Limited use items, will potions and wands every matter?

I wanted another design discussion.

In a usual RPG I end up picking up all these neat potions that claim to harden my skin, or make me stronger. These end up going to Mr. Merchant for a nice sum, because they end up being more valuable as money then a temporary effect because money sticks around. If I can win encounters without using any limited items, why do I need them?

Why spend something permanent on something temporary if I don't have to?

ToEE has a nice crafting system that gives money some value again and using XP to make items is a steep trade. Why in the hell would I use XP and money to make a scroll, wand, or potion when I can make a super-powerful weapon or armor?

Magic spells or items that you can use once-a-day or a mana system get restored over time without buying new stuff.

I'm playing through Darklands for the first time and the Alchemy system is very cool but I never end up using any weapon boosting items. Spending 100 dollars to reduce a 30 second victory to a 20 second victory isn't worth it. And the Saint system can help in combat and only requires a free visit to a church. The only important ones are the powerful death-causing ones that hurt armored foes that I can't hit. Another great element of potions in Darklands was that you could use them for many other actions like breaching walls, escaping etc... but other skills could do the same so it is always in the players best interest not to use a potion if possible.

Really the only used potions are health and mana restoring potions. These provide instant and permanent increase in important areas during combat. Even still if I survive a battle, I usually use healing spells for health and rest for magic. I really never buy potions, I usually get so much in adventuring that I end up selling them.

I play through the game thinking "I mite need it later", as if I would ever face a very hard battle that I couldn't come back later and beat easily. The only time buff potions are used are usually the end boss where they are 'use or lose'.

Useless potions factor into the useless money effect. Besides buying ammo (sometimes not even needed), money is rarely spent in games by careful players. Rest outside of town instead of an inn, wait to kill enemies and take their stuff instead of buying it, use rechargeable effects instead of one-time. Adventurers are the greatest economists in the world, nothing but profit.

I want lasting in-game effects of blowing money on ale, of staying at better inns. I want to have a reason for buying fresh items instead of ones gained from the free unlimited bandit corpse market.

I completely agree with you.

If the game were challenging enough that you needed temporary buffs and salves to get through certain fights, it might make more sense.

HumanShield brings up a very good point. Why should you have to spend XP on something like scrolls and potions? XP is the most valuable things in a CRPG. It's a measure of how much knowledge you've gained in your travels as well, so you'd think mixing a potion correctly would actually BOOST XP similar to successfully picking a lock or spotting a trap. Instead, you'd think mixing potions and the like would cost gold pieces for the ingrediants, and perhaps a certain amount of your spells per day for that day, but nothing beyond that. Heck, even a temporary loss of attributes wouldn't be that bad like how poisons work in D&D. You mix up a powerful potion, so it exhausts you for a time.

Spending XP to make a potion or a scroll is rather a poor way of handling it, considering you might get a few hitpoints back, or a temporary buff.

this is what bothers me too. I end up hording all the temporary effect potions and wands in the notion that "I may desperately need them later" but I usually complete the game with lots and lots of left overs.

I use regularly life potions and mana potions. Occationally cure poison potion is used too, but more often than not, I will just suffer through the poison effect and a few hitpoint loss. It's too much a hassle to dig through the inventory when the poison effect probably wears out by the time i locate it.

as for wands. I found myself using them slightly more frequently. In BG series magic missle wands are used occationally since it takes zero time to cast. Still, frequently I found myself exhausting the spells from my caster first before considering using the wands.

In other cases wands come in handy when it's too much a hassle to memorise the spell. raise-dead wand, for one.

I'm currently playing Arx Fatalis, and I never once use the invisibility potion (and I have quite a few bottles). Why bother when I can just cast it from my spell book?

Perhaps if wands/potions store spells/effects that are not available to me in the spell books they may be used more frequently.

HumanShield brings up a very good point. Why should you have to spend XP on something like scrolls and potions? XP is the most valuable things in a CRPG. It's a measure of how much knowledge you've gained in your travels as well, so you'd think mixing a potion correctly would actually BOOST XP similar to successfully picking a lock or spotting a trap. Instead, you'd think mixing potions and the like would cost gold pieces for the ingrediants, and perhaps a certain amount of your spells per day for that day, but nothing beyond that. Heck, even a temporary loss of attributes wouldn't be that bad like how poisons work in D&D. You mix up a powerful potion, so it exhausts you for a time.

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I've always thought of it, at least whilst playing D&D, as you contributing something of yourself to the item you create. It's a part of yourself that you're putting permanently into this item. It's the balancing factor to prevent caster's from creating super powerful items. A temporary loss os stats in most moderate paced games means nothing. Just rest awhile, and they are back.

As for temporary items, I think limited use potions and wands really don't translate well to the video game world. In real life, a smart DM can come up with situations where a potion or wand would be useful. They make good plot devices, allowing a player to accomplish things that they might not otherwise be able to. The only place such things have in CRPGs is for single character games, where the player has no hope of learning the spell associated with the item.

The real problem with them in these type of games, is you only *really* need them in those one off emergency situations where you're about to die and your healer is over there, etc.
But ultimately, you can just rest and regain everything, (spells particularly) so the usefulness of temporary items is really degraded.
Plus you don't run into the variety of spells. The miscellaneous and utility spells aren't particularly useful in CRPG whereas in PnP having a variety on hand in the form of wands, potions or scrolls can be a lifesaver.

I think in D&D 3.0 and 3.5, it's more about game balance than realism. I played a 2nd Ed game ages back where a mage made tons of scrolls, and my bard read said scrolls. It was exploitive, and wrong.

I'm a bit of a compulsive hoarder, too. I think the big problem is computer games are just too easy. It's a pretty rare occurence that you actually need potions to win. On the other hand, in most of the PnP games I've played, most of the time no one even thinks about not using potions and scrolls. Maybe it's the lack of save/reload, but your character's life is usually at a premium but loot isn't. Your stuff can get lost, stolen, or broken, so you tend to look at it as more just a convenient tool to help you out of jams. It's often a use it or lose it situation. The DM also usually provides a natural balance that doesn't exist in computer games, too. If you've already got 100 healing potions, chances are more won't be in the newest hoard. If you blew them all in the last battle, chances are they will be. Maybe computer games could give that angle a try, too, without making it too easy for exploits (like selling all your potions right before a battle just to get more).

Theorhetically when they playtest a game, and adjust for balance/challenge, that's what they're doing in the latter stages of game design.

At the end game I'm always left with a horde of potions I didn't need or find use. IE games are good examples.
Like said, you can get the effect of the potion from your spells which can be recast over again at least after rest unlike potions once used are gone.
Jedi noted

The only place such things have in CRPGs is for single character games, where the player has no hope of learning the spell associated with the item.

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Or then your party mage just didn't have access to the spells which give same effect.
But since CRPGs crave for spells, it's much better to make potions with extra effects, something you don't get from spells. This could give the potions an extra use.

The logic with D&D items is that normally, you'd gain experience in order to learn to be (for example) a better wizard and thus gain a level. When you create an item, however, you're using that experience to learn how to create a given item and thus that experience doesn't go towards your next level. I'm not sure how they explain this for creating the same kind of item twice, but it is a fairly good explanation.

It's quite possible for limited-use items to have value in CRPGs... just make them do things that the characters can't do on their own. Make them do something useful that would help characters out in a pinch. Sure, characters can do most things potions can do in D&D-based games, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Potions and wands are enormously useful when you play in "Ironman" style with minimal saves. Healing potions are also generally useful at very low levels, when you're just starting the game and your healer only has a level or two under her belt. When you're allowed unlimited reloads and sleeping time, though, they're worthless beyond their resale value and the considerable irritation they cause in inventory management.

There's just too much stuff in CRPGS, which makes you forget about using potions and wands. The only time I've ever had to boost someone is after having to reload a couple of times...

... a game where what you find is actually worth something to you and your cause, rather than money would be nice.

I liked the way it was in Betrayal at Krondor.

Weapon enhancing items like poison, some ice wand and fire wand things gave you a certain amount of strikes with that effect. This is better than time-based effects since it doesn't have the rush-rush feeling, compelling most players to sell it.

Blessing items was permanent, and depending on the temple you could get better blessings. Very interesting system.

Once you get Mass Healing and Radiant Shield in the Avernum games, there's no real reason to use any potions beside Energy Elixirs and Knowledge Brew. Most of the buff spells are light on mana use and don't consume your tanks' action points.

*Is soooooo different from you guys*

If I see that some useful defensive/buffing effect that can be achieved through an easy to get consumable item or a spell, I don't memorize/waste MP on the spell. I just use the items, while focusing my casting on offense, or beneficial stuff that there aren't items for.

The only situation where I could see myself not doing this is in a game where money's tough to come by. Then I couldn't go hogwild with consumables.

Spazmo said:

The logic with D&D items is that normally, you'd gain experience in order to learn to be (for example) a better wizard and thus gain a level. When you create an item, however, you're using that experience to learn how to create a given item and thus that experience doesn't go towards your next level. I'm not sure how they explain this for creating the same kind of item twice, but it is a fairly good explanation.

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The rationalization I remember reading about was that the magic items require a piece of the artificer's soul, which is why XP are drained. Kind of like a vampire that drains levels, only the creation of magic items drains much less. This explains why it costs the same no matter how many items you've already crafted.

Personally I'm a packrat, and save anything that I can manage without, on the off chance that it might come in handy later on. By the time I need such an item I have often forgotten all about it, so I've grown to resent the vast number of semi-useful items that are found in traditional CRPGs. I think the most annoying thing is when limited use items encourage metagaming: "Should I use this potion now, or am I supposed to use it later against something even more dangerous?" But I guess CRPGs have mostly done away with such design, so perhaps I should force myself to take better advantage of those expendable items.

In the end I guess it boils down to the fact that I like playing a game with a rather small number of abilities. When the amount of abilities is expanded by all the different potions I have, I tend to ignore those potions in favour of innate abilities. I think I would like it better if magic potions had to be bought as an intended strategy rather than found randomly. That way those who don't need potions wouldn't be bothered, and those that do want potions could buy those potions instead of other stuff. But then again, in a fantasy world where potions are common, I suppose it only makes sense to find them as loot. Bloody Forgotten Realms.

Limited use items are valuable as conveniences and not much more. If I have taken mild to moderate damage, do I want to bother resting (esp if the game has random encounters) or using up spells? Not really I'll use some of those 20 or 30 Cure Mild Wounds potions I have been hoarding.
Similiarily with combat. Sure my party or my character has analogous spells abilities etc to face Big Bad Boss Man, but why not plow though some of those buff potions and use up some wands etc.

I used to hoard like a fiend until it finally dawned on me that just about every game in existence gives you way more crap than you will ever need. Worry about ammo? Not bloody likely. There is always more where that came from and *especially* in games with stores cuz money is the only thing more plentiful in games than the one time items.

There are some games in whcih this doesn't hold and if done right it is brilliant. System Shock 2 comes to mind. Yeah by late middle to end game you still have a lot of crap, but as I remember it, wise use of ammo and items was required for a good chunk of the game. Used up all your AP ammo on security cameras hunh? Well I got news for you you are gonna be bumming when it comes time to face some security bots w/o it. Used up all your repair tools to fix one point of degradation on your shotgun? Shame as now you really need it and there are none to be found.

Done incorrectly it is like BG2 - when I played it and saw some of the loot at Ribald's I thought it sure would be nice to buy that fancy armor - but no I have to save my money; I need $15,000 to get to Imoen. Then of course you discover that just about every quest in the game yields thousands, if not 10s of thousands of gps. Spend yourself broke after every quest and leave one major Ch 2 quest for the end and you will still have waay more than enough.

All of this is the long way of agreeing with everyone else. One time items are generally useless but they sure don't need to be.

The solution is twofold:

1.) Raise game difficulty exponentially as the game continues. Diablo 2 1.10 does this well--the game's forgivingly easy to begin with in Normal, gets a little stickier in Nightmare, and will rip you a new one in Hell unless you're very ready for it.

2.) Eliminate any and all "middleman" currency, ie, gold. Every item in the game is made up of some base elements that can be assembled and disassembled at will. Each item class--ie, weapon, armor, expendable, etc, has a "delay time" on it--for example, you can't "chain-make" items in a row, as that would allow the player to morph to the situation too easily and quickly--character build descisions have to matter, at least for a little while. For example, the delay might be thirty seconds on a potion-like item -- you can make these quickly if you need them and have the resources. A very powerful suit of armor or a super-weapon, however, might have a delay of several hours or days of time--not only would you need to accumulate a ton of elements, you'll be unable to forge new armor for awhile to simulate the "strain" bringing together such elements would take.

For a player economy to exist, elements could be forged into "bricks" which function like bars of steel--they simply are a standard amount of the given forge element. An armorer who knows how to make a suit of armor perfect for your character could thus ask for the required materials plus a little more so he has a resource profit.

They might be useful if the game was balanced to make them necessary to win major battles. I actually thought the beginning of IWD2 was pretty challenging as far as using resources like potions go.

However, if you went too far with this noobs would be complaining that the game is too hard.

Maybe an alternative would be to provide potions that are alternative solutions to quests...for example a locked door that can be picked, opened with a key, or bashed down if you gulp your potion of mega strength.

I think most people will prefer challenging games over easy games.

And I think raising the difficulty is the way to go, so you have to gamble on when it's acceptable to use up temporary items.