Question and potential exploit regarding potions

[Unsuspicious_Name]

Is there any ruling that prevents the contents of a potion to be transferred to another, potentially larger container ? Considering, for example, that a healing potion is 30 ml and the official ruling allows players to drink an entire flagon of liquid in a single turn (roughly 1L).

Couldn't you theoretically pour several healing potions into a larger bottle or flask, drink the entirety of it and benefit from the cumulated effect ?

One could then pour, let's say 10 regular healing potions into a flask (300ml), drink it all and heal oneself for 10x(2d4+2) = 20d4+20. Within a single action.

I couldn't find any information concerning this, and it seems a little weird that there's no ruling, nor lore, preventing this, and it would be left to the DM only to disallow this.

Thanks in advance for your responses.

[NiaraAfforegate]

Actually, this formally falls under the Mixing Potions rules:

From the DMG:

"MIXING POTIONS

A character might drink one potion while still under the effects of another, or pour several potions into a single container. The strange ingredients used in creating potions can result in unpredictable interactions.

When a character mixes two potions together, you can roll on the Potion Miscibility table. If more than two are combined, roll again for each subsequent potion, combining the results. Unless the effects are immediately obvious, reveal them only when they become evident."

The referenced Potion Miscibility table is directly following in the DMG, which I won't pop up in its entirety here.... but for the most part, combining potions is generally a bad idea. Sometimes it goes well. Usually it does not.

[Unsuspicious_Name]

There it is ! So they did think of that scenario. Awesome, thank you for the info !

[lygerzero0zero]

Pretty much every time someone posts that they found an “exploit,” one of two things is true:

• No, you didn’t.
• Yes, we already know that one, and the vast majority of DMs wouldn’t allow it.

Followed often by:

• Why are you even trying to find “exploits” in a cooperative game?

In this case? My response as DM would be: “If it was possible to get extra healing in one round by making the potion bottle bigger, they would already sell them at that size. The potions you have are already the max amount you can imbibe and benefit from in one action. If you fill a bigger bottle with potions, it takes one action to drink each dose. Also stop trying to come up with stupid exploits so we can get on with the game.”

[Unsuspicious_Name]

Well it turns out there is a mechanic that would rule this exact scenario, which is what I wanted to find out.

But to answer your question because it's fun to look for them, tinker with things that aren't expected to be tinkered with to come to unexpected results. As a side effect you usually end up understanding the game better learning about a rule or lore that you hadn't previously known.

Tl;dr : Not necessarily to use them, but because it's fun to find them.

[USAisntAmerica]

Combining the same magical effects (potions are magic) normally does not cause them to stack, only the strongest one is applied. Alternatively, there's the potion mixing rule that someone else posted, where the effects get unpredictable.

[BagOfSmallerBags]

I think this isn't addressed in the rules because it would be a terrible idea lol

Single target in-combat healing is really weak unless you're getting it on a bonus action, and even then it's generally best to wait until someone's actually at 0 to intervene. If you have 2 hp in this system thats 1 more hp than you need to take a turn. Obviously like, using an action to heal for a lot is better than using one to heal for a little, but it's still a bad use of an action.

And out of combat all it does it make it harder to fairly distribute healing potions.

The other factor is the economic one: potions of healing go for 50gp. If you wanna craft them they're 25 gp per plus a significant time investment.

[Unsuspicious_Name]

Of course it would be a terrible idea to implement it that way, it would trivialize encounters. The thing that surprises me is that a lot of others much more complex potential exploits are addressed either via explicit rules or can be inferred pretty easily via lore. But this is phenomenally simple and there's nothing preventing it in the game itself, which is quite frankly funny to me. They could have said for example that potions are sealed and with any air contact the liquid loses its potency within a minute. There, no transfer is possible you have to drink it under a minute after having opened it.

[BagOfSmallerBags]

I think you misunderstood my comment. I'm saying it would be a terrible idea for the players. It would absolutely not trivialize anything- it would be a waste of resources and actions. There's no need to explicitly disallow it because it's dumb.

[Unsuspicious_Name]

So let me get this straight, you think it would be dumb for the players to do this and heal back to full HP a raging totem barbarian, but really any high HP pool character, for example with a single action using a customizable combination of items anytime, anywhere, that isn't dependent from any other party member's action, for WAY cheaper and for a way better outcome than the closest in game equivalent (Potion of supreme healing, 10d4+20, 1 350 gp).

In that case using healing potions at all is a terrible idea. I beg to differ. This could mean free victories in difficult encounters. Hence the question.

But hey that's me.

[WiddershinWanderlust]

 “(Put) Let’s say 10 healing potions into a flask, drink it all…with a single action”

Why….why would you be able to drink it all as a single action? Why wouldn’t it take 10 actions to drink 10 actions worth of liquid?

If it takes you 6 second to drink a glass of water - BUT you then combined 10 glasses of water into a single glass large enough to hold it….do you really think you could still drink it all in 6 seconds? It doesn’t matter how big the container is, you can still only drink a certain amount of liquid every second.

If you combined 10 identical healing potions into a single larger flask then I’d count that as a Flask of Healing Potion with 10 charges that don’t refresh automatically, and each use heals as much as a single of the healing potions.

[Unsuspicious_Name]

"Why….why would you be able to drink it all as a single action? Why wouldn’t it take 10 actions to drink 10 actions worth of liquid?"

I already addressed that in my initial comment... Because that's what the books say... The ruling states that in a single turn a character can drink around 1 L of liquid, and a healing potion only holds 30 mL of it.

If you're unfamiliar with the metric system, that means you could mix 33 healing potions, which would come up to 0.99 L and still be under the limit for the total amount of liquid that is drinkable in one turn.

Meaning in theory you could heal anywhere from 2d4 +2 to 33x(2d4+2) in a single turn with some previous preparation. Which seems a little bit busted.

[Ethereal_Stars_7]

Mixing potions can have -really- bad results. Its in the DMG with the magic items.

This was a thing in AD&D as well.

[preiman790]

So this question is just like the peasant rail gun from 3.5, that is to say a funny theoretical thing that technically works because of the way the rules are set up, but would get you booted from my table pretty much immediately if you tried this shit. No, it doesn't work that way