Phoenix Downs
I’ve been there. You’ve been there. We’ve all been there. The party has got the perfect item for the job, but it’s a single-use potion/scroll/whatever, and there’s no way you’re sacrificing your precious for commonplace purposes. Shall we illustrate the principle via anecdote? Let’s shall. Here’s the latest from my group. Ahem:
So no shit there they were. After unfair traps, false tombs, and countless dead ends, they’d finally arrived at the true Tomb of the Wizard Priest Orr. Clamoring over the lip of an enormous subterranean plateau, they saw the following. As per Monte Cook:
Across the smooth stone floor, you see an enormous and elaborate catafalque, 12 feet high and 30 feet across its diameter. Four massive stone columns rise up around an alabaster sarcophagus adorned with gold and jewels. At the top of each pillar is a large unlit brazier in the form of a watchful death’s head. The cold and emptiness here makes you feel as though you stand upon the precipice of the land of the dead itself.
“Just look at that coffin! This must be it, guys. The true tomb.”
“We’re going to be rich.”
“I open the sarcophagus,” said the resident sneaky guy.
Stone scraped upon stone, but that wasn’t the only sound that rose from the catafalque. A banshee’s wail burst from the death’s head pillars. The party clapped hands to ears, but it was already too late.
“Everyone? Please give me a DC 23 Fortitude save versus death,” said yours truly.
Dice clattered across the table. In a small, disbelieving voice, Laurel said: “Fail.”
Time seemed to slow. That was mostly because we took the time to look up exactly what the aptly-named paladin’s sacrifice spell does.
Laurel’s character began to succumb. The noblewoman’s cheeks grew pale. Her ghostly grandmother—an extension of her psyche—flickered and faded.
“No,” said our paladin. And with a push of divine magic, he took the full effects of that awful sound upon himself. He fell then, and his armor rang upon the stone as he collapsed.
There was a moment of stunned silence. Grief washed over the party, but there was nothing they could do. Determined not to let their valiant companion’s sacrifice be in vain, they climbed down through the newly-revealed passage inside the sarcophagus. In the huge interior space hidden within the plateau, gravity was nullified. The party floated down, and so discovered the corpse of a man hovering in the middle of a great round chamber. It was clad in robes as gray as his dry, ashen skin. Around him floated a staff, a wand, a golden tube, a golden scepter tipped with an enormous emerald, and a jeweled orb. It was the great Orr himself, laid out in state. Despite all the splendor, it was a strange anticlimax in the face of death.
They took the treasure. They took the paladin’s body. They teleported back home.
Back at base there was shock and mourning. There was a flurry of activity, vows to return the slain paladin from death, and calls for suitably valuable diamonds to affect the ritual.
Amidst all this furor there was little that the party’s wizard could do. He had no resurrection magics, and so fell to examining the tomb goods of Orr. It was his keen eye which saw that the jeweled orb concealed a lead-lined compartment. He opened it, and there found a simple golden ring. After many trials and hardship, the party had acquired the greatest treasure in the game. It was a Ring of One Wish. And so, looking at the body of the noble paladin, the wizard made the only decision he could.
“The diamond merchant should be here in a few weeks,” he said. “We can rez him then.”
And so it was that the party preserved its phoenix downs. They’ve still got that wish kicking around in the party treasury. I doubt they’ll ever use it.
What about the rest of you guys? Have you ever decided to keep your precious items rather than actually using them? Was it the right call in retrospect, or do you wish you’d spent your resources rather than hoarding them? Tell us all about your giant potion hoard down in the comments!
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Discussion (48) ¬
I can’t finish a lot of CRPGs because my inventory gets full and I can’t decide what to drop
When your encumbrance gets high enough to crash the game.
A lot of time its not even encumbrence. It’s some BS where you only get 50 inventory slots or whatever, and for some reason a quiver of arrows takes up the same amount of space as an entire suit of plate armor. The Temple of Elemental Evil videogame does both, it tracks normal D&D encumbrence AND you only get 28(?) inventory slots per character and every different type of potion and scroll takes up a slot
(ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻
That’s actually badass as fuck, I wish paladins sacrifice was still a thing in 5e because selflessly giving your life like that is such an amazing moment, I mean Laurel was dying and your selfless fucking pally bro just said “no”
Amazing!
He’s a good dude. A lawful good dude. 🙂
To paraphrase Professor X: “At that level, Heaven does not have pearly gates, only revolving doors.” At this point it’s probably a weekly thing for him.
I thought it was pearly gates for first-time flyers, revolving doors for returning guests?
I always always always make sure that I have spares of all consumables. Not because I’ll ever use all of them, but because I know that I won’t use them if I have only one. I’m really but at using up consumables, and no matter how rare or unlikely the situation, I’m always scared that I “might need it later”.
However, hoarding issues if you get them from searching through the treasure hoard. Due one of the first campaigns I played in, a D&D 3.5 game, we had at level 2 found what was then a great hoard with a scroll of fireball and wand of pure serious wounds. We used the wand to heal up, gathered up the loot and went off, knowing that we had vast power with our fireball.
Of course, we then forgot about them and by the time we remembered we had them our sorcerer was running round with half a dozen third level slots, essentially making the scroll worthless. I think we still have it, what with there being no reason to cast it.
Forgetting the wand was nice though, because suddenly we were level 18 and fighting through the campaign’s final dungeon. I was trying to figure out how to get a mix of “murder enemies” and “save party” spells, when I suddenly remembered that I had a spammable wand which hadn’t been used since level 2!
I’d be awfully wary of casting “pure serious wounds” on my allies.
“Is it a typo?”
“Maybe. I’m not risking it though.”
Reminds me of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky, which has certain items that look identical to and have names that are only one letter off from regular consumables, except they do bad things to you. (For example: Oran Berry gives you HP, Oren Berry does not.) It’s such a dick move on the part of the developers that I love it.
Does a Masterball in Pokemon count? I’ve never had the chance to refuse a potion use in an RPG. Usually Irlana just killed whatever is attacking her and then cast CLW on herself after. And poor Alester is just getting knocked out or worse too quick to drink a potion. My poor squishy sorcerer.
Masterballs, on the other hand. I have indeed not used those in a couple of games. Didn’t use it in Pokemon Y, Sun, or Ultra Moon. Caught all the legendaries in Ultra or Timer Balls. I did use it in Alpha Sapphire though. I wanted to make sure I caught that Deoxys since I didn’t have one. I actually went back to the last save point right before the battle since I had used the Masterball on Rayquaza as you can’t proceed with the game until you catch it. Once I saw Deoxys pop up, I turned off the game, turned it back on, and caught Rayquaza in a Timer Ball.
Masterball VERY counts. I had to save scum for three hours to get Mewtwo with an ultra-ball. Never again with I use a Masterball under any circumstances ever.
I think people save or clone them for shiny hunting legendaries now.
I always use the Master Ball on roaming legendaries. Sure, I can spend hours hunting them down while gradually chipping away at their HP, then spend more hours hucking Quick Balls the instant I see them… or I can just catch them with one click and be done with it. Catching super-powerful Pokémon like Mewtwo the old-fashioned way is an enjoyable part of the challenge, I feel.
That said, I would also consider using a Master Ball on a Beldum, if I had one to spare. Those things are overly stupid-hard to catch.
Especially if it’s a shiny. I actually had my friend gen a Golduck with the Damp ability and False Swipe for the sole purpose of SOS chaining Alohan Geodude. I got my shiny and now I don’t know what to do with my Golduck.
To be fair those diamonds are a better tool for the job than a wish. A wish might see a benevolent DM resurrecting the paladin, which would be a great narrative conclusion. But depending on the wording an evil DM might retcon the paladin’s sacrifice to bring them back to life, simultaneously killing Laurel’s character.
Funnily enough my monk failed a fort save against a bean sidhe once, and our party paladin used paladin’s sacrifice to save him. Luckily the damage was enough to bring him to about -8HP rather than killing him outright. I say luckily; our DM reduced the damage a bean sidhe could do when designing the encounter as the CR was way too high for the party. Still would have killed anyone but the paladin though.
I agree that waiting for the material components for resurrection was a smart play (it saves money and resources), but I don’t think wish is as dangerous as all that. It’s only when you get into the last clause that “evil wishcraft” becomes a problem:
The larger point is that it’s not exactly narratively satisfying.
“He died so that we could see this quest through. So that we could get the very treasure that might bring him back. It’s only fair that we… ummm… send out our three boxtops and a self-addressed stamped envelope to the diamond merchants.”
Frankly, a lot of GMs in my experience ignore the last clause and attempt to twist ANY wish you make.
Just my opinion, but that always struck me as bullshit. I think there’s some room of hijinks, but the source of the wish ought to make a difference. If it’s an evil outsider offering the wish, there’s probably going to be some monkey paw. If it’s the big treasure at the end of a trap dungeon, I’ll go out of my way to make it a suitable reward.
I’ve just decided that everything I ever do doesn’t quite turn out the way I specifically want it to, so when confronted with getting to make a wish, I tap into the “Heads I win, tails you lose” mindset.
I may not get EXACTLY what I want… but you can bet it’ll be close enough. ;p
It’s the classic problem of having a potential upside that outweighs the actual downsides being faced. Wish is so powerful that it’s almost unusable without feeling that it has been somewhat wasted.
What would Palpatine have shot at if the Death Star were single-use?
Jar-Jar.
Under the current continuity I’m gonna say the shot on Scarif, followed by Tarkin being immediately executed for wasting imperial resources (and just generally being a psychopath even by the Empire’s standards)
No one. He’d have, er, ‘put pressure’ on the builders to make one that isn’t 20 years’ R&D and construction for functionally useless deterrent.
No one. He’d have, er, ‘put pressure’ on the builders to make one that isn’t 20 years’ R&D and construction for a functionally useless deterrent.
I get the meme you’re going for but seriously… any Player who let’s their Character die when they have a pouch full of potions that could have saved themselves deserves endless ridicule and mocking.
Endless.
Personally I’m a “one and done” kinda guy with consumables. You give me a consumable it gets used at the first need, the container gets put in the ‘recyclables’ bag and I move on. Now… give me a //limited use// item (a wand with 5d4 charges say) and then it’s decision paralysis time.
Now, I say that… but my crewe on the other hand? We had one campaign where at one point we had several 50 gallon wine barrels of Cure Light Wounds potions, because we had a Bard and a Cleric for heals, our Wererat Rogue self-healed , and the Monk had his own ‘fast-heal’… so we’d get 2d3 potions as treasure and they’d get put in the wagon along with all the other stuff we didn’t use. (My Barbarian/Fighter/Ranger/Rogue had no healing, but I had the second best AC and I actually used half the potions we’d find as treasure…)
Granted, we never had any Characters die from ‘not using their precioussessess’ so my point is somewhat diminished. I mean they all carried potions “in case” the Bard or Cleric were down, they just rarely. if ever, /needed/ them.
Backup potions are good policy. My guys like to carry two: one as the backup, and one as the backup to the backup. That mess is especially important if you don’t have any “heal my buddy” options in your class.
does simply forgetting to use an item count?
I still mourn the opportunity to use my bear traps in Rise of the Runelords in preparation of the giant attack on Sandpoint.
In other news: I never play bards because I hate how they know more spells than they can cast per day.
I have tangentially related regrets from a different part of RotR. There’s a lumber mill at some point, and you’re supposed to fight a load of dudes surrounded by dangerous ledges, rotating saws, and active log flumes. I’d built a barbarian specializing in bull rush. The rest of the party talked their way out of the fight.
Barbarian blue balls, man. I was salty as f.
As someone with XP in both classes, Tabletop Gamer and Computer Gamer, i can say this can be a problem. Some characters of mine would make a dragon blush with the hoards i use to make. Side note, i really need to say to a dragon in a game: “Hey watch this!!! Mine is bigger”. Gold, gems, weapons, armors, scrolls, wands, staffs, wondrous items, and enough spellbooks to fund by myself several major magical academies. I follow the old rule of: “Take everything that isn’t bolted down to the ground”. Hoarding and collecting the magical items is more funny than use them. In Skyrim my dragonborn’s house is more a museum than a house.
The problem is that if you have limited resources you will try to use them only if you really need them. For example in The Witcher games Gary just goes and takes the contract from a noticeboard, brews some potions and kill some monsters, then goes back to town and cash the reward. Now Geralt can make potions with easily pick ingredients some even from the monsters, he doesn’t need an alchemical ingredients budget. Neither, at least in the games, he needs a healing budget nor ammunition or special weapons budget.
Now in Pathfinder or D&D you will need this things. You need to buy potions, gear, pay clerics healing and resurrection and that. Being an adventure is expensive. Even when Alchemists have some free ingredients to brew potions they will need to invest money to make more. Wizards need to pay to write just one word in their speelbook, rogues need ammo, the healing dummy without personality or name needs a new armor and that. Yes, an antidote potion is useful if a snake bites a pc, more useful once the pc have defeated the yuanti they are going to exterminate. Paladin will not be happy if they rest of the anti-party drinks all the anti-venom budget in one encounter 🙂
Paladin is aware that there’s a balance that needs to be struck:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/heroes-feast
Now that i think of it. Can’t Paladin just use this:
https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/n/neutralize-poison/
Supposedly even Oracle could use that spell 🙁
Neither had it prepared. You’d really think that an oracle would have seen that coming though….
Maybe she is like Cassandra but even to herself 😛
To be fair, a Rez can be the return of a player, or a pile of diamonds.
A WISH could be ANYTHING! It could even be a boat!
Yeah… I wrote the comic and then wracked my brain for an appropriate anecdote. This was the closest I could come up with from my latest games. I think it’s not a “true phoenix down” situation since they didn’t lose anything by waiting.
“He’s not getting any deader. Let’s just wait for the diamonds and save some money!”
A “correct” solution just occurred to me. One that’s has the thematic satisfaction of using the item gained by the sacrifice for the benefit of he who sacrificed, using the item instead of hoarding it forever for a desperate time that will never come, and is a worthwhile use of a Wish.
…
……
……….
You wish for the Paladin to be immortal. ;D
Nice! I was thinking about what I could have done if he got rezzed with the wish to make it feel special. Giving it a “bonus effect” might have been good (bonus feat, prestige class feature, personal cell # of his deity, etc.). Immortality would have been a good one.
The party was right not to use Wish. That spell is counterproductive.
Wish 9th level Conjuration. Components: V. Casting time: 1 action.
Using this spell in any way to “Order off menu” results in either the spell doing nothing, or horribly monkey-pawing you.
Depends on your GM’s alignment.
More to your point, “duplicate any other spell of 8th level or lower [read: resurrection]” isn’t ‘off the menu.’
While I have a horrible habit of hoarding in video game RPGs, as of late I usually tend to just forget about one-shot items I’m carrying in tabletop RPGs. Here’s a story that goes both ways about wise and unwise use.
At the end of a Predation (Cypher System setting) campaign where the GM was using a temporal loop mechanic, the party found a way to open a gate in spacetime to the moment where a Lovecraftian entity had been summoned. In the previous session the party acquired an extremely powerful cypher that basically erased a target from every possible timeline. There had been a couple potential opportunities to use it before, but the party kept it, knowing now this was the last and best possible use. But first, my PC had to jump through the spacetime gate to drag away a key NPC so they didn’t contact the entity. When the cypher was detonated and erased the entity, there was only a moment before the spacetime gate closed, leaving my PC stranded from the rest of the party.
It was a couple minutes later in real time that I realized my PC had an “Interstellar Teleporter” cypher which can go to any place in the galaxy the user has observed. Arguably, it might not have worked here due to the differences in both space and time on each side of the gate, but it didn’t make sense to ask the GM to roll back time to even try. However, when he asked the players to write their epilogues, I rolled with it and decided my PC used his situation to create a “good future” and improve quality of life in a region where his backstory established had been full of strife.
Naw man. You should have just Captain America’d that mess. Wind up back in the primary timeline old as hell and without explanation.
well, we just looted a scroll of Limited Whish today.
I shall keep track of how often it’s kept for „later“
No! Use it immediately! Acquire panties!
https://www.goombastomp.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/oolong-panties.jpg
“Never play an Ace when a two will suffice”