Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Potion throwing

What's everyone's thoughts on throwing potions?

For those who haven't used the feature, you can throw a healing potion at someone to heal them. So everyone can revive a downed companion from a distance.

Personally, I think the concept of smashing a potion into someone's armor is really dumb. It also steals Healing Word's niche of healing from a distance and turns it into a gimmick anyone can do. I think you should be able to administer a potion to revive a downed companion, but by pouring it down their throat rather than throwing it on their back. Characters with better mobility (Rogues, Monks) and teleport or jump skills (spellcasters, Amulet of Misty Step) would make for great combat medics. Letting everyone be a heal bomber just makes tactics like this obsolete. When Larian are letting everyone do everything, they are actually reducing tactical depth rather than increasing it.

Technically, the thrown potion leaves behind a permanent cloud that disappears after someone "uses" it. Same with all other potions like Fire Resistance, Haste etc. With Throw you can buff others with anything. And it never misses even if it misses. The whole thing just seems like it belongs in an action RPG like Diablo and not in a D&D game.

I'd like it more if you could use Throw to transfer potions to a team mate's inventory and they would still have to drink it. Downed companions should be much harder to get back up.

Eh, can't say I particularly mind it.
If they remove it because they decide "it's not canonical" I wouldn't complain, but its existence doesn't really bother me.

I am mixed on it. On one hand its useful and is an interesting way to "heal" or apply buffs to party members. On the other hand it isn't RAW and it does break immersion a little.
Ultimately, I am fine with it either being there or gone. If it is there I might use it, if its not I won't really miss it. Guess thats closer to neutral than mixed but eh.

Overall, not too concerned as you are able to give others potions RAW, but I don't think it's the most intuitive way of providing someone else a potion. Hopefully they implement this as a menu option in the inventory screen or a pop-up menu on the hotbar. I feel Solasta does this pretty well.

Thoughts : ridiculous.

In my patch 5 playthrough a lot of ennemies use it to cure their ally. The result was that the healing surface often healed more than one ennemy.

This whole mechanic is a shame and it looks completely silly. Once again, the game wants to be serious and mature but it has ridiculous gameplay element because "it's fun".

But it's not fun at all... It's just another thing that break the immersion for the sake of it and that does not add anything interresting in the gameplay.

Being able to give a potion to someone would be cool. Throw it in someone's head or walking on a surface to heal is stupid.

Oh yeah, while I'm not so adamant against the throwing thing, I DO think at very least the surface stuff should go.

And could thrown items and ranged weapons sometimes actually miss when they miss?

Everything always hits the target even if they miss. Which means bombs, AoE arrows and these "healing clouds" or "haste clouds" can be used with surgical precision even if you have 3 Dexterity and Disadvantage on the roll.

Larian's homebrew never plays by D&D rules at all, that's why it's always OP. Don't they understand how attacks and saving throws work? EA has been out for a year and still we have all this silly OP nonsense on top of actual D&D.

I generally speaking a fan of systemic stuff like that, but didn't find it terribly exciting in BG3 - mostly because unlike in "Immersive Sim" genre those don't make much sense as of now. I am not offended by it's existence and generally I am not using this, but I was midly amuse when I was able to heal wounded druid by throwing a potion at him (also got minus reputation with him for throwing something at him?).

CRPG games have done a lot to make healing a bit easier. Reference the healing kits in NWN. So I don't mind this at all, either.

Throwing healing potions + being able to give anyone a potion anytime on the battlefield via magical inventory = a little cheesy imho.

Still feel like healing classes are pretty useless, even with food no longer healing.

I will have to try throwing haste potions next time!!!

I also like using healing spells but would like more companions who can heal.

not a fan for reasons that op states - mainly throwing potions to heal companions infringes on other class roles/abilities, not to mention it also doesnt reflect RAW which indicates using a potion is an action where you actually drink the potion.

i know bonus action for using a healing potion is a common homebrew which i could get behind, but chucking a potion to heal an ally is just foolish. so much so that ppl in these very forums were posting gifs of ppl getting smashed in the head with glass bottles which doesnt sound very restorative to me lol.

also i would be worried as to how larian implements/balances it in game - not a fan of enemies using this functionality or the continued use of surface effects with potions/consumables. and will larian implement any rolls associated with throwing potions/consumables in general or just auto-success - seems a little too powerful.

I'm personally not a fan of "Everyone has unlimited ranged healing".

We have 2x Short Rests that heal a ton of HP for the entire party now. Fighters get 3x Second Wind between long rests. Other classes have healing abilities too.

I don't think we need weird potion throwing healing cloud gimmicks on top of that.

From a tactical combat point of view, downing a character should have much more weight so it's something you avoid at all costs. Now it's next to meaningless and can actually be exploited since PC's who go gown can be massive damage sponges with little or no risk of dying. Just use "Help" or throw a potion at them and they're back in the fight at full capacity, over and over again. It's too easy and cheesy.

I kinda liked throwing potions ...
And no, its not just about healing ... sleep potion, poison, resistance potions ... it all have its perks, when thrown.

Sadly after last patch 95% of my potions breaks in middle of the flight for some object that shown trajectory was clearly missing. -_-
So, i presume there is some problem with textures. :-/

I like bombs too. But I think there should be a distinction between bombs and potions that you drink. And I still think the game would be more tactical without cheap healing bombs.

I cant help the feeling that i was there before ...
But il ask again ... how exactly does existence of possibility to throw a potion eliminate posibility to make any tactic choice you would make if possibility to throw a potion was not there?

If enemies use that tactic. Without it you focus on their healer first and make sure he cannot heal his companions. Then you target the rest. If anyone with a Healing Potion can heal their allies, battles become much less predictable or in other words an RNG feast where you hope to land more hits in a row than the enemiy to kill them before they heal again...

Yes but I also like the idea of getting away from set roles for players and tired worn out tactical patterns that must be adhered to. Not only do players no longer need a dedicated healer but any player or enemy can provide a limited amount of much needed healing should someone be unceremoniously downed.

It shakes things up nicely and allows battles to become MUCH more chaotic and surprising. Chaos is a good thing, predictable is a bad thing when it comes to making a fight interesting.

That and the fact that D&D is a party and CLASS based tactical combat system.

It's a choice to include a Cleric or Druid in the party for the abilities they have i.e. healing spells. But that choice is no longer relevant when everyone can be a ranged heal bot by chucking healing cloud bombs that used to be potions.

I agree with the original poster. I'm not really a big fan of throwing potions to heal party members. It seems silly, AND it certainly makes healing spells seem kinda gimpy in comparison. It absolutely makes the Healing Word spell complete garbage, since even the smallest healing potion will often heal for more damage at equal range without requiring the use of a spell slot.

Divinity 2 was a fun game that was different than most of your standard RPGs, where basically any character could do anything. However, I want this game to be DnD 5E. I don't want this game to be something where every character is a damn good combat medic (at range even). I want every character to bring their own valuable skillset to the group.

I really hope Larian gets rid of this "feature".

Have a great day !

You are conflating CLASS with ROLE - a Cleric or Druid is not your personal healbot anymore. 5E has is designed around getting away from stuff like that and I fully support it, especially from the multiplayer perspective.

Clerics and Druids are formidable on their own on the battlefield and not there to make up for other people's incompetence anymore. I am happy to tell people to not worry about taking a specific healing role unless they want to and just play what they want.

But you already don't need a dedicated healer in 5e. Walk up to an ally and feed them a potion (or use the Help action in BG3).

Which makes perfect sense with the lore of the world/mechanics of magic, and also adds more cost-benefit to combat/party choices. Do you take a cleric/bard who can heal from range, or do you go without them for more dps but have to move adjacent to allies (possibly provoking AoO or sacrificing good positioning) to feed them potions?

But with throwing potions like grenades you really don't even need to be that close. Its great.

True story, I threw a potion off the very top of the Arcane Tower in the UD to one of my teammates who had been pushed off the tower by Bernard and landed all the way at the bottom. It landed on him and brought him back. He was outside of combat down there and he went up the elevator and rejoined the battle.

Although to be fair, given how far he fell it should have been insta death.

We aren't talking about roles though.

5e doesn't require the party to have a dedicated heal bot but that's because of Short Rests and many abilities that heal.

We are talking about a very specific perk here - ranged healing. That if anything should be a perk saved for Clerics and Druids who are not required for the healing anymore, to give them something extra because they do have healing magic.

Larian keeps making this mistake again and again. They gave Rogue's Bonus Action Hide and Disengage to everyone without blinking. They gave Wizards access to Cleric spells. They gave everyone Dip for flaming magic weapons and they gave everyone ranged healing bombs. Off the top of my head. Divinity is classless system even though it pretends otherwise in the beginning and some players like that better. But since this IS a D&D game, classes should remain distinctive and have their own unique perks. That's the whole point of a class based system. They have to stop dealing out unique class perks to everyone for whatever misguided "fun" reason. Fun is the fact that you can do something others can't. That's what makes a PC unique and special.

And the heal bombs make the combat stupidly easy when getting a maimed unconscious team mate back up at full capacity is just one action from any PC.

In the end it is the same as surfaces. There were two things that Larian introduced with DOS1/2:

=> Surfaces

=> Ability to throw and use almost every object as some kind of consumable with a specific effect or to create/manipulate a surface

What we see here is Larian trying to introduce a mechanic that worked well in DOS1/2 and was fun there but completely breaks balance in DnD5e. After many complains they removed many surface effects.

The same will happen here with items. To not invalidate entire classes or skills Consumables must fulfill certain conditions:

=> Expensive
=> Hard to obtain
=> Reduced effects

That would mean in my opinion: it is possible to keep throwable healing potions in the game but they need to be nerfed:

Here some ideas:

=> If they heal 1d8 they heal only 1d4 when thrown for example (because applying on skin does not have same impact as drinking)
=> applying hit chance => use base armor class with armor (makes it harder to apply to skin) but without dodge (ally wants to receive potion)
=> no area effect => only single target
=> no effect on dead companions => HP needs to be > 0
=> add to healing the damage for being hit by an object
=> ally must have free reaction with which he can catch the potion and drink it

Personally I am a fan of that idea:


combined with a dexterity check of the catching ally. If the ally is prone or dead only a natural 20 will work. As a DM I would explain a natural 20 like: "And the potion opens itself while flying and the fluid drops exactly in the opened mouth of the incapacitated ally."

It definetely makes more sense than throwing a potion against the head of my dead companion to revive him.

Ya exactly, +1 to all of that. Divinity 2 was a great and fun game, using it's own system. I'm here for DnD 5E, I want the DnD class system. I want every class to bring it's own advantages and to have it's disadvantages. That is the fun I am looking for here, building a group where every character matters for different skillsets brought. I don't want the Divinity 2 everybody can do everything system. If I wanted this game to be Divinity 3, I would wait for Divinity 3.

If the ally is dead you would need a revivify scroll. I don't think we should imbue healing potions with the ability to raise the dead even on a natural 20.

Honestly a dead ally is easier to deal with than a downed one since you can revive them somewhere safe. Which technically isn't a 5e thing either. They should revive in place and it should only be usable in that combat they died in and not later.

I mean its so odd that people are up in arms about potion tossing but Revivify = True Resurrection - "Oh yeah, that's fine"

Sorry my mistake, I meant dying so before the three failed death saving throws or someone speeded up the process by using a war hammer. Of course dead people can only be revived using the appropriate high level cleric spells or the scrolls containing them.

I am also not quite sure whether a prone character still gets a reaction...

lol, i mean the thread's title is 'Potion throwing' and idk, have there really been any recent comments about revivify in general? not in this thread...

for what its worth, i agree with your thoughts on revivify scrolls tho - but id also say thats a symptom of the larger issue of how class spell lists and scroll/spell scroll use currently functions in EA. hopefully larian has more designs here...

In 5e rules, yes, in BG3 no.

5e rules, Prone is literally just lying on the ground - you have to spend movement to stand, or move at a crawl, you attack with disadvantage, melee attacks against you have advantage and ranged attacks against you have disadvantage.

In bg3, Prone is paired with literal unconsciousness - slipping on a grease patch renders you completely unconscious and unable to act, react, respond or do anything at all. It skips the remainder of your turn and auto-breaks your concentration.


In terms of revivify - For the sake of a video game translation, I'm okay with these but I'd strongly prefer them being magic scrolls, and not spell scrolls - thus usable by anyone with an action legitimately. If our scrolls were "scrolls of breath returned" or some such, that defined themselves clearly, that would be much better.

Clarification for those confused: A spell scroll is a scroll with a specific spell on it, and can only be cast by a character who has that spell on their class spell list, and using the casting time and other conditions of the spell; a bard can cast a scroll of featherfall with their reaction. A barbarian cannot use the scroll at all. Conversely, magic scrolls contain special, usually unique, magical effects that can resemble spells, or can contain other varied effects too. These aren't specific spells off specific spell lists, and the scrolls are designed to be usable by anyone at all. A "scroll of protection" for example, gives a selection of buffs against certain creatures for a fixed duration - it isn't a particular spell, just a set of effects, and anyone can spend an action to use it.

The scrolls should only be available from our skeletal friend, and they should cost the equivalent price of a third level spell scroll, plus the 300gp material cost that would go into making it.

I'm not a fan of being able to heal your party members by throwing a potion.

However, in favour of challenge (and my personal opinion of balance) it think it would be fine for enemies to throw potions at their allies to heal each other.

So, I am aware that the spell revivify allowing you to move the ally is not raw, but I am fine with this change because its a videogame and because of potential issues. Say one of our characters gets pushed off and dies on a ravine, if they get revived down there they are stuck. In TT you could climb down there, revive them, and then climb up. But in this game, that can be an issue with some of the set up areas. Letting us choose where are character is revived fixes that issue, ensuring we don't have a situation where a character is genuinely stuck nor have a situation where a character is stuck in a death loop because of some weird glitch or situation that normally would be RPed in TT but can't be handled in a videogame easily.

That said, I feel like the use of that scroll should be limited to characters who would have the spell on their class list, so clerics and paladins I think, if it is meant to be revivify. Otherwise, make it into a scroll you get from the skeleton instead of anywhere else and rename it to something completely different so Revivify can work as RAW and so the scroll can do its own homebrew thing (ideally with its supply being lower cause in my playthroughs I end up with like 20).

And yeah, unless the potion is explicitly about reviving the dead, no potion should do that, regardless of roll.

Sounds like quite huge "if" to me ...
Also, even "if" they would use this, they would waste their Action for heal their comrade for ... what? 1d8(?) for potion minus something (really dont remember) for throwing damage (wich i get last time i tryed to throw a potion)?
Seem to me like quite uneffective way to heal. O_o

I dunno, it seems to me like you presenting it a little as if our enemies had unlimited range full hp heal every round ...

But you are right, it makes combat A LITTLE less predicable ... personaly i see that as positive.

There’s no really much room for “IFs”.

The AI is *already* using potion throwing to make enemies heal each other any time they are seeing it fit.

At the end is comes to this problem:

=> DOS2 had safe attacks, no RNG determining whether it hits for BOTH skills and consumables
=> DOS2 had no resource pool other than actions per turn, no rests and you could basically use BOTH skills and consumables for an (almost thanks to cheap crafting) infinite ammount

=> BG3 has RNG for normal skills and attacks but almost safe damage for consumables
=> BG3 has resource pool for spells/skills (short/long rest) but also the possiblility of infinite usable consumables

What worked in DOS2 does not work in DnD5e unless consumables are noticably rarer, more expensive, weaker or more situational than normal skills.

If you use an action that is not tied to the resource pool like basic attack or a consumable you are right it does not matter much if the enemy uses a potion in its action. But if you spend a skill (resource from your resource pool) for damage which is negated by a potentially infinitely available consumable of the enemy we get a balancing problem.

Is there really a debate about a feature that doesn't exist in any game but this one ?

If it does not exist anywhere else it's not because Larian is more creative than other devs... It's because the feature does not make any sense.

Throwing a potion is ok but
- it should make damages if thrown on someone
- it should cost an action to drink the surface on the ground to be healed !
But ofc you shouldn't be able to drink all the liquid so you should have half the HP recovery.
Or full recovery but you should become sick after drinking the whole liquid + licking a bit of the ground.

Or it could be a thing if throwing a potion at someone required a sucessfull check to grab it and cost the target's reaction to drink it.

I like this idea. O_o

I often run out of spell slots in a fight for heal, like im more or less midway through the fight and my cleric becomes completely useless. Its like the enemies also gets better rolls than me nearly every fight so I end up with a downed character very often. Throwing a potion to heal them up becomes my only option. Although I dont mind reloading if the fight is completely doomed, I prefer going as far as I can in the fight before doing so.

I enjoy being able to heal characters even if I am out of spell slots. Clerics dont have other options than a long rest to restore said spell slots and if you havent found much food yet it becomes very restrictive to rest. (I rarely lack food though unless I nothing)

I think you should be able to administer a potion i.e. make someone drink it as an action, but the throwing is just a silly nonsensical gimmick that steps on the toes of Healing Word hard.

Like I said earlier somewhere, it would be cool if mobile characters with Disengage skills like Rogues could have that extra perk of being good combat medics, running swiftly up to a downed PC to administer a potion. That's much more of a tactic than everyone including enemies just throwing potions left and right.

Downed PC's should also be more consequential than the next character just getting them right back up into the fight by quickly tossing a potion.

Healing word is a bonus action. Throw potion is an action.

If an enemy wants to refrain from having a critical hit against someone in my party and instead toss one of their few healing potions on a friend for 1d8 healing, that's really not bothering me a whole lot. But of course there's the potential for crazy things once we reach higher levels and enemies have of full healing and start action surging and whatnot. Still, with what we're seeing in EA, I really don't mind the potion tossing at all.

I will say, however, that surface effects can be a bit of a problem for all concentration spells. It seems to me that if an enemy tosses a potion of fire or acid at a concentrating character, that character has to first do a concentration check for the bottle impact, then a concentration check right away for the surface effect. That's a concentration check at disadvantage and, in my opinion, it is too strong.

But simply being able to toss potions at friends is just wacky fun and giggles that really doesn't bother me. Not like the inventory in BG1 and 2 was locked during combat, so some wacky things that aren't entirely according to rules is okay, even in a serious Baldur's Gate title. I do think there should be a penalty for just splashing the potion onto a character instead of properly consuming it, though. Reduce healing potions to always only doing quarter health recovery when throw, maybe.

+ 1 I completely agree. I can’t give someone medicine by smashing the bottle over their head. The entire concept is stupid. Not to mention you can use a greater healing potion to mass heal your entire party. It is game breaking and makes healing spells pointless. You can do an entire play through without a healer at all just by having a ranged character lob bottles everywhere.

I have to admit that the "throwing" potion is quite stupid, even the concept of it. That basically nullifies the need for healing from clerics on both, enemy and party sides, not to mention, the distance once can throw that thing, like. wow, it goes really far and ofc defies any logic when someone throws it in a distance that even arrows can't reach.

I personally think they are doing this because they are sticking to the four party only system. At this time you could play a party of all weak low level wizards. To get full content there will be play throughs that don’t have a true cleric or wizard or whatever. If you did a true play through Tav will end up being a replacement of either Gale, Shadowheart, Laezel, or Asterion. To get a none typical class (ie warlock)in they had to add game mechanics that any character can do to balance out. Replace a warlock with Shadowheart and boom you need a way to heal in battle. This will be more evident as damage and levels increase.

You just described a long ranged Healer. Class is not the issue. SOMEONE needs to heal that downed character... On that particular turn Character A acted like a Tank. The next turn Character A acted like a healer. And I'm left wondering how ONLY the Cleric can heal? Why not throw a potion? POTION THROWER build => => someone has to play HEALER even in a party full of Fighters. Why does it have to be a cleric?

Every classes can heal in 5e.
Most of them have features or spells to heal themselves or their allies and everyone can put a healing potion in someone else's mouth.

But healing liquid on the ground never heal the characters that walk on it. Because it would be ridiculous.

Every class can administer a healing potion to another character in D&D. But it requires them to be at touch range to pour the potion down someone's throat.

The throwing is what is too much and steps on the toes of classes who can magically heal from a distance. Unless the goal is to make classes bland and pointless. Which is obviously a mistake since that's the whole point of a class based system = having your own unique class abilities that bring something new to the party.

If class abilities can be duplicated easily by homebrew consumables like scrolls and potions it makes all the classes feel bland and boring.

I like this mechanic because it adds a lot of unpredictability to the fight, which is good.
Is that not raw? I don't really care.

What unpredictability ?

A goblin that heal another one (or two) rather than a goblin healing himself with a potion or another one using a ranged healing spell ?

At the moment combats are just longer because surfaces create healing AOE and less tactical because they even don't have to move / because they all have ranged healing AOE potions.

E.G a fighter engaged with a goblin won't prevent him to heal anyone arround them with a sucessfull AOO.
E.G focus the healers first is a common but close to useless strategy in BG3. Everyone is a better healer than healers themselves.

Administer a potion would still allow everyone carrying potions to heal but potions would remain potions rather than OP healing AOE and everyone would not be able to heal at range.

Maybe Larian could create healing arrows for archers rather than allowing everyone throw potions......?
(Please don't)

But think of all the new "took an arrow in the knee" meme possibilities!

I agree. Imagine, I was about to die, then I took an arrow in the knee.

Actually, Larian should make foods heal again. Just think about all the endless possibilities of tossing old eggs, too ripe tomatoes, and other such foodstuffs at downed party members.

"You sleeping on the job again, Astarion? Here, have a potato! And another one! And one more!"

Even better with the booze bottles, obviously.

I just played yesterday again ...
And i must admint i didnt notice how many (yup, many) potions was flying around in my previous gameplay.

I liked it more in previous patch tho ...
When someone throwed a potion, first he get some small dmg (1d4 i believe) bludgeoning damage ... bcs vial hit him in the face.
Then he get some small heal 1d8 if im not misstaken.

That potentialy reduced healing from potion throwing to the point i was concidering it bad deal. :-/
I mean ... i dont mind potion throwing, but it was better before, when there was some risk involved ...

I applaud Larian for thinking outside the box. But sometimes their ideas just... miss. The potion throwing just needs to go. It's too silly. And let Healing Word have It's niche.

I just experienced something and i feel the urge to say that i really dont like this!

Wyll was throwing potion to Aradin ...
But Wyll missed ...
Therefore aradin gets zero damage from throwed vial ...
Yet Aradin gets full healing from potion. -_-



I was presuming that we are working here with the fact that we allways get both damage and healing, so this method allways less efective than regular healing ... so i would expect that if we miss, we simply loose our potion and nothing will happen.
This way to get all the benefits, yet none harm seem really stupid. :-/

I have an idea that could theoretically please everyone.

Throw is used to transfer the potion. The recipient still has to drink it. That's how potions work.

It can't miss since it's not an attack. The recipient always catches the potion or it could be an easy DC 5 Dex check. Fail the check and the potion breaks and is wasted. Some risk should be involved in throwing glass bottles around in combat.

This doesn't step on the toes of Healing Word because it still needs to be consumed by the new owner and cost their Bonus Action, and things can happen before they get a turn. And it just makes sense, while Larian's multi-use drinkable gas cloud bomb fun potions do not.

Of course this assumes that Magic Pockets would be disabled in combat or it would be pointless to transfer potions in any other way. Which should be since sharing items without any kind of action cost is ridiculous to begin with.

That would make the most sense, however at the moment one can transfer items no matter the distance and for no action point. If Magic Pockets were disabled during combat, that sounds like a brilliant idea.

However, I am pretty sure healing by throwing isn't designed to be that way, per say, but is the result of how systems were designed. Making it so a thrown healing potion is transfered to the inventory would make sense (logic and gameplay wise) but would be an exception in how the item is supposed to work system wise.

The potion throwing is completely out of control in patch 6. The mercs in the fight against the goblins right outside the grove are throwing potions left and right at eachother. No one is drinking potions. It's just about throwing them at people now.

Seems like NPC are so exited by this option so they dont even realize how uneffective it is for them to spend two actions to heal each other, instead of attack and simply drink the same potion themselves. :-/

well they could always just make a catch animation so the other character can catchs the potion and drinks it.

People were saying that poison is stupid because it goes through the boots this is the same thing... just a matter of taste when it comes to realism i guess

Walking through healing liquid is the same thing at the end...

Using the fact that you can walk through a puddle to heal, even though it's dumb, is not a great argument for also being able to be healed/affected by thrown potions. While allowing both of ^ as opposed to one or the other is more consistent, removing both would be equally consistent and make more sense and have less of an effect on game balance.

Also, I'm already looking forward to the terrible hafling animations for catching XD.

Please Larian put in optioons to be able to tailor this to our iinidividual taste personally i would love to get rid of most of the stupid homebrewed rules.

Asking the deep questions: Can you throw a potion at your monk friend, and have them deflect missile catch it, and then ki point redirect the 'attack' to throw the potion further on around the corner to your actual downed ally?

Hey, Larian... this kind of tomfoolery sounds right up your ally for silliness and fun... but... you know... we'd need a proper reaction system to allow players to do it... Hint hint...

The Monk redirection could leave behind a fun healing cloud trail you could follow like Pacman and munch on those HP's.

NIARA! Stop giving them ideas! Out of all the people...:P

Thoroughly dislike it. Just like making Hide a bonus action makes Rogues less impactful, this makes healers less impactful cuz now everyone's a healer. Not only that, an AOE healer. Not to mention it's incredibly stupid from the immersion standpoint. It's a potion, not a fabric softener. You have to drink it, not have it splashed over your robes.

Generally, I really dislike this Larian's tendency to give everyone everything. Picking a class should matter.

I also think this steal healing role, and as far as early access i think cleric is pretty much replaceable and i realy want to keep Shadowheart in my party on full release.

What's most hilarious is that potions have a splash effect when thrown. If you target just right, one can hit four units with a single potion. Of course, the units will need grouped into roughly a ten foot square, but it's doable.

I think that would be too complex interaction, requiring too much thinking and creativity from the player. Larian would just extend the throw distance, and make the potion teleport.

So I find it most hilarious to kill 1HP Findal in the Underground Passage with a thrown Healing Potion. I'm sure the Oathbreakers will be the happiest of all???

I'm starting to think the healing potion is actually a magical gas at least sometimes.

There is no problem with this scenario as long as the poison emits toxic fumes. Similarly, if the potion goes through the boots in record time, it's probably not just the liquid doing the work. I have no idea if any of this is consistent with D&D lore.

However, I think thrown healing potions should be less effective. It's one thing to partly cover your party member in liquid. Topical application. Okay. It's another to miss and for them to recover through, what, inhaling the potion?

In either scenario, they're not getting the full dose. Not that it should even really be able to go through anything but cloth. Though, it's not like it makes sense that they work instantly despite not being magic. "Making sense" is a lost cause.

Technically healing potions ARE magic. In the books they're listed as magic items. They're potions after all. They're meant to be fairly hard to come by, but are as common as they are in the game because it's a video game, healing potions are gonna be more abundant. So I guess given they're magic, saying that they work if you throw them at someone isn't entirely impossible. The problem is that it really FEELS dumb and silly, and it's not like it's a thing meant to enhane the feeling of the world having a unique vibe. It's just there because... well, because Larian devs think it's funny probably.

Interesting, I've never damaged anyone with a healing potion. Well, I haven't as far as I could tell. I know the potion itself takes damage, as a number pops up. But, I've never been able to rectify this with damage done to potion, healing provided, and the current hit points of the target.

Successfuly throwing an item at someone will do damage to that person. As potion weights little, the damage is minimal, however the sequence of events is: 1) you roll if you succeeded in the throw - if yes damage is rolled for the target 2) potion spill and characters who stand on the puddle get healed. Of course, the simplest way is to aim at the ground, rather than the target, for guaranteed heal and no damage. However, if you succesfully throw a potion at Findal it will kill him, before he can be healed with the spill.

This along with sooo many other “Larianisms” need to be fixed. If not I just hope modders can turn this ambitious and at times surprisingly good dream of a bg2 sequel into an actual reality

What is this based on? I tried hard to find background on healing potions, but couldn't find anything consistent. Just that anyone can make them and no magic is required. That might be once again inconsistent, though...

If they're magic items, anyway, that is doubly weird. Godly interference?? How did it get in there

Well in the Dungeon Master's Guide, they're listed as magic items. I don't know where you're looking for your information. It also doesn't say anything about who can and can't make them either.

I used a healing potion for throwing once and never again. To me it seems silly and cheap, and not very immersive. Even if a potion is magic in DnD, it seemingly is magic mainly to be drunk and working from inside the body. For me the throwing is like taking the needle from a syringe filled with antibiotics to battle an bacterial inflammation and squirt the fluid into the face of the patient. Not very effective, to put it mildly.

At least they should add some random side effects to the thrown potion, like bleeding from splinters, or temporary or permanent blinding from an eye hit.

Potion throwing encompasses everything that is wrong ( or great if yo love the following) with the Larian way of doing RPG things.

Non immersive.
Completely unbalanced cheese.
Silly visuals.
"If you don't like it, don't use it" designed mechanics.

So 100% stays for final release.

I’ve learned to stop worrying and love the potion bombs. I did think it was a bit weird to begin with, but on reflection I don’t think it does much harm, given throwing a potion takes an action and therefore has a significant opportunity cost, plus the HP recovered is low for common potions, so don’t see it as particularly unbalancing. I very rarely find throwing a potion is the best choice for my party, or the enemy.

But it does give a bit more party composition flexibility, by giving an option for healing other party members for classes that don’t have healing spells. I was able to use them a couple of times to avoid TPKs when I was running without healers, when otherwise I’d have ended up reloading, which would have been a pain, and actually I kind of liked the option of throwing a potion as a last ditch, desperate attempt to stay alive.

The only gripe I have with this is how potion throwing make the help action and some spells obsolete. Considering how plentiful health potions are, a ranged AoE heal that doubles as a help action is a bit much for an action that absolutely anyone in your party has access to (much like shove was also a disengage in disguise).

The ennemy only has healing potion so yes, it may not often be the best choice. In fact in my playthrough it is often a bad choice for them as they are usually healing both his ally and my character(s).

But you, as the player can use it with all kind of potions so it definitely is a very powerfull choice.
Full party invisible, full party giant hill strength, full party resistance, full party haste. Cheaper than 4 level 3 spellslots!

Not using it myself as I find the mechanic both ridiculous and overpowered... but that's definitely another cheesy/overpowered/optimized option that allow players to bypass the challenge and some of the core mechanics set up by the devs. Which looks very wierd to me in a turn-based combat system.

Yes, agreed. I find it’s extremely rare that either I or the enemy can get AoE benefit from healing potion throwing because of this.


Fair point. I forgot you could do this. Like you, I think it’s cheesy so don’t do it. As long as enemies don’t either, I can live with it, but ideally it would be fixed. Personally, I’d be fine if potion throwing only worked if the bottle were thrown directly at a creature and only affected that one individual (plus gave them some minor damage from the broken glass which I think it does already).

Tbh, I’d not weep if potion throwing were removed entirely, though as mentioned above I do like having it as an option for some situations.

Truthfully, a lot of these things I don't have all that much issue with individually. I even agree with Sven's stance that leaving in a few cheesy tactics here and there for players is a fun thing that's fine to do. My pro lem is that there's so MUCH of it. So many different weird breaks in how things work, it all adds up into feeling like they don't really care about what they're doing. It makes it all feel sloppy and frustrating, less like they're leaving it all in on purpose and more like they just can't be bothered to take it out. Like there's no quality control.

That would be better to me too... but it would still be wierd.
What I'd like the most would be something like that :
- being able to administer a potion in melee (action)
- being able to throw a potion towards someone (action) that has to grab it (saving throw or something) and drink it (reaction).

Currently no damages are done when you throw a potion. The damages you see are done to the potion bottle, not to the characters


Totally agree.
They made it with core mechanics of such games like potions and common actions (to name shove), which may make them occur a lot too often to my taste.

I like your ideas of administering a potion and catching potions. A combination of the help function + administer healing potion I find even better. If I'm not mistaken this was once suggested in other threads with a succesful Medicine check by using a healers kit or something like that.



Can you also confirm this for NPCs and what if you throw the potion next to NPCs does the impact cause dmg followed by a loss of sympathy or not? It is conceivable that the impact damage of Healing Potions will be evaluated in the same way as a Smoke Powder Bomb or Alchemist's Fire, especially if e.g. crates are damaged, then NPCs will also become hostile or lose sympathy. Something like this should also be taken into account.

This sums it up perfectly.

Larian's got the clown-world market covered. Modders will have to cater to the spoilsports who are into immersion, game balance and other such malarkey.

...still hoping against hope for a vanilla "D&D rules" difficulty option though.

They just don't get immersion or "how to craft a credible and consistent game world" over at Larian. It's the cartoony shoves, gamey teleportation networks that don't make sense, fast traveling out of inescapable locations, whack-a-mole combat with Help action, and the senseless potion throwing. To name a few.

If someone thinks it's "fun" for whatever reason, it's in. Consideration ends there unfortunately.

The game is presented as mature and realistic, yet the gameplay is goofy and cartoony with absurd actions that defy both physics and common sense. Like a platformer game. This juxtaposition, or lack of clear game direction what style of game BG3 should be, is what stops BG3 from being a masterpiece for me. Consistency. Dark Souls is consistent. Super Mario is consistent. BG3 is all over the place.

You can't tell me to not use potion throwing if I don't like it. The damage is already done. I think the game is stupid for such things that are entirely unnecessary to begin with.

My exact gripe. If it was just a less powerful potion heal, it's whatever. I can just not use it. Enemies can't exploit it and it'd allow greater party flexibility. As is, it feels like a full blown exploit

The melee option of administrating a potion to an ally sounds good.
Summons drinking potions can stay.

I don't really care...but they could turn off moving items between character if outside of melee range when in combat. Out of combat- magic pockets etc can stay.

Some summons administrating potions- sounds good.

Actually if a class has a ranged help action, then maybe ranged administer potions is ok.

If larian removes healing cloud from potion, then have a check, if has potion in inventory= unlocks melee range spell to use potion on an ally. Or code a melee range healing spell...even easier to code.

Do you know if and how it would be possible to mod that ?
That's definitely something I'd like to try, but really out the range of my modding skills



Do you think it would it be possible to add a spell container "administrate" in which all potions are available IF you have some in your inventory ?
I tried something similar with special arrows but I never managed to add the "if you have it in your inventory"... So basically it gaves unlimited special ammunitions.

I guess adding a "unlock spell" in objects.txt won't work as everything about items seems to be managed in roottemplates.

Truth. Such a pity, because it is the difference between playing a game as a pastime and having a profound experience.

Which is completely fine to make a pastime fun game...just such a shame to use the Baldur's Gate name for such a game. Would of loved something more immersive/profound.
Then again especially for younger audiences?? When compared to recent modern stuff BG3 is immersive and profound I guess....

One thing Larian does incredibly well are silly fun games with addicting game-play.

Some cheesy and obscure features being the barrier between a "pastime" and "a profound experience" is a bit of an over reaction.

Honestly? I watched some baldurs gate (1) gameplay a bit ago. Wolfheart was doing a half party kill -- true resurrection loop. Unlike most of Bg3 annoying features, this did not seem avoidable?? Is he just bad at it? I don't know...

The shame with Larian's inventions in beta is that they all have potential. The implementation is just bad.

Greater mobility in combat?
Sure. Power up spells that restrict movement and find a decent scaling.

Not having to strictly rely on a healer, when you only have 4 slots?
Awesome. Now let's balance that feature and make sure it works as intended.

Clutter absolutely everywhere?
What an alive world. Now make the inventory management a plus.

Bonus action stealth for everyone?
A Choice, but the right system will account for ability and enemy memory.

Special ammunition and combos?
Let's think very carefully about the consequences. It sure could help out some weaker classes!

Tavs reacting with easible perceiveable body language?
I guess. Let's add presets to avoid extreme OOC.

I know this is not the full game, but currently, it feels like they're adding features just to /have them/. Nevermind making it /work/. It's not the end of the world. But, it makes the game feel like that horse meme. One half the most realistic, A+ artistry, the other a stick-animal. It's jarring. To a point where they might want to drop what just doesn't fit in.

This is the standard way to implement features in the video game industry, we just usually don't get to see it since games are rarely shown in such an early state. The issue I see is that Larian never hints that a feature isn't final. It would mean so much to the community to hear a "we are working on it" instead of getting crazy by the speculation.

I'd certainly be more excited if they showed off finished mechanics, rather than the villains!

Headcanon:

Using a potion as the user costs an action.
Throwing the potion costs an action.

I imagine I'm using an action to jam a potion into a party member's gullet at a distance.

I guess he could have written between "a great game" and "a masterpiece".
For the record, what he quoted was ""craft a credible and consistent game world" and not "some cheesy and obscure features".

That's a bit related but it doesn't sums up the entire point.