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I don't recall ever reading a rule about this one way or the other.
I know that in order for a living creature to benefit from a potion, they have to drink it - you can't pour a healing potion on a wounded comrade and have it work.
Given that, I suppose that hurling or splashing a healing potion at an undead creature would have no effect (I could see an argument that splashing a non-corporeal undead creature with a healing potion would work, though).
What if one force-fed a healing potion to an undead creature? If so, would this only work if the creature had a reasonably intact gullet, or would pouring it between a skeleton's jawbone and skull be sufficient?
Thoughts?
A creature must be able to swallow a potion or smear on an oil. Because of this, incorporeal creatures cannot use potions or oils. Any corporeal creature can imbibe a potion or use an oil.
Strictly speaking potions must be imbibed, simply smearing it on is not enough.
It would require your GMs consent, but an oil of cure light wounds however...
I would have you first grapple the undead, then make another grapple check to force-feed it. Not explicitly covered in the rules anywhere but I think that's fair and makes the most sense with how grappling works.
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Is there a reason why you wouldn't just use holy water? It costs half as much as a first level potion, doesn't allow a save or SR, deals splash damage, and can deal damage to both evil outsiders and incorporeal undead. There's pretty much no reason to use a consumable of CLW to try to injure undead, unless the only way to kill a creature is with positive energy.
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Is there a reason why you wouldn't just use holy water? It costs half as much as a first level potion, doesn't allow a save or SR, deals splash damage, and can deal damage to both evil outsiders and incorporeal undead. There's pretty much no reason to use a consumable of CLW to try to injure undead, unless the only way to kill a creature is with positive energy.
It was a thought along the lines of using what you have at the moment.
If the character has a healing potion, but not holy water and does not have another means of effectively fighting the creature, would it work? That was the primary motivation for asking the question.
I had some players run through a dungeon, recently, tearing through kobolds until they bumped up against the lich in charge. Long story short, when the party leader wound up facing the lich unarmed, he did in fact reach for some healing potions on the spur of the moment and decide to throw them at the enemy. I just treat them like any thrown weapon in terms of attack rolls and so forth, and when he hit, I had it deal damage equal to the healing provided by the potion (potion of cure moderate wounds, if I recall). Simple as that. It even turned out pretty cool because we were using the GameMastery Critical Hit Deck, and he threw the first potion with a natural 20 and confirmed to wind up blinding the lich by hitting him in the eyes with the potion. It added a lot to the feel of the scene.
I don't think there's any problem with doing that, since (generally speaking) only higher-level characters are usually going to have healing potions to spare in that fashion, and it isn't cost-effective at any level to waste healing items as attacks against undead opponents. This was a special situation, sure, but even with the average party, channeled energy, loads of spells, holy water (especially at lower levels) and so on are all better resources to turn against such foes. But specifically with "using what you have at the moment" in mind, that's how I did it.
The players really thought it was cool and it made the fight quite memorable without suddenly creating a superweapon, so it was pretty safe mechanically and definitely came down on the side of fun.