JarlFrank said:
Potions that quicken blood regeneration and tissue healing? Fuck yes. Potions that immediately remove every wound and crushed bone you have on your body in 5 seconds? No.
If it's fantasy, the seconds doesn't really make that much less sense than the first. It's just a high level of magic. That it's less explainable in a technological sense than the first kind of potion doesn't mean it should be impossible; 'Any sufficiently advanced technology will appear to be magic'. Instant healing is so advanced that it's magic even by magic standards. But that just means it should be magic by magic standards in game as well.
If a single such potion existed in the entire world, a world filled with dozens of lesser healing magics and wizards and demons and magic swords and shit, it's not absurd at all. Even wizards should be able to say once in a while : "That can't possibly exist!" and be wrong.
The absurd part is the relative value of such a potion in most games. A potion that fixes you to full power instantly should be exceedingly rare, not something that you buy 50 of because it's more cost effective than trading in your steel plate armor for a mithril one.
Also, in your blog spiel, imagine the potion chugging warrior in a different context. The potions are in tiny metal flasks with cords on the stoppers to be easily yanked out. The warrior is covered in hideous scars from countless wounds, and barely defends himself at all, filled with so many healing potions he regenerates his wounds many times faster than a troll. He's not even drinking the potions to heal individual wounds, but to replenish the store of unused healing potion in his blood, balancing running out with having too much for his body to handle. His blood clots on contact with air instantly, he barely needs to breathe to maintain his endurance, and he can't feel pain at all.
Now, it doesn't fit with a potion chugging hack n slash game at all. Noble warriors of
Diablo Clone n45 are just supposed to be awesome warriors, and the potions are an arcade gimmick. But the concept itself isn't bad. Would make for a cool enemy to fight, or a scene in a movie or book.
Entirely separate from the whole fluff/atmosphere based issue above is gameplay. This can be broken into many combat issues:
Fights where both targets statically hurt eachother are retarded because there's no player decisions to be made. Potions don't fix that because using the potion before you die is a no brainer. But they don't make it any worse either. Hitting attack + potion when your hp gets low isn't any worse than hitting attack until your target dies then resting for full hp.
The potential length of the fight is based on how many hits the player can take, but that doesn't depend on potions at all either. It's a matter of enemy damage vs either total player hp or player hp + available potions. It's just as lengthy if you scrap potions and have more Hp for the same fight. And length isn't necessarily bad anyways. Rather...
Pacing. Fights where the player always feels safe are stupid. So ideally, enemies should be able to kill you in two or 3 hits. A single hit is generally too extreme unless you have a party. However, this creates a problem in that these attacks will either be very easy to avoid, making for a tactically dull battle like killing radscorpions by stabbing them then backing up for 6 turns, or every battle will be very short and involve little player input. (Whoever fires his gatling gun first wins. Woo. Glad I picked improved initiative or there'd be a lot of reloading.) This is where potions actually help the gameplay, if the supply is limited. Battles can be long, drawn out affairs against an overwhelming enemy, but if the player simply has a giant hp pool, you won't give a fuck about any individual hit until the last couple, since you were never in danger of dying at the start. That would be a pacing failure. If, on the other hand, attacks do between 20% and 80% of your total hp, and the there are ones easy and difficult to avoid all along the damage spectrum, while you have a limited number of potions that heal you for all your health, there are two advantages. First, you're always in mortal one hit kill danger if your hp are below 80%, which they probably are. So the fight won't lose tension. Second, it adds to the tactical aspects, which currently consist of dealing damage, avoiding damage, and possibly conserving mana. Now you have two more layers: using potions efficiently instead of wasting them on every tiny attack (Or only using them on your most mortal wounds, however you see fit) and weighing whether it's an appropriate time to heal.
Take Monster Hunter as an example. There are several interesting scenarios that arise with potions:
The monster just knocked you on your ass and took three quarters of your health. You have major and minor healing available, with the minor being most cost efficient and less valuable in emergencies. Now, you can either drink a heavy potion right away, which will ensure your safety for at least one more attack, but the monster will probably get you with a follow up light attack that will bring you back down to half. So you'll be safe, but end up using 1 heavy and 1 light potion. Or, you can use a defensive move to try and evade his follow up attack. If you succeed you can safely drink 2 lesser potions, saving the heavy one for a real bind.
You're injured to one quarter health in a safe position and have 2 light potions and 1 heavy potion left. A light potion will heal you about 50%. Do you drink 1 light potion, trying to most efficiently ration the potions, or drink either the heavy potion or both light potions so you can risk attacking when you might get hit for an attack hitting you for 75%?
If you choose to heal to full, do you drink 2 light or 1 heavy? If you drink the light potions and get minorly injured again, you'll have to face the question of whether to heal with your last potion at 50% or wait till you're down to 25%. On the other hand, if you drink the heavy potion, if you get really slammed by something, you'll heave to drink twice in a row, and a lesser potion might not heal you enough in time to save you if you get caught in a bad position.
All of those are interesting tactical decisions that just vanish into nothing if the player simply has a large HP pool to begin with, like in a potionless game. In every situation where there was previously a skill testing question, there would now be nothing but returning to the fight.
I can't think of a situation where the reverse is ever true. If you simply convert the available stock of potions into Hp, how can it possibly make combat more interesting? And if you're going to only convert some or none of the available potion Hp into max hp, why not just make both potion and max hp smaller for the exact same effect, + tactical decisions as above?
This isn't to say potions should be in every game, since we don't need everything to be as complex as it can possibly be, but I don't see how you can argue Hp + potions is less complex than hp alone. Potions add options, they don't take them away.