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Chatty’s Random Thoughts: Potions

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Chatty steps on the stage and walks up to the mike, looking nervous. He clears his throat, takes a deep breath and starts.

How ya doin? Nice to see y’all here. All right, what’s the deal with potions? I mean it’s a spell that you drink. You chug that little bottle of power and it does things to you. That just freaks me out!

Here’s what I don’t get. How does that work in your digestive track? How the hell does the magic know that it’s supposed to do its stuff and not just make your crotch glow or your hair catch fire?

Does anyone know what happens with the juice once the magic’s gone? I can’t find any reference in the SRD that says how you eliminate potions from your body? I mean, is the magic transfer complete? Does the local latrines have a slight transmutation magic aura once you’re done? Y’a know what I mean?

Seriously though, what about empty potion bottles? I mean don’t they have a deposit on them? You have to pay for it when you create a potion, so how come you can’t reuse them?

If ya ask me, I think all dungeons have a bunch of low level wizards hobos raiding it for empties and selling them once the PCs are done killing stuff and taking the loot.

All right, you’ve been great, I’m here all week!

Chatty leaves the stage in a hurry, dodging Handaxes and Tanglefoot bags.

Comments

  5. Roll 1d20:

    1:you got gastrointestinal problem.
    2:you got blue dot that appear all over your body
    3:you cannot help yourself and keep screaming with a banshee’s wail
    4:you are transformed into an arses (if you already are one nothing happens)
    5:your nose start growing at a rate of one inch per day
    6:your body change into the appearance of someone you meet that made a lasting impression
    7:you grow wings that become fully functional in one month until then your in constant pain.
    8:reroll twice more on this table
    9-11:nothing happen
    12:one of your ability score is increase by 1 determine randomly
    13:one of your ability score is decrease by 1 determine randomly
    14:the lower part of your body is transform into the part of another animal determine randomly between (fish, horses or snakes)
    15:Your metabolism accelerate you gain fast healing 3 but age three time as fast
    16:the effect of the potion are double
    17:horn sprout from your forehead determine randomly (Devil, ram, deer or bull like)
    18:take 3d6 point of damage
    19:Gain a single physical feature chosen by the DM
    20:Gain a single physical feature of your choice

    Here is one table for mixing potion created on the spot 😉

  6. Long term exposure to positive energy causes cancer. Long term exposure to negative energy causes death.

  9. The idea behind healing spells is that it encourages cellular regeneration. What is cancer, but cellular regeneration gone amok? Also, I use the critical hit deck of cards for my game. If my PCs get a crit against them, I pull from the deck. Sometimes they can get broken bones. They have to roll a heal check to reset the bone and THEN they can heal it. However the bone will still grow funny without a lesser restoration to remove the ability damage.

  11. I like the idea of potions doing strange things, I’d need a more of a school Dependant, and other combo’s.

    Though I can see the above suggested wing bit, end up instead with bat wings… there goes the normal armor too! D:

  12. Last time I drank a potion my psionic tattoo started weaving around my arm and looking drunk.

    I was disturbed.

  14. I once drank a potion that was over three thousand years old, and it still worked, NOW THAT my friends, IS CRAFTSMANSHIP!! No sir, they just don’t make potions like that these days.

    I have had lots of bad experiences with potions, namely because I’m too cheap to pay somebody to tell me what it is, and too much of a looter to show anybody that I actually found something, because . . . you know, they might take it away then.

    I don’t recommend drinking lamp fuel, the only thing that hurts worse then when it goes down is when it finally leaves.

    You’d think that I’d learn my lesson, especially about drinking oils, but it’s just so exciting! Makes me feel like I’m on the Price is Right and get to spin the great big wheel. WEEEEEEE!!!! That and you can make a killing by betting with your party on if you’ll do it or not, give me 100 gold and the Price is Definitely Right THEN, if you know what I mean!

    RIP

    Ripper X’s last blog post..Making the most of Modules

  15. What I found interesting is if you look at the weight of Alchemist’s Fire (flask) and Acid (flask), and compare it the weight of an empty flask…

    Those alchemists, huh? Anti gravity was such a trivial thing to them that they included it in their products without even explicitly mentioning it. 🙂

    This did actually come up. In one of my buddy’s current games, I’m playing a Psion Shaper, and I was intending to use Minor Creation on occasion to create this sort of thing. Since Acid, at least, can be plant based and therefore last hours, I figured I’d grab myself some empty flasks to store it in. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that filling them lowered my encumbrance…

    EDIT: I suppose it’s possible that they intend to imply you don’t get the flask along with the Acid – that it’s like a service station, where you bring your flask, and they fill it for you – but I can’t remember ever playing with that assumption. I mean, if you say “The price of a flask of Acid is 10gp” I would NOT assume an implicit “… (but you must provide the flask)” went along with that.

  16. As much as I’m a crunch guy, I love this Rules contradiction $#17!

    So basically, a Fly potion sould be a lot cheaper eh?

    Edit: I can see it Gazza…

    Ye old Alchemist’s Bulk shop… bring your containers!

  17. So, if it burns when you pee, is that the potion working itself out, or something that you’ve gotta see a cleric about?

  18. Depends on who you’ve been with, and what potions you’ve been drinking. I’m sure a potion of firebreathing kinda…ends like eating a jalapeno.

  19. @ Hal: LOL! Welcome to the blog… So you’re also living through a Shamus flood huh? Wee!

    @Jason: 😀 Heaven forbid someone creates a potion of Stinking Cloud!

  20. But Chatty, they already have that potion. It’s a wonderful little elixir called…beer!

  21. The thing that immediately comes to mind with regard to “magic residue” from the elimination of potions from the body are the current issues that some claim we’ll have if we don’t come up with a better way of disposing of medicines that have expired/or are no longer in use.
    .-= Sam Erwin´s last blog ..The People of Cwena Scire =-.

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