For some reason, I've always considered Health Potions to be really weak, healing only 3 wounds, to the point that the Heroes I play with almost never buy them. Only the really squishy 8 Health Heroes have them and even then they seem to die before they can use them.

Anyone else feel that Health Potions aren't worth it?

-shnar

Health potions help mitigate Trap - Space cards. Sometimes, you need to go back to town and don't have the health to manage it, and that's when Health potions are worth their weight in conquest.

Don't post that! My heroes will see it!

Basically yes, health potions are very, very weak.

As Thundercles says, they aren't entirely worthless, but basically, it's pretty safe to never buy one until you have all 9 of the fatigue potions already.

We have been playing with them healing 4 instead of 3 pretty much since day 1, and they are still never bought until every hero has at least 2 fatigue potions on their belt.

In dungeons they are pretty bad. Their real strength is in encounters. Since there is no respawning, 3 health on the right character can be the difference between victory and defeat.

Also, don't forget that you can drink potions instantly on the world map. So if you have fighting a pair of lieutenants on a city with a 5 alchemist, then you can kill one and then visit town and buy 5 healing potions to drink to get you back to full health for the second fight.

On a tangential note, notice that healing potions don't scale properly to different game sizes. In a 2-hero game, if everyone buys and drinks a healing potion, you've healed 6 wounds; in a 4-hero game, there are the same number of monsters, they do the same amount of damage, and the gold per hero is essentially the same, but if every hero buys and drinks a healing potion, you've healed 12 wounds.

For my rebalancing project, I have healing potions healing 3 wounds each in a 4-hero game, 4 wounds each in a 3-hero game, and 6 wounds each in a 2-hero game. (And 2 wounds each in a 5-hero game...

Antistone said:

You are of course entiteled to do as you please, however I don't think this makes any sense. You are comparing the effect of something that costs a 100gp to something that costs 200gp. There doesn't seem to be any balance in having 100gp giving out 12hp for 2 players though only 6hp for 4 players

Badend said:

Um... where do you get the idea that "you can drink potions instantly on the world map"? It costs a movement point to drink a potion- you don't have "movement points" when on the overland map. You can drink them DURING the encounter but certainly not willy-nilly when on the overland map. The whole point of having temples in the towns is so that the heroes can use them to heal while on the overland map.

Wrong.

Between encounters / dungeons / whatever, you can drink as many potions as you want. Whilst I can see how the rules interpreted literally mean that it costs 1 movement point, and that you dont have movement points unless you are in a dungeon or encounter, this is a stupid interpretation.

"Phew, we've just completed that dungeon, lets now spend a week heading along the road to the next town. Can I drink a potion? No - you dont have any movement points."
1 Week passes. The heroes arrive in town.
"Can I drink it now?" "No, sorry, you still dont have movement points"
The heroes spend a week training.
Still cant drink it
The heroes leave town and head to another dungeon.
They arrive and the OL sets up the map.
On the heroes first turn, he is allowed to drink the potion that he has been waiting 3 weeks to drink.

You get the point I hope.

As far as whether health potions are weak, my players are buying them all the time to stay alive. Considering in both campaigns now, they have always been ahead on CT since they are good at staying alive, they find it works well for them. Of course, they could be doing something wrong tactically.

For me, having a health potion for emergencies is handy for certain characters who are more fragile. On the whole, however, I find that in RtL, fatigue and power potions are more important. Health potions aren't useless... They just don't replace a temple visit, but are rather there as a fallback (or, as someone already mentioned, an all-important healing during an encounter)

In practice, though, when I was playing all four heroes in a campaign against my brother, I leaned very heavily towards power potions. An aimed attack with a power potion can punch through most anything I was facing. In the hands of Andira, it became a room clearer (either blast or breath) In my humble opinion, a dead monster can't hurt you ;-D

Also, when we're talking RtL, the number of potions that are available to the heroes is VERY limited, so you have to think carefully about what will prove most effective for each hero.

Oboewan said:

Ithink they were referring to the things that happen after an encounter ends.

RtL rulebook page 15

At the end of every encounter, regardless of the outcome, the following occurs:

1. Any heroes who fled or were killed during the encounter rejoin the party.
2. Heroes who were killed return with full wounds. Heroes who were not killed are not automatically healed.
3. All heroes are restored to full fatigue.
4. All heroes may drink any number of potions and use any healing items they wish.

If they are did not have an encounter, then as far as I know you can't just drink a potion anytime you wish when traveling on the world map.

Encounters and that RunToTheGlyph sound like good reasons for Healing potions. I'll keep them more in mind next time

I've always thought that if they healed 5 wounds, instead of 3, then it'd be worth it, so I've rarely chosen a Healing potion when we get them (we almost always get Fatigue, though my 11 yr old son is loving the new Invisibility Potion).

-shnar

edderkoppen said:

But the players who are paying 200gp have twice as much to spend, so it's the same proportional cost. Starting gold, gold from coin piles, and gold and treasure from chests are all per hero , so combined hero wealth is proportional to the number of heroes.

If the heroes were buying weapons, or armor, or upgrades, or whatever, the larger party would need to buy twice as many in order to equip all heroes. And that would be OK, since they (as a party) would have twice as much gold to spend. If they choose to spend it on vitality potions or power potions, they'd have to buy twice as many potions to equip the entire party.

But as it currently stands, if they want to heal, they don't need twice as many healing potions, because they take the same amount of damage as the smaller party. There's the same number of monsters, and they deal the same amount of damage, and the overlord gets the same conquest per kill. So the party that's twice as big and has twice as much money and needs twice as many weapons, armor, and vitality potions only needs the same number of healing potions, and that means they're at an advantage.

Now, that's certainly not the only (or the biggest) reason that larger parties are at an advantage in the normal Descent rules, and I'm making lots of other changes, but it actually is fair for larger parties to pay more money for effects that benefit the party as a whole. That's how everything else in Descent is balanced, anyway.

Big Remy said:

Actually I just looked at an older FAQ, since the new one is gone, and there is a clarification in there saying you can drink potions at anytime on the world map.

Q: Under what circumstances can the heroes trade items, drink potions, and recover fatigue?

A: In addition to the normal in-dungeon rules for trading, drinking and resting, any time the hero party is on the overland Terrinoth map, they may freely trade items and drink any number of potions. They also are restored to full fatigue as soon as they end any quest, be it dungeon or encounter.

Big Remy said:

Mea Culpa! How could have I missed #4!

I distinctly recall Kevin Wilson stating that healing potions should be upgraded from three to four in terms of wounds healed. Since that time (between 6-12 months ago, I'd guess) my group (we play Road to Legend) has played it as four. It does seem odd that that change hasn't been given more attention. But I recall that ruling, thought it was certainly appopriate and have played it that way ever since.

Wait, what? Where and when was this "ruling" said? And how come Kevin hasn't put it in a FAQ yet? Oh wait, maybe that's why they yanked this one

-shnar

I wish I could recall it in perfect detail, but I'm sorry, I can't. The best I can do is that it would have been on the old forums, during one of those blessed occasions when Kevin manifested briefly on the forums to make a few comments. He "suggested", or some such word, that healing potions were probably slightly underpowered at a value of three, and might be better valued at four. That's a paraphrase of what he said. Maybe it was a hallucination I experienced after having briefly been abducted by aliens, but I don't think so... I haven't seen it brought up since.

Why hasn't it been in a FAQ? It may have even pre-dated the release of Road to Legend...and possibly it was in reaction to the evolving imbalance in favor of the Overlord that occurred with the addition of each expansion to vanilla Descent. Possibly when RTL came out, it just got lost in the shuffle. That would be my guess. But once I implemented the change, I just stuck with it because it felt appropriate. It works. It certainly isn't overpowered, that's for sure.

I was thinking 5 would be the magic number for potions, but I'll start trying 4 and see how it plays

-shnar

It's probably better as a "tweener", until you can get back to the temple to heal by 5, or 7. I'd leave it at four. Who knows, maybe this being brought up at this particular time will coax out an official ruling on this question as well, while we're at it with the updated FAQ...

Anyway, to answer this thread's original question....yes, they would be (are) weak at 3.

Antistone said:

Point taken.

Schmiegel said:

Granted, my group isn't currently playing RtL, where there seems to be a difference, but I suppose the answer depends on 'What do you feel the Health Potions should be doing?' If you feel that Health Potions should be more of a 50%+ restoration, then yes, they're incredibly weak. If, however, you feel that they are the alchemical equivalent of a bandage, they're okay. We tend to use them as 'please keep me from dying' potions, or to recover an edge prior to a new area.

That being said, I wouldn't mind seeing some type of greater restoration potion. (My apologies if such an item already exists in one of the expansions...I am regrettably only familiar with the base set at this time.)

Daemnor said:

That's rather circular. Health potions are the right power level if you think they should do what they do, but they're weak if you think they should do more.

The interesting question is whether they are worth their opportunity cost in a typical situation. And "opportunity cost" most often works out to "when you could be drinking a vitality potion instead."

Healing potions are definitely useful, a party should always keep 1 or 2 in the group.

Are they as useful as other potions? Well no, you dont need them as often, so they're not technically as useful, if one correllates usefulness to frequency of need.

But when you do need a Healing potion, if you've got one, you'll avoid a death. It's that simple.

12-heart hero down 10 hearts - a Pit or Block will kill him if he so much as moves, and there's a good chance the OL has kept such a card in hand just for such cases. Suck down a potion instead, and now you're up to 5 and relatively safe.

Also, for that hero to glyph back to town at say the start of a level and heal there takes him out of the action for 2 turns. He comes back on the 3rd turn fully healed. If instead you chug a heal on the first turn, you're at 5... second turn, you're at 8. You never left the battle, and were able to fight the entire time, and you got back to 2/3 health. Maybe you even just get to 5, then use some vitalities and battle actions.

They definitely have their use. That use is not for economy of healing, since they're not very effiicient -- their value is in the immediate access to healing, which is otherwise a relatively slow process.

Even the Crystal of Tival only heals 6, and it's a copper treasure worth 250. If you bump healing pots up to 4 or 5 then the other healing items one can find become worth a lot less.

-mike