>Setting with instant healing potions.
>The problem is that these potions fucking hurt like high hell if you have anything too broken.
>This is because your bones, muscles, and allot of other things are just suddenly snapping right back together. Instantly.
There I've made healing potions that can't just be spammed.
Or just base them on the fact that your cells can only regenerate so many times before they start just fucking dying or becoming cancerous.
Insta-150 HP from Heal? Okay, you're still in the fight, and now you've got a tumor the size of an apple on your hip because this is not the first time you've done this? Is it malignant? You don't fuckin' know; this is not!medieval times, we don't even know what cancer is!
Wow haha user you sure are original
Or the fact that there might be physical things inside of your body like arrow heads that you'll need to see a doctor about.
And the fact that bacteria is bound to evolve to benefit from this healing potion.
That's dumb.
If magic is capable of mending perforated organs and repairing near-severed limbs and stab wounds, surely it's capable of dulling pain or shutting off nerve signals for the second it takes for the healing process to occur.
Maybe shitty, cheap, bootleg healing potions lack anesthetic properties and that's an incentive for your party to buy quality goods but "healing hurts" doesn't prevent potion abuse
It doesn't MATTER if using a potion causes pain since NOT using one will still result in whatever wound you got hurting. Nobody is going to let themselves fucking bleed to death because their agonizing stomach wound will also hurt when they heal it.
I think it's more than OP doesn't want players spamming potions in the middle of combat DS/BB style and play more carefully in dungeons depending on a character's pain tolerance.
does let you torture the shit out of people though
I've handled health and health potions in a few different ways.
In Into The Odd, HP are explicitly 'evasion points' and real injuries are subtracted from your stats. I had 'health potions' in that simply be like mild painkillers and/or a splash of cold water to the face helping you regain focus.
In d&d I usually roll with potions as being explicitly magical and helping you recover from injuries.
My current approach is (thanks Dragon Age) to have healing work on minor injuries but not major ones. You can use magical healing (or healing surge, or potions) to help characters recover from most combat damage. A character that's 'unconscious' in the rules isn't necessarily unconscious in the fiction but is winded, disabled or otherwise out of the fight. A burst of magical healing can help them recover enough to get back up.
If they take damage while they're down or fail 3 death saving throws the PC enters the realm of permanent injuries. Even successful medical checks won't necesarily bring them back unscathed, and anything short of like a 6th level cure wounds isn't going to get them on their feet within a day.
End result is that characters are harder to kill but being knocked 'unconscious' is far more dangerous. Since you can still move (as prone at half speed) when 'unconscious' and take some actions (like firing a crossbow at disadvantage) from winded on the floor, there's also a greater risk that an enemy NPC will consider you a threat and take the time to curb-stomp you.
A human body consumes roughly 0.8-1 liter of water per hour, depending on physical activity, meaning as long as you stick to this, you won't experience a net gain. This number can go up to as much as 2 liters per hour in hot conditions and under lots of physical activity. In 2007, a woman in California died of water intoxication after drinking 6 liters in three hours without urinating.
Drinking too much water during lots of physical activity can actually lead to vomiting, and of course the loss of whatever you just drank.
Point is, there's way easier and more sensible ways to put a limit on potions.
In a 5th edition game im in our DM has them addictive and debilitating after awhile. take one per short? youre fine. take 3-4 per short? addicted and if you dont get your fix its disadvantage on skill checks, saving throws, and attacks until you get your fix
i am currently the only one not addicted...thank god for second wind and the shield spell
>And the fact that bacteria is bound to evolve to benefit from this healing potion.
That... is actually a really cool idea.
>"You're really hurt."
>"I take like ten healing potions."
>"You go through excruciating pain."
>"I, like, scream. A lot."
>"Okay, on with the game."
Not seeing the up-side, here.
Just don't give them to your players.
The potions stimulate your existing metabolism to regenerate tissue using energy and materials already stored in your body. Drinking too many potions will cause the body to degenerate by eating itself, likely resulting in death.
>healing magic isn't a short-duration spell that fixes your body, it's a long-duration spell that just holds you together and keeps you alive while your body heals naturally
>you can still fight, but new injuries (and anti-magic effects) have a chance of overpowering the spell, which would cause your old injuries to reopen, minus whatever your body healed in the meantime
>other spells can speed up your natural healing to the point where you only need a few days of rest instead of a few weeks, but you pretty much need to lie in bed all day
Players don't care about pain. There is nothing actually tying pain to a character outside of a quick description, pain is a deterrent because it hurts, your descriptions will never hurt and has no staying power. So you've solved a problem that never existed because the only people who are affected are good roleplayers that get into character, the same people who would avoid the source of pain to begin with.
For alternative potion functions I tend to just make things alcoholic. Quaff as many as you want in the long term, but you've got a soft limit for use mid battle.
Nothing wrong with spamming sippyflasks mid-combat as long as it takes time to drink them. Just have diminishing returns kick in if you're that worried about it.
In 5E, a Symbol of Pain forces the target to make a Constitution saving throw or become incapacitated for 1 minute. I'd probably use that as a guideline.
4e did that ten years ago.
Just do diminishing returns like Edge of the Empire.
>First Stimpack in a day heals five wounds
>Second heals four
>Third heals three
>Etc
Well, in my original setting, healing magic and 'field potions' are basically more like painkillers and bandages plus stitching and stimulants.
They're not a long-term treatment but something meant to keep you alert, awake, and just capable enough to finish what you absolutely HAVE to do before going to seek actual medical attention.
Actual medical attention does include accounting for avoiding cancer and cell-regeneration like brings up, and even with advanced magic, alchemy, proper bedrest, and physical therapy, you still need time to heal. So while what would be a fatal wound by our standards of medicine wouldn't be fatal there, you're still out for up to a whole year just recovering. A broken leg will keep you out of action for about a week.
Sure that's several months less than in reality, but it still means you won't be back on the battlefield.
>In 5e
The real question is if said bacteria is going to be a good thing or a really bad thing.
Anyone have that one where marcille used healing magic and they were screaming from the pain?
In all my years of playing and DMing, I've never seen a party spam potions to heal, it's a vidya thing, and trying to "rebalance" potions just ends up in more stupid shit.
4e placed a limit on healing surges.
And 3.5 have a often over looked and forgotten rule that if you'd been healed to double your maximum value it literally caused your character to explode.
Toxicity system from the Witcher could be workable. Potions are generally over time, but have an inmediate toxicity effect. Too many potions too quickly and you overdose and begin taking damage instead. Potions toxicity can be linked to power, alchemists can have greater toxicity tolerances, potions that clear toxicity but also cancel all potion effects can be an oh shit option.