OK something I've always wanted to know. While playing tabletop gaming, can a character drown in a vat full of health potion? #life #questions #gaming
Posted via D.Buzz
OK something I've always wanted to know. While playing tabletop gaming, can a character drown in a vat full of health potion? #life #questions #gaming
Posted via D.Buzz
As much as I would just love to offhand this – I'm going to give a serious answer.
The answer depends entirely on your specific mechanics for drowning. In particular, at what rate does death hasten when robbed of air?
In many mechanical systems, drowning isn't actually a damage over time effect. It is an instantaneous effect which manifests in situations which involve asphyxiation. Some of those systems essentially make an escalating series of checks vs. a target number with a successful pass being continued survival and failed role being death. In such systems it is quite easy to drown in a fat full of health potion; the health potion doesn't have any time to cause an effect which reverses the damage effect.
(This can make for great closed room mysteries.)
In systems where drowning is a damage over time, health potions are usually treated as the mechanical inverse – a heal over time. In such situations the only real question is which one is most statistically likely to accrue more points first.
In more narratively aspected games, issues of plot reasonability become more significant. In games like Kingdom, for example, individual character damage just isn't a thing that's dealt with mechanically – unless it is the focus of a Crisis. Within the context of such games, actually figuring out why it was possible and narrating it into existence can be part of the enjoyment of the entire process.
Love the time you point into articulating that! Yes it would depend on the mechanics of the system. In my TT game this Q came up, unfortunately, drowning is a damage over time, and death is negative double HP, in other words, perpetual drowning until the vat was empty.
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