I have placed this item in treasure hoards or offered for sale from an alchemist once in a blue moon, but I don't think I've ever seen it used in a game. That's a shame, because it's a fun potion.
Potions of Heroism temporarily give the imbiber extra levels in their class, but it only affect fighters, dwarfs, and halflings. This is a strange quirk for a potion. Sure, there are wands or other items that have class restrictions. But that can be rationalized by the idea that your PC doesn't know how to use them. Potions you just gulp down. Still, it's nice to give the meatshields something for themselves.
Another interesting tidbit IMO is how the potion's boost diminishes for higher level characters. Regular 0-level shmoes get 4 levels of fighter (quite a bump!), whereas an 11th level fighter gets nothing.
Like most potions, this one lasts at best a couple of hours. More than enough time to get through a combat, or even (maybe) a level of a dungeon (if the crawl don't sprawl too badly). I can imagine a some village keeping a vial of this somewhere safe, along with a coat of mail, a sword, and a shield. If there is an attack, some "designated defender" (or whomever has that shift) suits up, swigs it down, and charges out to fight off the baddie(s). One 4th level Hero* can probably do more against the foes than a handful of peasants.
*Is that where the potion gets its name I wonder?
Ideally it would turn anyone into a 4th level fighter for some period of time. Maybe it doesn’t work on the other types because they have magic and something doesn’t mix right?
ReplyDeleteOne of the things that prevents people from using this is it seems to have a lot of paperwork involved.
Maybe you could shorthand it somehow. Like, +3 to hit and damage and to saves, use any weapon or armor, and 3d10 temporary hits?
Perhaps, but I kind of like the idiosyncrasy of it only working on the fight-y types.
DeleteYou're not wrong with the name's origin. Here's the original text from OD&D, which is a bit different (and overall weaker):
ReplyDelete> A dual action potion which makes a normal man act like a hero in all respects, including morale and combat.
This is presumably also why it only works for Fighters, Dwarves and Halflings, all of which are just OD&D's various Fighting-Men.
If it worked for magic-users and clerics, I suspect that you'd see a lot of degenerate play where the potion intended for Fighters is instead always saved for increasing magical power!
Something that's interesting, though, is how the original potion pretty much just worked for NPC hirelings. It's interesting to see how it was changed to be more appealing for PCs and hireling-less play.
Certainly the M@A's get the biggest bump.
DeleteI think they added the potion of Super-heroism for that reason.
ReplyDelete