Consumable Magic Items - For or Against?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion

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I use the Prayer Book as well. Though Mine is a Holy Text and they have to study it to prepare their spells.


@adamatine arrow discussion: what self respecting jailor lets the captives keep their boots?

Dark Archive

AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
@adamatine arrow discussion: what self respecting jailor lets the captives keep their boots?

lol.

You going to take my sweaty socks too?


@Darkholme: sorry in Pathfinder it is called the Blade Boot.


Rynjin wrote:

I love consumables. I hate to buy them.

If I ever buy them I feel like "No, I don't wanna WASTE it on this, save it for when it's important".

If I find them in the treasure trove I pop 'em in the ol' Haversack and use them when they would become vaguely useful. Except healing potions, I always forget I have them (mostly because we have a healbot Cleric).

Alchemist's Fire, Magic Potions, whatever, I'll use 'em all up. As long as I don't have to pay for them. I especially like the Necklace of Fireballs, if that counts. I tend to be miserly with them more than other things, but having a melee character that can chuck Fireballs in a pinch is a godsend.

This is one reason that I have had characters that "commit" to using consumables. Once I do that and the character concept is in place, then using consumables feels like the "default" approach instead of some sort of wild exception. Then those characters use their items instead of hoarding them.


I tend to not use many consumables, but I don't think it is the economic thoughts of 'wasting my money' as much as making up my mind.

This PC wears a breastplate. So it is very easy to decide on a +1 breastplate.
However, for the same price I can get a lv 1 wand and up to 5 lv 1 potions. What to pick? What to pick? There are umpteen bajillion spells (ok slight exaggeration) to chose from.
What am I likely to want a bunch of times for a wand but is not so great that I don't want it to be one of my spells known?
What will I rarely need but will probably want at least a couple of times for a 1 or 2 potions?
There are many possible excellent choices. (As well as some that seem excellent and turn out to be a turd.) I sit there and think, "I want that. Oh hey, I forgot about this spell. Yeah but I've been wanting to try this spell to see if it is great as it seems. Of course, I just read about ..." I've had 2 scenarios with my PFS sorc able (and planning) to purchase a wand, but I still haven't decided which to get. By the time I make a decision he will be able to afford a better one.

For me anyway, I think that is what makes me chose the permanent item. There are fewer 'good' choices so it is easier to decide.


Just to reiterate, this is an area of the game that is ripe for metagaming abuse. That's why I try to deal with consumables as a character decision, not a player decision. In most cases, unless the concept I have chosen deliberately encourages consumable use, then the decision the character makes is based on his/her experience and plans for the future, and that frequently means they choose to save their gold for permanent items.

The reason for that is that I play my characters as if they are "in the moment", not as if they are planning the next ten levels as they do things. While I know, as a player, that a "ring of invisibility" is likely to be something that my character only uses for five or six levels, in general my character does not think that way. In their minds a ring of invisibility is something they think they will always need and use. When they eventually come to the point that they decide something else needs to take its place, that's something they generally did not "plan" for, it's something that just happened.


I guess I am somewhere in between.

If my character doesn't buy something until he has an in-character reason to buy something, it would often be too late. There is a lot of never-see-it until suddenly it seems like almost every session you are making a save vs poison/disease. So I will try to have one potion each of neutralize poison and cure disease by say 4th level.
Similarly, I have been in modules where clearly the authors have just 'assumed' that by a certain level at least 1 person can fly/levitate. Thankfully, that kind of thing seems to be becoming less common in recent years.

But I also let a characters experience influence what he buys. One of my PC's just bought a few scrolls of burning hands because swarms have almost caused a mission fail twice.

I also, don't save my money forever to get the ultimate whiz-bang. I once saw a player purchase virtually nothing and selling almost everything found for 8 levels to save up enough for the Axe he wanted to have at that point. So he saved to use like 80%-90% of his wealth by level to buy a single item. That seemed just to meta-gamey for me.


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Darkholme wrote:


lol.

You going to take my sweaty socks too?

How else am I gonna make the soup to feed the prisoners?

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Azaelas Fayth wrote:
@Darkholme: sorry in Pathfinder it is called the Blade Boot.

Oh.

Yeah, when you said bootknife, I thought you meant bootknife, which is a small knife designed to be small enough that you can holster it in your boot. There are sheathes for them that fit in the side of a boot, as well.

Your option is not great for fine manipulation, though useful in combat. I would still want the arrowhead for cutting through manacles.


Darkholme wrote:
Azaelas Fayth wrote:
@Darkholme: sorry in Pathfinder it is called the Blade Boot.

Oh.

Yeah, when you said bootknife, I thought you meant bootknife, which is a small knife designed to be small enough that you can holster it in your boot. There are sheathes for them that fit in the side of a boot, as well.

Your option is not great for fine manipulation, though useful in combat. I would still want the arrowhead for cutting through manacles.

That would just be a Dagger.

And you could easily convert the blade of the boot to be removable.

Dark Archive

No man. a Dagger is much bigger. Like three times the size.

Dagger

A bootknife is no more a dagger than a shortsword is a greatsword.


You do realize that in Medieval times the term Knife was used for any non-combat blade.

Any blade made to be used in Combat was considered a form of Dagger.

BTW: Nice picture of a Long Dagger.

Dark Archive

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That's an interesting little piece of information; and while I believe it would be difficult to provide evidence of such a claim - the accuracy or inaccuracy of that claim is irrelevant to this discussion.

Even if you're right about the medieval terminology, a tiny little boot knife is not represented as a dagger in D&D/Pathfinder. It's simply too small. Dagger stats would be excessively strong for it.

In medieval times they didn't categorize swords into short swords, long swords, bastard swords, and greatswords. Instead you had people just refer to it as a sword. Or a one handed sword vs two handed sword. Or if you were talking to an expert, by one of dozens of names for various subcategories of sword - often divided by the culture that designed them. In D&D however, that's how things are broken down. By size and functionality.

And none of that changes the fact that if you look up bootknife, you get a little knife like the one I put up a picture of.

tl;dr - The term bootknife has well established meaning. I said what it was and linked a picture from the first page of google searches of bootknife. Also, D&D (and therefore pathfinder) doesn't use the same categories as used in the real world (which are endlessly complex and many experts can argue about them for hours), they divided it up by size and functionality, which is quite useful for a game.


I'm running 2 games; 1 is a bunch of board gamers that treat PF as just a really complicated game of Descent with useless skills, so for them at low levels consumables are rampantly used ("should we buy a bunch of red potions or blue ones? Wait, what game are we playing again?")

Now the 2nd game I started recently took me by surprise. They hoard found consumables and don't buy any new ones. In point of fact, they don't buy ANY magic items. Per the player running the wizard, they don't want the "magic-mart" mentality to creep into their roleplaying.

Now that same guy will blow gobs of cash writing his OWN scrolls, and even sold a couple of his own works to help pay for some new spells, but the party won't work with merchants trying to hawk similar wares. I've tried several different themes to deliver the goods: gypsies with their baubles, veterans selling old gear, a wizardess/jeweler trying a bundle deal. My players just seem to have an aversion to buying magic items in general.

I guess they find the idea "icky" and not RP.

In both games though they make good use of consumables and enjoy making their own. With the alchemist in game 1 and the wizard in game 2 the groups have a small but constant supply of potions or scrolls. My hope though is that now, after 3 levels and several adventures of getting beaten on, game 2 will begin to loosen their purse strings and p/up some of the deals out there.


After a couple of TPKs, I decided to make my new level 1 cleric for try to carry every scroll that could ever be needed. It worked; we survived the AP. (There may have been other factors involved.) Generally I had to pay full price for them because there wasn't enough downtime to scribe. For the last part of the campaign, I knew any big expensive permanent item wouldn't be useful very often, so I got some level 8 and 9 scrolls instead. A 'Mass Heal' is more effective in a boss battle than permanently increasing your AC by 1, and cheaper too.
Oddly, one thing I did find very useful was a ring of invisibility. (Not that I could have used a wand of it anyway.) Since there was no cost to using it, I could turn invisible whenever I wanted, which meant I was invisible before the start of most encounters rather than having to waste a round to use a wand. I don't think I'd have turned myself invisible before opening every random door if would have used a charge. And you can sell it if you find a better ring, which halves the effective cost-per-use (or reduces it to zero if you didn't buy it full price in the first place).


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Oh, another reason people are so keen on making their own items in my games: I urge them to. Strongly.

I ran games for years where people played wizards in 3.5, got the standard scribe scroll feat and then did nothing with it. Then they would drone on about how hard I made the fights, how they took so long and that they never had enough spells.

Since I got tired of how whiny my players sounded I began reminding them of their ability to easily make 1st level scrolls at least. My reminders eventually became shouts of disdain and now...IF a player in my campaigns at first level picks either an alchemist or witch that can craft potions or a wizard that can scribe scrolls at first level then I STRONGLY URGE them to begin using the feat beginning with their starting gold.


Darkholme wrote:

That's an interesting little piece of information; and while I believe it would be difficult to provide evidence of such a claim - the accuracy or inaccuracy of that claim is irrelevant to this discussion.

Even if you're right about the medieval terminology, a tiny little boot knife is not represented as a dagger in D&D/Pathfinder. It's simply too small. Dagger stats would be excessively strong for it.

In medieval times they didn't categorize swords into short swords, long swords, bastard swords, and greatswords. Instead you had people just refer to it as a sword. Or a one handed sword vs two handed sword. Or if you were talking to an expert, by one of dozens of names for various subcategories of sword - often divided by the culture that designed them. In D&D however, that's how things are broken down. By size and functionality.

And none of that changes the fact that if you look up bootknife, you get a little knife like the one I put up a picture of.

tl;dr - The term bootknife has well established meaning. I said what it was and linked a picture from the first page of google searches of bootknife. Also, D&D (and therefore pathfinder) doesn't use the same categories as used in the real world (which are endlessly complex and many experts can argue about them for hours), they divided it up by size and functionality, which is quite useful for a game.

How about using the stats for a Small sized dagger or a Switchblade.


Azaelas Fayth wrote:
How about using the stats for a Small sized dagger or a Switchblade.

[Warning, old man story.....]

Back when I played AD&D they had both a Dagger (as we know it today) and a Knife on the list. The Knife was ment to be the small boot kind based on how it was discribed. It also didn't do as much damage as the Dagger. Easier to hid etc.


Is it a consumable knife? If not...maybe it should be in the context of the thread.


Daggers can be consumable. If you throw them.


I think a high enough combination of Strength and Constitution should allow a character to consume daggers... or maybe that would be best as a metal eating feat?


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Better still; high str and con, throw anything and dex as your third stat...spit the dagger back out when you're chained up in your cell!

I'll never forget: Gambit freeing the ENTIRE x-men team the first time they were imprisoned in Genosha. He togued a tiny sliver of shrapnel from his own wound, then spit it back out into the air, caught it with his BOOTED feet and proceeded to pick the lock on electric manacles...and succeeded.

Oh The Ninties; you never let down the real fanboys!


AaronOfBarbaria wrote:
I think a high enough combination of Strength and Constitution should allow a character to consume daggers... or maybe that would be best as a metal eating feat?

Racial Heritage(Rust Monster)?


Mark Hoover wrote:

Oh, another reason people are so keen on making their own items in my games: I urge them to. Strongly.

I ran games for years where people played wizards in 3.5, got the standard scribe scroll feat and then did nothing with it. Then they would drone on about how hard I made the fights, how they took so long and that they never had enough spells.

Since I got tired of how whiny my players sounded I began reminding them of their ability to easily make 1st level scrolls at least. My reminders eventually became shouts of disdain and now...IF a player in my campaigns at first level picks either an alchemist or witch that can craft potions or a wizard that can scribe scrolls at first level then I STRONGLY URGE them to begin using the feat beginning with their starting gold.

My experience tends to the other side. The GM's almost never give us any time to craft anything, so we never take the feats. We even tried to talk him into the PFS changes to exchange the free craft feats for something else.

Scarab Sages

In my 5 player (APL 1.4) game in a recent PFS special my party luckily survived what was 1 round away from a TPK (only character with healing spells was bleeding out from a surprise round sneak attack, barbarian asleep on the ground next to an assassin), thanks to a Scroll of Frigid Touch handed to a level 2 magus.

Scrolls are great ways to get a bit of higher level power when you really need it assuming you make the (easy) caster level check.


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Kydeem de'Morcaine wrote:
Mark Hoover wrote:

Oh, another reason people are so keen on making their own items in my games: I urge them to. Strongly.

I ran games for years where people played wizards in 3.5, got the standard scribe scroll feat and then did nothing with it. Then they would drone on about how hard I made the fights, how they took so long and that they never had enough spells.

Since I got tired of how whiny my players sounded I began reminding them of their ability to easily make 1st level scrolls at least. My reminders eventually became shouts of disdain and now...IF a player in my campaigns at first level picks either an alchemist or witch that can craft potions or a wizard that can scribe scrolls at first level then I STRONGLY URGE them to begin using the feat beginning with their starting gold.

My experience tends to the other side. The GM's almost never give us any time to craft anything, so we never take the feats. We even tried to talk him into the PFS changes to exchange the free craft feats for something else.

If my GM doesn't wanna let us craft. We make time to craft.


consumables. Love them. Games I run, most players use them. Games I play in, most players use them. Wands, scrolls, potions, and even tokens. Luv em.

Greg


Mark Hoover wrote:
Is it a consumable knife? If not...maybe it should be in the context of the thread.

Yes mark, the way I used them they were. You could throew them without the need to recover them or you could use them like a wedge to pin a door closed as two examples. They were cheap and like other non-magical items were expendable.


danielc wrote:
Mark Hoover wrote:
Is it a consumable knife? If not...maybe it should be in the context of the thread.
Yes mark, the way I used them they were. You could throw them without the need to recover them or you could use them like a wedge to pin a door closed as two examples. They were cheap and like other non-magical items were expendable.

To buy them it is 2GP to craft them it is 7SP. Cheaper than most other thrown weapons that can be used in very many ways.

Dark Archive

Whereas I mentioned an Adamantine Arrow for non-consumeable purposes - though normally it would be consumeable. - Because it's an affordable adamantine item that you will have taking up space roughly the size of two coins, in your sock.

A bolt would work too.

Gives you a tiny adamantine blade (which is useful outside combat) for 60 gold and either 1 silver or 5 copper, depending if you went bolt or arrow.

If you go with a weapon that doesn't count as ammunition, it'll be +3000 gold. I suppose you'll have it for in combat too (Whereas an arrow with a 1.5 inch shaft and no fletching isn't very useful for shooting) - but having some adamantine blades for outside combat is still crazy useful, and my option is affordable at level 1.

Shadow Lodge

Fail a DC 15 Dex check, and you've just caltroped yourself. :P

Dark Archive

Serious or humor?

Cause if you're concerned about the thing going under your foot and cutting you, I don't see it happening with your sock and shoe holding it in place, but you could easily have a pocket either sewn to the inside of your sock or on a harness on your foot under your sock. It would be trivial to hire a tailor to do such a thing, and since you don't care what the thing looks like, you could likely craft it yourself with a crazy low DC (realistically anyone who understands how a needle and thread work - even having never used one themselves - could accomplish it given a couple hours).

But yeah.

Hide one in your sock, and wear one on your belt. Keep the one in your sock for emergencies and use the other one the rest of the time.


Mark Hoover wrote:

Better still; high str and con, throw anything and dex as your third stat...spit the dagger back out when you're chained up in your cell!

I'll never forget: Gambit freeing the ENTIRE x-men team the first time they were imprisoned in Genosha. He togued a tiny sliver of shrapnel from his own wound, then spit it back out into the air, caught it with his BOOTED feet and proceeded to pick the lock on electric manacles...and succeeded.

Oh The Ninties; you never let down the real fanboys!

Something I never understood, why is Gambit such a "Love him or hate his guts to death" kinda character to most people?


What consumables do your players prefer? In my hack n slash campaign they're all about potions so far and one of them is an alchemist. In the other campaign there's a wizard that makes his own scrolls but so far they're focused on wands. I think b/cause he's got an owl familiar and is looking to start using the alter self/target familiar combo and start having a "little buddy" to fire off an extra wand charge every round.


I don't like consumables and I close to never buy them. One exception being CLW potions or perhaps holy water for the non-casters.

In my experience the treasure you find is about WBL but over the half is stuff you can't use. By selling it you half it's wealth and so you are way below WBL. In this scenario I don't waste money on one use stuff if I can't even afford decent permanent gear. Decent being +1 weapons and armor till 5th level and +2 from then on.

Having said that I'm glad to find a potion now and then because I'd never find them and at least they are more useful than the fifth small sized magic weapon for a party with only one small pc.

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