Potions are que expensive.

[Heero]

Emphasis on 'que'.

Its que difficult as it is for some of us to use this client. I guess this mostly applies to static things such as wildlife during non-DMed encounters containing no opportunity for pausing.

Example here.

Everyone isnt good at games or DnD, in general. Are we that arent less important than others. I am not an animal!

[kid]

You are an animal.

Pots should be expensive.

And if you can't click on them on time you will die.

Fin.

[Heero]

Fair enough.

[dergon darkhelm]

As an old man who lacks twitch-gaming skills ....always quickslot --- I have potions on all 10 bars (because sometimes I accidentally move the bar from 1 to 8 unintentially) ...and on the side bar ..... cure and invis always at the ready.

That plus the recommendation "try to never take damage" goes a long way.

[Heero]

My last 'hunter elf' (one of many as i basically only have 2 characters, or something) died penniless at level 2, nearing level 3, as he was oft want to kill a deer every now and then. Generally, a single deer fight would cost approx. 48gp (generally a 50gp potion used per fight, sometimes two and other times none, but usually one) for a net gain of 4xp (3xp for killing the thing and another xp, plus 2gp, for turning in the hide).

Ive never claimed to be good at basic economics.

[dergon darkhelm]

My first ALFA pc died hunting a deer. Poor Amelor, we hardly knew ye

[Zelknolf]

The problem comes from the nature of Forgotten Realms as a setting, I think. We play in a world where "magic shops" are an actual, practical, functional thing-- with no sticker that says "These divinations are for entertainment purposes only. Don't sue us because you're too dumb to make decisions without a 'psychic' kthxbai." The fact that these magics exist in a market by canon means that we have to account for when people sell these things-- even though consumables aren't typically very offensive to our sensibilities (that is, it's pretty rare to hear a DM explode with rage, shouting "Who dropped a potion of cure critical wounds on Rhonowyn!?") the things that you can buy with the money they're worth are (that is, it's pretty common to hear "How the hell can Rhonowyn afford a <permanent magic item here>?")-- and the latter part is the strongest force that stops us from smearing the landscape with consumables, as making them common generally requires that we make money not very useful for getting things (and just letting inflation run away-- arguing it to have trivial mechanical implications) or very hard to get (and laugh mightily as people struggle to get 5 gold for their magic weaponry). I'm not sure we'd be presenting very plausible versions of our major cities if we did either, though; they're big enough places where one can plausibly get almost anything they want with sufficient money and contain healthy enough economies that merchants would compete for your supplies (to a point; obviously they want to turn profits).

[kid]

well if you cant hunt dears without losing money... you don't make pots cheaper.
answer is you are not good enough to hunt dears alone. Chase smaller game or seek aid from a fellow hunter

[FoamBats4All]

So long as you're not good at misclicking your bar, I like to put potions as the first entry. You can rapidly hit F1, then 1 to chug one if needed. Keyboard shortcuts help a great deal for those of us who are que slow with que expensive things.

[Heero]

Ban deer. If RL deer were as vicious as Faerun's deer, the Redneck would have gone extinct long ago.

[Heero]

I guess this topic has run its course. Potions as priced as they need to be for fair gaming for one and all.

[t-ice]

Compared to DnD as designed our players get far less xp per encounter, and thus their target wealth level goes up by far less. How much wealth they actually gain varies a lot. All in all, our PCs seem to gain less from consumables, as winning the fight with the help of them doesn't gain the xp the design says. Also, mostly our PCs fight things far below their CR, to which they usually don't need consumables, and if these fights gave wads of gold we'd be breaking our xp/gp target. Finally consumables still aren't any less useful in the fights that really do matter. So if consumables were dirt cheap, every PC would come armed with batteries for the DM sessions. Needing a stack of static-grinding gained consumables to prevail in a DM session sure isn't a good idea.

At the end of the day, the solution to me seems to be to not pick hard and high-stakes fights without a DM. Which makes sense if we still do want DMage to be our primary goal, not something that is entirely optional. If you fight statics a lot without a DM, use permanent items. If you fight mostly within a DM session, consumables are likely a very efficient approach.

[puny]

most consumables are far cheaper than a ress

[Keryn]

They are T_ice when they are provided. Some DMs do, some don't.
The fact is, in comparison with Dnd we keep the same prices, though toons fight much much more, and for a longer time. From the sessions with DMs I had some went up to 4 hours, some to more then that. The spells memorized can't last that long unless you are epic, and they are often consumed right away due to the amount of combat, the resting is scripted, which means either the DM allows players to a force rest or they are screwed, and thats when consumables suddenly seem, not only a nice thing to have, but a necessity.

I still play quite regularly so I'm not just talking about what I see happening but of what happens with me as well. When several sessions end up with a negative result in the wealth of the toons participating this also generates a bad thing.

If a toon goes into a DM session and ends up spending more gold then what he is able to get, and to deplete his consumables stock. Where do you think he will turn to, to try and recover a bit to be able to face the next session?
To statics.... and thus we sort of force some folks to do this in order to keep up. Something to keep in mind most likely. When a DM doesn't reward he forces players to walk a path maybe they were not so inclined to...

This is easier to see with higher lvls. When a party of lvl 10 toons, get a session of 4 /5 hours, with lots of combat. A few critical cure wounds are used, maybe some moderate, some scrolls, maybe one restoration. If the reward comes down to around 500gp per toon, it will not even make up to what was used, let alone let the toon save some for something needed. To note... that healers in ALFA are not many...

[kid]

its really simple really.

If the option is between a chance to die or using a potion... use a potion.

If the option is not fight or fight something you most likely need to spend monies to win or survive...
Don't fight.

(Unless you have a god damn good reason to fight and in such a case who cares about wealth?! enjoy! your toon has a god reason to try and do something huzzah!)