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While a great many characters have the knowledge and means to assess what a particular potion can do, many others do not. In any event, instead of simply saying, "You have a potion of cure light wounds (d8+4) in your possession," I've taken to giving players a description of the potion, including color, smell and taste. This enables even those characters without the means to assess the qualities of a potion to begin to figure out what certain ones do. For instance, in my campaigns curative potions all appear as silvery liquid, smell of lavender, and taste of honey. (The varying vials in which the liquids are stored represent the different types of curative potions in my game.) It seems to me that this sort of topic is one that could be easily handled by the Paizo staff and would prove to be of use to a great many players if incorporated into Dragon magazine. So, how about it? How about giving us a table that provides sensory descriptions of the more common potions, as well as a template (or random description table) to describe the bulk of all available potions?
Aaron C. Frankland
Gallup, NM
In my game, even the same potion can appear different. For instance a cure light potion make by dwarves may be quite different than one made by drow. The ingrediants would be different. I allow them a spellcraft check to see if they recognize the potion. And if the potion was made by a group whose potion they know from past experience, I rule they now that potion.
But I agree, a table for knowledge skill use, or potion descriptions would be a nice touch.
The 1st edition Dungeon Masters Guide had a wonderful series of appendices, which I continue to use. These tables could easily be incorporated into an article on giving sustenance to campaign substance.
2nd edition's "Ruins" box sets also had some fine tables.