to the heroes without making them too powerful. Also any feats that would increase hit point totals would not apply in determining the heroes total hit points, since it would only take into account the printed total.

Any thoughts?

The heroes that have 16 health are usually the tanks. Already a health potion is move valuable to them than other heroes (Tougher to get through the armor) Also, when a hero trains to raise health, a simple healing potion could conceivably gain him (or her) 9 health. 16 starting plus 12 from secret training. 28/3=9.3. This creates a situation that is a little unbalanced. What happens when the OL chain-traps Nanok to really try to get a solid kill only to see him not die and spend a single movement to heal back up to about 10? All those cards and threat nullified by a single 50 gold potion.

No, the 1/3 rule would be broken.

As I said only the "printed value" on the heroes card would be used. Any skills obtained or tokens received from training would not apply to the heroes hit point total in determining how many hit points they get back. In essence the heroes would already know at the start of a game how many hit points they would get back from a potion based on what hero they choose. Any figure who starts with 16 hit points would always get back 5 hit points from a healing potion no matter how high their hit point total goes up.

Nevron said:

The problem is that the health potion is already beastly for people with high armor. You need a system that does the inverse, like this:

Health potions heal 5 - natural armor.

That way a hero with 0 armor receives 5 health, and that tank receives 3, which is much more potent if you are playing your tank correctly.

However, I stand by the original rules on this. I see no reason to change their value at all. If you think they are useless, you're probably playing them on the wrong people or at the wrong time. Get them to your person with the most armor and use them as soon as you are down 3 or more points. You'll see their benefit. Unless no one in the group took any armor.