Observation on potions

[jmecha]

Potions are a huge coin sink for me, because everytime I try to use them to save my frail PC I am actually spilling them all over the place because I have tapped the potion quick slot key while targeting something other then my character. I spill 3 out of every 4 potions on the ground because of this, and worst of all there is no one to blame but me.

[Mayhem]

Heh - I always got used to having no clerics about, and also to DMs that liked to put you through the wringer at teh weekend - I'd go on a big adventure with at least 20 healing scrolls and expect to use them, and not get the coin back.

The un-dm'd week was then spent hunting spawns for gold (though not the same ones - I'd range up and down the server) seeking enough gold to re-equip so that I might have enough healing to survive the next adventure...

[Mulu]

PG'er!

Yeah, the targeting system in NWN2 takes a long time to get used to. Actually makes it worthwile to play the OC just for the interface training.

[Swift]

If in doubt, right click.

Itll solve pretty much everything.

[oldgrayrogue]

Having played on several NWN2 servers where heal potions were cheap and very available I'd say that high cost low availability of potions on TSM is a very useful way to promote partying and deter solo farming. When a clerics healing skills become superfluous they are transformed into super buffed warriors and are next to invincible.

[Twin Axes]

Hear hear! So far, TSM has been very good in this respect. My cleric uses almost all his spells for healing, as it should be. Only in extreme circumstances does he buff or bless a little. I like it a lot.

[MShady]

[quote="kmj2587"]If someone could please tell me about this easy availability of potions in ALFA1, I would much like to exploit this. I'm currently playing in a party with an average level of about 10, and I think we have about 4 Cure Moderate Wounds and 6 Cure Light Wounds potions between the five of us. None of us currently have any Cure Serious or Cure Critical potions. At this point, these potions are basically good for stabilizing people who have dropped into negative hit points. Cure Light Wounds is about 50 gp, Cure Moderate is about 300, and it gets more ridiculous from there.

Perhaps in the "old days" when uber gear and wealth were plentiful, this might have been the case. At the present time, when a character being at average wealth is relatively wealthy, potions are by no means easily available. The only real means of acquiring significant potions is by recovering them from encounters, and if your encounter is dropping a Cure Critical Wounds potion, there is a good chance you used 2 or 3 potions of varying strengths over the course of the fight. [quote]

A group of level 10s with 4 CMWs and 6 CLW? That doesn't sound like average wealth at all. Any campaign I've ever DMed or been in and tried to keep people strictly within the loot tables and reward, potions were an awful lot more available than that to such a high level party. In all honestly, I really prefer that kind of reward and sinking wealth into that than equipment really.

Due to the online format and far more combat per level, ALFA officially has a percentage increase over DMG wealth. A 10th level encounter multiple times per level should be producing about 5800 divided among the group per the DMG. Of course, that's officially, not in practice. If those are all the potions there, the group sounds to be rather underwealth. I'd expect each 10th level PC to be carrying that in just healing potions. That's the DMG, basically. Not old ALFA and not fat lewt pleas. We've spent so much time worrying about if people have too much, just properly rewarding overall doesn't happen a whole lot. Too little is every bit a play balance issue as too much.

[Zelknolf]

A group of level 10s with 4 CMWs and 6 CLW? That doesn't sound like average wealth at all. Any campaign I've ever DMed or been in and tried to keep people strictly within the loot tables and reward, potions were an awful lot more available than that to such a high level party. In all honestly, I really prefer that kind of reward and sinking wealth into that than equipment really.

Well, a 13, a 12, two 9s and a 6. We're almost a party that averages level 10. Once one of us levels!

And it's not even so much that we don't want potions or don't get potions. It's more that Lego makes us suffer for our XP, so we just drink our potions, and tend to end up about where we started on (consumable) supplies over the course of a few sessions. That and for all but two in that party, all but CCW potions are more or less a waste of time (in the context that a CCW potion is very difficult to get a hold of - and rightfully so; there're really only a few faiths out there that would produce a mystic theurge hopeful who'd shrug and go master alchemist at level 8 )

That said, yeah, consumable wealth rocks. Various wands of lightning bolt, fireball, and healing have been sources of much giddiness and utility, (huzzah for them!) as have various potions (especially the more exotic ones... but those are mostly fun because they do odd things.)

//edited for overzealous smiley interpretation by phpBB. *shakes a fist at it*

[wvincenti]

Beleg's wealth in the party above is pretty good if you look at the value of it overall. His wealth as measured in things that will actually keep him from getting eaten by a Vrock or something bigger is dramatically lower.

*chuckles*

For survival it's all about his wits and skills, not his gear.
(Yes, that means he's in trouble regularly.)

Most of his nearly 3 years he's had next to no healing potions. He had a nice collection late last year but they vanished in a rather messy battle when they either got broken or ended up in someone else's bag. (He just hopes not healing the bad guys!)

After starting yesterday with one CMW, B is back up to a whopping two CCW potions.
*swoons, back of his hand pressed to his forehead*

Legio spoils us with the attention of evil and cool, but not gamebreaking loot. Tis all good.



-Bill